Aliens or Americans?

Howard B. (Howard Benjamin) Grose

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• Publié par: ontya
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 52
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Aliens or Americans?, by Howard B. Grose This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Aliens or Americans? Author: Howard B. Grose Release Date: September 7, 2006 [EBook #19198] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALIENS OR AMERICANS? *** Produced by Dave Kline, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net COMING AMERICANS 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 Preface Introduction, by Josiah Strong I. The Alien Advance II. Alien Admission and Restriction III. Problems of Legislation and Distribution IV. The New Immigration V. The Eastern Invasion VI. The Foreign Peril of the City VII. Immigration and the National Character VIII. The Home Mission Opportunity 9 13 15 51 87 121 157 193 231 267 APPENDIXES A. Tables of Immigrants Admitted and Debarred B. The Immigration Laws C. Work of Leading Denominations for the Foreign Population D. Bibliography 305 309 314 321 326 INDEX ILLUSTRATIONS Coming Americans Frontispiece The Inflowing Tide Ellis Island Immigration Station Receiving Room at Ellis Island Detained for Special Examination An Appeal from the Special Inquiry Board to Commissioner Watchorn The Landing at the Battery in New York A German Family Italian and Swiss Girls A Group of Twelve Different Nationalities Three Types of Immigrants A Group of Immigrants Just Arrived at Ellis Island An Italian Family Crowded in a New York Tenement Four Nationalities Portuguese and Spanish Children An Italian Sunday School in New England Sketch Maps and Charts Immigration at the Port of New York for 1906 Immigrant Distribution by States for 1905 Immigrant Distribution by Races: Scandinavian Canadian and British Irish Germanic French and Iberic Slavic Changes in Sources of Immigration Causing Increase of Illiteracy Countries from which the Slavs Come Distribution of Slavs in the United States Wave of Immigration for Eighty-seven Years Colored Chart of Races of Immigrants for 1905 18 34 59 74 94 102 128 144 166 180 198 210 236 256 283 32 106 108 109 114 115 146 171 125 161 163 308 End PREFACE It is not a question as to whether the aliens will come. They have come, millions of them; they are now coming, at the rate of a million a year. They come from every clime, country, and condition; and they are of every sort: good, bad, and indifferent, literate and illiterate, virtuous and vicious, ambitious and aimless, strong and weak, skilled and unskilled, married and single, old and young, Christian and infidel, Jew and pagan. They form to-day the raw material of the American citizenship of to-morrow. What they will be and do then depends largely upon what our American Protestant Christianity does for them now. Immigration—the foreign peoples in America, who and where they are, whence they come, and what under our laws and liberties and influences they are likely to become—this is the subject of our study. The subject is as fascinating as it is vital. Its problems are by far the most pressing, serious, and perplexing with which the American people have to do. It is high time that our young people were familiarizing themselves with the facts, for this is preëminently the question of to-day. Patriotism and religion—love of country and love of Christ —unite to urge thoughtful consideration of this great question: Aliens or Americans? One aim of this book is to show our individual responsibility for the answer, and how we can discharge it. Immigration may be regarded as a peril or a providence, an ogre or an obligation—according to the point of view. The Christian ought to see in it the unmistakable hand of God opening wide the door of evangelistic opportunity. Through foreign missions we are sending the gospel to the ends of the earth. As a home mission God is sending the ends of the earth to our shores and very doors. The author is a Christian optimist who believes God has a unique mission for Christian America, and that it will ultimately be fulfilled. While the facts are in many ways appalling, the result of his study of the foreign peoples in our country has made him hopeful concerning their Americanization and evangelization, if only American Christians are awake and faithful to their duty. The Christian young people, brought to realize that immigration is another way of spelling obligation, must do their part to remove that tremendous IF. These newcomers are in reality a challenge to American Christianity. The challenge is clear and imperative. Will we give the gospel to the heathen in America? Will we extend the hand of Christian brotherhood and helpfulness to the stranger within our gates? Will we Christianize, which is the only real way to Americanize, the Aliens? May this book help to inspire the truly Christian answer that shall mean much for the future of our country, and hence of the world. The author makes grateful acknowledgment to all who have assisted by suggestion or otherwise. He has tried to give credit to the authors whose works he has used. He is under special obligation for counsel and many courtesies to Josiah Strong, one of the modern patriot-prophets who has