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UC-NRLF 


THE  EUROPEAN  POPULATION  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES. 

THE  HUXLEY  MEMORIAL  LECTURE  FOR  1908. 


BY 


WILLIAM    Z.    RIPLEY, 

Profttsor  of  Economics  in  Harvard   Univertity. 


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THE     EUKOPEAN     POPULATION     OF    THE     UNITED     STATES. 

Tlic  Hiu-ley  Memorial  Lecture  for  1908. 

BY  WILLIAM  Z.  RIPLEY,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Economics  in  Harvard 

University. 

THE  population  of  Europe  may,  in  a  rough  way,  be  divided  into  an  East  and  a  West. 
The  contrast  between  the  two  may  be  best  illustrated  perhaps  in  geological  terms. 
Every  where  these  populations  have  been  laid  down  originally  in  more  or  less 
distinct  strata.  In  the  Balkan  States  and  Austria-Hungary  this  stratification  is 
recent  and  still  distinct ;  while  in  Western  Europe  the  several  layers  have  become 
metamorphosed  by  the  fusing  heat  of  nationality  and  the  pressure  of  civilization. 
But  in  both  instances  these  populations  are  what  the  geologist  would  term 
sedimentary.  In  attempting  a  description  of  the  racial  problems  of  the  United 
States,  your  attention  is  invited  to  an  entirely  distinct  formation  which,  in 
continuation  of  our  geological  figure,  may  best  be  characterized  by  the  term  eruptive. 
We  have  to  do  not  with  the  slow  processes  of  growth  by  deposit  or  accretion  :  but 
with  violent  and  volcanic  dislocation.  We  are  called  upon  to  traverse  a  lava  field 
of  population,  suddenly  cast  forth  from  Europe  and  spread  indiscriminately  over  a 
new  continent.  In  Europe  the  populations  have  grown  up  from  the  soil.  They  are 
still  imbedded  in  it,  a  part  of  it.  They  are  the  product  of  their  immediate 
environments;  dark  in  the  southern  half,  blonde  at  the  north,  stunted  where  the 
conditions  are  harsh,  well  developed  where  the  land  is  fat.  Even  as  between  city 
and  country,  conditions  have  been  so  long  settled  that  one  may  trace  the  results  in 
the  physical  traits  of  the  inhabitants.  It  was  my  endeavour  in  the  Races  of 
Europe  to  describe  these  conditions  in  detail.  But  in  America  the  people,  one  may 
almost  say,  have  dropped  from  the  sky.  They  are  in  the  land  but  not  yet  an  integral 
part  of  it.  The  population  product  is  artificial  and  exotic.  It  is  as  yet  unrelated 
to  its  physical  environment.  A  human  phenomenon  unique  in  the  history  of  the 
world  is  the  result. 

In  the  description  of  these  conditions,  two  great  difficulties  are  at  once 
encountered.  One  is  the  recency  of  the  phenomenon ;  the  other  the  paucity  of 
precise  physical  data.  As  the  first  immigration  to  America  on  a  large  scale  is 
scarcely  more  than  half  a  century  old,  and  in  its  more  startling  and  violent  aspects 
has  lasted  only  half  a  generation,  time  enough  has  not  as  yet  elapsed  to  permit  a  work 
ing  out  of  Nature's  laws.  What  evidences  have  we  as  to  the  effect  of  the  new 
environment  upon  the  transplanted  peoples  ?  It  is  amusing  to  read  in  the  older 

331874 


222  ;  „•  \y:tkL!Al\r  Z. .  RIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 


Obooks  on  ethnology,  and  even  in  the  files  of  this  learned  body,  of  the  undoubted 
effect  of  the  American  climate  upon  Europeans  in  tending  to  produce  the  black 
wiry  hair,  the  bronze  skin  and  the  aquiline  features  of  the  American  Indian.  Such 
conclusions  are,  of  course,  now  understood  to  be  a  product,  not  of  climate  but  of 
vivid  imagination,  somewhat  over-excited,  perhaps,  by  Buckle's  History  of 
Civilization.  Time  is  needed,  not  only  to  show  the  effect  of  the  physical 
environment,  but  also  to  demonstrate  the  laws  of  inheritance  which  are  certain  to 
emerge  from  so  heterogeneous  a  mix-up  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Almost 

\everything  in  fact  lies  in  the  womb  of  the  future.  We  must  be  content  at  this 
time,  rather  to  indulge  in  speculation  and  prophecy,  than  to  revel  in  the  more 
positive  delights  of  somatological  statistics.  This  is  the  field  in  which  a  great 
generalizing  intellect  like  Huxley's  would  have  been  at  its  best. 

The  second  difficulty  in  the  study  of  racial  conditions  in  the  United  States  is 
the  lack  of  precise  physical  data.  This  may  be  ascribed  in  large  measure  to  the 
overwhelming  insistency  and  importance  of  other  allied  concerns.  This  ethnic 
phenomenon,  tremendous  and  important  as  it  is  for  pure  science,  is  for  the  moment 
overshadowed  by  other  social  and  political  ones.  The  attention  of  students  is 
compelled  by  the  urgency  of  the  problems  presented  by  the  affairs  of  men,  rather 
than  by  their  physical  persons.  Questions  of  living  wages,  of  overcrowding  of 
population  in  the  great  cities,  of  public  health,  of  moral  chaos,  of  political 
demoralization,  are  demanding  immediate  solution  at  the  hands  of  science.  And 
then  again,  in  the  purely  anthropological  field,  there  are  the  other  inviting  paths  of 
study  afforded  by  the  presence  of  the  negro  and  the  disappearance  of  the  aboriginal 
Indians.  Both  of  these  should  be  of  absorbing  interest  to  specialists,  the  former 
unfortunately,  much  neglected  ;  but  the  latter,  the  study  of  the  Indian,  of  immediate 
concern  because  whatever  is  to  be  done  must  be  done  at  once.  The  day  will  indeed 
come  when  science  will  awake  to  the  opportunities  presented  by  the  ethnic  compo 
sition  of  the  present  white  population  of  the  United  States ;  but  that  day  is  not  yet 
here.  And  then,  finally,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  by  way  of  excuse  for  the  rather 
vague  and  general  character  of  this  address,  that  the  United  States  lacks  certain 
institutions,  which  have  greatly  facilitated  the  anthropological  study  of  Europe. 
We  have  no  great  standing  armies  to  be  recruited  year  by  year  from  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men.  All  military  service  is  voluntary  and  for  hire.  The  only  data 
of  this  sort  comes  to  us  from  the  time  of  the  Civil  War.  Moreover,  still  another 
supply  of  material  is  rendered  difficult  of  approach  by  reason  of  the  attitude  of  our 
people  toward  anything  savoring  of  government  paternalism.  An  attempt  at  a 
physical  census  of  the  school  children  of  Xew  York,  like  Virchow's  great  investiga 
tion  in  Germany,  would  probably  lead  to  a  violent  outbreak  of  yellow  journalism 
concerning  the  property  rights  of  the  individual  in  his  offspring — an  uproar  which 
might  even  disturb  the  courts  and  the  legislatures.  Private  initiative  with  the 
exercise  of  the  greatest  tact  and  diplomacy  must  alone  be  relied  upon.  For  instance, 
a  difficult  and  yet  inviting  field  of  study  for  the  physical  anthropologist  is  afforded 
by  our  mountaineers  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  A  Simon-pure  Anglo-Saxon 


WILLIAM  X.  II  n 'LKV.  —  The  Eim*pmn  Population  of  tlie  Unite!  Mutes. 

stock  is  here  isolated  over  a  large  area.  Anticipating  some  years  ago  a  vacation 
trip  into  tln-sc  wilds,  I  took  counsel  as  to  modes  of  approach  for  physical  measure 
ments  upon  this  rather  inflammable  human  material,  wherein  Mood  revenge  and  the 
<-l;tn  fi-iid  are  still  customary.  This  population  has  always  enjoyed  the  proud 
distinction  of  being  the  tallest  in  the  United  States.  By  enlisting  rivalry  in  a 
wholesale  contest  over  the  relative  tallness  of  the  men  of  Tennessee  or  Kentucky,  I 
was  told  that  one  might,  indeed,  hope  to  fill  one's  saddle  bags  with  statistics  with 
out  endangering  one's  life  in  the  attempt. 


ITALY 


*20    1830    1840    1850    I860    1870    1880    1890    1900    lull) 

[In  the  figures  at  the  siile  five  "OV'have  been  omtttei:  thus  1,3  =  1,300,000.] 
IMMIGRATION    TO    THE    UNITED    STATKS,    1820-11)07. 

