were closely allied to us in their mental ideals and their concepts of law and liberty, and were easily assimilated. From 1880 onward, this condition has changed. The majority of immigrants from that date have come from Southern and Eastern Europe, where they had been subject to social, economic and political ideas very different from ours. In 1869 only nine-tenths of one per cent. of our immigrant population came from that quarter. In 1902 seventy-four per cent. came from that region. The prejudice against the Chinese, which developed along the Pacific Coast and spread across the continent, led to the enactment of laws to check them from 1860 to the final exclusion act of 1892, so that on the Pacific Coast the Chinese problem no longer exists. Now the cry is against the Japanese who are scattering over the western seaboard. They are being accused of all the kinds of crime and misdemeanor ever charged against their Chinese cousins and are making their way into all the industries of the section. Centering around the North Atlantic and the Northern Central States we find the great mass of European immigrants. Last year these located thus: Russians, in North Atlantic States. Hungarians, in North Atlantic States 5,190 .7,290 .3,890 .2,290 This brings the larger part of this vast foreign population on to these sections, and here they tend to segregate in districts in the large cities, perpetuating their own language and customs of life. In 1871 Massachusetts and New York, alarmed at the conditions growing out of this wholesale immigration, appointed. immigrant boards and imposed a head tax on those who landed. Later the United States Supreme Court ruled that States could not control immigration because it was interstate commerce, but in 1882 the general government began to impose conditions tending to lessen immigration. It prohibited contract labor, the importation of women for immoral purposes, and ruled out the insane, the feeble-minded and paupers. With the addition of anarchists to the list we now have sixteen prohibited classes. The control is vested in the Department of Commerce and Labor, and a head tax of two dollars is collected. The motive actuating the immigrant in coming here and the spirit in which he is received make a world of difference in the effect of his coming upon the future enlightenment and prosperity of this country. The motive varies, widely as character, and it is of the first importance that a wise policy unbiased by prejudice on our part, be adopted in meeting and disposing of the matter. There is the economic motive, the desire to improve their way of life, to find homes and honorable independence for themselves and their families. The Social, prompting oppressed classes, as the Poles, the Jews, etc., to seek a home under kindlier influences than those they leave, where a freer, better life may be enjoyed. Such as these may benefit the community to which they come as well as ameliorate their own condition. On the other side, there is an increasing tendency on the part of European governments to furnish state certificates, to paupers, criminals, or other undesirable classes whom they wish to dump upon the United States and rid themselves of the burden. Also, the self-interest of transportation companies, who placard Europe with advertisements of a "promised land" of good pay for little work. Who maintain agencies to coach candidates for emigration in things necessary to get the required papers. The promotion of immigration with unworthy motives on the part of the promotors is the business of no inconsiderable number of people. There is a primary difference between the men and women who brave the hardships of the pioneer in a new land, in order to found homes and establish business, and the recruited immigrant who is looking only for an easy living. The coming of foreigners more rapidly than can be assimilated with our ideals means, that we shall in time be dominated with their ideals. The effect of an overwhelming for eign population upon industrial conditions must also claim attention. The coal strikes may in part be explained as a contest between the English speaking miners and foreign immigrants who have come since 1880. The cheap labor of the foreigner cuts into the income of the native American so as to lower his standard of living. Still, in time a change takes place. The Trades Unions, at first antagonistic to foreigners, are now largely composed of them. In the last coal strike the back bone was the Union Sclavs. The unions are now an important means of bringing foreigners into association with and understanding of American life. Immigrants find work easily, on their arrival, in the sweat shops. They work for less than a living wage and introduce depressed standards of life. The responsibility of the sweat shop is upon us, because we are willing to be in debt for our clothes to the poorest individual in the community. Political corruption is made easier by the importation of an illiterate foreign population. Fraudulent naturalization papers are issued and sent to Europe in order to secure admission into the United States, of voters for the coming