point of view of public opinion, since the quality of the immigration,
depending as it does on the social condition of the countries from which
it comes, is the main circumstance. In the decade between 1860 and 1870,
2,064,000 European wanderers came to the American shores; of these
787,000 were Germans, 568,000 English, 435,000 Irish, 109,000
Scandinavians, 38,000 Scotch, and 35,000 French. Now for the decade
between 1890 and 1900 the total number was 3,844,000; of these Germany
contributed 543,000, Ireland 403,000, Norway and Sweden 325,000, England
282,000, Scotland 60,000, and France 36,000. On the other hand, we find
for the first time three countries represented which had never before
sent any large number of immigrants; Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary.
In the decade ending 1870 there were only 11,000 Italians, 7,000
Austrians, and 4,000 Russians, while in the decade ending in the year
1900 the Russian immigrants, who are mostly Poles and Jews, numbered
588,000, the Austrian and Hungarian 597,000, and the Italian no less
than 655,000; and the proportion of these three kinds of immigrants is
steadily increasing. In the year 1903 Germany sent only 40,000, Ireland
35,000, and England 26,000; while Russia sent 136,000, Austria-Hungary
206,000, and Italy 230,000. Herein lies the problem.
A few further figures may help to make the situation clearer. For
instance, it is interesting to know what proportion of the total
emigration from Europe came to America. In round numbers we may say that
since 1870 Europe has lost 20,000,000 souls by emigration, and that some
14,000,000 of these, that is, more than two-thirds, have ultimately made
their homes in the United States of America. Of the German emigrants
some 85 or 90 per cent. have gone to the United States; of the
Scandinavian as many as 97 per cent.; while of the English and Italian
only 66 and 45 per cent. respectively. It is worth noting, moreover,
that in spite of the extraordinary increase in immigration, the
percentage of foreign-born population has not increased; that is, the
increase of native-born inhabitants has kept up with the immigration. In
1850 there were a few more than two million foreign-born inhabitants, in
1860 more than four millions, in 1870 there were five and a half
millions, in 1880 six and a half millions, in 1890 nine and a quarter
millions, and in 1900 ten and one-third millions. In 1850 these
foreigners amounted, it is true, to only 11 per cent. of the population;
but in 1860 they had already become 15 per cent. of the whole, and
diminished in 1870 to 14.4 per cent., in 1880 to 13.3 per cent.; in 1890
they were 14.8 per cent., and in 1900 13.6 per cent.
The State of New York has the largest number of foreigners, and in the
last fifty years the percentage of foreigners has risen steadily from 21
per cent. to 26 per cent. Pennsylvania stands second in this respect,
and Illinois third. On the other hand, the small states have the largest
percentage of foreign population. North Dakota has 35 per cent. and
Rhode Island 31 per cent. The Southern states have fewest foreigners of
any. These figures are, of course, greatly changed if we add to them the
persons who were not themselves born in other countries, but of whom one
or both parents were foreigners. In this way the foreign population in
the so-called North Atlantic States is 51 per cent., and is 34 per cent.
throughout the country. If a foreigner is so defined, the cities of New
York and Chicago are both 77 per cent. foreign.
These figures are enough by way of mere statistics. The thing which
arouses anxiety is not the increasing number of immigrants, but the
quality of them, which grows continually worse. Just fifty years ago the
so-called Know-Nothings made the anti-foreign sentiment the chief plank
of their programme, but the “pure” American propaganda of the
Know-Nothings was forgotten in the excitement which waged over slavery;
and the anti-foreign issue has never since that time been so brutally
stated. There has always been much objection to the undeniable evils
involved in this immigration, and the continual cry for closer
supervision and restriction of immigration has given rise to several new
legal measures. Partly, this movement has been the expression of
industrial jealousy, as when, for instance, Congress in 1885, in an
access of protectionist fury, forbade the immigration of “contract
labour,” that is, forbade any one to land who had already arranged to
fill a certain position. This measure was meant to protect the workmen
from disagreeable competition. But right here the believers in free
industry object energetically. It is just the contract labour from the
Old World which brings new industries and a new development of old
industries into the country, and such a quickening of industry augments
the demand for labour to the decided advantage of native workmen. The
law still stands in writing, but in practice it appears to be
extensively corrected, since it is very easily evaded.
