OUR FOREIGNER
OUR FOREIGNEES
ABRAHAM LINCOLN EDITION
VOLUME 35
THE CHRONICLES
OF AMERICA SERIES
ALLEN JOHNSON
EDITOR
GERHARD R. LOMER
CHARLES W. JEFFERYS
ASSISTANT EDITORS
2ra.wu!-e.And=rse.-.-La.jnb,l:a NY.
A CHKONICLI
AMERICAN
BY SA
^aax
nkiA
GLASGOW. BKOOK & (
MILFOti>
1920
^
u
iH .'ff ai'W9vI >^d aHqengoiofi*!
NATIVE AMERICAN STEEL-MILL WORKERS
M'^W
SLOVAKS
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine.
nnsn-2.
OUR FOREIGNERS
A CHRONICLE OF
AMERICANS IN THE MAKING
BY SAMUEL P. ORTH
LVXET
NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS \i
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. r)^^^^
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD | 'V^IU 1
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS -^ ^ •
1920
Copyright, 1920, hy Yale University Press
CONTENTS
I. OPENING THE DOOR Page 1
11. THE AMERICAN STOCK " 21
III. THE NEGRO " 45
IV. UTOPIAS IN AMERICA " 66
V. THE IRISH INVASION " lOS
VI. THE TEUTONIC TIDE " 124
VII. THE CALL OF THE LAND " 147
VIII. THE CITY BUILDERS " 162
IX. THE ORIENTAL " 188
X. RACIAL INFILTRATION " 208
XL THE GUARDED DOOR " 221
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 235
INDEX " 241
Vii
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE OLD AND THE NEW
NATIVE AMERICAN STEEL-MILL
WORKERS
SLOVAKS
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine. Frontispiece
A STUDY IN TYPES
ENGLISH
ITALIAN
AMERICAN
SLOVAK
POLE
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine. Facing page 30
JUVENILE TYPES
ENGLISH FAMILY AT ELLIS ISLAND
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
GREEK CHILD
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine for Special
Survey Mission, American Red Cross, and
for Pittsburgh Survey.
MAGYAR BOY
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine. " " 70
X ILLUSTRATIONS
CENTRAL EUROPEAN TYPES
A GERMAN FAMILY AT ELLIS ISLAND
LITHUANIAN
BOHEMIAN
GERMAN-HUNGARIAN
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine. Facing page 128
A RACIAL CONTRAST
SLOVAK GIRLS
A GIRL FROM SOUTHERN ITALY
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine. " " 160
FROM THE LEVANT AND THE NORTH
RUSSIAN TYPES
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
A HEBREW PATRIARCH
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine for Special
Survey Mission, American Red Cross, and
for Pittsburgh Survey.
ARMENIAN REFUGEES
Photograph copyright by Underwood and
Underwood, New York. " " 1$^
THE SERB AT HOME
A STREET IN BELGRADE
A SERB FIGHTING MAN
A SERB REFUGEE
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine for Special
Survey Mission, American Red Cross, and
for Pittsburgh Survey, " " 170
ILLUSTRATIONS a
ITALIAN TYPES
WOMEN OF NORTHERN ITALY
A LEGIONARY OF TODAY
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine for Special
Survey Mission, American Red Cross, and
for Pittsburgh Survey. Facing page 180
IMMIGRANT MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
HUNGARIAN
Photograph copyright by Underwood and
Underwood, New York.
RUSSIAN POLE
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
ITALIAN
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine. " '* £16
OUR FOREIGNERS
CHAPTER I
OPENING THE DOOR
Long before men awoke to the vision of America,
the Old World was the scene of many stupendous
migrations. One after another, the Goths, the
Huns, the Saracens, the Turks, and the Tatars, by
the sheer tidal force of their numbers threatened to
engulf the ancient and medieval civilization of
Europe. But neither in the motives prompting
them nor in the effect they produced, nor yet in the
magnitude of their numbers, will such migrations
bear comparison with the great exodus of European
peoples which in the course of three centuries has
made the United States of America. That move-
ment of races — first across the sea and then across
the land to yet another sea, which set in with the
English occupation of Virginia in 1607 and which
2 OUR FOREIGNERS
has continued from that day to this an almost cease-
less stream of millions of human beings seeking in
the New World what was denied them in the Old —
has no parallel in history.
