Popular Science Monthly/Volume 52/January 1898/The Foreign Element in American Civilization

by Arthur Houghton Hyde

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THE FOREIGN ELEMENT IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.

By ARTHUR HOUGHTON HYDE.

THE history of the United States, more than that of any other nation, is a history, not of wars and dynasties, but of the progress of a people. In the early days of British dependency the population of the thirteen original colonies comprised representatives of several diverse races, many of whom had sought the inhospitable shores of a new land to gain religious liberty, others to better their worldly condition, some under compulsion, yet all these heterogeneous elements became for a time amalgamated, animated with one desire and purpose—liberty, freedom from what they considered the unjust exactions of the English Government. This country occupies a remarkable position among the nations of the world; although its early citizens were principally of the so-called Anglo-Saxon race, yet there was among them a plentiful sprinkling of representatives from the Teutonic, Latin, and Celtic nations. Even in the days of its genesis it probably possessed a more heterogeneous population than any other country of the earth, and during the century and more of its development the foreign element has been an ever-increasing quantity among the inhabitants, until now we find that 14.77 per cent of the entire white population is foreign born, and 22.74 per cent more of foreign parentage. It is for these reasons a matter of some wonder that its historians have not paid more attention to the ethnic and racial composition of the population, and endeavored to ascertain what modifications these factors have produced.

Never have I found a finer appreciation of the true importance of the ethnic factor than in a recent article by Raoul de la Grasserie, in which occur passages translated as follows: "The ethnic character has a profound influence on the choice between the two modes of government. With some peoples, individual autonomy—independence of character—is strongly traced; for example, among the Germanic nations. Each one engages only his extreme exterior in society. With nations of such temperament, family life is strongly developed; the home is a sacred ark. . . .

"With some other peoples—with the Latin nations in general—it is quite different; the autonomy is less refractory; they like to live in society, and prefer to discharge the functions of thinking and wishing upon others. . . . The will not being carefully cultivated, it diminishes, and the state acts for the individual.

"It is not the race alone that has influence in this matter, but many other factors—climate, soil, religion, and time; usually all these concur in giving direction."^[1]

Nevertheless, the writer fails to reach important conclusions logically deducible from his premises, although the diverse racial composition of the nations of Europe, where it is an almost unvarying factor, can scarcely be brought into analogy with the same phenomenon in America, where it is constantly changing.

American civilization can scarcely be regarded as a native product, for it did not slowly grow up upon the soil, but was transplanted by the earlier settlers from European shores early in the seventeenth century. The progress of civilization is largely due to the evolution of thought, the passage from the less to the more complex—from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, the advance in religion, science, art, literature, liberty, which are themselves again all interdependent upon the primal factor, the evolution of thought.

Many conditions were then favorable to a rapid advance in American civilization: the colonists were in most cases men of some education, their minds were imbued with the principles of liberty, and the early fanaticism which characterized the religious refugees gradually disappeared under the influence of the new life. In Pennsylvania, which in its conception was planned as a refuge for all persecuted for religion's sake, where the greatest freedom of mind and person was enjoyed, we discover that civilization progressed most rapidly, a progress which placed her at the head of all the other colonies until the beginning of the nineteenth century. What effect, then, we must ask, has the foreign element had upon American thought, and incidentally upon the material resources of the country. To the former question history vouches no reply, and even to the latter no satisfactory answer is afforded. It is true that many writers have attributed the rapid increase of the population to the immigration movement, and this proposition, while it has been generally accepted, must be relegated to the already long list of popular prevailing fallacies; and although this movement may have been responsible for a slightly larger aggregate increase than if the natural increase had alone prevailed, it can scarcely be considered an important factor.

It is a well-known law of population that, other things being equal, the rate of natural increase of population varies in an almost inverse ratio to its density, so that as the density of the population was increased by the addition of aliens, the rate of natural increase declined, which is demonstrable from statistics furnished by the census records of this country.