Judged  solely  from  the  standpoint  of  numbers  the  phenomenon  of  American 
immigration  is  stupendous.  We  have  become  so  accustomed  to  it  in  the  United 
States  that  we  often  lose  sight  of  its  numerical  magnitude.  About  25,000,000 
people  have  come  to  the  United  States  from  all  over  Europe  since  1820.  This  is 
about  equal  to  the  entire  population  of  the  United  Kingdom  only  50  years  ago,  at  the 
time  of  our  Civil  War.  It  is,  again,  more  than  the  population  of  all  Italy  in  the 
time  of  Garibaldi.  Otherwise  stated,  this  army  of.men  would  populate,  as  it  stands 
to-day,  all  that  most  densely  settled  section  of  the  United  States  north  of 
Maryland  and  east  of  the  Great  Lakes ;  all  New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
and  Pennsylvania  in  fact.  This  horde  of  immigrants  has  mainly  come  since  the 

a  2 


224      WILLIAM  Z.  RIFLE Y. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

Irish  potato  famine  of  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  The  rapid  increase  year  by 
year  is  shown  by  the  accompanying  diagram.  It  has  taken  the  form,  not  of  a  steady 
growth  but  of  an  intermittent  flow.  First  came  the  people  of  the  British  Isles  after 
the  downfall  of  Napoleon,  from  2,000  in  1815  to  35,000  in  1819.  Thereafter  the 
numbers  are  about  75,000  yearly  until  the  Irish  famine,  when  368,000  immigrants 
from  the  British  Isles  landed  in  1852.  To  the  English  succeeded  the  Germans, 
largely  moved  at  first  by  the  political  events  of  1848.  By  1854,  1,500,000  Teutons, 
mainly  from  northern  Germany,  had  settled  in  America.  So  many  were  there,  that 
ambitious  plans  for  the  foundation  of  a  German  state  in  the  new  country  were 
actually  set  on  foot.  \  The  later  German  immigrants  were  recruited  largely  from 
the  Rhine  Provinces  and  have  settled  further  to  the  north-west  in  Wisconsin  and 
Iowa;  the  earliest  wave  having  come  from  northern  Germany  to  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois  and  Missouri.  |  The  Swedes  began  to  come  after  the  Civil  War.  Their 
immigration  culminated  in  1882  with  the  influx  of  about  50,000  in  that  year. 
More  recent  still  are  the  Italians,  beginning  with  a  modest  20,000  in  1876,  rising  to 
over  200,000  arrivals  in  1888  and  constituting  an  army  of  300,000  in  the  single 
year  of  1907 ;  and  accompanying  the  Italian,  has  come  the  great  horde  of  Slavs, 
Huns  and  Jews.  Wave  has  followed  wave,  each  higher  than  the  last ;  the  ebb  and 
flow  being  dependent  upon  economic  conditions  in  large  measure.  It  is  the  last 
great  wave  shown  by  our  diagram  which  has  most  alarmed  us  in  America.  This 
gathered  force  on  the  revival  of  prosperity  about  1897  ;  but  it  did  not  assume  full 
measure  until  1900.  Since  that  year,  over  6,000,000  people  have  landed  on  our 
shores,  one  quarter  of  all  the  total  immigration  since  the  beginning.  The  new 
comers  of  these  eight  years  alone  would  repopulate  all  the  five  older  New 
England  states  as  they  stand  to-day ;  or  if  properly  disseminated  over  the  newer 
parts  of  the  country,  they  would  serve  to  populate  no  less  than  19  states  of  the 
Union  as  they  stand.  The  new  comers  of  the  last  eight  years  cojuld,  if  suitably  seated, 
elect  38  out  of  the  present  92  Senators  of  the  United  States.  Do  you  wonder 
that  thoughtful  political  students  stand  somewhat  aghast  ?  In  the  last  of  these  eight 
years — 1907 — there  were  1,250,000  arrivals ;  sufficient  to  entirely  populate  both  New 
Hampshire  and  Maine,  two  of  our  oldest  states  with  an  aggregate  territory  approxi 
mately  equal  to  Ireland  and  Wales.  The  arrivals  of  this  one  year  would  found  a 
state  with  more  inhabitants  than  any  21  of  our  other  existing  commonwealths. 
Fortunately,  the  commercial  depression  of  1908  has  for  the  moment  put  a  stop  to 
this  inflow.  Some  considerable  emigration  back  to  Europe  has  in  fact  ensued. 
But  this  can  be  nothing  more  than  a  breathing  space.  On  the  resumption  of 
prosperity  the  tide  will  rise  higher  than  before.  Each  immigrant,  staying  or 
returning,  will  influence  his  friends,  his  entire  village  ;  and  so  it  will  be  until  an 
economic  equilibrium  has  been  finally  established  between  one  continent  where 
labour  is  dearer  than  land,  and  the  other  where  land  is  worth  more  than 
labour. 

It  is  not  alone  the  rapid  increase  in  our  immigration  which  merits  attention.     It 
is  also  the  radical  change  in  its  character,  in  the  source  from  whence  it  comes. 


WILLIAM  Z.  RIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States.      225 

Whereas  until  about  20  years  ago  our  immigrants  were  drawn  from  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  or  Teutonic  populations  of  north-western  Europe  ;  they  have  swarmed  over 
here  in  rapidly  growing  proportions  since  that  time  from  Mediterranean.  Slavic  and 
Oriental  sources.  A  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  two-thirds  of  our  immigration  was 
truly  Teutonic  or  Anglo-Saxon  in  origin.  At  the  present  time  less  than  one-sixth 
comes  from  this  source.  The  British  Isles,  Germany,  Scandinavia  and  Canada 
unitedly  sent  us  90  per  cent,  of  our  immigrants  in  the  decade  to  1870 ;  82'8  per 
cent,  in  1870-80;  75'6  per  cent,  in  1880-90  ;  and  only  41'8  per  cent,  in  1890-1900. 
Since  then,  the  proportion  has  been  very  much  smaller  still.  Germany  used  to 
contribute  one-third  of  our  new-comers.  In  1907  it  sent  barely  one-seventh.  On 
the  other  hand.  Russia,  Austria-Hungary  and  Italy,  which  produced  about  one  per 
cent,  of  the  total  in  1860-70,  jointly  contributed  501  per  cent,  in  1890-1900.  The 
growth  of  this  contingent  is  graphically  shown  by  the  preceding  diagram.  I  have 
been  at  some  pains  to  reclassify  the  immigration  for  1907,  in  conformity  with  the 
racial  groupings  of  the  Races  of  Europe,  disregarding  that  is  to  say,  mere  linguistic 
affiliations  and  dividing  on  the  basis  of  physical  types.  The  total  of  about 
1,250,000  arrivals  was  distributed  as  follows : — 

330,000  Mediterranean  Race         ...         ...         one-quarter. 

194,000  Alpine  „  one-sixth. 

330,000  Slavic  „  one-quarter. 

194,000  Teutonic  „  one-sixth. 

146,000  Jewish  (mainly  Russian) ...          ...         one-eighth. 

In  this  year,  330,000  South  Italians  take  the  place  of  the  250,000  Germans  who 
came  in  1882  when  the  Teutonic  immigration  was  at  its  flood.  One  and  one-half 
million  Italians  have  come  since  1900  ;  over  1,000,000  Russians ;  and  .1,500,000 
natives  of  Austria-Hungary.  We  have  even  tapped  the  political  sinks  of  Europe^ 
and  are  now  drawing  large  numbers  of  Greeks,  Armenians  and  Syrians.  No  people 
is  too  mean  or  lowly  to  seek  an  asylum  on  our  shores. 

The  net  result  of  this  immigration  has  been  to  produce  a  congeries  of  human 
beings,  unparalleled  for  ethnic  diversity  anywhere  else  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
The  most  complex  populations  of  Europe,  such  as  those  of  the  British  Isles, 
Northern  France,  or  even  the  Balkan  States  seem  ethnically  pure  by  contrast.  In 
some  of  these  places  the  soothing  hand  of  time  has  softened  the  racial  contrasts. 
Of  course,  there  are  certain  water  holes  like  Gibraltar,  Singapore  or  Hong  Kong  to 
which  every  type  of  human  animal  is  attracted ;  and  a  notably  mongrel  population 
is  the  result.  But  for  ethnic  diversity  on  a  large  scale,  the  United  States  is 
certainly  unique.  Our  people  have  been  diverse  in  origin  from  the  start  to  a 
greater  degree  than  is  ordinarily  supposed.  |  Virginia  and  New  England,  to  be  sure, 
were  for  a  long  time  Anglo-Saxon  undefiled  ;|but  in  the  other  colonies  there  was 
much  intermixture,  such  as  the  German  in  Pennsylvania,  the  Swedish  along  the 
Delaware,  the  Dutch  in  New  York,  and  the  Scotch  Highland  and  Huguenot  in 
the  Carolinas.  \  Little  centres  of  foreign  inoculation  in  the  early  days  are 
discoverable  everywhere.  On  a  vacation  trip  recently  in  the  extreme  north-eastern 


226      WILLIAM  Z.  RIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

corner  of  ^Pennsylvania,  my  wife  and  a  friend  remarked  the  frequency  of  French 
names  of  persons,  and  then  of  villages,  of  French  physical  types  and  of  French 
cookery.  On  inquiry  it  turned  out  that  many  settlements  had  been  made  by 
French,  who  emigrated  after  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  iMany  such  colonies  could  be 
named,  were  there  time,  such  as  the  yljutch  along  the  Lake  shore  of  western 
Michigan,  the  Germans  in  Texas,  and  the  Swiss  villages  in  Wisconsin,  fWme  of 
them  recent  but  constituting  long  established  and  permanent  elements  in  the 
population.  Concerning  New  York  city,  Father  Jognes  states  that  the  Director- 
General  told  him  of  18  languages  spoken  there  in  1644.  For  the  entire  thirteen 
colonies  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  we  have  it  on  good  authority  that  one-fifth 
of  the  population  could  not  speak  English,  and  that  one-half  at  least  was  not 
Anglo-Saxon  by  descent.  Upon  such  a  stock,  it  is  little  wonder  that  the  grafting 
of  these  25,000,000  immigrants  should  produce  an  extraordinary  human  product. 
For  over  half  a  century  more  than  one-seventh  of  our  aggregate  population  lias 
been  of  actually  foreign  birth.  This  proportion  of  actual  foreigners  of  all  sorts 
varies  greatly  as  between  the  different  states.  In  Minnesota  and  New  York,  for 
example,  at  the  present  time,  the  foreign  born,  as  we  denote  them  statistically, 
constitute  about  one-quarter  of  the  whole;  in  Massachusetts,  the  proportion  is 
about  one-third  and  occasionally,  as  in  North  Dakota  in  1890,  it  approaches 
one-half  (42  per  cent.).  It  is  in  the  cities,  of  course,  where  this  proportion  of  actual 
foreigners  rises  highest.  In  New  York  city  there  are  over  2,000,000  people  born  in 
Europe  who  have  come  there  hoping  to  better  their  lots  in  life.  Boston  has  an  even 
higher  proportion  of  actual  foreigners ;  but  the  relatively  larger  numbers  of  English- 
speaking  ones,  such  as  the  Irish,  renders  the  phenomenon  less  striking.  Nevertheless, 
within  a  few  blocks,  in  the  foreign  colony,  there  are  no  less  than  25  distinct 
nationalities.  In  this  entire  district,  once  the  fashionable  quarter  of  Boston,  out  of 
28,000  inhabitants,  only  1,500  in  1895  had  parents  born  in  the  United  States. 

