adult illiterate constitutes a tremendous educational problem. Over 35 per
cent of the "new immigration" of 1913 was illiterate, and this new
immigration included over two-thirds of the total. Ignorance prevents the
laborer from demanding the very education that would give him a better
place in the economic system; it hinders the play of intelligent
self-interest; and it actually prevents effective labor-organization,
which is one of the surest means of labor-education. Jenks and Lauck,
after experience with the Immigration Commission, concluded that "the fact
that recent immigrants are usually of non-English speaking races, and
their high degree of illiteracy, have made their absorption by the labor
organizations very slow and expensive. In many cases, too, the conscious
policy of the employers of mixing the races in different departments and
divisions of labor, in order, by a diversity of tongues, to prevent
concerted action on the part of employés, has made unionization of the
immigrant almost impossible."

For these reasons, and others, we are driven to the conclusion that future
policies of immigration must be based on sound principles of social
welfare and social economy, and not upon the economic advantage of certain
special industries. Whether we want the brawn of the immigrant must be
determined by what it will contribute to the general social surplus, and
not by what it adds to A's railroads or B's iron mines.

We are told that the three classes of our population demanding
unrestricted immigration are large employers of unskilled labor,
transportation companies, and revolutionary anarchists. Since this is by
definition an economic and not a philosophical question, we may neglect
the third class. To the other two classes should be directed certain brief
tests of economic good faith. Take at its face value their claim that
European brawn by the ship-load is indispensable to American industry. It