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and relatives are anxiously awaiting her, and the government is not aware that she is lost. How long will it be before both begin to look for her together?

At present nothing is done by the state or federal government to meet this great defect. The states do not know who are coming into them to live, or under what conditions. They make no effort to get into touch with them or help them to become citizens. What so simple as for each state to have its department or bureau, and receive from the federal government the names and addresses of all immigrants coming in, and to visit them and make an effort to make them into citizens? How else can the compulsory education law be enforced, when there are hundreds of children coming in who are never on the school roll and cannot be traced? How else can the childlabor laws be enforced, when children slip from the station to the factory and are reported above the age which they may look to be? The ship manifest, with the ages, would enlighten many duped inspectors if the state had it from the federal ports. Such bureaus could also coöperate with other states and notify them of removals.

This defect in the protection of women is so fraught with moral dangers that Commissioner Watchorn has given it special attention. Upon his recommendation an agent has been appointed at Ellis Island. A group of representative organizations at various large distributing points have been interested by the InterMunicipal Research Committee, and the experiment is being tried of having friendly visitors meet these young women on arrival, or immediately afterward in their homes, and help them to find work, good lodgings, night schools, or whatever they most need, and to give them a fair chance. The system of distribution and protection of women in transit is being studied with a view to recommending that a state and national protective policy be adopted. The great number of arriving immigrant girls makes it impossible that this should

be continued effectively by philanthropy alone. The maintenance of friendly visitors who can speak their language and go to their homes in each of the great cities is a tremendous expense — to say nothing of the expense involved in giving them the immediate assistance they frequently need. A part of this protection should fall upon the railways. Matrons at the stations and on the immigrant trains, to protect and look after the comfort of women and children and to safeguard young girls, are an essential part of an adequate system of protection.

But what of the many thousands who come to New York city? The real danger begins when the girl lands at the Battery. The hangers-on there grab her baggage and try to get her to go with them. The missionaries sometimes have great difficulty in getting the girl to their homes, as these hangers-on speak her language and try to warn her against her new-found friends. If this fails, they may follow her, get her address, and visit her later. The government has tried to break up the robbery and graft which goes on at the Battery, but it has no authority in the city, and thus far has not succeeded.

There has been no body of information showing what happens to the immigrant woman after she leaves Ellis Island for her destination in the city. Four things the Inter-Municipal Research Committee deemed it essential to learn: how and where she lives; whether she needs work, and how she obtains it; whether she is illiterate, and what are her chances for learning English; and, lastly, her amuse

ments.

Through the coöperation of the Commissioners of Immigration, the following programme was followed in four cities: Lists of the arriving girls were obtained, giving the nationality, age, date of arrival, and name and address of the person to whom they are released. No girls released to immigrant homes or charitable institutions were visited, but only girls normally released to friends. relatives, or strangers, and who had to

take up the struggle for existence in the city.

Each girl was then visited at her home by a woman who spoke her language and was of her religion, and the following information was obtained: living conditions, including kind of house, number of rooms, number in family, number of lodgers, cleanliness and sanitation, sleeping accommodations, rate of lodging, kind of lodging; object in coming; whether ticket was purchased here and by whom; employment abroad and wages; present employment, including the kind, place, wages, hours; whether steady work, how obtained, and whether night work is done; and a general statement of conditions not included in the above. When the first visit to her home was made, if the girl was found to need help of any kind one of two things was done. Preferably, wherever possible, the organization, institution, or person already doing such work was asked to help the girl and to report results. Where there was no such existing group or person, aid was given directly, or new individuals were interested in being friendly to the girl. At first it was intended merely to study conditions, but so many girls were found needing work, lodging, help, and protection, that the friendly work was undertaken in connection with it.

Up to the present time, this study has been carried on in the various cities through the representative organizations of the Inter-Municipal Research Committee and other coöperating organizations: as the Research Department of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston, Research and Protective Association in Philadelphia, Woman's Trade-Union League in Chicago, and the Council of Jewish Women, who have also made similar studies in other cities not included here. Six thousand five hundred and fifty girls have been visited, in some cases many times, and the conditions were learned as carefully as possible. The details of the study cannot be given here, but it proves beyond all

doubt that a system of protection and assistance is needed for immigrant women, and that it should extend over the first three years of their residence.

etc.

The very least this can include is:

(1) Housing. These girls should be furnished with information in their own language about housing, boarding-houses, cost of living, transportation facilities, As a result of the study above detailed it has been possible to change many of them to better lodgings, for the same money they were formerly paying. For instance, in four rooms, living with a family of five, were six boarders, four of whom were men. Some of the girls had no prepared food whatever, eating cold things they bought, when close by was a countrywoman of theirs willing to cook food for them if they lodged with her.

