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official attention in the past ten years. The river did break loose in 1906, and is still not fully under control. It wrought immense havoc. Most of us recall references in the press to the Salton Sea, which suddenly began to rise in the bottom of the basin. To control the river and get it back into its old channel to the sea has been one of the most stupendous and difficult of engineering problems. Already fully $3,000,000 of public and private funds has been expended; and the real control of the river has scarcely begun.

The relation of this problem to the subject of the present paper may now be stated. The boundary between the United States and Mexico passes directly across the depressed basin. The topography is such that irrigation canals taken out of the river on United States territory, to reclaim United States land in the valley, have to be carried around high ground, across the boundary into Mexican territory, and back again. On the other hand, breaks in the river-bank, which are so liable to destroy the valley, can occur only on Mexican soil. The situation is one which it is impossible to handle except by works mainly south of the boundary; yet the majority interest to be served lies to the north. The whole problem, both of reclamation and of flood-protection, should naturally be handled by a single authority. Even under the most favorable conditions, joint control would be hazardous in times of emergency. When constituted authority disappears and anarchy takes its place, the situation naturally becomes extremely perilous. This is what happened at the most critical point in the dangerous state of things referred to in the preceding paragraph. Under the pressure of emergency, the United States went to the length of providing a million dollars for work which would all have to be done on

Mexican soil. It was not, however, permitted to make this expenditure directly, but only through a Mexican corporation. But even that unbusinesslike proceeding was hampered to a dangerous and exasperating degree by the lack of stable government south of the boundary. Labor became frightened, contractors hesitated to undertake the work, losses of property were experienced, and the most extortionate customs exactions were imposed upon everything passing the boundary. A situation of such gravity, in which the natural agencies at work care nothing for boundaries, treaties, or sovereign rights, and in which safety demands action, and destruction waits upon delay, is one which should certainly not be permitted to continue.1

What is the rational, common-sense solution of this difficult problem? Manifestly this, that it be dealt with as a unit under a single jurisdiction. Any possible division of authority must produce less than the best result. The very immensity of the protection work requires enormous resources and positive action, while the reclamation work should be managed under a uniform system. Either the United States or Mexico should take exclusive charge of the problem, and the boundary should be modified so as to permit this to be done. Which should it be?

We may waive the question of financial resources for properly handling this gigantic physical problem; but there are other considerations which definitely impose the burden upon the United States. The Colorado River above the delta lies entirely north of the boundary. The proper handling of the flood and reclamation problems on

1 Those who would like to understand to what lengths the present situation may lead should consult House Doc. No. 504, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session; and House Doc. No., 1476, 63rd Congress. THE AUTHOR.

the delta and in the valley will ultimately require a comprehensive reservoir system which must necessarily be within the United States. Then, to transfer the whole Imperial Valley to Mexico would be to place the great southern railway route partly in that country, making it cross the frontier twice, with the enormous annoyance, inconvenience, and expense which would result. This would of course be inadmissible. Every consideration makes it important that this problem be assigned to the United States. It would require a transfer of about 2000 square miles of territory. It is simply a plain, practical

question of dealing with a problem which nature itself has created, and which can be rightly handled in only one way. It can indeed be 'muddled through' on the present basis, but never satisfactorily. A generous compensation to Mexico, equivalent to the present worth of her future tribute from that country, would, of course, be made. The question should be met in a liberal spirit by Mexico, without a thought or suspicion that the step springs from any lust of territory by the United States; and it should be determined solely on the basis of the permanent good of the valley itself.

LO, THE POOR IMMIGRANT!

BY FRANCES A. KELLOR

IN "The Modest Immigrant,'1 Miss Repplier has presented a story that the Americans of this country very much need to know, especially at this time, when the whole question of our nationalism is so alive. Unfortunately, however, at the very time when it is most necessary to grasp conditions clearly and act courageously and aggressively, the article is likely to lull us to sleep, to make us feel guiltless of the results of our domestic immigration policy and puffed up with pride at our magnanimous hospitality. We must know both sides of the shield of American citizenship if we are to use this citizenship intelligently for offense or defense in the struggle before us.

We who like to lay stress upon Amer1 Miss Repplier's article was published in the Atlantic for September, 1915. - THE EDITORS.

ica's tradition of hospitality need to be reminded that the hospitality of Lowell's time has been changed into widespread exploitation throughout this land. Many of our immigrant communities are not primarily to blame for the admittedly wretched conditions in which they live.

