eliminated. This has been, no doubt, a hardship to the native-born
American workingman. While we have been zealous to protect the American
workingman from the unfair competition of European labor by high
protective tariffs, yet inconsistently we have permitted great numbers
of European laborers to compete with the American workingman upon his
own soil. On the other hand, this large supply of cheap labor, as we
have already seen, has enabled American capitalists to develop American
industries very rapidly, to dominate in many cases the markets of the
world, and to add greatly to the wealth of the country. It has been
chiefly the large employers of labor in the United States, together with
the steamship companies, who have opposed any considerable restrictions
upon immigration, and thus far their power with Congress has
successfully prevented the passing of stringent immigration laws. On the
whole, it is probably true that if industrial arguments alone are to be
taken into consideration upon the immigration problem, the weight of the
argument would be on the side of unrestricted immigration. But
industrial arguments are not the only ones to be taken into
consideration in considering the immigration problem, and this has been
hitherto one of the great mistakes of many in discussing the problem.

(2) _The Social Argument._ Many of our recent immigrants are at
least very difficult of social assimilation. They are clannish, tend to
form colonies of their own race in which their language, customs, and
ideals are preserved. This is especially true of the illiterate
immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. As we have already seen,
the rate of illiteracy among certain of our recent immigrants is so high
that they can scarcely be expected to participate in our social life.
Just the social effect of such colonies of different peoples and
nationalities upon our own social life and institutions cannot well be
foreseen, but it can scarcely be a good effect. The public school, it is