The  full  measure  of  our  ethnic  diversity  is  revealed  only  when  one  aggregates 
the  actually  foreign  born  with  their  children  born  in  America — totalising,  as  we 
call  it,  the  foreign  born  and  the  native  born  of  foreign  parentage.  This  group  thus 
includes  only  the  first  generation  of  American  descent.  Oftentimes  even  the 
second  generation  may  remain  ethnically  as  undefiled  as  the  first ;  but  our  positive 
Statistical  data  carries  us  no  further.  This  group  of  foreign  born  and  their 
children  constitutes  to-day  upwards  of  one-third  of  our  total  population  ;  and,  by 
excluding  the  negroes,  it  equals  almost  one-half  (46  per  cent.)  of'  the  white 
population.  This  is  for  the  country  as  a  whole.  Considered  by  states  or  cities, 
the  proportion  is  of  course  much  higher.  Baltimore,  one  of  our  purest  American 
cities,  had  40  per  cent,  of  foreigners  with  their  children  in  1900.  In  Boston  the 
proportion  leaps  to  TO  per  cent.,  in  New  York  to  80  per  cent.,  and  reaches  a 
maximum  in  Milwaukee  with  86  per  cent,  thus  constituted.  Picture  to  yourselves 
if  you  please,  an  English  city  of  the  size  of  Edinburgh  with  only  about  one? 
person  in  eight  English  by  descent,  by  only  a  modest  two  generations !  To  this 
condition  must  be  added  the  probability  that  not  over  one-half  of  that  remnant  of 


WILLIAM  Z.  RIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  Unite  I  Mates.      227 

u  rear  guard  can  trace  its  descent  on  American  soil  as  far  back  as  the  third 
generation.  Were  we  to  eliminate  these  foreigners  and  their  children  from  our 
city  populations,  it  has  been  estimated  that  Chicago,  with  to-day  a  population  <>!' 
over  2,000,000,  would  dwindle  to  a  city  of  not  much  over  100,000  inhabitants. 

One  may  select  great  industries  practically  given  over  to  foreigners.  Over 
90  per  cent,  of  the  tailors  of  New  York  city  are  Jews,  mainly  Russian  and  Polish. 
In  Massachusetts,  the  centre  of  our  staple  cotton  manufacture,  out  of  98,000 
employees  one  finds  that  only  3,900,  or  about  4  per  cent.,  are  native  born 
Americans,  and  most  of  those  are  of  Irish  or  Scotch-Irish  descent  two  generations 
back.  All  of  our  day  labour,  once  Irish,  is  now  Italian  ;  our  fruit  vendors  once 
Italian,  are  now  becoming  Greek;  and  our  coal  mines  once  manned  by  peoples  from 
the  British  Isles  are  now  worked  by  Hungarians,  Poles,  Slavaks  or  Finns.  A 
special  study  of  the  linguistic  conditions  in  Chicago  well  illustrates  our  racial 
heterogeneity.  Among  the  people  of  that  great  city, — the  third  in  size  in  the 
United  States, — fourteen  languages  are  spoken  by  groups  of  not  less  than  10,000 
persons  each.  Newspapers  are  regularly  published  in  ten  languages  ;  and  church 
services  are  conducted  in  twenty  different  tongues.  Measured  by  the  size  of  its 
foreign  linguistic  colonies,  Chicago  is  the  second  Bohemian  city  in  the  world,  the 
third  Swedish,  the  fourth  Polish,  and  the  fifth  German  (New  York  being  the 
fourth).  1  know  of  one  large  factory  in  Chicago  employing  4,200  hands, 
representing  24  distinct  nationalities.  Rules  of  the  establishment  are  regularly 
printed  in  eight  languages.  In  one  block  in  New  York  where  friends  of  mine  are 
engaged  in  college  settlement  work  there  are  1,400  people  of  20  distinct 
nationalities.  There  are  more  than  two-thirds  as  many  native  born  Irish  in 
Boston  as  in  the  capital  city,  Dublin.  With  their  children,  mainly  of  pure  Irish 
blood,  they  make  Boston  indubitably  the  leading  Irish  city  in  the  world.  New 
York  is  a  larger  Italian  city  to-day  than  Rome,  having  500,000  Italian  colonists. 
It  contains  no  less  than  800,000  Jews,  mainly  from  Russia.  Thus  it  is  easily  the 
foremost  Jewish  city  in  the  world.  Pittsburg,  the  centre  of  our  iron  and  steel 
industry  is  another  tower  of  Babel.  It  is  said  to  contain  more  of  that  out-of-the- 
way  people,  the  Servians,  than  the  capital  of  that  country  itself. 

Such  being  the  ethnic  diversity  of  our  population,  the  primary  and  fundamen 
tal  physical  question,  is  as  to  whether  these  racial  groups  are  to  coalesce  to  form 
ultimately  a  more  or  less  uniform  American  type  ;  or  whether  they  are  to  continue 
their  separate  existences  within  the  confines  of  one  political  unit.  Will  the  progress 
of  time  bring  about  intermixture  of  these  diverse  types;  or  will  they  remain 
separate,  distinct  and  perhaps  discordant  elements  for  an  indefinite  period,  like  the 
warring  nationalities  of  Austria-Hungary  and  the  Balkan  States.  We  may  perhaps 
best  seek  an  answer,  by  a  serial  discussion,  first,  of  those  factors  which  tend  to 
favour  intermixture;  and  thereafter  of  those  forces  which  operate  to  prevent  it. 

The  extreme  mobility  of  our  American  population,  ever  on  the  increase,  is 
evidently  a  solvent  force  from  which  powerful  results  may  well  be  expected  in  the 
course  of  time.  This  is  rendered  peculiarly  patent  by  the  usual  concomitant,  that 


228      WILLIAM  Z.  EIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

this  mobility  is  largely  confined  to  the  male  sex.  The  census  of  1900  showed  that 
nearly  one-quarter  of  our  native-born  whites  were  then  living  in  other  states  than 
those  of  their  birth.  Kansas  and  Oklahoma  are  probably  the  most  extreme 
examples  of  such  colonization.  Almost  their  entire  population  has  been  trans 
planted,  often  many  times,  moving  by  stages  from  state  to  state.  The  last  census 
showed  that  only  53  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  former  state  were  natives  of 
Kansas.  An  analysis  of  the  membership  of  its  state  legislature  some  years  ago, 
revealed  that  only  9  per  cent,  were  born  within  the  confines  of  the  state.  Even 
in  the  staid  commonwealth  of  Iowa,  only  about  one-third  of  the  American-born 
population  was  native  to  the  state.  This  restlessness  has  always  been  charac 
teristic  of  our  original  stock.  Even  our  farmers,  in  other  countries  more  or  less 
yoked  to  the  soil,  are  still  on  the  move,  travelling  first  westward,  and  now  southerly, 
seeking  new  outlets  for  their  activities.  And  from  this  rural  class  also  is  drawn 
the  steady  inflow  to  the  great  cities  and  industrial  centres,  which  is  so  much  a 
feature  of  our  time.  Thus  has  rural  New  England  been  depopulated,  leaving  almost 
whole  counties  in  which  the  inhabitants  to-day  number  less  than  in  1800.  In  this 
process  during  the  ten  years  prior  to  1890,  the  little  state  of  Vermont  parted  with 
more  than  one-half  of  her  population  by  emigration.  Maine  sent  forth  one-third. 
And  other  states  as  far  south  as  Virginia  and  Ohio,  parted  with  almost  as  many. 
It  lias  been  estimated  even  of  the  city  of  Boston,  an  industrial  centre  of  over 
half-a-million  inhabitants,  that  the  old,  native-born  Bostonians  of  twenty  years 
ago  number  less  than  64,000.  At  first  our  immigrants  do  not  feel  the  full  measure 
of  this  restlessness,  The  great  inflowing  streams  of  human  beings  at  New  York, 
Boston  and  Philadelphia,  like  rivers  reaching  the  ocean,  tend  to  deposit  their 
sediment  at  once  on  touching  our  shores.  At  the  outset  these  immigrants  are 
immobile  elements,  congesting  the  slums  of  the  great  cities.  But  with  the  men 
particularly,  with  the  exception  of  the  Jews  perhaps,  the  end  is  not  there.  As 
among  the  Italians,  Greeks,  and  Scandinavians,  they  are  apt  to  return  to  the 
fatherland  after  a  while ;  and  then  to  come  back  again,  this  time  with  a  wider 
appreciation  of  their  opportunities  ;  so  that  when  they  return,  they  scatter  far 
more  widely.  Instead  of  bunching  near  the  steamship  landing  stages,  they  range 
afield.  With  their  children  this  mobility  may  become  even  more  marked.  Cheap 
railroad  fares,  the  demand  for  harvest  labour  in  the  west,  the  contract  labour  on 
railways  and  irrigation  works,  all  tend  to  stimulate  this  movement.  It  was  this 
mobility  of  our  older  Anglo-Saxon  population  which  kept  the  nation  unified  over 
a  vast  and  .highly  varied  area ;  and  it  will  be  such  mobility,  engendered  by  the 
exigencies  of  our  changing  economic  life,  which  will  help  to  stir  up  and  mix 
together  the  various  ingredients  of  our  population. 

