engage in the lowest kind of day labor with these new elements of the population; he was even more unwilling to bring sons and daughters into the world to enter into that competition. For the first time in our history, the people of the free States became divided into classes. Those classes were natives and foreigners. Politically, the distinction had only a certain force, which yielded more or less readily under partisan pressure; but socially and industrially that distinction has been a tremendous power, and its chief effects have been wrought upon population. Neither the social companionship nor the industrial competition of the foreigner has, broadly speaking, been welcome to the native.

It hardly needs to be said that the foregoing descriptions are not intended to apply to all of the vast body of immigrants during this period. Thousands came over from good homes; many had had all the advantages of education and culture; some possessed the highest qualities of manhood and citizenship.

But let us proceed with the census. By 1860 the causes operating to reduce the growth of the native element, to which had then manifestly been added the force of important changes in the manner of living, the introduction of more luxurious habits, the influence of city life, and the custom of "boarding,"

had reached such a height as, in spite of a still-increasing immigration, to leave the population of the country 310,503 below the estimate. The fearful losses of the Civil War and the rapid extension of habits unfavorable to increase of numbers, make any further use of Watson's computations uninstructive; yet still the great fact protrudes through all the subsequent history of our population, that the more rapidly foreigners came into the United States, the smaller was the rate of increase, not merely among the native population separately, but throughout the population of the country, as a whole, including the foreigners. The climax of this movement was reached when, during the decade 1880-1890, the foreign arrivals rose to the monstrous total of five and a quarter millions (twice what had ever before been known), while the population, even including this enormous reënforcement, increased more slowly than in any other period of our history, except, possibly, that of the great Civil War.

If the foregoing views are true, or contain any considerable degree of truth, foreign immigration into this country has, from the time it first assumed large proportions, amounted, not to a reënforcement of our population, but to a replacement of native by foreign stock. That if the foreigners had not come, the native element would long have filled the places the foreigners usurped, I entertain not a doubt. The competency of the American stock to do this it would be absurd to question, in the face of such a record as that for 1790-1830. During the period from 1830-1860 the material conditions of existence in this country were continually becoming more and more favorable to the increase of population from domestic sources. The old man-slaughtering medicine was being driven out of civilized communities; houses were becoming larger; the food and clothing of the people were becoming ampler and better. Nor was the cause which, about 1840 or 1850, began to retard the growth of population here, to be found in the climate. . . . The climate of the United States has been benign enough to enable us to take the English shorthorn and greatly to improve it, as the reëxportation of that animal to England at monstrous prices abundantly proves; to take the English race horse and to improve him to a degree of which the startling victories of Parole, Iroquois, and Foxhall afford but a suggestion; to take the English man and to improve him too, adding agility to his strength, making his eye keener and his hand steadier, so that in rowing, in riding, in shooting, and in boxing, the American of pure English stock is to-day the better animal. Whatever were the causes which checked the growth of the native population, they were neither physiological nor climatic. They were mainly social and economic; and chief among them was the access of vast hordes of foreign immigrants, bringing with them a standard of living at which our own people revolted.

340.

CHAPTER VIII

ASSIMILATION OF THE IMMIGRANT

Is immigration swamping America? 330. - Economic interests, 331.- Conflicting fears and hopes, 332.- The cost of exclusion, 333. — Amalgamation, 333.The social barrier, 334. — Race prejudice, 334. — Assimilation inevitable, 336. — American influence preponderant, 336.- The unassimilated, 337. — The second generation, 337. Should they learn English only? 339.- Parochial schools, The intoxication of making money, 343.- Democracy vs. the melting pot, Unity of national spirit dependent upon like-mindedness, 344. - Ethnic segregation, 346. – "Americanization," 347. — Ethnic dualism vs. economic dualism, 351. Forces for and against assimilation, 358. Nationalistic groupconsciousness, 359. — Disappearance of the old unity of American spirit, 365. — Is assimilation possible or desirable? 366.

