For over
eight months you would have watched so large a proportion of illiteracy,
incompetency, and insensibility to American ideals, that you would be
tempted to despair of the Republic. Nor would you lose the sense of
nightmare when the English and Irish were consuming forty-two days in
passing, for the "green" of the Emerald Isle is vivid at Ellis Island,
and the best class of the English stay at home. The flaxen-haired and
open-faced Scandinavians would lighten the picture, but with the equally
sturdy Germans they would get by in only a month and four days.
[Sidenote: A Process of Enlightenment]
This much is certain, whatever may be thought of the fanciful
procession. No American who spends a single day at Ellis Island, when
the loaded steamships have come in, will afterward require awakening on
the subject of immigration and the necessity of doing something
effective in the way of Americanization. A good view of the steerage is
the best possible enlightener.
[Sidenote: A Graphic Grouping]
A million a year and more is the rate at which immigrants are now coming
into the United States.[3] It is not easy to grasp the significance of
such numbers: yet we must try to do so if we are to realize the problem
to be solved.
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