legislation, and perhaps still less fortunate in the
administration of the laws passed for the betterment of the masses of
their people. They have done little to convince the great majority that
they are aware of the wrongs that have been done that majority in the
supposed interest of the small class of the over rich. They have not
provided opportunity for those who hitherto have had none, nor have they
even provided a reasonable alternative for industrial warfare. Had they
done these things in the past, or were they even to begin honestly to
provide for them in the future, they might confidently expect that the
reign of industrial warfare, which exasperates their people, and retards
the prosperity of their nation, would be as easily and effectually
suppressed as the experiment of the Syndicalists has just been in New
Zealand.

LABOR: "TRUE DEMAND" AND IMMIGRANT SUPPLY

A RESTATEMENT OF THE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF IMMIGRATION POLICY

Recent historians and economists have been showing that it was anything
but pure and unadulterated sense of brotherhood that prompted many of our
forefathers' fine speeches about opening the doors of America to the
down-trodden and oppressed of Europe. Emerson, fifty years ago, in his
essay on _Fate_ noted the current exploitation of the immigrant: "The
German and Irish millions, like the Negro, have a great deal of guano in
their destiny. They are ferried over the Atlantic, and carted over
America, to ditch and to drudge, to make corn cheap, and then to lie down
prematurely to make a spot of green grass on the prairie." Indeed it would
not be hard to show that there was always a real or potential social
surplus back of our national hospitality to the alien.

The process began long before our great nineteenth century era of
industrial expansion. Colonial policies with regard to the immigrant
varied according to latitude and longitude. Most of the New England
colonies viewed the foreigner with distrust as a menace to Puritan
theocracy. New York, Pennsylvania, and some of the Southern colonies were
much more hospitable, for economic reasons. That this hospitality
sometimes resembled that of the spider to the fly is evident from
observations of contemporary writers. That it included whites as well as
negroes in its ambiguous welcome is equally evident.

John Woolman writes in his _Journal_ (1741-2): "In a few months after I
came here my master bought several Scotchmen as servants, from