The more important measures, however, have arisen less from industrial
than from social and moral grounds. Statistics have been carefully
worked up again and again in order to show that the poor-houses and
prisons contain a much larger percentage of foreigners than their
proportionate numbers in the community warrant. In itself this will be
very easy to understand, owing to the unfavourable conditions under
which the foreigner must find himself, particularly if he does not speak
English, in his struggle for existence in a new land. But most striking
has been the manner in which the magic of statistics has shown its
ability to prove anything it will; for other statistics have shown that
if certain kinds of crime are considered, the foreign-born Americans are
the best children the nation has. The question of illiteracy has been
discussed in similar fashion. The percentage of immigrants who can
neither read nor write has seemed alarmingly high to those accustomed to
the high cultivation of the northeastern states, but gratifyingly small
to those familiar with the negro population in the South. One unanimous
opinion has been reached; it is that the country is bound to keep out
such elements from its borders as are going to be a public burden. At
first idiots and insane persons, criminals, and paupers made up this
undesirable class, but the definition of those who are not admitted to
the country has been slowly broadened. And since the immigration laws
require the steamship companies to carry back at their own expense all
immigrants who are not allowed to land, the selection is actually made
in the European ports of embarkation. In this wise the old charge that
the agents of European packet companies encouraged the lowest and worst
individuals of the Old World to expend their last farthing for a ticket
to the New World, has gradually died out. Nevertheless, in the last
year, 5,812 persons were sent back for lack of visible means of support,
51 because of criminal record, and 1773 by reason of infectious
diseases.
The fact remains, however, that the social mires of every large city
teem with foreigners, and that among these masses the worst evils of
municipal corruption find favourable soil, that all the sporadic
outbreaks of anarchy are traceable to these foreigners, and that the
army of the unemployed is mostly recruited from their number. These
opinions were greatly strengthened when that change in the racial
make-up set in which we have followed by statistics, and which a census
of the poorer districts in the large cities quickly proves: Italians,
Russian Jews, Galicians, and Roumanians everywhere. The unprejudiced
American asks with some concern whether, if this stream of immigration
is continued, it will not undermine the virility of the American people.
The American nation will continue to fulfil its mission so long as it is
inspired with a spirit of independence and self-determination; and this
instinct derives from the desire of freedom possessed by all the
Germanic races. In this way the German, Swedish, and Norwegian newcomers
have adapted themselves at once to the Anglo-Saxon body politic, while
the French have remained intrinsically strangers. Their number, however,
has been very small. But what is to happen if the non-Germanic millions
of Italians, Russians, and Turks are to pour in unhindered? It is feared
that they will drag down the high and independent spirit of the nation
to their low and unworthy ideals. Already many citizens wish to require
of the immigrants a knowledge of the English language, or to make a
certain property qualification by way of precaution against unhappy
consequences, or perhaps to close entirely for awhile the portals of the
nation, or, at least, to make the conditions of naturalization
considerably harder in order that the Eastern European, who has never
had a thought of political freedom, shall not too quickly receive a
suffrage in the freest democracy of the world. And those most entitled
to an opinion unconditionally demand at the least the exclusion of all
illiterates.
Against all this there stand the convictions of certain rather broader
circles of people who point with pride at that great American
grist-mill, the public school, which is supposed to take the foreign
youth into its hopper, grind him up quickly and surely, and turn him out
into good American material. It is, in fact, astonishing to look at the
classes in the New York schools down on the East Side, where there is
not a child of American parentage, and yet not one who will admit that
he is Italian, Russian, or Armenian. All these small people declare
themselves passionately to be “American,” with American patriotism and
American pride; and day by day shows that in its whole system of public
institutions the nation possesses a similar school for the foreign-born
adult. Grey-haired men and adolescent youths, who in their native
countries would never have emerged from their dull and cringing
existence, hardly touch the pavement of Broadway before they find
themselves readers of the newspaper, frequenters of the political
meetings, and in a small way independent business men; and they may, a
few years later, be conducting enterprises on a large scale. They wake
up suddenly, and although in this transformation every race lends its
own colour to the spirit of self-determination, nevertheless the
universal trait, the typical American trait, can appear in every race of
man, if only the conditions are favourable.
In the same direction it is urged once more that America needs the
labour of these people. If Southern and Eastern Europe had not given us
their cheaper grades of workmen, we should not have been able to build
our roads or our railroads, nor many other things which we have needed.
In former decades this humble rôle fell to the Germans, the
Scandinavians, and the Irish, and the opposition against their admission
was as lively as it now is against the immigrants from the south and
east of Europe; while the development of the country has shown that they
have been an economic blessing; and the same thing, it is said, will be
true of the Russians and Poles. There are still huge territories at our
disposal which are virtually unpopulated, untold millions can still
employ their strength to the profit of the whole nation, and it would be
madness to keep out the willing and peaceable workers. Moreover, has it
not been the proud boast of America that her holy mission was to be a
land of freedom for every oppressed individual, an asylum for every one
who was persecuted? In the times then of her most brilliant prosperity
is she to be untrue to her noble role of protectress, and leave no hope
to those who have been deprived of their human rights by Russian or
Turkish despots, by Italian or Hungarian extortionists, to disappoint
their belief that at least in the New World even the most humble man has
his rights and will be received at his true value? Thus the opinions
differ, and public opinion at large has come as yet to no decision.
