is more fatal, in this connection, than to make trite economic arguments and talk about the survival of the fittest. The white race of Western America, whether in Canada or in the United States, will not suffer the introduction of Asiatic labor, and as for the saying "the survival of the fittest," the people who use that phrase never complete it. The whole statement is "the survival of the fittest to survive," which is something very different from the survival of what is abstractly the best. If I may use an illustration employed by Mr. Speaker Reed, I can make my point clear to your minds. The bull of Bashan is always spoken of as a singularly noble animal, and the little minnow, or shiner, which you can see in shallow water anywhere on our coast, is a much lower form of life: but if you cast the bull of Bashan and the minnow together into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the bull will drown and the minnow will survive in that environment. Yet is the bull of Bashan none the less the nobler animal. In the environment of Chinese labor, our labor could not long survive as we desire it to exist, and, therefore, by an overmastering instinct, our people of the West are determined not to admit Asiatic labor to this country, whether it is Chinese, Japanese, or Hindoo. I think that by and by our working people of the Eastern States will begin to question whether they desire to have Arabs, who I see are planning to come in large numbers, and other people from Asia Minor and the west of Asia, pour into this country. I am not here to argue this question, but merely to call attention to some facts for your consideration, and this ominous fact which I have just mentioned is one.

Many people believe that we should also go a step further in our general legislation, and add ignorance to poverty, disease, and criminality as a valid ground for exclusion. Congress passed a bill containing a provision of this sort, which was vetoed by Mr. Cleveland. The same provision has come up again and again, and has passed the Senate more than once. Those who advocate it maintain that it excludes in practice, and with few exceptions, only undesirable immigrants. Here, again, I shall not attempt to argue the question with you, but will merely point out the number of persons who would have been excluded since 1896 if the illiterates over fourteen years of age had been thrown out. During that period, as shown by the table which I shall give,

the illiterates who, by their own admission, could neither read nor write in any language, numbered 1,829,320. The figures in detail are as follows:

The only thing I desire to say on this point is, that nothing is more unfounded than the statement that this exclusion is aimed at any race or any class. It is aimed at no one but the ignorant, just as the provision in regard to the diseased immigrants is aimed only at the diseased; but it is unquestionably restrictive, and it therefore meets with the bitter resistance of the steamship companies, from whom, directly or indirectly, come nine tenths of all the agitation and opposition to laws affecting immigration.

I have tried in all I have said to lay before you the statistics, the conditions, the facts, and the past results involved in this great question. As I have already said more than once, I shall make no argument and draw no conclusion. I leave it to you to make your own inferences and reach your own decisions. I say only this, that to every workingman and to every citizen of the United States, whether native born or naturalized, to whom the quality of our citizenship and the future of our country are dear, there is no question before the American people which can be compared with this in importance; none to which they should give such attention or upon which they should seek to express themselves and to guide their representatives more explicitly and more earnestly.

PRESCOTT F. HALL, LL.B., SECRETARY IMMIGRATION LEAGUE,

BOSTON

A. IMMIGRATION PRIOR TO 1820

'N POPULAR discussions of the immigration question it is

discovery should be considered equally as immigrants, and that only the aboriginal inhabitants can be properly called natives. In a certain sense this is of course true, but in another it is entirely misleading; for one cannot speak of immigration to a country until that country has entered upon a career of national existence. Accordingly a distinction has been made, and with reason, between those who took part in building the political framework of the thirteen colonies and of the Federal Union, and those who have arrived to find the United States Government and its social and political institutions in working operation. The former class have been called colonists, the latter are immigrants proper. In discussing the immigration question, this distinction is important; for it does not follow that because, as against the native Indians, all comers might be considered as intruders and equally without claim of right, those who have built up a complicated framework of nationality have no rights as against others who seek to enjoy the benefits of national life without having contributed to its creation.

The number of persons in the country at the date of the Revolutionary War is not accurately known. The population of New England was produced out of an immigration of about 20,000 persons who arrived before 1640, and it overflowed into the other colonies without receiving any corresponding additions from them. Franklin stated in 1751 that the population then in the colonies, amounting to about one million, had been produced

1 "Immigration and its Effects upon the United States." Chapter I. Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1906.

from an original immigration of less than 80,000. The first census of the United States, in 1790, gave the total population as 3,929,214; but, as has been pointed out by Professor F. B. Dexter, this number does not include Vermont or the territory northwest of the Ohio River, which, he says, would make the total over 4,000,000. The first records of immigration begin with the year 1820, and, although the number of immigrants who arrived in the United States from the close of the Revolutionary War to 1820 is not certain, it is estimated by good authorities at 250,000.

It is difficult to ascertain the number of immigrants from the various countries in the early part of the nineteenth century. The number from Great Britain increased from 2081 in 1815, to 34,787 in 1819, after which it diminished to 14,805 in 1824. In the year 1820, out of a total immigration of 8385, the United Kingdom furnished 6024. Germany was second, with 968; France third, with 371; and Spain fourth, with 139. The total immigration from the other parts of North and South America was 387.

The original settlers of this country were, in the main, of Teutonic and Keltic stock. In the thirteen original States the pioneers were practically all British, Irish, Dutch, and German, with a few French, Portuguese, and Swedes; and, in this connection, it should be remembered that a large proportion of the French people is Teutonic in origin. The Germans were Protestants from the Palatinate, and were pretty generally scattered, having colonized in New York, Western Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The Swedes settled upon the Delaware River. The French were Huguenots driven from home by Louis XIV; and, though not numerous, were a valuable addition to the colonies. The Irish were descendants of Cromwell's army, and came from the north of Ireland. All the settlers had been subjects of nations which entertained a high degree of civilization, and were at that time the colonizing and commercial nations of the world. At a later period, the annexation of Florida and Louisiana brought in elements of Mediterranean races, so called; but, owing to various considerations into which it is not necessary to enter here, the civilization and customs of the British overspread these regions, as well as those colonized originally by the

Dutch and French, and produced a substantial uniformity in institutions, habits, and traditions throughout the land.

This process of solidification and assimilation of the different colonies under British influence reached its consummation with the establishing of the Federal Government. After the birth of the United States as a separate nation, colonization in the earlier sense ceased entirely. European nations could no longer send out their own citizens and form communities directly dependent upon themselves and subject to their own jurisdiction. The immigration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, therefore, differs widely in character from the colonization of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

B. IMMIGRATION FROM 1820 TO 1869

With the year 1820 the official history of immigration to the United States begins; for it was then that collectors of customs at our ports were first obliged to record the arrival of passengers by sea from foreign countries. The record included numbers, ages, sexes, and occupations. Before 1856 no distinction at all was made between travelers intending to return and immigrants intending to remain.

Although still comparatively small, immigration increased from 8385 in 1820 to 22,633 in 1831. The first marked rise took place in 1827 and 1828, following the commercial depression in England in those and in the previous year. From 1831, with the exception of the period 1843-1844, numbers continued steadily to advance until they reached totals of 104,565 in 1842, and 310,004 in 1850. The most striking annual increases were from 114,371 in 1845 to 154,416 in 1846, and 234,968 in 1847. V These sudden movements of population were chiefly due to hard times in Europe, and especially in Ireland, a cause which, with the Revolution of 1848, in Germany, continued to operate until 1854, when a total of 427,853 was reached a figure not again attained until nearly twenty years later. With the year 1854 the tide began to beat less fiercely; immigration decreased steadily until, during the first two years of the Civil War, it was below 100,000. But in 1863, a gradual increase once more set in, and in 1869 352,768 persons landed. During the whole of