A  second  influence,  making  for  racial  intermixture  is  the  ever-present  inequal 
ity  of  the  sexes  among  these  foreigners.  This  is  most  apparent  when  they  first 
arrive,  about  70  per  cent,  of  them  being  males.  Few  nationalities  now-a-days  bring 
whole  families,  as  did  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  German  people  a  generation  ago.  The 
Bohemians,  indeed,  seem  to  do  so ;  as  well  as  many  of  those  immigrants  practically 


WILLIAM  Z.  HIFLEY. —  The  European  Population  of  the  United  States.      229  \ 

driven  out  from  Europe  by  political  persecution.  Thus,  in  1905,  Kussia  sent  50,<>00 
women  folk, — more  than  came  from  England,  Sweden,  and  Germany  combined  ;  and 
Austria-Hungary  sent  78,000,  or  thrice  the  number  of  women  contributed  by 
England,  Ireland,  and  Germany.  But  of  the  main  body,  the  large  majority  are  men. 
This  vanguard  of  males  tends  generally  to  be  followed  by  more  women  later,  after 
an  initial  period  of  trial  and  exploration.  Thus,  among  the  Italians  the  proportion 
of  men  to  women  once  six  to  one,  has  now  fallen  to  about  three  to  one.  Having 
established  themselves  in  America,  what  are  these  men  to  do  for  wives  ?  In  all 
classes,  matrimony,  early  or  late,  is  man's  natural  estate.  They  may  write  home  or 
go  home  and  find  brides  among  their  own  people,  or  they  may  seek  their  wives  in 
America.  This  probably,  the  majority  of  them  do ;  and,  of  course,  most  of  these 
naturally  prefer  to  marry  within  their  own  colony  of  fellow  countrymen.  But 
suppose,  in  the  first  place,  this  colony  is  predominantly  men,  or  constitutes  a  small  out 
post,  isolated  among  a  population  alien  or  semi-alien  to  them.  An  odd  consequence 
of  the  ambition  to  rise  of  these  foreign-born  men,  tending  inevitably  to  break  down 
racial  barriers,  is  that  they  covet  an  American-born  wife.  The  woman  always  is 
the  conservative  element  in  society,  and  tends  to  cling  to  the  old  ways  long  after 
they  have  been  discarded  by  the  men.  The  result  is,  that  in  intermixture  of  various 
peoples,  it  is  more  commonly  the  man  who  marries  up  in  the  social  scale.  Being 
the  active  agent,  he  inclines  to  choose  from  a  social  station  higher  than  his 
own.  There  were  about  15,000,000  people  in  1900  born  in  the  United  States  of 
foreign-born  parents,  wholly  or  in  part.  About  5,000,000  of  these  had  one  parent 
foreign-born  and  one  native-born  ;  that  is  to  say  with  one  parent  drawn  from  the 
second  generation  of  the  immigrant  stream.  And  in  two-thirds  of  these  mixed 
marriages,  it  was  the  father  who  was  foreign-born,  the  mother  being  native-bom.  This 
law  I  have  verified  by  many  concrete  examples  and  by  some  additional  statistical 
data.  It  is  the  same  law,  which,  contrary  to  general  belief,  leads  most  of  the 
infrequent  marriages  across  the  colour  line  to  take  the  form  of  a  negro  husbind  and 
a  white  wife.  For  certain  states  as  in  Michigan,  the  registration  statistics  are 
reliable,  and  here  again  show  that  over  two-thirds  of  the  mixed  marriages  have 
foreign-born  grooms  and  native-born  brides.  At  the  United  Hebrew  Charities  in 
Xew  York  City,  many  thousand  cases  of  destitution  among  foreign-born  women 
arise  from  the  desertion  of  the  wife,  with  her  old-fashioned  European  ways,  by  the 
husband  who  has  out-distanced  her  in  adaptation  to  the  new  life.  This  law  is  well 
borne  out  in  the  growing  intermarriage  between  the  Irish  and  the  Italians.  The 
Irish,  from  their  longer  residence  in  America,  are  obviously  of  a  higher  social 
grade.  The  ambitious  young  Italian  fruit  vendor  or  the  Jewish  merchant  who  has 
"  made  good,"  being  denied  a  wife  among  his  own  people,  there  being  too  few  to  go 
around,  then  wooes  and  wins  an  Hibernian  bride.  Religion  in  this  instance  is  no  bar, 
both  being  Catholics.  In  a  similar  fashion,  in  New  England  where  Germans  are 
scarce  and  Irish  abound,  it  is  the  German  man  who  usually  marries  up  into  an  Irish 
family.  The  same  thing  seems  to  be  true  even  in  New  York,  where  the  German 
colony  is  very  large.  When  intermarriage  between  the  two  people  occurs,  six  times 


230       WILLIAM  Z.  RIPLEY. —  The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

out  of  seven  it  is  the  Irish  woman  who  bears  the  children.  In  this  connection,  the 
important  role  played  in  ethnic  intermixture  by  the  Irish  women  deserves  mention. 
One  reason  is  surely  her  relative  abundance.  Thus  in  our  Boston  foreign  colony 
with  every  other  nationality  largely  represented  by  men,  there  is  a  surplus  of  1,500 
Irish  females.  But  a  second  reason  also,  is  the  superior  adaptability  and  comradeship 
of  the  Irish  woman,  together  with  her  democratic  ways  and  lack  of  spirit  of  caste. 
Irish,  or  Irish- American  womanhood  bids  fair  to  be  a  potent  physical  mediator 
between  the  other  peoples  of  the  earth.  One  may  picture  this  process  going  further, 
especially  in  those  parts  of  the  country  where  the  more  ambitious  native-born  males 
have  emigrated  to  the  West  or  to  the  large  cities.  The  incoming  foreigners,  steadily 
working  upward  in  the  economic  and  social  scale,  and  the  stranded,  downward 
trending  American  families,  perhaps  themselves  of  Irish  or  Scotch-Irish  descent, 
may  in  time  meet  on  an  even  plane. 

The  subtle  effects  of  change  of  environment,  religious,  linguistic,  political  and 
social  is  another  powerful  influence  in  breaking  down  ethnic  barriers.  The  spirit 
of  the  new  surroundings  in  fact  is  so  different  as  to  prove  too  powerfully  dis 
integrating  an  influence.  In  the  moral  and  religious  fields  this  is  plainly  noticeable, 
and  often  pathetic  in  its  results.  The  religious  bonds  are  often  entirely  snapped. 
This  is  discernible  among  the  Jews  everywhere.  As  one  observer  put  it  to  me, 
"  Religion  is  supplanted  by  socialism  and  the  yellow  journal."  Large  numbers, 
notably  of  the  young  men,  break  loose  entirely  and  become  agnostics  or  free 
thinkers.  The  Bohemians  are  notorious  in  this  regard.  This  is  accompanied  by  a 
breakdown  of  patriarchal  authority  in  the  family  ;  and  with  it,  in  the  close 
contacts  of  city  life,  the  barriers  of  religion  against  intermarriage  visibly  weaken. 
Differences  of  language  are  also  less  powerful  dividing  influences  than  one  would 
think,  especially  in  the  great  cities.  One  not  infrequently  hears  of  bride  and 
groom  not  being  on  speaking  terms  with  one  another.  And  one  of  my  friends  tells 
me  of  a  pathetic  instance  of  a  Czech-German  marriage,  in  which  the  man  painfully 
acquired  some  knowledge  of  German  but  in  later  life  forgot  it  almost  entirely ;  so 
that  in  the  end  the  two  old  people  were  driven  to  the  use  of  signs  for  daily  inter 
course. 