A curious feature in the immigration problem is the Chinese question,
which has occasioned frequent discussion on the Pacific coast. The
Chinaman does not come here to enjoy the blessings of American
civilization, but merely in order to earn a competence in a short time
so that he can return to his Asiatic home and be forever provided for.
He does not bring his family with him, nor attempt in any way to adapt
himself; he keeps his own costume, stays apart from his white
neighbours, and lives, as for instance in the Chinese Quarter of San
Francisco, on such meagre nourishment and in such squalid dwellings that
he can save up wealth from such earnings as an American workman could
hardly live on. A tour through the Chinese sleeping-rooms in California
is in fact one of the most depressing impressions which the traveller on
American soil can possibly experience. The individuals lie on large
couches, built over one another in tiers, going quite up to the ceiling;
and in twenty-four hours three sets of sleepers will have occupied the
beds. Under such conditions the number of newcomers steadily increased
because large commercial firms imported more and more coolie labour.
Between 1870 and 1880 more than 122,000 had come into the country. Then
Congress began to oppose this immigration, and since 1879 has
experimented with various laws, until now the Chinese workman is almost
wholly excluded. According to the last census there were only 81,000
Chinese in the whole United States.
More attractive than the yellow immigrants to these shores are the
red-skinned aborigines of the land, the Indians, whom the Europeans
found when they landed. The world is too much inclined, however, to
consider the fate of the Indian in a false light, just because his
manner of life captures the fancy and his picturesque barbarity has
often attracted the poet. The American himself is rather inclined to see
in his treatment of the Indian a grave charge against his own nation,
and to find himself guilty of the brutal extermination of a native race.
To arrive at such an opinion he assumes that in former centuries great
tribes of Indians scoured the tremendous hunting-grounds of the land.
But science has done away with this fanciful picture, and we know to-day
that these millions of natives never existed. There are to-day about
270,000 Redskins, and it is very doubtful whether the number was ever
much greater. It is true, of course, that between Central America and
the Arctic Sea, hundreds of different Indian languages were spoken, and
many of these languages have twenty or thirty different dialects. But
the sole community in which such a dialect developed would include only
a few hundred persons, and broad tracts of land would lie between the
neighbouring communities. They used to live in villages, and wandered
over the country only at certain seasons of the year in order to hunt,
fish, and collect fruits.
As soon as the European colonies established themselves in the country
the Indians used to take part in their wars, and on such occasions were
supplied by the colonists with arms and employed as auxiliary forces.
But the delights of these new methods of warfare, which they learned
quickly, broke up their own peaceful life. The new weapons were employed
for war between the Indian races, and eventually were turned by the
Indians against the white settlers themselves. But, after all, the
peaceful contact of Indians and whites was more productive of results.
Only the French and Spanish permitted a mixture of the races, and in
Canada especially to-day there is a mixed race of French and Indians;
while in Mexico a large part of the inhabitants is Spanish and Indian.
The truly American population sought above all else peaceably to
disseminate its own culture; some Indian races became agricultural and
devoted themselves to certain industrial pursuits.
Since the time when the United States gained actual possession of a
larger part of the continent, a systematic Indian policy has been
pursued, although administered largely, it must be admitted, in the
American interests, and yet with considerable consideration of the
natural inclinations of these hunting peoples. In various states,
territories were set apart for them, which were certainly more than
adequate to afford their sustenance; schools were built, and even
institutions of higher learning; and through solemn treaties with their
chiefs important rights were assigned to different races. To be sure,
the main idea has always been to persuade the Indians to take up
agricultural pursuits; to live merely by hunting flesh and eating wild
fruits seemed hardly the thing at a time when millions of people were
flocking westward out of Europe. Therefore, with every new treaty, the
Indian reservations have been made smaller and smaller. The Indians, who
would have preferred always to keep up their wild hunting life, felt,
and still feel, that this has been unjust, and certainly many of their
racial peculiarities have made it difficult to adapt American legal
traditions fairly to their needs. The Indians had no idea of the private
ownership of the soil; they considered everything as belonging to their
tribe, and least of all had they any notion of the inheritance of
property in the American sense. The Indian children belonged to the
mother’s family and the mother never belonged to the tribe of the
father.
Although all these sources of friction have led the Indian to feel
unjustly treated, it is still true that there has been scarcely any
actually destructive oppression. The very races which have been
influenced most by American culture have developed favourably. Last year
the Indian mortality was 4,728, and the number of births 4,742; the
Indians are, therefore, not dying out. The largest community is in the
so-called Indian Territory and consists of 86,000 people, while there
are 42,000 in Arizona. The several Indian reservations together embrace
117,420 square miles.