New York City is the most dangerous city in the country in the matter of housing green immigrant women, for its vice is not chiefly in one section, as in Chicago, but nearly every street is honeycombed with it; and next to the respectable tenement or apartment may be found a den of immorality. The danger is a hundred-fold greater because the girl thinks she is safe; in reality the need for protection in choosing her home is very great.

The question has often been asked, Would immigrant girls live in hotels and clubs if provided? The question can safely be answered in the affirmative, provided that religion and red tape are omitted, and a woman who speaks their language and understands their customs, needs, habits, and traditions, is at the head of the house and surrounds it with the atmosphere they need. If a number of women could be engaged to go into the immigrant neighborhoods and run small boarding-houses, not big institutions, but small homes, with the backing of some one financially interested, it would be a great thing for the girls and for the neighborhood. Few of their lodgings have any place for recreation or receiving company, or are anything more than

mere places to eat and sleep. A number of girls were interviewed with the idea of ascertaining their attitude toward such boarding-houses. The following are typical answers.

Sales-girl, wages $6, lives with stepmother who often refuses to cook for her. Her father would be glad to have her make more room for them if the board was not over $2.50.

Another, salary $6, is willing to pay $3 for board; is boarding in crowded quarters. Would welcome a boardinghouse of this kind.

Another lodges with relatives, buys her own food, which they cook. Tried boarding, but food was poor, accommodations bad, and service irregular. Costs her $2.50 a week and would be glad to spend more but cannot find a place.

(2) Employment. This is a matter of adjustment as well as of finding work. During the investigation, it was possible to acquaint many girls with other lines of work and find them better-paying positions. If the immigrant girl comes to a family that does sweat-shop work, she naturally falls into it, though she may be better fitted for other work. At least one-quarter of the girls visited never did any work for pay at home. Here they undertake to do things they know little about, and accept low wages because they do not know what it costs to live. They work over-time; submit to illegal and unfair docking of wages; are the most pitiable victims of the "learner system," whereby they are hired at a dollar or two a week while learning, and are then discharged, and go to another employer "who will learn them." Some spend their first year or two learning. They are in debt when they arrive, and they are among the worst violators of child-labor and compulsory-education and factory laws. Why? Because neither the state nor any one else thinks it worth while to inform them of their rights, and because the people whom they know and with whom they live often do not know them any better. Progress is immeasur

ably retarded by this short-sighted policy!

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(3) Education. -The one great necessity and desire is to learn English. The majority of those visited, though they had been here several months, had never heard of evening classes. Where they had heard of them they frequently had no one to show them the way to the school and were timid. Even when they begin, the methods used are frequently so unsuited to their needs that they soon get discouraged or drop out. Some schools assume that because they need baby methods in English, they need it in all else, which is a great mistake. By their lack of English they are hampered in getting better-paying work. Oftentimes the families with whom they live discourage it, saying, “Reading and writing are not needed to marry on." The settlements and philanthropies cannot meet this need alone. The night schools have no truant officers for adults. How shall the immigrant know her need and how to satisfy it and how to demand adequate facilities? Only the citizens who see the future of the state and country recognize the responsibility. Will they help meet it?

(4) Recreation and Amusements. The immigrant girl does not in many cases get any facilities for recreation, and rarely such as she needs. She goes to the dance-hall because it is often the only place of amusement within reach where she can find her own people and her own dances. She does not prefer them at the back of saloons. But she is not a reformer

and she goes just because she finds them there. What else is she offered? Playgrounds and parks there are indeed, but how is she to find them? If others tell her, she often lives too far away to go. Have you ever heard the wonderment and joy in a green immigrant girl's voice, who has been immersed daily for months in our tenement and industrial system, when she sees Central Park? "Trees, here!" she exclaims, and with tears in eyes and voice, "just like home!" It is not more Coney Islands and "merry-go

rounds" that are needed, but time, shorter hours, so that the girls can get into the country; and excursions to give them something of home; and native folk-dances in place of our meaningless American dances. Even philanthropies provide but little reasonable recreation, and playgrounds and gymnasia are overtaxed. It is one of the crying shames that we expect women, who come here directly after enjoying the freedom of the soil or of the small villages, to be crowded into tenements, to work eight to fourteen hours daily, and for whom no adequate decent amusement places are provided, to stand the moral strain. With what wisdom has Hull House installed its own five-cent theatre and dances open to any one from the street! The only way to lessen the attraction of the dance-hall is to compete with it. How eagerly the girls grasped the offer of the friendly visitors for a free concert! If they could only be directed to what does really exist! but much of it is in English and seems so far away to them. What seems such a small service of the friendly visitor sometimes changes a whole life. One difficulty is to get support for such small service. In this age every one wants to give or do big things which do not always accomplish the purpose.

