Likely to Break All Immigration Records This Year
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A FINNISH BLOSSOM.
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i.NII.? UHTt' M1UUIU ut uu uiha-
I J I pccud aud highly Improbable
I ii fill imm Ippn t Inn records an1
b.mnd to be broken this year.
Both th. daily and monthly rec
ords have be. n broken already, as a mat
ter of fart, so that only the yearly
reeord slands.
The monthly record was broken in
April, wh-n 73. HOT foreigners (steerage pas
acngcrs, not citizens) passed through the
nation's gate in tru bit of land termed
Ellis island in the harbor of New York.
Tho daily record was broken on Satur
day, May 3, when 6,213 men, women and
hildr.'n from almost every country in
Europe, as well as a few from Asia and
Africa, stepped foot en American soil for
the first time. The burning of the records
a few years ago with the flimsy wooden
buildings in which the United States
first received Immigrants on Ellis Island
precludes accurate comparison with earlier
figures, but it is distinctly remembered by
the inspectors that ncvir before was there
such a hustling there and never were so
many passed in one day as on the first
Sa unlay in May, P.02. The heaviest month
previous to April of this year since the
government has had charge of the New
York immigration station was exactly ten
years earlier, in April. 1SJ2, when the num
ber coming in was 69,000. On the first
nine days of this month 24,096 were landed,
or at the rate of more than 80,000 for the
month.
Our l'roNn'rlt Attract.
Some notion of the great Increase this
year thus far over recent years may bo
gained from the following figures: In 1897
tho total for the year was 142,400; in 18JS,
2,0,902; in 1899. 2TS,S4G; in l'.HH), 367,440; in
1901. 408,226.
After 1S92, when tinus in America were
reported hard in Eurpe, imm gr.itl n fel. oil
signally, to increase lrom 1897 to the pres
ent, slowly at first, but steadily, and more
recently by leaps and bounds. The poor
and discouraged in Europe, those for whom
thi re is no place and no comfort at home.
have heard of Uncle Sam's prosperity aud
are now hastening to these shores as fast
as they can raise the money to come and
steam can bring them hither.
The present high tide of immigration is
sure to keep up, too, as Ions a' the coun
try's prosperity is the wonder of the whole
earth. There Is a common belief that im
migration figures reach the maximum in
ten-year periods, but this is not so the
tide is governed almost wholly by the rise
and fall of our material prosperity. The
prosperity of Europe may be supposed to
have something to do with It, and, perhaps,
in a measure It has, but less than you
wr.uld imagine, for though Germany Is any
thing but prosperous, now, Industrially, the
immigration of Germans to the United
Stated at this time is small, whereas it
used to be enormous.
I in i K ru t ion I'll it ii .
In fact there has been a great change in
the character of the foreigners who come
here In search of fortune. In place of the
hearty Irishman who develops better under
the Stars and Stripes than anywhere elss
on earth, the sturdy German, who has
made himself an Important factor In Amer
ican life, and the fair-haired Scandinavian,
hard-working, frugal and a genuine acqui
sition, we have now an excess of Poles and
Slovaks from Austria and Russia, and
Italians.
FROM THE NORTH OF EUROPE.
The first two of these may be placed in
one class as against the Italians last
year there were 60,000 of the former and
.16,000 of the latter. The total Immigration
this year to date has been about 202,000,
more than half the grand total of last year.
It Is hardly necessary to say thit there
is no comparison between the German and
Irish immigrants of otlur years and tho
Polish, Slovak and Italian Immigrants of
the present. In physical appearance and
vigor the men and women from northern
Europe outmatch the others almost two
to one. As material from which American
itiztns are made the disparity Is still
greater. Nearly all the German and Irish
came hire to stay; nearly all the Poles,
Slovaks and Italians come hi re to remain
only till they tan get enough money to
gether to go back and live on the pro
ceids of their savings or the produce of
the little farms these savings will buy. Of
late years, Indeed, Immigrants of these
classes the Italians more particularly go
back home wiuttrs and spend the earnings
of the summers, thus draining the country
annually of dollars by the millions, instead
of adding to (he national wealth, as did
the earlier newcomers from Germany and
the Emerald Isle.