* * * * *
The Indian question is the least serious problem of all those which
concern population in America; by far the most difficult is the negro
question. The Indian lives within certain reservations, but the negro
lives everywhere side by side with the American. So also the Indian
troubles are narrowly confined to a small reservation in the great field
of American problems, but the negro question is met everywhere in
American thought, and in connection with every American interest. There
could hardly be a greater contrast than that between the Indian and the
negro; the former is proud, self-contained, selfish and revengeful,
passionate and courageous, keen and inventive. The negro, on the other
hand, is subservient, yielding, almost childishly good natured, lazy and
sensual, without energy or ambition, outwardly apt to learn, but without
any spirit of invention or intellectual independence. And still one
ought not to speak of these millions of people as if they were of one
type. On the Gulf of Mexico there are regions where the black population
lives almost wholly sunk in the superstitions of its African home; while
in Harvard University a young negro student has written creditable
essays on Kant and Hegel. And between these opposite poles exists a
population of about nine millions.
The negro population of America does not increase quite so rapidly as
the white, and yet in forty years it has increased two-fold. In the year
1860, before the slaves were freed, there were 4,441,000 blacks; in
1870, 4,880,000; in 1880, 6,580,000; in 1890, 7,470,000; in 1900,
8,803,000. In view of this considerable increase of the negro, it is not
to be expected that the problem will lose anything of its urgency by the
more rapid growth of the white population. And at the same time the
physical contrast between the races is in no wise decreasing, because
there is no mixing of the white and black races to-day, as there very
frequently was before the war. It will not be long before the coloured
population will be twice the entire population which Canada to-day has.
These people are distributed geographically, so that much the largest
part lives in those states which before the war practised slavery. To be
sure, an appreciable part has wandered into the northern states, and the
poorer quarters of the large cities are well infiltrated with blacks.
Four-fifths, however, still remain in the South, owing probably to
climatic conditions; the negro race thrives better in a warm climate.
But it belongs there economically also, and has nearly every reason for
staying there in future.
Nevertheless, the negro question is by no means a problem for the South
alone; the North has its interests, and it becomes clearer all the time
that the solution of the problem will depend in large part on the
co-operation of the North. In the first place it was the North which set
the negro free, and which, therefore, is partly responsible for what he
is to-day; and it must lie with the North to decide whether the great
dangers which to-day threaten can in any way be obviated. Europe has so
far considered only one feature of the negro question—that of slavery.
All Europe read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and thought the difficulty solved
as soon as the negro was freed from his chains and the poorest negro
came into his human right of freedom. Europe was not aware that in this
*wise still greater problems were created, and that greater springs of
misery and misfortune for the negro there took their origin. Nor does
Europe realize that opposition between whites and blacks has never been
in the history of America so sharp and bitter and full of hatred as it
is to-day. Just in the last few years the hatred has grown on both
sides, so that no friend of the country can look into the future without
misgivings. “Das eben ist die Frucht der bösen Tat.”
Yet where did the sin begin? Shall the blame fall on the English
Parliament, which countenanced and even encouraged the trade in human
bodies, or shall it fall on the Southern States, which kept the slaves
in ignorance, and even threatened to punish any one who should instruct
them? Or shall it fall on the Northern States, which were chiefly
responsible for immediately granting to the freedmen, for the sake of
party politics, all prerogatives of fellow-citizenship? Or shall the
fault be put on the negro himself, who saw in his freedom from slavery
an open door to idleness and worthlessness?
For generations the white man has regarded the black man as merchandise,
has forcibly dragged him from his African jungles to make him work in
ignorance and oppression on the cotton, rice, and tobacco fields of a
white master. Then all at once he was made free and became an equal
citizen in a country which, in its abilities, its feelings, its laws,
and its Constitution, had the culture of two thousand years behind it.
How has this emancipation worked on these millions? The first decade was
a period of unrest and of almost frightened awakening to the
consciousness of physical freedom, in the midst of all the after-effects
of the fearful war. The negro was terrified by Southern secret societies
which were planning vengeance, and confused by the dogmas of
unscrupulous politicians who canvassed the states which had been so
savagely shaken by the war, in order to gather up whatever might be
found; and he was confused by a thousand other contradictions in public
sentiment. Nowhere was there a secure refuge. Then followed the time in
which the negroes hoped to employ their political power to advantage;
the negroes were to be prospered by their ballot. But they found this to
be a hopeless mistake. Then they believed a better way was to be found
in the public schools and books. But the negro was again turned back; he
needed not knowledge but the power to do, not books but a trade. So his
rallying-cry has shifted. The blacks have never lost heart, and in a
certain sense it must in justice be added the whites have never lacked
good-will. And yet, after forty years of freedom, the results are highly
discouraging.