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But even when immigrant girls are well housed and cared for on arrival it may all change to-morrow. The people to whom they come may not be well established, or capable of sound advice, or able to help them. A young girl came to an aunt who was her only relative. A few weeks after, the aunt was taken to the hospital, and, when the friendly visitor found her, the girl was entirely alone and unknown. The relative may die, the job may be lost, the family be evicted, or the girl may be ill. In the study above outlined a central bureau was established and many girls who were all right when first visited came to it later when in trouble. They had made an intelligent, powerful, friendly connection, which brought them into a life

larger than that of their own family and group, often too handicapped to help them. And so little is needed if it is the right thing!

It is not the intention to underpraise any of the good work done by the splendid organizations that are working in an unselfish way. It is rather to emphasize the need of state and federal protection, and to urge the necessity for a system of protection which will get hold of the immigrant as soon as she arrives, and educate and advise and help her. The protection of immigrant women is the business of a people, not of racial philanthropies; of a state, not of a corporation; and of mankind, not of a few individuals. This appeal for a governmental system of protection is not for dependents or for those needing charity — not for rescue work, for most immigrants do not need this upon arrival, but for the average normal healthy immigrant who wants to work and to become a citizen.

Under a philanthropic system, immigrants do not have equal opportunities. Look at the splendid institutions for the Jews. What have the Poles to compare with it? Where is there an Educational Alliance which so fits the children of other races to enter the public schools? What government other than the Italian gives sums for schools in labor camps? Do not the Hungarians need it? Neither is the work uniform. The educational facilities in New York may be good, for money can be more easily obtained; but is it true of the immigrant in Buffalo, or of those out at work on the road? No! If immigrants are to have equal opportunities and facilities and become equally good citizens, our states must awaken to their responsibility and provide protection equally for all.

It is good to know that the past year has been one of the most hopeful the immigrants have ever seen, in this increasing sense of protection.

The new immigration law provides that any person who "shall directly or indirectly import or attempt to import

into the United States any alien woman or girl for purposes of prostitution or any other immoral purpose, or whoever shall hold or attempt to hold any alien woman or girl for any such purpose, in pursuance of any such illegal importation, or whoever shall keep, maintain, control, support in any house or other place, for the purposes of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose, any alien woman or girl within three years after she shall have entered the United States, shall be guilty of a felony and be imprisoned not more than five years, and pay a fine of not more than $5000.”

Unfortunately the government does not realize the power of the strongly intrenched syndicate, with its many agents abroad and distributed in the various cities, with large financial backing, which imports immigrant girls and sells them from city to city, and has not provided adequate machinery to reach this allpowerful combine.

The new immigration law has also provided for a bureau of information which it is hoped will consider the subject of the education and labor of women. It has also created a commission which there is reason to hope will conduct investigations with a view to the further protection of women, and will perhaps recommend some such national system of protection as has been outlined and is now being tried by a group of philanthropies.

Through the efforts of the Inter-Municipal Research Committee and Federation of Women's Clubs, New Jersey has a new employment-agency law protecting contract laborers and immigrant women, and the Research and Protective Association of Philadelphia has obtained a new employment-agency law for Pennsylvania, with the same features. How soon will the United States consider it worth while to prevent inter-state abuses in the finding of employment and interstate traffic in women, by passing a federal law? New York has tried an employment-agency law enforced by the

municipalities, and the conditions under its inadequate enforcement furnish a most striking comment upon the need of state and national protection.

New Jersey and Pennsylvania lead in the educational line. Governor Stokes of the former state appointed an immigration commission that obtained the passage of a law providing for night schools for adult foreigners, and Pennsylvania passed a law empowering local boards of education to establish schools in labor camps for foreigners.

New York passed a banking and steamship-ticket law, previously referred to; a midwives bill putting all midwives under control of the Board of Health, thus protecting the health of immigrant women and children. An investigation by the Association of Neighborhood Workers showed that ninety-five per cent of these midwives were foreigners. New York also passed the Cobb marriage bill, aimed at fake marriages practiced among immigrant women for the purpose of getting them into lives of shame. New York also increased the appropriation for distributing immigrants in the state through the Department of Agriculture.

This is only a part of the record of 1907. These new laws are typical of the signs of the times, and lead us to hope that this year may see further legislation for the protection of immigrants.

Back of all of this legislation for protection are groups of citizens and individuals who have gathered the facts and created a public sentiment for the protection of immigrants. This legislation marks but the beginning. To those who think that much has been accomplished, the following suggestions for further work show the field more clearly.

There is a crying need for the publication in the simplest terms of the laws and ordinances vitally affecting daily living

as labor laws, tenement-house regulations, fire regulations, health laws, etc. Ask an immigrant what she wants to read and she invariably replies, "Something about America in my language.”

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