Prior to 1830 the foreign arrivals constituted far less than five per cent of the entire increase, yet it was during the period from the close of the Revolutionary War to that year that the entire rate of increase was the greatest, and we witness from that time a steadily declining rate of aggregate increase and a steadily advancing rate of increase of alien arrivals; thus in the decade ending 1840 the foreign element constituted ten per cent of the entire increase, in 1860 it had risen to thirty-two per cent, and in 1890 to forty-five per cent, and while the action of the law may be slightly disturbed by the varying fecundity of the different nationalities among the alien immigrants, yet this disturbing factor is in part equated by the larger mortality usually prevailing among children of parents belonging to those races marked by the greatest fecundity.

It is my purpose in the following pages to briefly trace the immigration movement, and outline the more important developments in the nation's progress attributable to it. The early citizens of this country were, as in every other new state, a hardy race, inured to toil, unaccustomed to luxury, with little scholarship and less wealth; but with this addition, every white man was actually as well as theoretically the peer of every other citizen. There was no dominant class; there were few servants except the slaves.

Scarcely had peace been declared when the immigration movement began again, but it was not extensive, and up to 1810 the alien arrivals in this country varied from four thousand to six thousand annually. In that year, however, unfriendly relations, followed by war with Great Britain, for a time put a stop to this movement; but in 1815, a state of amity again prevailing, it resumed with increased vigor. Among the immigrant arrivals in these early days we find a large proportion of agriculturists, mechanics, and skilled laborers; the trouble of 1798 drove many of the ablest Irishmen hither, and the immigrants were usually the more intelligent and ambitious members of the middle classes. The British journals, in 1815, complain of "the ruinous drain of the most useful part of the population of the United Kingdom," and that universal panacea for all ills, social and otherwise—parliamentary action—was demanded. The skilled craftsman upon his arrival found positions of responsibility awaiting him; the native inhabitants did not have any considerable knowledge of the mechanical arts, and it therefore devolved upon the foreigner to take the position which the American was incapable of filling. The school teachers were largely recruited from the ranks of the alien; early in the century all the booksellers but two in Philadelphia were foreigners, and of the five newspapers in that city two were owned by Englishmen and two by Irishmen. With these desirable immigrants, however, began to come another class, poor and ignorant, having neither trade nor money; they became stranded in the seaboard towns, being without the means to proceed farther; some became laborers, others earned a precarious livelihood by doing a little work at intervals, but many finally became dependent upon public charity. Then it was that the delinquent classes, paupers, and petty criminals, arose and multiplied rapidly for the first time in the history of the country.

This evil might have then been almost eliminated from the population, or at least materially abated, but unfortunately the great city of Philadelphia at that time, when it most demanded prompt suppression, fostered it by well-meant but indiscriminate charity, which of course resulted in the rapid growth of a dependent and semi-criminal class. It is almost needless to point out that social evils may spread as rapidly as diseases of the flesh, and that the moral contagion is much more difficult to eradicate than the physical; and it will therefore occasion no surprise to find that pauperism and crime communicated themselves to the native element. Yet in no community exhibiting the complex organization that did this country at the beginning of the nineteenth century would an escape from this evil have been possible; the hour of its arrival might have been somewhat postponed, but the very fact of the rapid spread of the contagion is an indication of the unhealthful condition of the social fabric; of this, too, we have further evidence in the incipient rebellions which began almost immediately after the Revolution was over, and manifested a restlessness and impatience, largely on the part of the native American element, and a dissatisfaction with constituted authority.

