house of correction an American seaman, (or a person who pretended to be,) who from their account seemed to be both pauper and rogue. They were desirous of being rid of him, and kindly offered to place him at my disposal. Although he did not bid fair to be a very valuable acquisition, I wrote back that he might be sent to London, where, if he was a sailor, he could be shipped by the American Consul to the United States, if not, to be disposed of in some other way. I ventured to add the suggestion, that if her Majesty's Minister at Washington were applied to in a similar way by the overseers of the poor and wardens of the prisons in the United States, he would be pretty busily occupied. But I really felt pleased, at a time when my own little State of Massachusetts was assisting from ten to twelve thousand destitute British subjects annually, to be able to relieve the British empire, on which the sun never sets, of the only American pauper quartered upon it.

THE

IMMIGRATION A REVIEW1

HENRY CABOT LODGE, LL.D.

'HERE is nothing so dry as statistics, nothing which falls so dully on the listening ear as the recitation of many figures, not figures of speech but of enumeration. It is also very difficult to grasp the important statistics by merely hearing them read, and yet it is impossible to deal with the question of immigration without them. To comprehend the subject at all the very first step is to realize what the number of immigrants to this country has been, and, further, to trace by the figures the changes which have occurred in the character and origin of the immigration. I have here a table which shows the number of immigrants to this country during the past forty years, that is, since the close of the Civil War, and I also have tables showing the countries from which the immigrants come and which reveal the changes of nationality, or rather the change in the proportion of the nationalities of which our immigration has been composed. I will not read to you these long lists of figures because it would simply be confusing and they can really only be properly studied in detail when printed, as I hope they may be. I shall confine myself to an analysis of them by which you will be enabled to understand what they signify. In the first place, the number of foreign immigrants to this country during the past forty years reaches the enormous total of 19,001,195. Since the formation of the Government, twenty-four millions of people, speaking in round numbers, have come into the United States as immigrants, and of that number, still speaking in round numbers, twentytwo millions have come from Europe. Of the twenty-two millions from Europe, seven and a half millions were from the United Kingdom, over four millions of these being from Ireland, and nearly three millions from England; over five millions were from Germany, and nearly a million and a half were from Norway

1 Reprinted from address delivered at Boston City Club, March 20, 1900.

and Sweden, two and one half millions each from AustriaHungary and Italy, and two millions from Russia, including Poland.

During the decade 1880-1890 there was for the first time large immigration from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.

In the decade 1890-1900 there was a marked reduction in arrivals from Germany, Ireland, England, Scotland, and Norway and Sweden, and great increase from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.

Immigration from France, never large (average about five thousand a year), decreased in the decade 1890-1900, but has since increased.

The first point to be observed here is the size of this huge total of nineteen millions. It is safe to say that there has never been in the history of the world such a movement of peoples as these figures represent. Neither ancient nor modern history discloses any such migration as this. The great influx of barbarians into Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, so far as we can determine from all extant accounts, was small compared to the immigration to this country within the lifetime of a single generation. Moreover, the largest movements, numerically speaking, at the time of the dissolution of the Roman Empire, were flung back by the forcible resistance of the people of Europe, where Romans and Teutons united to arrest the advance of Huns, Tartars, and Scythians. These were all, like our own, voluntary migrations, although, unlike ours, they were armed invaders. instead of peaceful citizens. On the other hand, there is certainly no record of any forced migration which can compare for a moment in numbers with the voluntary immigration to this country. Probably the largest forced immigration which the world has ever seen was that which brought negroes from Africa to the two Americas, and yet in all the two centuries or more of the African slave trade, the total numbers of negroes actually brought to the Americas would fall far short of the millions who have come to the United States in the last forty years. Such a displacement of population, and such a movement of peoples as this is in itself a historic event of great magnitude deserving the most careful consideration; but what we are concerned with is its effect upon, and its meaning to, the people of the United States

and the future of our country. The problem which confronts ,us is whether we are going to be able to assimilate this vast body of people, to indoctrinate them with our ideals of government, and with our political habits, and also whether we can maintain the wages and the standards of living among our workingmen in the presence of such a vast and rapid increase of population. In what I am about to say I have no reflections to cast upon the people of any race or any nationality, and I say this because it is the practice of the demagogue who neither knows nor cares anything about the seriousness of this question to endeavor to make political capital among voters of foreign birth by proclaiming that any effort to deal intelligently with the question is directed against them individually. The question is just as important to the citizen of foreign birth who took out his naturalization papers yesterday and thus cast in his lot and the future hopes of his children with the fortunes of the United States, as it is to the man whose ancestors settled here two or three hundred years ago. To all true Americans, no matter what their race or birthplace, this question is of vast moment in the presence of such a vast and rapid increase of population. I am not here to-night to make arguments or appeals, still less to reflect upon any people or any race either here or elsewhere. I shall deal simply with the conditions of the problem and the facts of the case, and leave it to you to draw your own inferences and determine what in your opinion ought to be done.

The thirteen colonies which asserted their independence and compelled England after a long war to recognize it, were chiefly populated by men of the English race, immigrants from England and from the Lowlands of Scotland. These people were in an overwhelming majority in all the colonies, and especially in New England. In New York there were the Dutch who had founded the colony. They were not very numerous compared with the entire population of all the colonies and were practically confined to their original settlement. Of kindred race with the predominant English they were a strong, vigorous people and furnished an element of great importance and value in the colonial population.

In the eighteenth century there was an immigration of Huguenot Frenchmen which was scattered all through the various

colonies, and which, although comparatively small in numbers, was of a most admirable quality. There was also a considerable immigration of Germans from the Palatinate, and of people from the North of Ireland known generally as Scotch-Irish. These Germans and Scotch-Irish settled chiefly in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. They were good robust stocks and added to the strength as well as the number of the population. Immigration to the colonies from other sources than those which I have mentioned was trifling, and, speaking broadly, the thirteen colonies, at the time of the Revolution, had an overwhelming majority of inhabitants who were English speaking and who came from Great Britain and Ireland. It was this population which fought the Revolution and adopted the Constitution of the United States. Our political institutions and our governments, both State and National, were founded by and for these people, and in accord with their ideals and their traditions. They were a homogeneous people, and the institutions which they thus established were essentially their own, were thoroughly understood by them, and suited them in every respect. The soundness of our political system has been demonstrated by more than a hundred years of existence and by the manner in which it has surmounted great strains and perils. But the population of the country, in the meantime, has changed, largely by the processes of immigration, and one of the great problems, both in the present and in the future, is to determine whether these political institutions, founded more than a century ago, can be adapted to, and adopted by, the population of the United States as it is to-day constituted.

Let me now review very briefly the changes in our immigration. The first great immigration was that from Ireland, which began in the forties after the Great Famine, and which has continued, although in diminishing numbers, to the present time. This Irish immigration came from all parts of the island and was no longer confined principally to the North as it had been in the Colonial days. The Irish spoke the same language as the people of the United States, they had the same traditions of government and they had for centuries associated and intermarried with the people of Great Britain. Without dwelling on their proved value as an element of the population, it is enough