Despite  the  best  efforts  of  parents  to  keep  alive  an  acquaintance  with  the 
mother  tongue,  it  tends  to  disappear  in  the  second  generation.  To  be  sure  at  the 
present  time,  no  less  than  about  one  in  every  sixteen  of  our  entire  population, 
according  to  the  Census  of  1900,  cannot  even  speak  the  English  language.  Such 
ignorance  of  English  of  course  tends  more  strongly  to  persist  in  isolated  rural 
communities.  The  Pennsylvania  Dutch  who  still  after  over  200  years  of  residence 
in  America  can  say  "  Ich  habe  mein  Haus  ge-painted  and  ^-whitewashed  "  are  a 
case  in  point.  It  is  averred  that  in  some  of  the  Polish  colonies  in  Texas,  even  the 
negroes  speak  Polish  ;  as  Swedish  is  used  in  Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas,  German 
in  the  long-standing  Swiss  colonies  in  Wisconsin,  and  French  among  the  French- 
Canadians  in  New  England.  On  Cape  Cod  in  Massachusetts,  many  rural  schools 
have  a  separate  room  for  the  non-English  speaking  pupils.  But  the  desire,  and 


WILLIAM  Z.  KIPLEY. — TJie  European  Population  of  the  United  States.       231 

even  the  economic  necessity,  of  learning  English  is  overwhelming  in  its  potency. 
In  the  transitional  period  of  acquiring  English,  the  dependence  of  the  parents  upon 
tin-  children  entirely  reverses  the  customary  relationship.  Even  the  young  children, 
having  learned  English  in  the  public  schools,  are  indispensable  go-betweens  for  all 
intercourse  with  the  public.  As  a  result  they  relegate  the  parents  to  a  subordinate 
position  before  the  world.  Census  enumerators  and  college  settlement  workers 
agree  in  citing  instances  where  the  old  people  are  commanded  to  "  Shut  up,"  and 
not  interfere  in  official  conversations  ;  or  in  the  familiar  admonition  "  not  to  speak 
until  spoken  to."  The  decadence  of  family  authority  and  coherence  due  to  this 
cause  is  indubitable.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  already  in  the  second  generation 
the  barriers  of  language  and  religion  against  ethnic  intermixture  are  everywhere 
breaking  down.  The  English  tongue  readily  comes  into  service  ;  but  unfortunately 
in  respect  of  religion,  the  traditional  props  and  safeguards  are  knocked  from  under, 
without  as  yet,  in  too  many  instances,  suitable  substitutes  of  any  sort  being 
provided.  From  this  fact  arises  the  insistence  of  the  problem  of  criminality  among 
the  descendants  of  our  foreign-born.  This  is  a  topic  of  vital  importance,  but  some 
what  foreign  to  the  particular  subject  in  hand. 

Among  the  influences  tending  to  hinder  ethnic  intermixture  there  remains  to 
be  mentioned,  the  effect  of  concentration  or  segregation  of  the  immigrants  in 
compact  colonies,  which  remain  to  all  intents  and  purposes  as  truly  outposts  of  the 
mother  civilization  as  were  Carthage,  or  Treve.s.  This  phenomenon  of  concentration 
of  our  foreign-born,  not  only  in  the  large  cities  but  in  the  north-eastern  quarter  of 
the  United  States,  has  become  increasingly  noticeable  with  the  descending  scale  of 
nationality  among  the  more  recent  immigrants.  The  Teutonic  peoples  have 
scattered  widely,  taking  up  land  in  the  West  and  thus  populating  the  wilderness. 
But  the  Mediterranean,  Slavic  and  Oriental  people  heap  up  in  the  great  cities  ; 
and  with  the  exception  of  Chicago,  seldom  penetrate  far  inland.  Literally  four- 
fifths  of  all  our  foreign- born  citizens  now  abide  in  the  twelve  principal  cities  of  the 
country,  and  these  are  mainly  in  the  East.  We  thought  it  a  menace  that  in  1800, 
40  per  cent,  of  our  immigrants  were  to  be  found  in  the  North  Atlantic  states ;  but 
in  the  decade  to  1900,  four-iifths  of  the  new-comers  settled  there;  the  result  being 
that  in  the  latter  year,  not  40  but  actually  80  per  cent,  of  the  foreign-born  of  the 
United  States  resided  in  this  already  densely  populated  area.  Four-fifths  of  the 
foreign-born  of  New  York  State,  and  two-thirds  of  those  in  Illinois  are  now  packed 
into  the  large  towns.  To  be  sure  this  phenomenon  of  urban  congestion  is  not 
confined  to  the  foreigner.  Within  a  19-mile  radius  of  the  City  Hall  in  New  York, 
dwells  51  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  great  state  of  New  York  together  with 
58  per  cent,  of  the  population  of  the  adjoining  state  of  New  Jersey.  But  its 
results  are  more  serious  among  the  foreign-born,  heaped  up  as  they  are  in  the  slums 
and  purlieus.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  middle  and  far  West,  the  proportion  of 
actual  foreign-born  has  been  steadily  declining  since  1890.  Cities  like  Cincinnati 
or  Milwaukee,  once  largely  German,  have  now  become  Americanized.  In  the 
second  and  third  generations,  not  recruited  as  actively  as  before  by  constant 


232       WILLIAM  Z.  EIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

arrivals,  the  parent  stock  has  become  visibly  diluted.  And  in  the  rural  north-west, 
as  the  older  Scandinavians  die  off,  their  places  are  being  supplied  by  their  American- 
born  descendants ;  but  with  admixture  of  raw  recruits  from  the  old  countries  to  a 
lesser  degree  than  before. 

This  phenomenon  of  concentration  obviously  tends  to  perpetuate  the  survival 
of  racial  stocks  in  purity.  In  a  dense  colony  of  10,000  or  50,000  Italians  or  Eussian 
Jews,  there  need  be  little  contact  with  other  nationalities.  The  English  lano-ua<'-e 

O  o  O 

may  intrude  and  the  old-established  religion  may  lose  its  potency ;  but  as  far  as 
physical  contacts  are  concerned,  the  colony  may  be  self-sufficient.  Professor  Buck 
found  in  the  Czech  colony  in  Chicago  that  while  48,000  children  had  both  parents 
Bohemian,  there  were  only  799  who  had  only  one  parent  of  that  nationality.  Had 
there  been  only  a  small  colony,  the  number  of  mixed  marriages  would  have  greatly 
increased.  Thus  the  Irish  in  New  York,  according  to  the  Census  of  1885,  almost 
overwhelmingly  took  Irish  brides  to  wife ;  but  in  Baltimore  at  the  same  time, 
where  the  Irish  colony  was  small,  about  one  in  eight  married  native-born  wives. 
Such  facts  illustrate  the  force  of  the  influences  to  be  overcome  in  the  process  of 
racial  intermixture.  Call  it  what  you  please,  "  consciousness  of  kind,"  or  "  race 
instinct,"  there  will  always  be,  as  among  animals,  a  disposition  of  distinct  types  to 
keep  separate  and  apart.  Among  men,  however,  this  seldom  assumes  concrete 
form  in  respect  of  physical  type ;  although  in  The  Races  of  Europe  I  have  sought 
to  demonstrate  its  results  among  the  Basques  and  the  Jews.  Marriage  elsewhere 
appears  to  be  rather  a  matter  of  social  concern.  There  is  no  physical  antipathy 
between  different  peoples.  Oftentimes  the  attraction  of  a  contrasted  physical  type 
is  freely  acknowledged.  The  barrier  to  intermarriage  between  ethnic  groups  is 
more  often  based  upon  differences  in  economic  status.  The  Italian  "  Dago "  is 
looked  down  upon  by  the  Irish ;  as  in  turn  the  Irishman  used  to  be  characterized 
by  the  Americans  as  a  "  Mick,"  or  a  "  Paddy."  Any  such  social  distinctions 
constitute  serious  handicaps  in  the  matrimonial  race ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  as 
they  are  in  consequence  largely  artificial,  they  tend  to  disappear  with  the  demon 
stration  of  economic  and  social  efficiency. 

Heretofore,  our  attention  has  been  directed  to  a  discussion  of  the  influences 
making  for  or  against  a  physical  merger  of  these  divers  peoples.  It  may  now  be 
proper  to  inquire  how  much  of  this  intermixture  there  really  is.  Does  it  afford 
evidence  of  tendencies  at  work,  which  may  in  time  achieve  momentous  results  ? 
The  first  cursory  view  of  the  field  would  lead  one  to  deny  that  the  phenomenon  was 
yet  of  importance.  The  potency  of  the  forces  tending  to  restrict  intermarriage 
seems  too  great.  But  on  the  other  hand,  from  such  concrete  statistical  data  as  are 
obtainable,  it  appears  as  if  a  fair  beginning  had  already  been  made,  considering  the 
recency  of  the  phenomenon.  The  general  data  from  the  Federal  Census  are  valueless 
in  this  connection.  Although  they  indicate  much  intermarriage  of  the  foreign-born 
with  the  native-born  of  foreign  parentage,  the  overwhelming  preponderance  of  this 
is,  of  course,  confined  to  the  same  ethnic  group.  The  immigrant  Kussian  Jew,  or 
young  Italian,  is  merely  mating  with  another  of  the  same  people,  born  in  America 


WILLIAM  Z.  KIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States.       233 

of  parents  who  were  direct  immigrants.  The  bride  in  such  a  case  is  as  truly  Jewish 
or  Italian  by  blood  as  the  groom,  although  her  social  status  and  economic  condition 
may  be  appreciably  higher.  But  evidence  of  true  intermixture  across  ethnic  lines 
is  not  entirely  lacking.  No  less  than  50,000  persons  are  enumerated  in  the  Federal 
Census  as  being  of  mixed  Irish  and  German  parentage,  for  example  ;  and  of  these, 
13,400  were  from  New  York  State  alone.  German-English  intermarriages  are  about 
as  frequent,  numbering  47,600.  Irish  and  French-Canadian  marriages  numbered 
12,300,  according  to  the  same  authority.  Three  times  out  of  live,  it  is  the  French- 
Canadian  man  who  aspires  to  an  Irish  bride.  In  the  north-west  the  Irish  and 
Swedes  are  said  to  be  evincing  a  growing  fondness  for  one  another.  For  the  newer 
nationalities,  the  numbers  are,  of  course,  smaller. 