TIiuiimiiimIh of Small Fortune.
It Is not too much to say that thousands
of what those win amass them term for
tunes are got t( gather in this country every
year by European laborers to be spent In
the old world.
The average Pole, Slovak or Italian will
save from $2n0 to $2S0 in a year, and in five
years will have got together, say, two
thousand good American dollars. Every
thing considorid purchasing power, etc.
this money is worth two and one-half
FROM THE SOUTH OF EUROPE.
times ns much at home to the Pole or
Slovak and lie limes as mu.li to the
Italian as It would be here, so that there
Is small wonder that both Poles, Slovaks
aud Italians, besides those of many other
nationalities, prefer to spend their .savings
in their native soil, where they can make
the most of them.
That Ireland Is more prosperous than In
f Tiner years Is given as the reason for the
d.'ci eased Irish Immigration anyway the
good old days when a shipload of deep
chested, rosy lassies from the green
Island was no novelty at the immigration
station have passed, and, apparently, for
ever. Irish women are going home to stay,
by the thousands nowadays, ns the public
nrints announce every once in a while;
possibly more are leaving America than are
coming, but there Is no way of determin
ing this. No records are kept of outgoing
steerage passengers besides, not all tho
Irish women who came here by way of the
steerage go home as they came.
With the Germans it is different. The
iln i in Immigration from the kaiser's do
mains is largely due to the kaiser's gov
ernment. It has devised many restrictive
laws which make it dillleult to leave the
Fiithirlaiid for America. Itesldes, weighty
inducements to settle In German colonies
ar put forward to those who think they
must seek their fortune abroad. They are
exempt from military service, for one
thing, yet may retain their German citizen
ship, and this is only one of the Induce
ments which seem worth while to tho
Teuton who believes he can better himself
by leaving home.
Non-I'roiliiet I vr liiiiiilurmilM.
However undesirable from the stand
point of citizenship the Italian, the Slav
or the Polo may be, because he doesn't
Intend to remain in this country, there are
two other classes of Immigrants now
coming here who are undesirable because
they are non-producers almost to a man.
These are the Assyrians and the Greeks.
Men of both these nationalities prefer com
in, rclal life to productive toll. They come
here with enough money to insure landing,
aliin st Invariably, but few of them have
trades and they go to peddling or become
petty merchants of koiiiu sort. The Greeks
are almost all fruit dealers, while tho As
syrians sell Oriental fabrics, bucIi as rugs
and other wares. The Assyrian colony In
New York Is one of tho Institutions of tho
metropolis now, the southern end of Green
wich street, which wim formerly almost
Hibernians, being now almost all Assyrians.
It Is tho Turk who has sent both Greeks
and Assyrians here. The Assyrians, who
are Turkish subjects, come because tho
sultan's government Is treating them with
more and more severity every year, while
the Greeks have hud an ever-Increasing
fondnews for America ever since the Graero
Turkish war. Curiously enough, tho
Armenians, another non-producing class,
have almost ceased to come to America.
Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians nliko are
.singularly non-progressive, yet they are
among the most nervous and hysterical peo
plo In tho whole world. They are seldom
detained because of violating the contract
labor law, but often because of contagious
and dangerous disease. This Is most often
true of the Assyrians, who are frequently
afflicted with trachoma, or, as they term It
at the Immigration bureau, "the Egyptian
eye." It Is raused, so rumor states, by
the fine sand of tho semi-arid lands from
(Continued on Eighth Page.)
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DELEGATES TO THE NATIONAL CON VENTION OF THE Z. C. B. J.. THE BOHEMIAN BENEVOLENT SOCIETY. WHICH MET RECENTLY AT WILRER-PbUo by W. M. ITara.