Review of Immigration Restriction By Roy L. Garis. and The Polish Peasant in Europe and America by William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki.
Carl J. Friedrich
Immigration Restriction, A Study of the Opposition to and Regulation of Immigration into the United States, by Roy L. Garis (Macmillan Company, pp. 376), gives an excellent outline of the various legislative enactments which have dealt with this problem and with their administration. Professor Garis treats the question in historical fashion, showing that immigration restriction comes down to us from colonial days. He also gives the arguments which led public opinion to demand the passage of these different immigration laws, but does not try to pass upon their merits. The author does not offer any solution of his own, but there is no doubt that he favors restriction of some sort. The book, as the title says, is a study, not a piece of propaganda. Another aspect of the same problem is found in The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, by W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki (Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 250). The authors seem to have studied the Poles in Chicago and nowhere else in America. They have delved into the records of the Chicago Legal Aid Society and the Juvenile Court of Cook County and set forth case after case full of filth. The book seems
(217) inclined to disregard the Poles who do not live in Chicago and who do not get into trouble; the result of which is that the book proves nothing.
C J F
