Chapter I: Preface

"Immigration," said to me a distinguished social worker and idealist, "is a wind that blows democratic ideas throughout the world. In a Siberian hut from which four sons had gone forth to America to seek their fortune, I saw tacked up a portrait of Lincoln cut from a New York newspaper. Even there they knew what Lincoln stood for and loved him. The return flow of letters and people from this country is sending an electric thrill through dwarfed, despairing sections of humanity. The money and leaders that come back to these down-trodden peoples inspire in them a great impulse toward liberty and democracy and progress. Time-hallowed Old-World oppressions and exploitations that might have lasted for generations will perish in our time, thanks to the diffusion by immigrants of American ideas of freedom and opportunity."

Rapt in these visions of benefit to belated humanity, my friend refused to consider any possible harm of immigration to this country. He did not doubt it so much as ignore it. How should the well-being of a nation be balanced against a blessing to humanity?

"Think what American chances mean to these poor people!" urged a large-hearted woman in settlement work. "Thousands make shipwreck, other thousands are disappointed, but tens of thousands do realize something of the better, larger life they had dreamed of. Who would exclude any of them if he but knew what a land of promise America is to the poor of other lands?" Her sympathy with the visible alien at the gate was so keen that she had no feeling for the invisible children of _our_ poor, who will find the chances gone, nor for those at the gate of the To-be, who might have been born, but will not be.

I am not of those who consider humanity and forget the nation, who pity the living but not the unborn. To me, those who are to come after us stretch forth beseeching hands as well as the masses on the other side of the globe. Nor do I regard America as something to be spent quickly and cheerfully for the benefit of pent-up millions in the backward lands. What if we become crowded without their ceasing to be so? I regard it as a nation whose future may be of unspeakable value to the rest of mankind, provided that the easier conditions of life here be made permanent by high standards of living, institutions and ideals, which finally may be appropriated by all men. We could have helped the Chinese a little by letting their surplus millions swarm in upon us a generation ago; but we have helped them infinitely more by protecting our standards and having something worth their copying when the time came.

EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS.

The University of Wisconsin,
Madison, Wisconsin,
September, 1914.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

THE ORIGINAL MAKE-UP OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 3

Traits of the Puritan stock--Elements in the peopling
of Virginia--The indentured servants and convicts--Purification
by free land--The Huguenots--The Germans--The Scotch-Irish--
Ruling motives in the peopling of the New World--Selective
agencies--The toll of the sea--The sifting by the wilderness--
The impress of the frontier--How an American Breed arose--Its
traits.

CHAPTER II

THE CELTIC IRISH 24

The great lull--The Hibernian tide--Why it has run low--Effects
on Ireland--Irish-Americans in the struggle for existence--Their
improvidence and unthrift--Why they lacked the economic virtues--
Drink their worst foe--Their small criminality--Loyalty to wife
and child--Their occupational preferences--Their rapid rise--Their
rank in intellectual contribution--Celtic traits--Place of the
Irish in American society.

CHAPTER III

THE GERMANS 46

Volume and causes of the German freshet--Why it has
ceased--Distribution of the Germans in America--_Deutschtum_
vs. assimilation--The "Forty-eighters"--Influence
of the Germans on our farming, on our drinking,
on our attitude toward recreation--Political tendencies
of German voters--The Germans as pathbreakers
for intellectual liberty--Their success in the struggle for
existence--Moderation in alcoholism and in crime--Preferred
occupations--Teutonic traits--Effect of the German
infusion on the temper of the American people.

CHAPTER IV

THE SCANDINAVIANS 7

The size of the Scandinavian wave--Distribution of this
element in the United States--Social characteristics--Crime
and alcoholism--Occupational choices--Readiness of assimilation--
Reaction to America--National contrasts among Scandinavians--
Intellectual rating--Race traits--Moral and political
significance of the Scandinavians.

CHAPTER V

THE ITALIANS 95

Causes of the Italian outflow--Distribution of Italians--Social
characteristics--Broad contrast between North Italians and South
Italians--Occupations--Agricultural settlements--Freedom from
alcoholism--Gaming--Addiction to violence--Camorra and Mafia in
America--Difficulties in dealing with Italian immigrants--Their
mental rating--Traits of character--The Italians as a social
element.