Here a distinction is to be drawn between the development of the North and the South, and, as the latter presents few complex features and can not occupy much of the space of this article, it may as well be dealt with here. Of the original colonies, those south of the thirty-seventh parallel seem to have never attracted many aliens, although for a time in the early part of the century Alabama appears to have been a popular focal point with emigrants both from the older States and from abroad; yet this was one of the richest sections of the country, abounding in natural resources, and would have ordinarily afforded a livelihood with much less expenditure of energy than would the territory farther to the north. Perhaps the general disinclination on the part of natives of the temperate zone to settle in warm climates may have been in slight degree responsible for this state of facts, but there can be little doubt that the institution of slavery was a more serious detriment to the advancement of the South than any other cause. There had begun to grow up there an aristocracy as exclusive and as proud as that of any state in Europe, and which, in fact, dominated the whole section; the agricultural operations were carried on principally by slaves, and the landowners lived in a kind of feudal state, surrounded by a large body of dusky retainers; the remainder of the white population were poor and ignorant, exercised little more influence than did the negroes, and were looked down upon by both blacks and whites alike. Work was regarded as degrading and beneath the dignity of a gentleman, and strangers proposing to establish themselves there were looked upon with a jealous eye. All these circumstances were highly unfavorable to the establishmnt of new industries and to its industrial progress. There were no mines and manufactures, because there was no one with sufficient knowledge to conduct the operations.

We find that early in its history a certain stage of civilization was reached, for a time and in one way in advance of that of the North, due to the creation of a leisured class, but, being reached, there was no further advance, and for nearly half a century no progress was made. The war of secession and the concomitant abolition of slavery brought about in a few short years what it had taken centuries in Europe to accomplish: a hereditary servient class was raised to an equality—political and theoretical at least—with a hereditary dominant class which was by the same force rendered almost penniless. This may have proved the salvation of the South, but for a time a black pall of misery and degradation settled down upon it. There were no industries to revive, there was no all-powerful middle class; the aristocracy had been ruined, and between the two extremes there was no mean.

About the close of the first quarter of the century we discover that a servient class had also begun to be created in the North, but it was entirely distinct from that of the South; the services of its members, most of whom had sought a new world with the ulterior object of bettering their condition, were given voluntarily and for wages. A dominant class in the present condition of society appears to be necessary to the higher advances in arts and material prosperity, and with the creation of a servient class which was composed principally of aliens, a dominant class inevitably arose, which may be numbered among the earliest contributions of the foreign element to American civilization.

In 1812, at the commencement of the second British war, the state found itself in a most depressed financial condition; national and individual ruin were freely predicted, an extensive westward movement began, and that great central section of the country lying between the Ohio River and the lakes, the Mississippi and the Appalachian Mountain system, then almost a terra incognita, commenced to receive large increments in population from among these pessimistic Easterners. What the result would have been had these gaps in the population of the New England and Middle States not been filled within a few years by aliens it is hard to discern; possibly the development of this section might have been slightly delayed, although not by any means necessarily so, as a diffusion of the then existing population would otherwise inevitably have followed, doubtless with beneficial results. But it is unnecessary to here speculate upon something which never happened.

These earlier immigrants to the country were, as we have already seen, largely of the better class of mechanics and skilled laborers. The farmers constituted about a sixth of the entire alien arrivals, and the remaining five sixths usually found occupation in the towns; in fact, the growth of the urban population is closely identified with the immigration movement. In 1790 the urban population constituted but three and a third per cent of all the inhabitants, and there were only six cities with a population in excess of eight thousand; in the decade between 1810 and 1820, when, as already noted, there was a large westward movement and a decrease in immigration by reason of the war, the percentage of urban inhabitants remained unchanged, but otherwise it has increased in an almost constant progression until the decade from 1880 to 1890, during which the rate of progression advanced considerably.

