worst angles of the present fluctuations of the Business Cycle, realize that it would not suffice to prevent them.

We can not expect a complete stabilization of prosperity unless the business community in general coöperates on a safe and sane business policy. If by coöperation it would be possible to prevent these disastrous swings of the Business Cycle, it is very obvious that the business community does not coöperate. Is reasonable chance that it will?

there any

There are two reasons why it has not done so in the past: (1) Ignorance; (2) The Gambling Instinct. Ignorance can be combated. The work of this committee and the discussion raised by their report can not but have a beneficial influence. Increase in the accuracy, comprehensiveness and speedy distribution of statistical information on the trends of business is all to the good. We will never succeed in finding any substitute for sound business judgment on the part of each executive, but the less he has to guess, the more dependable facts at his disposal, the sounder will be his judgment.

The gambling instinct is harder to deal with. Mr. Branting ends his article in The Magazine of Wall Street, to which reference was made above, as follows:

In conclusion, business in this country is what we make it and its dimensions will be large or small in accordance with our business methods. If we prefer to sacrifice stability for a temporary period of large profits, let us do as some are now doing, buy as much as we can, jack up prices as high as we can-and then pay the piper later on. If, however, we wish to regard our business as an investment from which we hope to derive fair and growing returns year in and year out, let us remember that we are only a part of a large machine, and that the machine will not function properly unless we take care to conserve it properly. Which method he will pursue is a question which every business man will have to decide for himself.

Dr. Henry A. E. Chandler, Economist of the National Bank of Commerce, writes in a recent bulletin: " It is absolutely essential that the ablest business leaders of America join with the bankers in supporting a credit policy strictly in accord with sound business development." Both of these statements sound as sensible as the multiplication table, but neither of these gentlemen would write long arguments to this effect, if they were

not worried over the Old Adam who is sometimes listened to by even the ablest business leaders, and who is always tempting us to take a chance.

What happens when the storm signals are run up in the Port of New York? The captains of the great liners, knowing that they can weather any storm, go on with their plans, undisturbed. The lighter craft shift to more sheltered berths. But some skippers, urged on by the hope of bigger profits in beating their more timid competitors, put to sea with shortened sail and take a chance. The weather man, who runs up the black ball, has no way to force any one to heed the warning.

And so it is in the business world. Almost everybody in the forecasting trade is running up danger signals. The same symptoms which have been noted when previous booms approached the peak are now visible. Unless present unsound tendencies are stopped, we shall have another crash. Unfortunately there is no way of foretelling the exact date when the peak will be reached and the decline begin, and it is in the last phase of the upward swing of the Cycle that prices are highest and the prospect of spectacular profits most alluring. Just at the period when there is the greatest need of caution, there is the greatest temptation toward gambling.

Something undoubtedly can be done, along the lines suggested by the committee, to mitigate the worst evils of these cyclical fluctuations in business, but the complete control of the Business Cycle depends on a degree of common sense and devotion to the general welfare which is at least problematic. Barring "Acts of God and the King's Enemies" there is no reason why we should not maintain our present wave of prosperity a long time— except our well known "human nature". The danger signals are up on the semaphores of every observatory. Have we enough sense to heed them?

ARTHUR BULLARD.

HUMANIZING THE IMMIGRATION LAW

BY FRANCES KELLOR

I

WHAT is to be the future of the Immigration Percentage Law? Any answer to this question necessitates an examination of the fundamental qualities of its leading provisions, and a consideration of the circumstances of the present control of quotas in Europe.

