the internal or domestic policy we
have thus far adopted after the immigrant has landed on our shores. And
this policy has been wholly negative. Our attitude toward the immigrant has
undergone little change from the very beginning, when immigration was
easily absorbed by the free lands of the West. Even at the present time our
legislative policy is an outgrowth of the assumption that the immigrant
could go to the land and secure a homestead of his own; and of the
additional assumption that he needed no assistance or direction when he
reached this country any more than did the immigrants of earlier centuries.

Up to the present time, with the exception of the Oriental races, there has
been no real restriction to immigration. Our policy has been selective
rather than restrictive. Of those arriving certain individuals are rejected
by the immigration authorities because of some defect of mind, of body, or
of morals, or because of age infirmity, or some other cause by reason of
which the aliens are likely to become public charges. For the official year
1914, of the 1,218,480 applying for admission 15,745 were excluded because
they were likely to become a public charge; 6,537 were afflicted with
physical or mental infirmities affecting their ability to earn a living;
3,257 were afflicted with tuberculosis or with contagious diseases; and
1,274 with serious mental defects. All told, in that year less than 2 per
cent of the total number applying for admission were rejected and sent back
to the countries from which they came.

Our immigration policy ends with the selection. From the stations the
immigrants pass into the great cities, chiefly into New York, or are placed
upon the trains leaving the ports of debarkation for the interior. They are
not directed to any destination, and, most important of all, no effort is
made to place them on the land under conditions favorable to successful
agriculture. And this is the problem of the future. It is a problem far
bigger than the distribution of immigration. It is a problem of our entire
industrial life. For, while our immigrants are congested in the cities
agriculture suffers from a lack of labor. Farms are being abandoned. Not
more than one-third of the land in the United States is under cultivation.
Far more important still, millions of acres are held out of use. Land
monopoly prevails all over the Western States. According to the most
available statistics of land ownership, approxi