The first definite statistics which we have of the immigration movement begin with the year 1820, when we find the Irish element largely predominating over all other arrivals; it is regrettable that we can not distinguish the north Irish and the south Irish, as they may be regarded as widely variant factors. It was from, among the latter that the servient class—day laborers, domestic servants, etc.—was drawn, and it was also largely from among them that the delinquent classes were recruited. In 1830 the German aliens began to constitute a considerable factor among the arriving immigrants, being in excess of those from Great Britain, but the Irish continued in the preponderancy until 1854, when they were surpassed by the Germans. The year 1847 marks the beginning of an important epoch in the history of immigration; during this year the foreign arrivals numbered 234,968, and in 1849 the number had risen to 297,024; then it advanced with startling rapidity to 460,474 in 1854, and in the following year fell off just one half. This movement was induced by three causes: the Irish famine, commercial depression in Germany, and the discovery of gold in California. That this was in part a "boom movement," and that many of the immigrants returned to their homes nourishing disappointed hopes, can not be doubted, yet, while a large number of these arrivals formed no permanent element in the American state, they served a purpose by opening up the great region to the west of the Mississippi, a land at that time almost unknown except to a few native American pioneers; in fact, it becomes apparent that in every new and unexplored section the native Americans constituted the advance guard of civilization, leaving the foreigners to come in later, when the primeval wilderness was but a tale of the past. During this period of a little over six years there crossed the borders into this country over two and a quarter millions of persons, at a time, too, when the entire population did not exceed 23,200,000; and of these alien arrivals fully eighty per cent were from Ireland and Germany. Twice have the arrivals from Germany overbalanced those of all the English-speaking people: once in 1867 to 1868, and again in 1881 to 1885. Shortly after the middle of the century the arrivals from Ireland and those from Great Britain approached an equality, and in the year 1868 the Scandinavian influx began. In the decade between 1880 and 1890 three new elements, the Russian, Austrian, and Italian, also began to arrive in considerable numbers. Since the Revolution, the English-speaking immigrants entering this country have preponderated over all others, having reached a total of 8,016,402,^[2][3] almost half of whom were Irish; those from the United Kingdom alone have numbered 6,964,815;^[4] the arrivals from Germany have been 5,003,490;^[5] from Scandinavia, 1,192,131;^[6] from Russia, 749,039;^[7] from Austria, 821,663;^[8] and from Italy, 818,011.^[9] But while the movement from the latter countries is increasing, that from' those first mentioned shows signs of diminution. From China over 300,000 persons have arrived, and from France, 388,000, but the principal movement from that country was prior to 1860, and is perhaps attributable largely to the political unrest there prevailing in the early years of the century. The total immigration has amounted to 18,476,726,^[10] the greater proportion of which have been males between the ages of fifteen and fifty years.

Previous to 1828, few children under the age of fifteen years arrived, but after this year there was a distinctive increase in the family as distinguished from the individual movement. The family movement has been much greater among the British than among the Irish—which people present the anomaly of the female emigration being generally equal to and in some years in excess of the male—but is most marked among the Germans and Austrians;^[11] while, on the other hand, from Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the Mediterranean countries of Europe it is an unimportant factor. In the case of Russia, however, a family movement of some magnitude seems to have prevailed.

Great Britain, as might be expected, has furnished more skilled craftsmen, clerks, etc., than any other country. The greatest number of farmers^[12] has come from Germany, but Scandinavia has also furnished an appreciable proportion. From Ireland have come more unskilled laborers and servants than from any other country, although Germany is a close competitor. Since the middle of the century, and even more markedly since 1880, the status of the arriving body of immigrants has, altogether, vastly deteriorated. The swarms of aliens who are generally classified as "without occupation," arriving from Italy, Poland, and Hungary, have enormously swelled this total. While it is true that the immigration statistics show a considerable number of farmers^[13] from Russia and Italy, yet these rarely continue their original occupation upon arriving in this country; in fact, a large number of them ultimately come to constitute the refuse population of our great cities.

That the foreign element has exercised an effect observable in visible and tangible results can not be doubted; it was primarily the effect of training by foreign craftsmen that the native workers have arrived at the degree of proficiency in arts, manufactures, and all industries which now distinguish them. Many aliens have fought by land and by sea in the wars in which this country has been engaged; aliens have had command of its fleets and its armies; several of the most distinguished names in the annals of American achievement claim a foreign birthplace. But must we stop here—is this all that the foreign element has done for American civilization? If so, the debt of the United States to the stranger is not great, and immigration may with good cause have restrictions placed upon it.

