They were small numbers relative to the size of a still largely agricultural and "empty" (comparative to Europe) country, that needed lots of manual workers. even with industrialisation, manufactures provided lots of manual work for those illiterate peasants. And they had to fend for themselves.

We are no longer "empty" or agricultural or in need of manual workers, and literacy and communication skills are essential to our service economy.

And the problem isn't absorbing the numbers we have been getting, it is that we are inviting countless more in, and given Trump, we are likely to get them.