Scarcely any other three words form a phrase freighted with meaning so vital to our national life. Here is the convergence of streams of humanity flowing from the ends of the world. Through these gateways more than 33,000,000 aliens have come to our shores. Much that they have brought has been antagonistic to the spirit and purpose of our institutions, but their great contribution has been the world's wealth of physical strength, intellectual power, spiritual vigor, religious fervor and the incarnation of the yearning passion of the soul for liberty and life. It is our duty to recognize the value of their offering in terms of manhood and womanhood and not merely in terms of finance and business, and to so discharge the responsibility involved in opening our gates, as to help them to properly appreciate their privilege and opportunity, and to make possible the realization of their ideals.

Dr. Steiner says, "It is a big task, the biggest and most difficult and yet most rewarding task the Church has to face."

The Immigrant's Welcome

The Federal authorities endeavor to receive the immigrant with a genuinely humane welcome. Some of our ports have not buildings properly equipped for receiving and examining immigrants and caring for the detained. Occasionally there are rumors of instances of harsh treatment on the part of the Government. For some of these there is doubtless occasion, but one who has the opportunity to see the Ports of Entry service in all its phases through a series of months, will be convinced that honesty, carefulness and kindness characterize the method and manner of the Government officials and employees, and that nowhere else is the immigrant received more humanely and treated more kindly and courteously than at our Ports of Entry.

Dr. Frederic C. Howe, Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York, recently said, "Ellis Island is public property and those of us who are over there are public servants. We have made provisions at Ellis Island so that every man, woman or child in the United States can participate in its administration. We did that through inviting suggestions, criticisms, complaints. We believe the best curative of disease is sunlight, and the sunlight that we are aiming to turn on Ellis Island is the sunlight of as many human eyes as will turn themselves on that station with their suggestions or complaints. I invite you to come to Ellis Island, to see the station and to examine it, to meet your friends and to aid the six hundred men over there in the Government employ in making Ellis Island a place we all love."

Our Missionaries

No part of the immigrant welcome service is more important than that which is done by the missionaries. Their purpose is primarily to carry the gospel story of salvation and good cheer. "Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy" is the message of the Ports of Entry missionary. This work, however, combines regard for spiritual life and material welfare. It must be humanitarian and philanthropic service of a very practical sort. It is the cup of water "In His name" given with the personal touch of one of His disciples.

On page 18 will be found a list of other Societies and Organizations engaged in this immigrant welcome service.

The Home Missions Council
and
Council of Women for Home Missions

At the annual meeting, January 12, 1915, the Committee on Immigrant Work reported—"We are confirmed by Dr. Selden's brief study and by all that we have seen and heard during the year in the opinion expressed in our last report, as follows:

"If the Council desires to do the far-visioned thing, based on the broad and stable principles which should govern the King's business, let it lay hands upon the strongest available man and put him at the task of inquiry, of leadership, of unification, of inspiration, beginning at the port of entry and gradually extending his knowledge and influence until he stands at the center of the whole field of our service in alien tongues."

"We do not, however, venture at this time to suggest a program so elaborate nor a task so comprehensive for the Council's representative. We review in effect our recommendation of last year that the Council proceed conservatively and that effort for the coming year be limited in the main to the ports of entry. The relatively small volume of immigration now coming in, while making less immediate demands upon us, affords peculiar advantages for study of the problems involved, for conference with Government officials, and for development, readjustment and organization of the missionary force. At the end of a year of inquiry and effort along these lines, having all the time in view the larger field of our work across the country, your Committee hopes to be able to report substantial progress and to suggest how further to profit by the ground gained in the inquiries of last year and the year to come."

"Your Committee is glad to be able to announce that the Council of Women for Home Missions has been increasingly interested in the matter under discussion and has recommended to its constituent bodies that they assume one-third of the expense of any plan adopted for the coming year."

At this meeting the following recommendation of the Business Committee was adopted, "That the Council, in cooperation with the Council of Women for Home Missions, ask the Rev. Joseph E. Perry, Ph.D., to act as representative of the two Councils at ports of entry, for the year beginning January 15, 1915."