elections, and thousands, not legally naturalized, vote and in close districts turn the balance in elections. The worst districts in Philadelphia are those peopled by our most ignorant native population or by illiterate foreigners. The social effect of this great foreign influx is unfortunate. Landlords rent tumble-down tenements, in slum districts, to people fresh from perhaps worse conditions in the old world. These new-comers are there brought in contact with what is worst in American life, and however law-abiding and industrious the original immigrants may have been this low environment almost necessarily reacts injuriously upon the second generation. The crimes, which crop out so largely in this second generation are due, no doubt, to these conditions. In New York fifty-one per cent. of the people live in the slum districts and fifty per cent. of these come from eastern and southern Europe. Race hatred prevents assimilation of peoples so different from our own and gives foreigners little chance to come in contact with what is best in American life, as it shuts us out from knowledge of the best in them. That the immigrant has something to give that would benefit us we do not question. Often, no doubt, pearls of intelligence, culture and refinement are cast involuntarily on their part, in apparent waste among these base surroundings. Sometimes, to our astonishment, we discover them and perceive our blunder in permitting the existence of those social quicksands, in which they are lost to us. The effect upon education of this foreign population in such numbers is, to depress the standard which we wish to raise. The public school problem in large cities is often one of dealing with children who speak English imperfectly; and out of lack of sympathy with our educational ideas grows the child labor question which is giving us so much trouble. Our religious conceptions and theirs are modified by contact. Our cosmopolitan population tends to erase our former religious ideals. The effect on public health is of great moment. Tricoma, an eye disease, the ultimate effect of which is blindness, has 40,000 victims in New York. Tuberculosis, the frightful inroads of which are enhanced by ignorance, flourishes in the haunts of the foreign born. There is now under discussion at large more stringent immigration laws. An illiteracy test is suggested but is thought unsatisfactory. A limit upon the number of annual immigrants is proposed, but that might shut out a desirable class of people. A higher head tax, and other methods are named, but as yet no feasible plan has developed. The people who are able and willing to become American citizens, we want. But we do not want here miniature Russias and Italys and an unassimilated mass of old-world people. At the close of Dr. Kelsey's discourse the beautiful soprano solo, "The Earth is the Lord's," was sung by MISS SLEEPER, with fine effect. MR. HINCKLEY, after some remarks, appealing to the sympathies of the audience on account of the deplorable condition of the people in Russia, presented Professor James T. Young of the Pennsylvania University. His address, which we give in part, was entitled: THE OUTLOOK FOR THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA. I wish to present briefly the obstacles to Russian development after speaking of the extent and resources of its territory and of the character of its population. It is a region about which little is known. It is twice as large as the United States, its material resources, of mineral wealth and possible agricultural products are greater than ours, its problems are greater. I will here introduce the con clusion of my address, namely, that Russia should become a Constitutional Monarchy, not a Republic. Because a republic must have its basis in the intelligence and enlightenment of the people, and no such basis yet exists in Russia, as I will proceed to show. Its population is made up of conquered, hostile tribes and peoples, settled in separated districts, forming a vast, complex, dissonant body with no common bond except their orthodox church, and most of them do not know what this is. The immediately pressing problems upon the Russian people are, the need of popular education and of adequate means of transportation. Ninety per cent. of this great aggregate of human beings are illiterate. Think what it means, to be deprived of all intelligence derived from books and of almost all the products of the press! They have few newspapers, only a tenth of our railway mileage, no electric ways, inferior carriage roads, and a volume of postal work only one thirtieth of our own. Emerson said "Roads are symbols of civilization." So true is this that we can hardly imagine what it would mean to be shut off from all ideas that result from free intercommunion, and narrowed to a knowledge of only our own immediate environment. Even now the crushing defeat of the Russian navy, which took place a week ago and which we knew the next day, is yet unknown abroad among the people there. The limitations in regard to means of intelligence among the Russian peasantry seem incredible to us. Because Russia ex |