foreigners. New lines to the Mediterranean have been
put on with distinct purpose to swell the Italian and Slav immigration.
Rate cutting has at times made it possible for the steerage passenger to
go from Liverpool to New York for as low as $8.75. The average rate is
not high enough to deter anyone who really wants to come. An English
line, in return for establishing a line direct from a Mediterranean
port, has secured from the Hungarian government a guarantee of 30,000
immigrants a year from its territory.

[Sidenote: Solicitation Law Violated]

The law forbids transportation companies or the owners of vessels to
"directly or through agents, either by written, printed, or oral
solicitations, solicit, invite, or encourage the immigration of any
aliens into the United States except by ordinary commercial letters,
circulars, advertisements, or oral representations, stating the sailings
of their vessels and terms and facilities of transportation therein."
That this restrictive provision is persistently evaded is made plain by
the reports of government inspectors sent abroad to investigate. The
annual migration involves more than a hundred millions of dollars, and
where money is to be made law is easily disobeyed.

[Sidenote: The Ubiquitous and Unscrupulous "Runner"]

One of the inspectors says the chief evil in this solicitation business
is the so-called "runner." Here is his description of this mischievous
_genus homo_. "It is he who goes around in eastern and southern Europe
from city to city and village to village telling fairy tales about the
prosperity of many immigrants in America and the opportunities offered
by the United States for aliens. The runner does not know of anyone who
is undesirable; he claims to be all-powerful, that he has
representatives in every port who can 'open the door' of America to
anyone. It is he who induces many a diseased person to attempt the
journey, and it is also he and his associates who do their best to have
the undesirables admitted. The steamship companies, as a rule, do not
deal with these runners directly and disclaim all responsibility for
their nefarious practices. But the official agents of the steamship
companies do pay their runners commissions for every immigrant referred
to them. I have especially studied this problem along the borders of
Germany, Russia, and Austrian Galicia. Here most of the emigrants are
smuggled across the frontiers by these runners and robbed of th