The task of directing the work of the representative of the two Councils at the Ports of Entry was given to a "Committee of Six" composed of three persons chosen from the "Immigrant Work Committee" of the Home Missions Council, and three from the "Committee of Missionary Interests Among the Immigrants" of the Council of Women.

In accordance with the policy and program proposed by the "Committee of Six" the time of the secretary was spent mainly in touch with the missionary work and workers at the Ports of Entry in Philadelphia, Boston and Ellis Island. Conferences were held with representatives of the Federal Government and agents and workers of various societies working with the Immigrant, including the Commissioners and Assistant Commissioners at the Ports mentioned, Mr. Green of the Federal Information Bureau, representatives of the Y. M. C. A., and Y. W. C. A. City and International Committees, the W. C. T. U., the Committee for Immigrants of America, the North American Civic League, the Travelers' Aid, the Immigrant Guide and Transfer Agency, and with missionaries working at these Ports.

These interviews and conferences revealed:

1. The fact that organization and cooperation in this work is almost universally regarded as essential to the permanent establishment of any large service for the Immigrant, and especially is this true of the missionary work. It is quite generally regarded that lack of system is a great hindrance to the comprehensive effectiveness of this very important phase of the service rendered for the arriving Immigrant.

2. All other Societies and Agencies have rather definitely systematized their work. This fact appeals to the Government officials and enables these Societies to have recognition and consideration by Federal and Municipal authorities and other agencies interested in the formation of any comprehensive scheme for the protection of the Immigrant.

3. In every Port the officials bear fine testimony to the very useful service rendered by the Christian missionaries. But even so their estimate is based on the social and humanitarian side of the work, and not on the spiritual phase of their service.

4. If the Christian missionaries and the religious workers were withdrawn from this service at the Ports of Entry, it would be like withdrawing the sun from the heavens.

The activities involved in this service are as varied as the duties of a missionary in any other field of work. They must clothe the naked, visit the sick, comfort the sorrowing, cheer the despondent, give courage to the hesitating, frightened stranger, care for the dying, and sometimes minister at the burial service. They read to the illiterate, write letters and supply papers and literature. Indeed, they must be voice, ears, hands and feet; even heart and soul to hundreds and thousands of these children from the old world, now babes in a new life.

The true spirit of harmony, brotherly kindness, and heart sympathy filled with the spirit of power of Christian love, characterizes their work. Nothing else could fulfil its mission. It is also very evident that the full potential value of this work has not yet been actualized. This part of the missionary service of the Christian Church may be made a much more forceful and fruitful agency in the work of the Kingdom. It ought to be a source and center of greater power in the Home missionary work of our entire country, and can be made an agency of power in our Foreign missionary work. To realize the full measure of the possible power and usefulness of this branch of missionary work, is the central purpose of our task. To accomplish this purpose it was evident that our missionary work should be organized in some comprehensive and definite scheme that would unite practically all the religious forces and represent to the immigrant the heart and spirit of American Christian sentiment, and that would combine in a practical way the work of all Ports of Entry, and also vitally relate this work to all immigrant work inland, aiding and being supplemented by such work. In this way also our missionary work could be related readily to all civic and philanthropic immigrant work in any city or community. The adoption of such plan, because of its being interdenominational in principle and having unselfish ideals, and being practical and comprehensive in its working, would commend itself to the Federal, Civic and Municipal Government authorities. It will commend itself also to the religious communities and societies for the same reasons, and also because of a possible lessening of expense, and of securing larger and more permanent results for the effort and money expended.

A plan of organization was presented by the secretary to the Committee of Six, which was adopted by them and referred to the missionaries at Ellis Island for their consideration. This proposition provided for the appointment of certain committees on the different departments of the missionary work, and for conferences of workers and for relating the work to that of other Ports of Entry, and for uniting the port missionary work to the missionary work inland.