The Act stipulates that but three per cent of the number of the foreign born persons of any nationality in the United States, according to the 1910 census, may be admitted in a fiscal year; that the monthly rate of entry shall not exceed 20 per cent of the total permissible; that nationalities shall be determined by countries of birth; that all alien relatives of American citizens or declarants shall be chargeable to quotas, but that preference is to be given to certain specified classes; that certain transient and other types of aliens are exempted, but not children over eighteen years of age; and that others, including resident aliens temporarily visiting their native country, are to be counted in the quota until it is exhausted, and may then enter irrespective of quota. In what way precisely did these provisions differ from those of all previous immigration laws? They repudiated the sanctity of the family as a basis of organized society, for they compelled husbands and wives, fathers, mothers, and their children to separate whenever the quotas were full for any country in which any one of them had been born; and intimated that a child over eighteen years of age occupied a different filial relationship from one a few months younger. In this respect the Act disregarded natural law, and outraged the canons of civilized society.

They disregarded established filial and economic relationships existing between foreign born citizens in America and their people in Europe except wives and minor children, and all relationships

between declarants and aliens in the United States and their families in Europe. For the Act compelled those who, in good faith, had obtained visas before the law went into operation, to be subject to the jurisdiction of the law upon arrival. The monthly rate of entry made it impossible for immigrants en route to follow the schedules arranged by their relatives in the United States. So they frequently failed to connect with their remittances, instructions, or with friends sent to meet them, which connections were of the very essence of life to them. In this respect, the Act disregarded the feelings of our own citizens and was utterly contemptuous of the family responsibilities of declarants for citizenship, and of law abiding aliens. This Act suspended the normal operation of economic law that had always governed immigrations of people, for it established a political or artificial selection. In this way it excluded the kind of immigration to which this country was accustomed, and prevented its selection according to the needs of the country.

It further deliberately ignored the results of the war in the creation of new boundaries which the President of the United States helped to establish, for it based the quotas upon the 1910 census. As twelve new States had been created and a dozen other countries had suffered changes in boundaries and populations, the apportionment of quotas to certain countries had to be "estimated", and were unscientifically computed; which fact increased the difficulties of enforcement.

But the methods of enforcing this Act were also a departure from those used in previous immigration laws. It was pointed out to Congress before the passage of the Act that the control of quotas must take place in Europe, if American harbors were not to be flooded with miserable human beings, and that adequate time must be allowed to organize machinery for this purpose. Congress refused to listen to these suggestions, but insisted that the law take effect within fifteen days. This allowed American officials but a few days to compile quotas, and prepare instructions which reached consular agents and steamship lines but one day before the law became effective.

But in addition to this incredibly short notice whereby transit conditions and human welfare were upset in forty-four States of

the world, no provision for enforcing the Act was made, other than to refuse admission to aliens after their arrival in American ports or upon its borders. But it was perfectly clear, with the introduction of a numerical test, that immense confusion and great hardships could be prevented only by the installation of a highly competent technical organization, equipped to collect, compile and transmit information concerning total quotas, admissions, monthly allowances, deductions, and balances, with constant corrections and adjustments, from America to European centers where immigrants were to be booked.

There was not the shadow of a doubt about the necessity for such a system to control the departure of emigrants from Europe; but dispute arose as to who should be responsible for its initiation and maintenance. The Department of Labor took the position that it could take cognizance only of arrivals, and prepare quotas, and issue regulations enforceable only in the United States, and that it would issue from time to time reports as to its action. The Department of State, when urged to instruct consular agents to limit visas to the quotas, intimated that it had no intention of performing the work of the Department of Labor, and refused to issue such instructions.

Steamship lines pointed out that they were common carriers whose business it was to transport all passengers, with steamship tickets, and whose papers were in order, who applied to them for passage; and that in case the alien was rejected they were under obligation to return him. They contended that they had neither facilities nor authority to stop or to hold such passengers in Europe.

The emigrant, caught in the net of confusion and uncertainty, was powerless, without advice, to go forward, to retrace his steps, or even stay where the Act had stopped him. European State governments were as befuddled as the emigrant and were afraid that any action on their part taken to relieve the situation might be misinterpreted in the United States.

Here, then, was a law that revised American tradition and established a new policy; that separated families and disrupted relations between American citizens and their relatives in Europe; that substituted artificial selection for the operation of economic