Go through the 'immigrant section' of a typical industrial town. Miserable shacks, overcrowded with lodgers because there are not enough houses; inadequate water-supply, lack of repairs, unequal enforcement of village laws all these things characterize the section. Where the company owns the property, there is no security in the home, for eviction as trespassers follows the slightest protest. And on some of our great estates conditions are little better. The men who keep Tuxedo

Park so beautiful for the fortunate families who live there are crowded into sodden communities, unable to get their houses repaired, or indeed to secure a sufficient number of houses at a reasonable rent to enable them to live with fewer than ten in three rooms. I had occasion to visit one of the great estates in Central New York in the process of its evolution from a forest to a country estate. I found the hundreds of employees housed in tar shacks on the slope near the foot of the hill, compelled to take boarders because there were not enough shacks, and each paying two dollars a month rent. Some of the shacks had no windows; others had leaky roofs and damp, cold floors. There were no drainage facilities, and after a rain the little clearing in which the shacks had been constructed was a veritable mud-hole. Even in dry weather, there were stagnating puddles of water. Since no provision had been made for garbage collection and disposal, the women were compelled to throw animal and vegetable refuse in the bushes near by. The wooden privy vaults close by the shacks were seldom, if ever, cleaned, and the residents were compelled to use the fields. The watersupply was a spring into which the surface draining of the hill poured. There were no bathing or laundry facilities.

On interviewing a number of the men and women, I found that this had not been their standard of living abroad. One had been a butcher in a small town in Italy, where he had lived in a small wooden house and had had a goodsized truck-garden. Another had been a house-painter who had come here to better his condition and bring his family here, but was now anxiously awaiting the moment when he should have sufficient funds to take him back to the old home. Another had been a farmer on a small scale; he had come here to go into farming, but through lack of

proper advice and direction had drifted into construction work. His family was with him, but they were all going back as soon as possible.

This was really a community study in the methods by which American employers create the 'immigrant standard of living' in America, and incidentally the immigrant 'bird of passage' who contributes so much to American industrial instability. The determining factor in this place was one of the first families of America.

There are other phases of 'hospitality' which interest us greatly. There are Lawrence, Calumet, Trinidad, Roosevelt, Wheatland, Ludlow, where the sworn statements of witnesses lead us to doubt if we are living in free America. The report of the California Immigration Commission says of Wheatland:

"There had occurred on August 3, 1913, on the Durst hop ranch near Wheatland, Yuba County, a riot among the hop-pickers employed on the ranch, resulting in the killing of two police officials and two pickers. It was the claim of the pickers that one of the primary causes of the discontent in their ranks, leading to riot and bloodshed, was the insanitary condition of the camp in which they were segregated on the ranch.' Before the trial of the men charged with inciting the riot and causing the murder, it was announced that 'evidence concerning the sanitary and living conditions in the camp would be introduced,' and the commission availed itself of the opportunity to conduct 'a careful investigation into the economic causes leading to the riot.'

They discovered that there were probably 2800 workers in camp at the time of the riot, of whom about half were women and children. Of the men, fully 1000 were foreign-born, Syrians, Mexicans, Italians, Porto Ricans,

Poles, Hindus, and Japanese. These people were expected to camp out in a desolate, treeless field. 'There were a few tents to be rented at 75 cents a week, but the majority had to construct rude shelters of poles and gunny sacks, called "bull pens," while many were compelled to sleep in the open on piles of vines or straw.' The sanitary arrangements were unspeakably inadequate, foul, and unhealthy; drinking water was scarce, and some of the wells were infected from the surface water which drained back from stagnant pools that formed near the toilets and garbage piles. There were cases of dysentery, typhoid, and malaria in camp. 'While the wage-scale and other factors contributed to the feeling of discontent, the real cause of the protest of the pickers seemed to come from the inadequate housing and the insanitary conditions under which the hop-pickers were compelled to live.'

Even more interesting is the Colorado situation. The investigation of the most recent Colorado struggle brought to light among other things this significant fact: that within ten years after their arrival every new force of immigrant workmen brought there reached the climax of their protest against the living conditions forced upon them. These successive revolts after years of helpless endurance have only one significance: left wholly to themselves, with little help in education or organization, these immigrant workmen not only attain in ten years a desire for the American standard of living, but are prepared to starve and die for it.