Some  idea  of  the  prevalence  of  mixed  marriages  is  afforded  by  the  specialized 
census  data  of  1900.  Take  one  nationality,  the  Italians  for  example.  There  were 
484,207,  in  all,  in  the  United  States.  Of  these  nearly  one-half  or  218,810  had  both 
parents  Italian.  Marriages  of  Italian  mothers  and  American-born  fathers  produced 
2,747  ;  while,  conformably  to  the  law  already  set  forth,  no  less  than  23,076,  had 
Italian  fathers  and  native-born  mothers.  There  still  remained  12,523  with  Italian 
fathers  and  mothers  of  some  other  non- American  nationality,  and  3,911  with  Italian 
mothers  and  fathers  neither  American  or  Italian  born.  Thus  of  the  484,000  Italian 
contingent,  nearly  one-tenth  proved  to  be  of  mixed  descent.  For  the  City  of  Boston, 
special  inquiry  showed  that  236  Italians  in  a  colony  of  7,900  were  of  mixed 
parentage,  with  predominantly  Irish  tendencies. 

Mixed  marriages  are,  of  course,  relatively  infrequent ;  but  at  all  events  as  in 
these  cases,  constitute  a  beginning.  Sometimes  they  occur  oftener,  especially  in  the 
great  centres  of  population  where  all  are  herded  together  in  close  order.  Thus  in  a 
census  made  in  New  York  of  the  oldest  part  of  the  city  south  of  Wall  and  Pine 
Streets  to  the  Battery  by  the  Federation  of  Churches,  out  of  307  families  completely 
canvassed,  it  appeared  that  49  were  characterized  by  mixed  marriages.  This 
proportion  of  one  in  six  is  certainly  too  high  for  an  average ;  but  it  is  nearly 
equalled  by  the  rather  unreliable  data  afforded  by  the  mortality  statistics  of  Old  New 
York  for  1906,  showing  the  parentage  of  descendants.  This  gave  a  proportion  of  one 
to  eight  as  of  mixed  descent.  How  many  of  those  called  mixed  were  only  offspring 
of  unions  of  first  and  second  generations  of  the  same  people  is  not,  however,  made 
clear.  Some  good  authorities  such  as  Dr.  Maurice  Fischberg,  do  not  hesitate  to 
affirm  that  even  for  the  Jews  as  a  people,  there  is  far  more  intermarriage  with  the 
Gentile  population,  than  is  commonly  supposed.  In  Boston,  the  most  frequent 
form  of  intermarriage  perhaps  is  between  the  Jewish  men  and  Irish  or  Irisli- 
American  women. 

A  few  general  observations  upon  the  subject  of  racial  intermixture  may  now  be 
permitted.  Is  the  result  likely  to  be  a  superior  or  an  inferior  type  ?  Will  the  future 
American  two  hundred  years  hence,  be  better  or  worse,  as  a  physical  being,  because 
of  his  mongrel  origin  ?  The  greatest  confusion  of  thinking  is  permitted  upon  this 
topic.  Evidence  to  support  both  sides  of  the  argument  is  to  be  had  for  the  seeking. 


234       WILLIAM  Z.  EIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

For  the  continent  of  Europe,  it  is  indubitable  that  the  highly  mixed  populations  of 
/  the  British  Isles,  of  Northern  France,  of  the  valley  of  the  Po  and  of  southern 
I  Germany,  are  superior  in  many  ways  to  those  of  outlying  or  inaccessible  regions 
where  greater  purity  of  type  prevails.  But  the  mere  statement  of  these  facts 
carries  proof  of  the  partial  weakness  of  the  reasoning.  Why  should  not  the  people 
of  the  British  Isles,  the  Isle  de  France  and  of  the  Po  valley  be  the  best  in  Europe  ? 
Have  they  not  enjoyed  every  advantage  which  a  salubrity  of  climate  and  fertility  of 
soil  can  afford  ?  Was  it  not,  indeed,  the  very  existence  of  these  advantages  which 
rendered  these  garden  spots  of  the  earth,  Meccas  of  pilgrimage  ?  Viewed  in  a  still 
larger  way,  is  it  not  indeed  the  very  beneficence  of  Nature  in  these  regards,  which 
has  induced  or  permitted  a  higher  evolution  of  the  human" species  in  Europe,  than 
in  any  of  the  other  continents.  The  races  certainly  began  even.  Why  are  the 
results  for  Europe  as  a  whole  so  superior  to-day  ?  Alfred  Eussel  Wallace,  I  am 
sure,  would  have  been  ready  with  a  cogent  reason.  What  right  have  we  to 
dissociate  these  concomitantly  operative  influences  of  race  and  environment,  and 
ascribe  the  superiority  of  physical  type  to  the  effect  of  intermixture  alone  ?  Yet  on 
the  other  hand,  does  not  the  whole  evolutionary  hypothesis  compel  us  to  accept 
some  such  favourable  conclusion  ?  What  leads  to  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  unless 
there  be  the  opportunity  for  variation  of  type,  from  which  effective  choice  may 
result.  And  yet  most  students  of  biology  agree,  I  take  it,  in  the  belief  that  the 
crossing  of  types  must  not  be  too  violently  extreme.  Nature  proceeds  in  her  work 
by  short  and  easy  stages.  At  this  point,  the  opportunity  for  the  students  of 
heredity  like  Galton,  Pearson  and  their  fellow  workers  appears.  What,  for  instance, 
is  the  order  of  transmission  of  physical  traits  as  between  the  two  parents  in  any 
union  ?  We  have  seen  how  unevenly  assorted  much  of  the  intermixture  in  the 
United  States  tends  to  be.  If  as  between  the  Irish  and  the  Italians  who  are 
palpably  evincing  a  tendency  to  mate  together,  it  is  commonly  the  Italian  male  who 
seeks  the  Irish  wife  ;  and  if,  as  Pearson  avers,  inheritance  in  a  line  through  the  same 
sex  is  pre-potent  over  inheritance  from  the  other  sex  ;  what  interesting  possibilities 
of  hereditary  physical  differences  may  result. 

An  interesting  query  suggested  by  the  results  of  scientific  breeding  and  the 
study  of  inheritance  among  lower  forms  of  animal  life  is  this  ;  what  chance  is 
there  that  out  of  this  forcible  dislocation  and  abnormal  intermixture  of  all  the 
peoples  of  the  civilized  world,  there  may  emerge  a  physical  type  tending  to  revert 
to  an  ancestral  one,  older  than  any  of  the  present  European  varieties  ?  The  law 
seems  to  be  well  supported  elsewhere,  that  crossing  between  highly  evolved 
varieties  or  types,  tends  to  cause  reversion  to  the  original  stock  ;  and  the  greater 
the  divergence  between  the  crossed  varieties,  the  more  powerful  does  the 
reversionary  tendency  become.  Most  of  us  are  familiar  witli  the  illustrations ; 
such  as  the  reversion  among  sheep  to  the  primary  dark  type  ;  and  the  emergence 
of  the  old  wild  blue-rock  pigeon  from  blending  of  the  fan-tail  and  pouter 
varieties.  The  same  law  is  borne  out  in  the  vegetable  world,  the  facts  being  well 
known  to  fruit  growers  and  horticulturists.  The  more  recently  acquired  character- 


WILLIAM  Z.  HIPLKY. — Ttit  Eurojwan  Population  of  tlie  United  States.       235 

istics,  especially  those  which  are  less  fundamentally  useful,  are  slouched  off;  aud 
the  ancestral  features  common  to  all  varieties,  emerge  from  dormancy  into 
l>n>minenee.  Issue  need  not  l>e  raised,  as  set  forth  by  l>r.  G.  A.  Reid,  whether  the 
result  of  cross-breeding  is  always  in  favour  of  reversion,  and  never  of  progression ; 
but  interesting  possibilities  linked  up  with  this  law  may  be  suggested.  All 
students  of  natural  science  have  accepted  the  primary  ami  proven  tenets  of  the 
evolutionary  hypothesis — or  rather  let  us  say,  of  the  law  of  evolution.  And  all 
alike  acknowledge  the  subjection  of  the  human  species  to  the  operation  of  the 
same  great  laws  applicable  to  all  other  forms  of  life.  It  would  have  been 
profoundly  suggestive  to  have  heard  from  Huxley  on  a  theme  like  this.  We  are 
familiar  in  certain  isolated  spots  in  Europe,  the  Dordogrie  in  France  for  example, 
with  the  persistence  of  certain  physical  types  without  change  from  prehistoric 
times.  The  modern  peasant  is  the  proven  direct  descendant  of  the  man  of  the 
stone  age  and  the  mammoth.  But  here  is  another  mode  of  access  to  that  primitive 
type,  or  even  an  older,  running  back  to  a  time  before  the  separation  of  European 
varieties  of  men  began.  Thus,  to  be  more  specific,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  primitive  type  of  European  was  brunet,  probably  with  black  eyes  and  hair  and 
a  swarthy  skin.  Teutonic  blondness  is  certainly  an  acquired  trait,  not  very  recent 
judged  by  historic  standards,  to  be  sure,  but  as  certainly  not  old,  measured  by 
evolutionary  time.  What  chance  is  there  that  in  the  unions  of  rufous  Irish 
and  dark  Italian  types,  a  reversion  in  favour  of  brunetness  may  result.  Were  it 
not  for  the  inflammatory  character  of  the  controversy  in  a  gathering  of  anthropolo 
gists,  over  the  relative  primitiveness  of  the  dolichocephalous  aud  brachycephalic 
types  in  Europe,  I  might  be  tempted  to  go  further  and  speculate  as  to  the  bearing 
of  American  racial  intermixture  upon  this  much-mooted  question. 

