unskilled as well as skilled labor. No machinery other than that
contemplated by the present act would be required.

The immigration problem can never be satisfactorily handled until we fix
upon some such means of determining just what the economic need is. There
is no danger of hindering legitimate industrial expansion in times of
sudden business prosperity: for the transportation companies may be safely
trusted to supply in three or four weeks aliens enough to fill all the
gaps in the industrial army. Neither would injustice be done to the
immigrant himself. On the contrary, he would be assured of a job and
respectful consideration when he arrived. The "dago" or the "bohunk" would
acquire a new dignity and a more enviable status than he now occupies. The
selective process thus involved would much improve the quality of the
immigrant admitted, and would incidentally render assimilation of the
foreigner all the easier.

The precise details of selection, and the machinery, are mere matters of
detail. But the consular service, as long ago suggested by Catlin,
Schuyler and others, seems to offer the proper base of operations. We have
already recommended charging consuls with viséing certificates from
police, medical, and poor-relief authorities. We should further require
that declarations of intention to migrate be published (somewhat as
marriage banns are published) at local administrative centers
(arrondissement, Bezirk, etc.) and at United States consular offices; the
consular declaration should be obligatory; perhaps the other might be
optional, though in all probability foreign governments would coöperate in
demanding it. These validated declarations of intention should be filed in
the consular offices. When notice comes from the United States Department
of Labor that so many laborers will be admitted from such and such
district, the declarations are to be taken up in the order of their