Chapter I: Front Matter

FORWARD MISSION STUDY COURSES

EDITED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

ALIENS

OR

AMERICANS

?

HOWARD B. GROSE With Introduction BY JOSIAH STRONG

NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM
COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT NEW
YORK

UNGUARDED GATES

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
And through them presses a wild, motley throng--
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Celt, and Slav,
Flying the old world's poverty and scorn;
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws.
In street and alley what strange tongues are these,
Accents of menace alien to our air,
Voices that once the Tower of Babel knew!

O Liberty, White Goddess! is it well
To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of fate,
Lift the downtrodden, but with the hand of steel
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come
To waste the gifts of freedom. Have a care
Lest from thy brow the clustered stars be torn
And trampled in the dust. For so of old
The thronging Goth and Vandal trampled Rome.
And where the temples of the Cæsars stood
The lean wolf unmolested made her lair.

_--Thomas Bailey Aldrich._

* * * * *

TO ONE
WHO CHERISHES AMERICAN
IDEALS, WHO HAS INCULCATED LOVE OF
COUNTRY IN HER CHILDREN, AND
SOUGHT TO INSPIRE IT IN
ALL--MY WIFE

* * * * *

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Preface 9

Introduction, by Josiah Strong 13

I. The Alien Advance 15

II. Alien Admission and Restriction 51

III. Problems of Legislation and Distribution 87

IV. The New Immigration 121

V. The Eastern Invasion 157

VI. The Foreign Peril of the City 193

VII. Immigration and the National Character 231

VIII. The Home Mission Opportunity 267

APPENDIXES

A. Tables of Immigrants Admitted and Debarred 305

B. The Immigration Laws 309

C. Work of Leading Denominations for the Foreign Population 314

D. Bibliography 321

ILLUSTRATIONS

Coming Americans Frontispiece

The Inflowing Tide 18

Ellis Island Immigration Station 34

Receiving Room at Ellis Island 59

Detained for Special Examination 74

An Appeal from the Special Inquiry Board to Commissioner Watchorn 94

The Landing at the Battery in New York 102

A German Family 128

Italian and Swiss Girls 144

A Group of Twelve Different Nationalities 166

Three Types of Immigrants 180

A Group of Immigrants Just Arrived at Ellis Island 198

An Italian Family Crowded in a New York Tenement 210

Four Nationalities 236

Portuguese and Spanish Children 256

An Italian Sunday School in New England 283

_Sketch Maps and Charts_

Immigration at the Port of New York for 1906 32

Immigrant Distribution by States for 1905 106

Immigrant Distribution by Races:
Scandinavian 108
Canadian and British 109
Irish 114
Germanic 115
French and Iberic 146
Slavic 171

Changes in Sources of Immigration Causing Increase of Illiteracy 125

Countries from which the Slavs Come 161

Distribution of Slavs in the United States 163

Wave of Immigration for Eighty-seven Years 308

Colored Chart of Races of Immigrants for 1905 End