A  relatively  unimportant,  yet  theoretically  very  interesting  detail  of  the 
subject  of  racial  intermixture  is  suggested  in  Westermarck's  brilliant  History  of 
Human  Marriage.  It  is  a  well-known  statistical  law,  almost  the  world  over,  that 
there  are  more  boys  than  girls  born  into  the  world.  The  normal  ratio  of  births  is 
about  105  males  to  100  females.  Students  have  long  sought  the  reasons  for  this 
irregularity  ;  but  nothing  has  yet  been  proven  conclusively.  Westermarck  brings 
together  much  evidence  to  show  that  this  proportion  of  the  sexes  at  birth  is 
affected  by  the  amount  of  in-breeding  in  any  social  group,  crossing  of  different 
stocks  tending  to  increase  the  percentage  of  female  births.  Thus,  among  the 
French  half-breeds  and  mulattos  in  America,  among  mixed  Jewish  marriages,  and 
in  South  and  Central  America,  female  births  may  at  times  even  overset  the 
difference  and  actually  preponderate  over  the  male  births.  The  interest  of  this 
topic  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  unique  among  social  phenomena  in  being,  so  far  as 
we  know,  independent  of  the  human  will.  It  is  the  expression  of  what  may  truly 
be  denominated  natural  law.  Westermarck's  general  biological  reasoning  is  that 
inasmuch  as  the  rate  of  increase  of  any  animal  community  is  dependent  upon  the 
number  of  productive  females,  a  sort  of  accommodation  takes  place  in  each  case 
between  the  potential  rate  of  increase  of  the  group  and  its  means  of  subsistence, 


236       WILLIAM  Z.  EIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

or  chance  of  survival.  More  females  at  birth  is  the  response  of  Nature  to 
an  increasingly  favourable  environment,  or  condition.  In-and-in-breeding  is 
undoubtedly  injurious  to  the  welfare  of  any  species.  As  such,  according  to 
Westermarck,  it  is  accompanied  by  a  decline  in  the  proportion  of  females  born. 
This  is  the  expression  of  Nature's  disapproval  of  the  practice ;  while  intermixture 
tends,  contrariwise,  to  produce  a  relative  increase  of  the  female  sex.  Certain  it  is 
that  an  imposing  array  of  evidence  can  be  marshalled  to  give  colour  to  the 
hypothesis.  My  suggestion  at  this  point  is  that,  here  in  the  racial  intermixture 
just  now  beginning  in  the  United  States,  and  sure  to  assume  tremendous 
proportions  in  the  course  of  time,  will  be  afforded  an  opportunity  to  study  man  in 
his  relation  to  a  great  natural  law,  in  a  way  never  before  rendered  possible. 
Statistical  material  is  at  present  too  meagre,  and  vague  ;  but  one  may  confidently 
look  forward  to  such  an  improvement  in  this  regard,  that  an  inviting  field  of 
research  will  be  exposed  to  view. 

The  significance  of  the  rapidly  increasing  immigration  from  Europe  in  recent 
years,  is  vastly  enhanced  by  other  influences  in  the  United  States.  A  powerful 
process  of  social  selection  is  apparently  at  work  among  us.  Eacial  heterogeneity, 
due  to  the  direct  influx  of  foreigners  in  large  mimbers,  is  aggravated  by  their 
relatively  high  rate  of  reproduction  after  arrival ;  and  in  many  instances  by  their 
surprisingly  sustained  tenacity  of  life,  greatly  exceeding  that  of  the  native-born 
American.  Eelative  submergence  of  the  domestic  Anglo-Saxon  stock  is  strongly 
indicated  for  the  future.  "  Eace  suicide,"  marked  by  a  low  and  declining  birth  rate, 
as  is  well  known,  is  a  world- wide  social  phenomenon  of  the  present  day.  Nor  is 
it  by  any  means  confined  solely  to  the  so-called  upper  classes.  It  is  so  notably  a 
characteristic  of  democratic  communities,  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  almost 
a  direct  concomitant  of  equality  of  opportunity  among  men.  To  this  tendency, 
the  United  States  is  no  exception ;  in  fact,  together  with  the  Australian  common 
wealths,  it  affords  one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  of  present-day  social 
forces.  Owing  to  the  absence  of  reliable  data,  it  is  impossible  to  state  what  the 
actual  birthrate  of  the  United  States  as  a  whole  may  be.  But  for  certain 
commonwealths  the  statistical  information  is  ample  and  accurate.  From  this 
evidence  it  appears  that,  for  those  communities  at  least  to  which  the  European 
immigrant  resorts  in  largest  numbers,  the  birth  rate  is  almost  the  lowest  in  the 
world.  France  and  Ireland,  alone  among  the  great  nations  of  the  earth,  stand 
lower  in  the  scale.  This  relativity  is  shown  by  the  following  table,  giving  the 
number  of  births  in  each  case  per  thousand  of  population : — 

Birth  Rate  (approximate). 

Hungary  ...          ...          ...          ...          ...          ...          ...  40 

Austria  ...          ...          ...          ...          ...          ...          •••  37 

Germany  ...          ...          ...          ...          ...          •••          •••  36 

Italy  35 

Holland  33 


WILLIAM  X.  I'II-LEY. —  The  European  Population  of  the  United  Stales.       237 

England ;  Scotland ;  *i 
N. it-way  ;  Denmark  J 
Australia;  Sweden  ...          ...          ...          ...          ...          27 

Massachusetts;  Michigan  ...         ...         ...         ...         25 

Connecticut;  Rhode  Island          ...         ...         ...         ...         24 

Ireland        23 

France         ...          ...         ...          ...          ...          ...          ...         22 

New  Hampshire     ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         ...         20(?) 

This  crude  birth  rate,  of  course,  is  subject  to  several  technical  corrections  ; 
and  should  not  be  taken  at  its  full  face  value.  Moreover,  it  may  be  unfair 
to  generalize  for  the  entire  rural  West  and  South,  from  the  data  for  densely 
populated  communities.  And  yet,  as  has  been  observed,  it  is  in  our  thickly  settled 
eastern  states  that  the  newer  type  of  immigrant  tends  to  settle.  Consequently,  it 
is  the  birth  rate  in  these  states,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  new  comer,  upon 
which  racial  survival  will  ultimately  depend. 

The  birth  rate  in  the  United  States  in  the  days  of  its  Anglo-Saxon  youth  was 
one  of  the  highest  in  the  world.  The  best  of  authority  traces  the  beginning  of  its 
decline  to  the  first  appearance,  about  1850,  of  immigration  on  a  large  scale.  Our 
ureat  philosopher,  Benjamin  Franklin,  estimated  six  children  to  a  normal  American 
family  in  his  day.  The  average  at  the  present  time  is  slightly  above  two.  For 
1900,  it  is  calculated  that  there  are  only  about  three-fourths  as  many  children  to 
potential  mothers  in  America  as  there  were  forty  years  ago.  For  Massachusetts, 
were  the  old  rate  of  the  middle  of  the  century  sustained,  there  would  be  15,000 
more  births  yearly  than  now  occur.  In  the  course  of  a  century  the  proportion  of 
our  entire  population,  consisting  of  children  under  the  age  of  ten,  has  fallen  from 
one-third  to  one-quarter.  This,  for  the  whole  United  States,  is  equivalent  to  the 
loss  of  about  7,000,000  children.  So  alarming  has  this  phenomenon  of  the  falling 
birth  rate  become  in  the  Australian  colonies,  that  in  New  South  AVales  a  special 
governmental  commission  has  voluminously  reported  upon  the  subject.  It  is 
estimated  that  there  has  been  a  decline  of  about  one-third  in  the  fruitfulness  of 
the  people  in  15  years.  New  Zealand  even  complains  of  the  lack  of  children  to 
fill  her  schools.  The  facts  concerning  the  stagnation,  nay  even  the  retrogression  of 
the  population  of  France,  are  too  well  known  to  need  description.  But  in  these 
other  countries,  the  problem  is  relatively  simple,  as  compared  with  our  own. 
Their  populations  are  homogeneous,  and  ethnically  at  least,  are  all  subject  to  these 
social  tendencies  to  the  same  degree.  With  us,  the  danger  lies  in  the  fact  that  this 
low  and  declining  birth  rate  is  primarily  confined  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  contingent. 
The  immigrant  European  horde,  until  recently  at  least,  has  continued  to  reproduce 
upon  our  soil  with  well  sustained  energy. 

