They Who Knock at Our Gates: A Complete Gospel of ImmigrationAntin, Mary
History
They Who Knock at Our Gates: A Complete Gospel of Immigration
Antin, Mary
Noncitizens -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
Aye, I have looked, and I see plainly that these horrible examples are
due to the same causes as any shining example that could be named. Each
is the product of the qualities the immigrant brought with him and the
opportunities he found here to exercise them. The law-abiding, ambitious
immigrant who came here a beggar and worked himself into the ranks
of the princes found his opportunity in our laws and customs, which
enable the common man to make the most of himself. The blackmailer's
opportunity was provided by the operation of corrupt politics, which
removes police commissioners and impeaches governors for trying to
enforce the law. The Rosenthal case brought forth Lieutenant Becker,
and an investigation of the spread of the Black Hand terror discovers
political bosses behind the scenes.(5) We have laws providing for the
deportation of alien criminals. Why are they not always enforced? When
we have found the broom that will sweep the political vermin from our
legislatures, we shan't need to look around for a shovel to keep back
the scum of Europe. The two will go together.
(5) See _The Outlook_, August 16, 1913; article by Frank Marshall
White.
In the whole catalogue of sins with which the modern immigrant is
charged, it is not easy to find one in which we Americans are not
partners,--we who can make and unmake our world by means of the ballot.
The immigrant is blamed for the unsanitary conditions of the slums, when
sanitary experts cry shame on our methods of municipal house-cleaning.
You might dump the whole of the East Side into the German capital and
there would be no slums there, because the municipal authorities of
Berlin know how to enforce building regulations, how to plant trees, and
how to clean the streets. The very existence of the slum is laid at the
door of the immigrant, but the truth is that the slums were here before
the immigrants. Most of the foreigners hate the slums, and all but the
few who have no backbone get out of them as fast as they rise in the
economic scale. To "move uptown" is the dearest ambition of the average
immigrant family.
If the slums were due to the influx of foreigners, why should London
have slums, and more hideous slums than New York? No, the slum is not
a by-product of the steerage. It is a sore on the social body in many
civilized countries, due to internal disorders of the economic system. A
generous dose of social reformation would do more to effect a cure than
repeated doses of restriction of immigration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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