At one of the largest mines in New York State, owned and operated by the descendants of one of the oldest families in America, the writer found that the company practically owned the town except the saloons. It employed one of the justices and its coun

sel was county judge. A saloon-keeper and a padrone were the interpreters when one was needed. It was found in the case of both justices that bills and claims for fees had been presented to the supervisors and paid, which the docket did not substantiate; that they had failed to file records as required by law; that they had falsified accounts and settled cases in violation of law, there being no record kept; that they had neglected to transmit the fines to the clerk in their conduct of trials. How is an immigrant living and working in this town to learn to respect American hospitality or even to understand American justice?

There are graver evidences than these that the host, not the guest, is the violator of American hospitality. Some of the sons of the men who led the fight for the abolition of slavery in 1861 were fathering a peonage system among aliens in almost every state in the Union in 1909. The Federal Commission of Immigration verified the reports of the Department of Justice and found that foreign laborers were restrained in every state covered by its investigation, except Oklahoma and Connecticut, under conditions which, if substantiated by legal evidence, would constitute peonage as defined by the Supreme Court. According to the report of the Federal Immigration Commission, "The peonage cases in the South relating to immigrants have been found to cover almost every industry- farming, lumbering, logging, railroading, mining, factories, and construction work. The chief causes of the abuses have been the systems of making advances to laborers, the operation of contract-labor laws, and the misrepresentations made to laborers by unscrupulous agents.'

And the cases of peonage in the North and East, described in the same report, are quite as flagrant.

The peonage conditions are sporadic. But the other conditions herein described prevail in many communities throughout our large industrial states. They have become an accepted accompaniment of industrial development.

These are the conditions, this is the community type, which we permit and which we make. Let us face the matter squarely. The immigrant, upon coming to this country, is suddenly freed from the most minute surveillance of his daily affairs, and from persistent official repression, direction, and advice. He understands that this is the land of liberty. He is suddenly freed from every familiar form of 'control'; in the midst of strange customs, institutions, and laws, he is more helpless than he was at home. Does America make the slightest effort to teach him the difference between liberty and license? No. At the very port of entry he is robbed by the cabman, and by the hotel runner, the expressman, the banker who exchanges his money, the steamship agent, and the hotel-keeper. His first lesson in 'property rights' in America is often the loss of his own small possessions. He is held in bondage by the hotel-keeper, who takes up his 'through railroad ticket' and keeps it until he has secured a fair return in board bill. The padrone gets him a job, and for the privilege of housing and feeding him at a price and under conditions about which the immigrant has nothing to say, keeps him in a job. If he rebels, he is promptly blacklisted. The employment agent gets him into debt with a prospective employer, and peonage results. In times of scarcity of labor, contingents of immigrant workmen have been made drunk, shut up in box cars, and landed in labor camps from which there is no return until spring.

After a year or two, or less, of 'Amer

ican' experience of this kind, suppose the immigrant chances some noonday to hear an agitator of the Industrial Workers of the World. This agitator is often the first person to listen sympathetically to the immigrant's troubles. He represents America, he speaks of new liberty and new opportunity, and it is easy to convince the trusting ignorant alien that his way is the way out. No other way has been indicated. It is not that 'lawlessness and violence are the weapons he understands'; it is that they are the only weapons given to the immigrant. Moreover, the agitator addresses the immigrant in his own language. We forget the power of this appeal. In short, the I.W.W. has come to the immigrant, and the labor union has for years ignored him. There are aristocracies among labor unions as among Pilgrims. And the immigrant, ignorant of English and with no facilities for learning it, listens and follows the only 'American' message brought him in a language he can understand.

What we descendants of the first Americans have done is to substitute for that ancient tradition of hospitality a system of heartless exploitation and of neglect, urbane or resentful according to the occasion. A strong nation, with its intrenchments of position, power, and property, has found it possible thus to deal with the weaker peoples who are its guests and admittedly its prospective citizens. The determining factor in our hospitality has been the necessity for laborers slaves if you will. For years a war has been waged by the workers, backed by the unions and restriction leagues, chiefly fed by race-prejudice on the one hand and by the employers on the other, over the question of admission. We have been so busy fortifying one or the other of the positions of these contestants that we have paid no heed

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