Scarcely were the American colonies founded when the anti-immigration sentiment began to develop. The colonies of New England and, to a lesser degree, Virginia looked with suspicion upon aliens arriving upon their shores, and for a time almost inhibited the movement. Pennsylvania and New York, on the other hand, encouraged immigration, and their more rapid progress over the first-mentioned must be generally admitted, although other factors in their advancement entered into the consideration which space will not here admit of being dwelt upon. Again, this anti-immigration sentiment has manifested itself almost continuously since 1790, sometimes actively, sometimes almost dormant, but never entirely disappearing. We have the results in the Chinese exclusion act, in the various laws now in existence imposing restrictions upon it, in the various laws now proposed, creating an educational test. Whether these measures, actual and prospective, are good or baneful I do not purpose to discuss, but shall pass to a cursory review of racial traits.

We find on comparison that a far greater proportion of the delinquent classes are found among the inhabitants of foreign birth than among those of native ancestry, and even those born in this country of alien parents furnish a larger ratio to these classes than those of purely American parentage. Of the three great elements in the foreign population represented by the Teutonic, the Celtic, and the so-called Anglo-Saxon race, the proportionate numbers furnished to these classes by the Celtic race exhibit a remarkable predominance over either of the others, and this excessive defectiveness, we discover, also extends to the offspring of Celtic parents. The Britons and Germans show little variance from each other in their contributions to these classes, and the Scandinavians exhibit a slightly higher percentage in such contributions over the two last mentioned. The other nationalities represented in the population can scarcely with fairness be drawn into the comparison on account of the recent date at which they have begun to arrive in any considerable numbers; nevertheless, the records of our criminal courts contain the names of many Italians, and already the Hungarians and Poles, the most miserable and degraded representatives of the Caucasian race who cross our borders, are largely numbered among the dependent classes. We have also to notice in these classes a much greater proportion of females to males among the foreign than among the native element. Havelock Ellis, too, has observed that the criminal instinct manifests itself with much greater frequency in the Irish woman in Great Britain than when at home, and suggests that it is due to a removal of domestic influence; his theory may perhaps be accepted as a partial explanation of a like phenomenon in this country. It is a well-recognized sociological fact that crime is much more prevalent where large aggregations of men are herded together than in the country districts, and this also must be considered in correlation with the further fact already noted that the alien population is much more largely urban than the native.

Mr. S. G. Fisher, in his work, The Making of Pennsylvania, says: "As shown by statistics, the Germans in America, in proportion to their numbers, have produced fewer remarkable and prominent men than any other division of the people. The race itself is not deficient, but when it isolates itself in an American community, it is cut off from the best development of that community, and also from its old associates in Europe, and inevitably deteriorates." Elsewhere he remarks that they are difficult of assimilation. That these statements are in part well founded may not be questioned. And with the increasing homogeneity of a people a deterioration, or at least a check to advancement, must inevitably follow, as I have already pointed out in the case of the South. But we have rid ourselves of the notion that great men make history; great men may hasten or retard a movement, but it is the larger, invincible force of popular will which to-day moves the political and social world; which has always moved it, and always will move it. It took the peasantry of Europe ten centuries to shake off the thrall of serfdom. In the eighth century no man, however great, could have freed the serfs; in the fourteenth, no man, however great, could have restrained the flow of liberalizing sentiment. The mills of God may grind slowly, and also exceedingly small; but "with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all."

The Germans form one of the best elements in the American community; clannish they may be, given to herding together, and yet, although frequently on the surface Germans even to the second and third generation, retaining forms and ceremonials of the fatherland, they are, in fact, readily assimilable. They become assimilated through American influence, newspapers, literature, society, business, and in the second generation through American birth and education, and become true Americans at heart. Their love for the fatherland has been transferred in even greater intensity to their foster land.