CHAPTER VI

THE SLAVS 120

Place of the Slavs in history--Lateness of their awakening--Size
of the Slav groups in America--Occupational tendencies of the
Slavic immigrants--Distribution--Alcoholism--Criminality--
Subjection of women--Extraordinary fecundity--Displacement of
other elements--Resistance to Americanization--Clannishness--
Social characteristics of Slav settlements--Industrial
segregation--Mental rating--Prospects of Slavic immigration.

CHAPTER VII

THE EAST EUROPEAN HEBREWS 143

One-fifth of the Hebrew race in America--"The Promised
Land"--Hebrew interest in free immigration--Waves
of Russo-Hebrew immigration--Occupational preferences--Morals--
Crime--Race traits--Intellectuality--Persistence of will--Growth
of Anti-Semitism in America--Causes--Prospects--Why America is
a powerful solvent of Judaism--Signs of Assimilation.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LESSER IMMIGRANT GROUPS 168

African, Saracen and Mongolian blood in our immigrants--The
Finns--Motives and characteristics--Political
aptitude--Patriotism--The Magyars--Social condition
and traits--The Portuguese--Origin and volume of the
Portuguese influx--Distribution--Industrial and social
characteristics--Resistance to assimilation--The Greeks--
Immigrationfrom Greece purely economic--Distribution
and occupational preferences--Serfdom of Greek
bootblacks--The Levantines--Racial and social characteristics.

CHAPTER IX

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF IMMIGRATION 195

Stimulators of migration--The commercial interests behind
the movement--The new immigrant as an industrial
tool--How tariff protection coupled with the open
door augment the manufacturer's profits--Effect of the
new immigration upon the cost of living, upon agricultural
methods--Shall the penniless immigrant be helped
to get upon the land--The utilization of foreign labor
to break strikes--The foreign laborer as a hindrance to
unionism--Effect upon wages and conditions--Is the
foreigner indispensable--Immigrant women doing men's
work--Fate of the displaced American--Immigration and
crises--The inevitable rise of social pressure--Who bears
the brunt?

CHAPTER X

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION 228

Immigration and social atavism--Community reversions
to the Middle Ages--Immigrant illiteracy and ignorance--New
readers of the yellow press--The spread of white
peonage--Caste cleavage--Attitude of the foreign-born
toward the claims of women--Split-family immigration
and the social evil--How immigration makes acute the
housing problem--Why overgrown cities--Immigrants
who discount our charities--The wayward child of the
immigrant--Insanity among the foreign-born--Obstructions
to the operation of the public school--Signs of
social decline--Peasantism vs. social progress.

CHAPTER XI

IMMIGRANTS IN POLITICS 259

The Hibernian domination of Northern cities--Political
psychology of the Celts--Practical consequences--Immigration
as foe to party traditionalism--Citizenship of
the new immigrants compared with the old--Accumulation
of voteless men--How this lessens the political
strength of labor--Psychology of the ignorant naturalized
immigrants--How the cunning boss acquires "influence"--Feudal
relation between the boss and his humble
constituents--Naturalization frauds--The Tammany way--The
political machine--The liquor interest and the foreign-born
voter--The foreign press in politics--The cost
of losing political like-mindedness--Political mysticism
vs. common sense.

CHAPTER XII

AMERICAN BLOOD AND IMMIGRANT BLOOD 282

Submergence of the pioneering breed--Growing heterogeneity--
Primitive types among the foreign-born--How immigration will
affect good looks in this country--Effect of crossing on
personal beauty--Stature and physique of the newer immigrants--
Do they revitalize the American people--Race morals of the
South European stocks--Are the immigrants good samples of their
own people--Appraisal of the different ethnic strains in the
American people--Rating of present immigrant streams--How
immigration has affected the fecundity of Americans--Evading
a degrading competition by race suicide--The triumph of the
low-standard elements over the high-standard elements.