introduction 
9 
(e) Labor organizations. Have the immigrants 
strengthened or weakened the labor organizations, and 
has the effect upon them been beneficial or injurious 
to the wage-earning classes? 
(/) The standard of living. At the base of every 
civilization stand the ideals of the people and their 
standards of living. The standard of living has so 
profound an influence upon the probability of the at 
tainment of many ideals that it is to be considered pos 
sibly the most fundamental factor in determining the 
quality of the country’s civilization. While one may 
well agree with James Russell Lowell, that “material 
success is good, but only as the necessary preliminary 
to better things,” it is impossible to deny the fact that 
material success is often, if not always, a preliminary 
that is absolutely necessary to better things, so far as 
the question concerns development of mental char 
acteristics, and perhaps also the modification of moral 
and social institutions. 
Need of Impartial Study of Remedies 
If the facts relative to immigration, which are now 
available, show such injurious effects upon Ameri 
can standards of civilization as reasonably to awaken 
a fear regarding the stability or progress of the best 
°f those institutions, it is clearly the duty of every 
citizen to face, clear-eyed, boldly, these facts. It is 
no less his duty to judge, not sentimentally, but 
sanely, wisely and sympathetically, those condi 
tions, and to determine what are the wisest remedies 
for the evils, and what are the practicable measures 
to be taken to establish and to secure for the future 
the maintenance and progress of our civilization.