I have already noted the fact that the largest proportion of our delinquent classes is derived from the Celtic element. The Irishman is practically a man without a country; he owes an ill-rendered fealty to the British crown until he leaves his native island and swears allegiance to the American Government, but the oath rests lightly upon him; all the patriotism which he possesses is centered in that ill-starred rebellious dependency of Great Britain on her west. While on the surface more easily assimilable than the Teuton because he speaks the language of his adopted country, he is first an Irishman,^[14] then an American, and such only so far as it is an America of the green flag. A distinction must, however, as already observed, be drawn between the natives of the north and those of the south of Ireland—the Saxon Ulsterites and the Celts. From the latter is derived the large proportion of our delinquent classes; the Molly Maguires were Irishmen, and it is the Irish who have had the largest share in the corruption of our governmental institutions. The Ulsterites, on the contrary, being principally of Scotch and English stock, partake of the characteristics which mark the British alien in America.

It is unfortunate that a few unassimilable Englishmen, who never had any intention of becoming assimilated, and who are at all times aggressively British, should have conveyed the impression that the British immigrant does not make a good citizen. On the contrary, there are to-day over a million people in all parts of this country born in Britain, honest, frugal, hard-working, and industrious, fulfilling by reason of their close affiliations with the people of the United States all the requirements of the best American citizen.

There are, as we know, other races, Latin and Slavonic, wretched and ignorant, the superlatively low, the refuse of civilization, unaccustomed to freedom, unacquainted with equality; they have the privilege after a brief period of residence of exercising all the rights of native-born citizens, but only value the franchise at the pecuniary worth, or vote blindly under the direction of some corrupt demagogue. Coming from a condition bordering upon serfdom, it will be found that they are almost unassimilable, in the first generations at least; incapable of distinguishing liberty from anarchy, these people—principally Russians, Poles, Hungarians, and Italians—are landed on these shores in numbers probably in excess of fifty thousand a year.

The anarchist and ultra-socialist parties do not, as is commonly supposed, derive their chief support from the Teutonic element; their ranks are rather recruited from among these members of the Semitic and Slavonic races. At the late presidential election the socialist vote in New York city was 7,326, an increase of about fourteen hundred over that polled in 1892. Doubtless, as the socialists claim, the increase would have been much more considerable had not the silver question for the time taken precedence of all other issues, although the socialist propaganda publicly declared against free silver. In 1895 the party polled 10,993 votes. The significant feature of the situation, however, is the marked increase in the party's vote in the ninth congressional district, situated on the east side of the city, south of Stanton Street. Here more than half the socialist vote was polled. It is here that the socialists expect to elect, within a few years, an assemblyman to represent them at Albany; it is from this district that they hope ultimately to send a congressman to Washington. In the twelfth assembly district, constituting a part of this congressional district, the result of the recent election was tabulated as follows: Tammany (Democrat), 2,590; Republican, 2,257; Socialist, 1,284. It is in this section of the city that the socialists are centralizing, that the most active party leaders are colonizing. Such imperfect statistics as are available reveal the fact that the Hungarian, Polish, and Russian population stands in the ratio of 5:1 to that of all other nationalities. Many of the first three named peoples are not yet voters, but each year the naturalization mill turns them out by thousands as free electors, after they have solemnly sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Yet the socialist ideals are entirely at variance with the true theory of American government as conceived by the early makers of the American state. The question, then, confronting us is whether the process of assimilation or the growth of socialism will be the most rapid.

