tter
themselves in this country. They come here not because they love us, or
because we love them. They come here because they can do themselves
good, not because they can do us good."[6] That is natural and true; and
it furnishes excellent reason why we must do them good in order that
they may not do us evil. To make their good ours and our good theirs is
both Christian and safe.

[Sidenote: Three Classes]

The three causes produce three classes of immigrants: 1. Natural; 2.
Assisted; and 3. Solicited.

[ILLUSTRATION: IMMIGRATION AT THE PORT OF NEW YORK FOR 1906.]

[Sidenote: Normal Motives and Conditions]

The prosperity of this country has undoubtedly chiefly influenced
immigration in the past. This is shown by the marked relationship
between industrial and commercial activity in the United States and the
volume of immigration.[7] Our prosperity not only induces desire to come
but makes coming possible. The testimony before the Industrial
Commission showed that from forty to forty-five per cent. of the
immigrants have their passage prepaid by friends or relatives in this
country, and from ten to twenty-five per cent. more buy their tickets
abroad with money sent from the United States. In 1902 between
$65,000,000 and $70,000,000 was sent home to Italy alone from the United
States, and the stream of earnings flowing out to Ireland and Germany
and Sweden and Hungary has been not less steady. American prosperity has
been feeding and paying taxes for millions of people who owe far more to
our government than to their own, and foreign governments have been
reaping the benefit. The United States has a small standing army of its
own, but through the gold sent abroad by the alien wage earners here we
have been helping maintain the vast armaments of Europe. The letters and
the money sent by immigrants to the home folks awaken the desires and
dreams that mean more immigrants. The United States Post-office is a
marvelous immigration agent in Europe. Immigrants are not the only
persons induced to migrate through the feeling that where one is not
will prove a much better place than where one is. That seems to inhere
in human nature.

[Sidenote: American Leaven]

[Sidenote: The American Idea]

"Not only the American money and letters, but the American ideas are at
work abroad," says the Rev. F. M. Goodchild, D.D.,[8] in a recent
address: "The praises of America are told abroad by every person who
comes here and gets alo