immigrant, the government would accomplish all that it could
directly do for better distribution. Unquestionably the employment
agencies, with their _padroni_, their bankers, and their false promises,
are the source of miserable abuse to thousands of immigrants.[148] They
require interstate as well as state regulation. By weeding out the
dishonest agencies the field would be occupied by the honest ones, and
the immigrant could trust himself to their assistance. But such
regulation would not be merely for the sake of the immigrant. It would,
as it should, aid the American as well.

This suggests to us the true nature of the problem of city congestion
and the nature of its solution. It is not to be found in special efforts
on behalf of the immigrant, but in efforts to better the condition of
both Americans and immigrants. The congestion of cities is owing to
discriminations in favor of cities. If the government gives aid to
agriculture as it does to manufactures, if it provides better
communication, equalizes taxes, reduces freight rates to the level
enjoyed by cities, then agriculture and the small towns will be more
attractive. Americans will not crowd to the cities, and the more
provident of the immigrants will find their way to the country. The
proposition of federal distribution of immigrants is merely a clever
illusion kept up to lead Congress astray from the restriction of
immigration.

=Higher Standards of Immigration.=--As for the inferior, defective, and
undesirable classes of immigrants, there is no protection except
stringent selection. The Commissioner of Immigration at New York
estimates that 200,000 of the million immigrants in 1903 were an injury
instead of a benefit to the industries of the country,[149] and he
advocates a physical examination and the exclusion of those who fall
below a certain physical standard. During the past ten years the
educational, or rather, illiteracy test, has come to the front, and the
advantages of this test are its simplicity and its specific application
to those races whose standards are lowest.

[Illustration: ALIENS AWAITING ADMISSION AT ELLIS ISLAND]

Much discussion has been carried on respecting this test, and there has
been considerable misunderstanding and misrepresentation as to its
probable effects. The principal mistake has been the assumption that it
is designed to take the place of other tests of admission, and that
therefore it would permit, for example