I had thought to find every advance made in civilization distinctively associated with a certain race or races, and while the characteristics of many races have become implanted in and integral parts of the national civilization, yet I am obliged to admit after deep reflection that such advances are due in greatest part not to the individual or the race, but to the entire foreign element. When the number of immigrants was comparatively small they became quickly amalgamated with the native population, but as the numbers increased, progress in this direction was naturally slower, yet in no other country has the process been carried on so quickly and thoroughly in proportion to the amount of material to be acted upon as in the United States. As the national spirit acts upon the foreign element, so the foreign element reacts upon American civilization: there results one heterogeneous whole, and this increased heterogeneity arising from an admixture of nationalities is, as already intimated, the primal cause of American progress. It is a little remarkable, however, that the application of this principle should have almost escaped the attention of every writer upon this subject, or been lightly passed over by them. Mr. Giddings, whose work on sociology is the only one based upon American inductions, scarcely notices it; and his associate, Mr. Mayo-Smith, while he has examined the subject of immigration extensively, appears to have entirely overlooked the real value of the foreign element.

It is in the purely American commonwealths that civilization is to-day the lowest; the coast States, from Virginia to Louisiana, have a foreign population of only 1.61 per cent,^[15] yet it is here that the illiteracy is greatest, and that there is least commercial and industrial progress. It is this section, too, which produces the clay-eater and "cracker," native-born white American citizens, yet so degraded that continental Europe can scarcely show a lower type of man. It was the solid American vote of the South which at the late election was cast for Bryanism, repudiation, social upheaval, and all else that that name implies. North Carolina, which does not contain within its borders a single town having a population in excess of twenty-five thousand persons, has the highest degree of illiteracy among its white inhabitants, and the smallest proportion of foreign population of any State in the Union. Lest it should be imagined, however, that it is the alien which has the effect of reducing the aggregate illiteracy in the Northern and Western States, it may be remarked that the percentage of illiteracy is almost invariably higher among the foreign than among the native element.

It has already been pointed out that it was the civil war and slavery which in part caused a regression in Southern civilization of at least a quarter of a century, but it will be found that this misfortune was closely associated with the homogeneousness of the people and the absence of a foreign element. In 1884 the Southern Immigration Society met at Nashville. In the report of its proceedings appeared this significant statement: "The immigration movement is to be the great revolutionary movement in the political economy of the South." The society has probably ceased to exist, but these words have lived and borne fruit. There is to-day a movement toward the South, partially from abroad, more from the North, but introducing at least a new element—not very great, perhaps, yet still perceptible, not only in a changing population, but also in results, in a revival of industry, in a decrease of illiteracy.

Louisiana stands alone; already a well-established colony possessed of a high degree of civilization borrowed from France when acquired by the United States, there exist so many different factors in her development scarcely relevant to this article that I may not examine them here. The agricultural depression and other causes which have given rise to militant populism in the West have received their full share of attention from numerous writers, and it will therefore suffice to say that they do not appear to be in any way associated with the foreign element.

I have only been able in this article to give a rough outline of the effects which the alien has wrought on the civilization of the United States; much of consequence has been left unsaid, many important stages of development omitted. I can at most claim to have drawn attention to some important facts hitherto overlooked, and to have pointed out a direction which future investigation may follow in an endeavor to solve the great immigration problem.

 

1. Revue Internationale de Sociologie, vol. iv, p. 888.
2. Since July 1, 1885, no record has been keep of immigrants from British North America.
3. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
4. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
5. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
6. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
7. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
8. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
9. These returns are corrected to September 30, 1897. The figures include all alien passengers to December 31, 1867, and immigrants only from that time to the first-mentioned dated. Prior to 1820 no records were kept of the immigrant arrivals, and my estimate can be only approximately correct.
10. See note (2) on page 393.
11. Not including the Hungarians, among whom the proportion is very small.
12. The word farmer is used synonymously with "agricultural laborer," as employed in the reports of the Commissioner of Immigration, although as a matter of fact many of those so classed have scarcely a knowledge of the rudimentary principles of farming, and would be incapable of conducting the most ordinary agricultural operations.
13. See above note.
14. The great pilgrimage which will be made to Ireland during the coming summer by thousands of American citizens of Celtic extraction to celebrate the centenary of 1798 furnishes us with one demonstration of this proposition.
15. United States census, 1890.