st enterprising, thrifty, and
venturesome were ready to try an uncertain future in an unknown land.
The immigrant of those days was likely, therefore, to be of the
sturdiest and best type, and his coming increased the general prosperity
without lowering the moral tone. Now that the ocean has become little
more than a ferry, and the rates of railway and steamship have been so
reduced, it is the least thrifty and prosperous members of their
communities that fall readiest prey to the emigration agent.

[Sidenote: Assisted Immigration]

Assisted immigration is the term used to cover cases where a foreign
government has eased itself of part of the burden of its paupers,
insane, dependents, and delinquents by shipping them to the United
States. This was not uncommon in the nineteenth century, especially in
the case of local and municipal governments. Our laws were lax, and for
a time nearly everybody, sane or insane, sound or diseased, was passed.
The financial gain to the exporting government can be seen in the fact
that it costs about $150 per head a year to support dependents and
delinquents in this country, while it would not cost the foreign
authorities more than $50 to transport them hither. This policy seems
scarcely credible, but Switzerland, Great Britain, and Ireland followed
it thriftily until our laws put a stop to it, in large part, by
returning these undesirable persons whence they came, at the expense of
the steamship companies bringing them. It was not until 1882, however,
that our government passed laws for self-protection, and in 1891 another
law made "assisted" immigrants a special class not to be admitted.

[Sidenote: Other Causes]

Other and incidental causes there are, such as the influence of new
machinery, opening the way for more unskilled labor, such as the
ordinary immigrant has to sell; the protective tariff, which shuts out
foreign goods and brings in the foreign producers of the excluded goods;
the thorough advertising abroad of American advantages by boards of
agriculture and railway companies interested in building up communities;
and a fear of restrictive legislation. But undoubtedly, ever back of all
other reasons is the conviction that America is the land of plenty and
of liberty--a word which each interprets according to his light or his
liking.

[Sidenote: The Christian Attitude]

[Sidenote: Colonists and Immigrants Distinguished]

Having thus considered the remarkable proportions