Problems in American Democracy Part 34

3. Compare the "old" and the "new" immigration in 1882. (Ellwood, page 217.)

4. Compare the "old" and the "new" immigration in 1907. (Ellwood, page 218.)

5. What are the three most important groups of immigrants at the present time? (Burch and Patterson, pages 108-111.)

6. What is the extent of illiteracy among the immigrant population?

(Burch and Patterson, pages 115-116.)

7. Discuss the occupational distribution of immigrants. (Ellwood, pages 223-224.)

8. What is the "racial" argument against unrestricted immigration?

(Ellwood, pages 234-235.)

9. How can the average citizen help in the Americanization movement?

(Roberts, pages 45-47.)

10. Why should the Americanization worker make himself familiar with the condition under which the immigrant works? (Roberts, pages 48-53.)

11. What is the significance of the club life of immigrant groups?

(Roberts, pages 57-61.)

12. What is the importance of the "advisory council" in Americanization work? (Roberts, pages 86-87.)

TOPICS FOR INVESTIGATION AND REPORT

1. Cla.s.sify the residents of your community according as they are (a) Foreign born (b) Native-born children of foreign-born parents, or (c) Natives.

2. Study your community with the aim of determining whether or not the character of its immigrant cla.s.s has changed within the last twenty- five years.

3. Cla.s.sify the immigrant groups of your community on the basis of occupation. Notice in particular the proportion of immigrants engaged in agriculture and in the trained professions.

4. Make a visit to a near-by foreign colony, and report to the cla.s.s upon your observations.

5. Interview the officials of a trade union on the effect of Unrestricted immigration upon wages.

6. Draw up a workable plan for the redistribution of immigrants in your state.

7. Draw up a plan for an Americanization survey in your state. (Write to the Bureau of Education in the U. S. Department of the Interior, for Bulletin, 1919, No. 77, on State Americanization.)

8. Race elements in the population of the American colonies. (Commons, _Races and Immigrants in America_, chapter ii.)

9. History of immigration to the United States. (Any standard text on immigration.)

10. The journey to America. (Abbot, _The Immigrant and the Community_, chapter i; Steiner, _On the trail of the Immigrant_; Antin, _They Who Knock at Our Gates_. See also Miss Antin's _The Promised Land_.)

11. a.s.sisted immigration. (R. Mayo Smith, _Emigration and Immigration_, chapter ix.)

12. Geographical distribution of immigration. (Semple, _American History and its Geographic Conditions_, chapter xv.)

13. Economic aspects of immigration. (Consult any standard text on immigration.)

14. "Birds of pa.s.sage." (Consult any standard text on immigration.)

15. Immigration and the trade unions. (Carlton, _History and Problems of Organized Labor_, chapter xi. See also any standard text on immigration.)

16. Social aspects of immigration. (Consult any standard text on immigration.)

17. Political aspects of immigration. (Consult any standard text on immigration.)

18. Chinese immigration. (Coolidge, _Chinese Immigration_; Hall, _Immigration_, chapter xv; Jenks and Lauck, _The Immigration Problem_, pages 231-237; _Annals_, vol. xciii, pages 7-13; Gulick, _American Democracy and Asiatic Citizens.h.i.+p_.)

19. j.a.panese immigration. (_Annals_, vol. xciii, part i; Jenks and Lauck, _The Immigration Problem_, pages 241-252; Steiner, _The j.a.panese Invasion_; Gulick, _American Democracy and Asiatic Citizens.h.i.+p_.)

20. Americanization. (_Annals_, vol. xciii, part in; Woods, _Americans in Process_; Steiner, _From Alien to Citizen_; Bogardus, _Essentials of Americanization_; Roberts, _The Problem of Americanization_)

FOR CLa.s.sROOM DISCUSSION

21. Is a.s.sisted immigration an evil?

22. Can immigrants be redistributed effectively by governmental agencies?

23. Should we retain the literacy test as part of our immigration policy?

24. At the present time many aliens journey across the Atlantic only to find that, for various reasons, they cannot be admitted to this country. How might the resulting disappointment and loss of time and money be avoided?

CHAPTER XXI

CRIME AND CORRECTION

228. THE NATURE OF CRIME.--A crime is an act which is punishable by law because it is considered injurious to the community. If the average man were a hermit, living entirely alone, his actions would affect only himself, and he would be subjected to little or no control by any community. But the average man is a member of a highly civilized community, and what he does, or what he fails to do, often profoundly affects other individuals. Members of the community therefore agree upon standards of conduct, to which individuals must conform. [Footnote: Where democracy does not exist, or is only partially developed, laws may be imposed upon the group from without.

In such a country as the United States, however, legal standards of conduct are preeminently the result of mutual agreements, freely entered into.] It is the failure to conform to these standards which const.i.tutes a crime, and which entails punishment by law.

What const.i.tutes a crime depends, of course, upon the level of civilization reached by a community, and upon the interpretation which it places upon right conduct. A deed considered heroic in one age may be considered a crime in a later century. In the days of chivalry, for example, it was sometimes considered heroic to rob or even kill wicked n.o.bles in order to distribute their wealth to the poor. At the present time, of course, such acts would const.i.tute a crime.

229. THE CAUSES OF CRIME.--The causes of crime are so various and so complex that their accurate cla.s.sification is impossible. But some light may be thrown upon the subject if we think of crime as influenced by economic, social, personal, and political factors.

Looking at crime from an economic point of view, it is obvious that poverty often accompanies crime. In many cases, it is claimed, such crimes as larceny, forgery, and robbery are directly traceable to poverty. Similarly, it is said that unemployment and industrial accidents may incite individuals to crime. Many authorities claim, however, that while bad economic conditions accompany and often encourage crime, such conditions alone are not a direct cause of crime. According to this latter view, poverty, for example, will not cause a person to commit a crime unless he is feeble-minded, depraved in morals, or otherwise defective in character.

While there is a good deal of dispute as to whether or not poverty is a direct cause of crime, it is quite generally agreed that a bad economic situation gives rise to social conditions which can be definitely connected with criminality. The strain and artificiality of urban life, together with the difficulty of obtaining inexpensive and wholesome recreation in the poorer sections of large cities, has a close connection with crime. The overcrowding so common in tenement districts renders difficult or impossible the maintenance of high moral standards. Where mother or children are habitually employed outside the home, the young are often denied proper home training.

Divorce, desertion, or the death of the bread-winner may break up the family and indirectly give rise to illiteracy, vice, and crime.

Often indistinguishable from the social causes are the personal causes of crime. Where alcoholism or vicious habits are given as the cause of crime, it may be impossible to say whether social or personal defect is primarily to blame. Illiteracy, superficially a _personal_ cause of crime, may often be traced to a bad _social_ environment. Thus an individual may be illiterate because his parents were unwilling or unable to send him to school, or because evil companions discouraged him from study. Such personal causes as mental defect are extremely important, indeed, many students maintain that bad economic and social conditions are negligible causes of crime, unless found in connection with low mentality and a depraved moral sense.