Baldly  stated,  the  birth  rate  among  the  foreign-born  in  Massachusetts  is  about 
three  limes  that  of  the  native-born.  Childless  marriages  are  one-third  less  frequent. 
This  somewhat  exaggerates  the  contrast,  because  of  differing  conditions  as  to  age 
.and  sex  in  the  two  classes.  The  difference,  nevertheless,  is  very  great.  Kuczynski 

b 


2o8       WILLIAM  Z.  EIPLEY. — The  European  Population  of  the  United  States. 

has  made  detailed  investigations  as  to  the  relative  fecundity  of  different  racial 
groups.  The  fruitfulness  of  English-Canadian  women  in  Massachusetts  is  twice 
that  of  the  Massachusetts-horn ;  of  the  Germans  and  Scandinavians  it  is  two-and- 
a-half  times  as  great ;  of  the  French-Canadians  it  is  thrice ;  and  of  the  Portuguese 
four  times.  Even  among  the  Irish,  who  are  characterized  now-a-days  everywhere 
by  a  low  birth  rate,  the  fruitfulness  of  the  women  is  fifty  per  cent,  greater  than  for 
the  Massachusetts  native-born.  The  reasons  for  this  relatively  low  fecundity  of 
the  domestic  stock  are,  of  course,  much  the  same  as  in  Australia  and  in  France. 
But  with  us,  it  is  as  well  the  "poor  white  "  among  the  New  England  hills  or  in  the 
southern  states  as  the  town  dweller,  who  appears  content  with  few  children  or 
none.  The  foreign  immigrant  marries  early  and  children  continue  to  come  until 
much  later  in  life  than  among  the  native-born.  It  may  make  all  the  difference 
between  an  increasing  or  declining  population  whether  the  average  age  of  marriage 
is  20  years  or  29  years.  The  contrast  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  stock  and  its 
rivals  for  supremacy  may  be  stated  in  another  way.  Whereas  only  about  one- 
ninth  of  the  married  women  among  the  French-Canadians,  Irish  and  Germans  are 
childless  ;  the  proportion  among  the  American-born  and  the  English-Canadians  is 
as  high  as  one  in  five.  A  century  ago  about  two  per  cent,  of  barren  marriages  was 
the  rule.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  serious  students  contemplate  the  racial  future  of 
Anglo-Saxon  America  with  some  concern  ?  They  have  witnessed  the  passing  of 
the  American  Indian  aud  the  buffalo.  And  now  they  query  as  to  how  long  the 
Anglo-Saxon  may  be  able  to  survive. 

On  the  other  hand,  evidence  is  not  lacking  to  show  that  in  the  second 
generation  of  these  immigrant  peoples,  a  sharp  and  considerable,  nay,  in  some  cases, 
a  truly  alarming  decrease  in  fruitfulness  occurs.  The  crucial  time  among  all  our 
new  comers  from  Europe  has  always  been  this  second  generation.  The  old 
customary  ties  and  usages  have  been  abruptly  sundered ;  and  new  associations, 
restraints  and  responsibilities  have  not  yet  been  formed.  Particularly  is  this  true 
of  the  forces  of  family  discipline  and  religion,  as  has  already  been  observed. 
Until  the  coming  of  the  Hun,  the  Italian  and  the  Slav,  at  least,  it  has  been  among 
the  second  generation  of  foreigners  in  America,  rather  than  among  the  raw 
immigrants,  that  criminality  has  been  most  prevalent.  And  it  is  now  becoming 
evident  that  it  is  this  second  generation  in  which  the  influence  of  democracy  and 
of  novel  opportunity  makes  itself  apparent  in  the  sharp  decline  of  fecundity.  In 
some  communities,  the  Irish- Americans  have  a  lower  birth  rate  even  than  the 
native-born.  Dr.  Engelmann  on  the  basis  of  a  large  practice  has  shown  that 
among  the  St.  Louis  Germans,  the  proportion  of  barren  marriages  is  almost 
unprecedentedly  high.  Corroborative,  although  technically  inconclusive,  evidence 
from  the  Pvegistration  Reports  of  the  State  of  Michigan  appears  in  the  following 
suggestive  table  showing  the  nativity  of  parents  and  the  number  of  children  per 
marriage  annually  in  each  class. 


WILLIAM  Z.  KIPLKY. —  The  European  Population  df  tat  United l-j 

German  father ;  American-born  mother          ...         2'5  children. 
Ainorican-born  father,  German  mother  2'3       „ 

Grnn:in  father,  German  mother  ...          ...         0'         „ 

American-born  father,  American-born  mother  1'8       „ 

I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  secure  personal  information  concerning  the  foreign 
colonies  in  some  of  our  large  cities,  notably  New  York.  Dr.  Maurice  Finhberg  for 
the  .lews,  ami  Dr.  Antonio  Stella  for  the  Italians,  both  notable  authorities,  confirm 
the  foregoing  statements.  Among  the  Italians  particularly,  the  conditions  are 
positively  alarming.  Peculiar  social  conditions  influencing  the  birth  rate,  and  the 
terrific  mortality  induced  by  overcrowding,  unsauitation  and  the  unaccustomed 
rigors  of  the  climate,  make  it  doubtful  whether  the  Italian  colony  in  Xew  York 
will  even  be  physically  self-sustaining.  Thus  it  appears  that  forces  are  at  work 
which  may  check  the  relatively  higher  rate  of  reproduction  of  the  immigrants,  and 
perhaps  reduce  it  more  nearly  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  level. 

The  vitality  of  these  immigrants  is  surprisingly  high  in  some  instances ; 
particularly  where  they  attain  an  open-air  rural  life.  The  birth  rate  stands  high  ; 
and  the  mortality  remains  low.  Such  are  the  ideal  conditions  for  rapid 
reproduction  of  the  species.  On  the  other  hand,  where  overcrowded  in  the  slums 
of  great  cities,  ignorant  and  poverty-stricken,  the  infant  mortality  is  very  high, 
largely  oll'setting,  it  may  be,  the  high  birth  rate.  The  mortality  rate  among  the 
Italians  in  Xew  York,  for  instance,  is  said  to  be  twice  as  high  as  in  Italy.  Yet 
some  of  these  immigrants,  such  as  the  Scandinavians,  are  peculiarly  hardy  and 
enduring.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  is  that  of  the  Jews,  both  Russian 
and  Polish.  According  to  the  Census  of  1890,  their  death  rate  was  only  one-half 
that  of  the  native-born  American.  For  three  of  the  most  crowded  wards  in  New 
York  City,  the  death  rate  of  the  Irish  was  36  per  1,000 ;  for  the  Germans,  22  ;  for 
natives  of  the  United  States,  45  ;  while  for  the  Jews  it  was  only  17  per  1,000. 
By  actuarial  computation,  at  these  relative  rates,  starting  at  birth  with  two  groups 
of  1,000  Jews  and  Americans  respectively,  the  chances  would  be  that  the  first  half 
of  the  Americans  would  die  within  47  years  ;  while  for  the  Jews  this  would  not 
occur  until  the  lapse  of  71  years.  Social  selection  at  that  rate  would  be  bound  to 
produce  very  positive  results  in  a  century  or  two. 

At  the  outset,  confession  was  made  that  it  was  too  early  as  yet  to  draw 
positive  conclusions  as  to  the  probable  outcome  of  this  great  ethnic  struggle  for 
dominance  and  survival.  The  great  heat  and  sweat  of  it  is  yet  to  come. 
Wherever  the  Anglo-Saxon  has  fared  forth  into  new  lands,  his  supremacy  in  his 
chosen  field,  whatever  that  may  be,  has  been  manfully  upheld.  India  was  never 
contemplated  as  a  centre  for  settlement;  but  Anglo-Saxon  law,  order  and 
civilization  has  prevailed.  In  Australia,  where  Nature  has  offered  inducements 
for  actual  colonization,  the  Anglo-Saxon  line  is  apparently  assured  of  physical 
ascendancy.  But  the  great  domain  of  Canada — greater  than  one  can  conceive  who 
has  not  traversed  its  north-western  empire — is  subject  to  the  same  physical  danger 
which  confronts  us  in  the  United  States — actual  physical  submergence  of  the 


240       'V^itLJAM  iZ:4l&PLEY. —  The  European  Population  of  tJte  United  States. 

English  stock  by  a  flood  of  continental  European  peop^s.  And  yet,  after  all,  is 
the  word  "  danger  "  well  considered  for  use  in  this  connection  ?  What  are  the 
English  people,  after  all,  but  a  highly  evolved  product  of  racial  blending  ?  To  be 
sure,  all  the  later  crosses,  the  Saxons,  Danes  and  Normans,  have  been  of  allied 
Teutonic  origin  at  least.  Yet  encompassing  these  racial  phenomena  witli  the  wide*, 
sweeping  vision  of  him  in  whose  honour  this  address  is  rendered,  dare  we  deny  an 
ultimate  unity  of  origin  to  all  the  peoples  of  Europe  ?  Our  feeble  attempts  at 
ethnic  analysis  cannot  at  the  best  reach  further  back  than  to  secondary  origins. 
And  the  primary  physical  brotherhood  of  all  branches  of  the  white  race,  nay,  I 
will  go  even  farther,  and  say  of  all  the  races  of  men,  must  be  admitted  on  faith — 
not  on  the  faith  of  dogma,  but  on  the  faith  of  scientific  probability.  It  is  only  in 
their  degree  of  physical  and  mental  evolution  that  the  races  of  men  are  different. 
rYou  have  your  "  white  man's  burden  "  to  bear  in  India ;  we  have  ours  to  bear  with 
the  American  negro  and  the  Eilipinos.  But  an  even  greater  responsibility  with  us 
and  with  your  Canadian  fellow-citizens  is  that  of  the  "  Anglo-Saxon's  burden  "  : — 
to  so  nourish,  uplift  and  inspire  all  these  immigrant  peoples  of  Europe,  that  in  due 
course  of  time,  even  if  the  physical  stock  be  inundated  by  the  engulfing 
flood,  the  torch  of  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  and  ideals,  borne  by  our  fathers  from 
England  to  America,  shall  yet  burn  as  bright  and  clear  in  the  New  World,  as  your 
fires  have  continued  to  illuminate  the  Old. 


[Reprinted  from  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Anthropological  Institute,  Vol.  XXXYI1I, 

Ju>  i/- December,  1908.  J 


Harrison  and  Sons,  Printers  in  Ordinary  to  Sin  Majesty,  St.  Martin's  Lane,  Condon. 


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