344

[Students of the immigration problem may for some purposes be divided into two groups, those who consider the main practical question to be the distribution and assimilation of immigrants after their arrival in this country, and those whose studies lead them to the conclusion that, however important the task of assimilation, it is made ever more difficult and increasingly less possible of accomplishment unless an effective check is placed upon the numbers of aliens coming to our shores. Those who emphasize the duty of distribution and assimilation are as a rule not advocates of the restriction of immigration. It is interesting to note that they are often women, or men of foreign birth or parentage, students who in one way or another have come into intimate personal contact with immigrants, either in social work or study abroad, and whose sympathies for the immigrant as a person are therefore keen and active. It is possible that the advocates of restriction, in their realization of the economic forces operative in the long run under unrestricted immigration to bring this country to the old-world level, are sometimes lacking in a vivid sympathy for the oppressed foreigner or the trials of the excluded alien turned back from Ellis Island. On the other hand

it is a question whether the more sympathetic students do not to some extent, in their realization of the specific evils of the present immigrant traffic, lose sight of the much greater evils possibly in store for the future inhabitants of this country, should the present nonrestrictive policy be persisted in. Meanwhile the fact that here and there a writer from one or another of the new immigrant stocks is rising to question the need of assimilation is not without significance.]

29. THE QUESTION OF ASSIMILATION1

Many Americans feel bitterly that this [American] unity is now seriously threatened by the increasing variety and number of the new contingents of immigrants. In the five-year period following 1900, the immigration other than English and English-speaking amounted to one in twenty of the population of 1900.2 Moreover, the foreign population is known to multiply faster than the native element, at least in parts of the country where the data have been collected, and perhaps generally. It is therefore clear that as long as conditions remain unchanged, the relative amount of old American stock must progressively lessen.

We say, as long as conditions remain the same, but any of these conditions may change. For instance, on the one hand the volume of immigration may fall off from economic causes, or it may be checked by American action. On the other, the foreign element may reduce its rate of multiplication to the American rate or less as it becomes Americanized. As regards the volume of immigration, it is obvious that we need not stand passive, as before an uncontrollable natural phenomenon. It stands open to us to permit or refuse admission to the country.

Doubtless the most important issue involved is the racial one. But here we are paralyzed by our comprehensive ignorance of the actual results of race crossings. Those who should be expert give the most contrary opinions. "Only pure races are strong."

1 By Emily Greene Balch. Adapted from Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens, pp. 400425. Charities Publication Committee, New York, 1910.

2 This is gross reckoning without allowance for emigrants returning to Europe.

"Only mixed races are strong." "Mixture within certain degrees of unlikeness is desirable; beyond that line, disastrous."

The investigation of the Immigration Commission under Professor Boas appears to point to an unexpected and very rapid assimilation of physical type among the children of immigrants, quite apart from racial intermixture.1

Whatever the truth as to national eugenics, in practice all other considerations are dwarfed by the economic interests involved. The question is and should be discussed in its physical, ethical, humanitarian, social, and political aspects, but it is decided, in our present stage of moral development, by bread-and-butter considerations, from the point of view of American interests. But economic interests themselves diverge and conflict. So far as the nation desires to increase national production, commercial prosperity, dividends, and rentals, so far it favors the inflow of labor to increase the product of our national "plant" of our land capital, and directing energies. On the other hand, so far as the nation desires to raise the standard of living of the mass of the citizens, to extend democracy within the country on economic and social as well as on political lines, in a word, to raise wages and increase the influence of the workingman, — so far it is opposed to the admission of new and cheaper competitors on the labor market.

Hitherto the first set of interests has prevailed, with one main exception. Where, as in the case of the Chinese, race prejudice has reënforced the economic interests of the employee, those interests have prevailed and the aliens have been excluded. Otherwise the employer's policy has prevailed, 'subject to certain modifications, to provisos as to personal character, health, etc., which are qualitatively valuable but negligible in a quantitative consideration. The same is true of the law against importing labor under contract, which modifies in the interests of the employee the terms under which immigrants may enter the country, but which is easily substantially evaded, does not necessarily cut down the number of arrivals, and is in several respects a twoedged weapon.

1 See U. S. Immigration Commission, "Report on Changes in the Bodily Form of Immigrants."