THE CAUSES OF IMMIGRATION 
13 
from which more than 80 per cent, of our present 
immigrants are coming, are indeed very low as com 
pared with those in the United States—often not 
over one-third as much. Moreover, the assertion 
often made that, owing to lower prices in Europe, 
the low wages will furnish practically as good living 
conditions as those in the United States is a mistaken 
one. While the peasants or workmen may live on 
those wages, the standard is far below that of the 
United States as regards houses, which are often 
mere huts with earth floors; or clothing, which is 
scant or coarse as compared with that of the cor 
responding classes in the United States; or food, in 
many cases the people being rarely able to afford any 
food but the simplest vegetables, meat being tasted 
only on an occasional feast day, or among the better 
classes perhaps on Sundays. 
It is to improve these conditions that most of the 
immigrants leave their country, often with the thought 
of making a home in the new country to which they 
can later bring their families, if they are unable to 
take their families with them. But often, too, they 
take the risk of breaking up their homes temporarily 
with the thought that by rigid economy and hard 
work for three to five years in the United States, 
they can send enough money home to purchase land, 
so that they may improve decidedly their economic 
and likewise their social status in the home country, 
and become, instead of mere laborers, peasant pro 
prietors, with the opportunity of placing their chil 
dren in a class distinctly above their own.