It was not until the seventeenth century that the
door of the wilderness of North America was opened
by Englishmen; but, if we are interested in the cir-
cumstances and ideas which turned Englishmen
thither, we must look back into the wonderful six-
teenth century — and even into the fifteenth, for
it was only five or six years after the great Chris-
topher's discovery, that the Cabots, John and Se-
bastian, raised the Cross of St. George on the North
American coast. Two generations later, when the
New World was pouring its treasure into the lap of
Spain and when all England was pulsating with
the new and noble life of the Elizabethan Age, the
sea captains of the Great Queen challenged the
Spanish monarch, defeated his Great Armada, and
imf urled the EngHsh flag, symbol of a changing era,
in every sea.
The political and economic thought of the six-
teenth century was conducive to imperial expan-
sion. The feudal fragments of kingdoms were be-
ing fused into a true nationalism. It was the day
of the mercantilists, when gold and silver were
OPENING THE DOOR 3
given a grotesquely exaggerated place in the na-
tional economy and self-sufficiency was deemed to
be the goal of every great nation. Freed from the
restraint of rivals, the nation sought to produce its
own raw material, control its own trade, and carry
its own goods in its own ships to its own markets.
This economic doctrine appealed with peculiar
force to the people of England. England was very
far from being self-sustaining. She was obliged to
import salt, sugar, dried fruits, wines, silks, cotton,
potash, naval stores, and many other necessary
commodities. Even of the fish which formed a
staple food on the English workman's table, two-
thirds of the supply was purchased from the Dutch.
Moreover, wherever English traders sought to take
the products of English industry, mostly woolen
goods, they were met by handicaps — tariffs, Sound
dues, monopolies, exclusions, retaliations, and even
persecutions.
So England was eager to expand under her own
flag. With the fresh courage and buoyancy of
youth she fitted out ships and sent forth expedi-
tions. And while she shared with the rest of the
Europeans the vision of India and the Orient, her
"gentlemen adventurers" were not long in seeing
the possibilities that lay concealed beyond the
4 OUR FOREIGNERS
inviting harbors, the navigable rivers, and the for-
est-covered valleys of North America. With a will-
ing heart they believed their quaint chronicler, Rich-
ard Hakluyt, when he declared that America could
bring "cw great a profit to the Realme of England as
the Indes to the King of Spain,'' that *'golde, silver,
copper, leade and per ales in ahoundaunce'* had been
found there: also ''precious stones, as turquoises and
emauraldes; spices and drugges; silke worms fairer
than ours in Europe; white and red cotton; infinite
multitude of all hind offowles; excellent vines in many
places for wines; the soyle apte to heare olyvesfor oyle;
all kinds offruites; all kindes of odoriferous trees and
date trees, cypresses, and cedars; and in Newfounde-
lande ahoundaunce of pines andfirr trees to make
mastes and deale hoards, pitch, tar, rosen; hempefor
cables and cordage; and upp within the Graunde Baye
excedinge quantitie of all kinde of precious furres. "
Such a catalogue of resources led him to conclude
that ''all the commodities of our olde decayed and
daungerous trades in all Europe, Africa and Asia
haunted by us, may in short space and for little or
nothinge, in a manner be had in that part of America
which lieth between 30 and 60 degrees of northerly
latitude, "
Even after repeated expeditions had discounted
OPENING THE DOOR 5
the exuberant optimism of this description, the
Englishmen's faith did not wane. While for many
years there lurked in the mind of the Londoner, the
hope that some of the products of the Levant might
be raised in the fertile valleys of Virginia, the prac-
tical English temperament none the less began
promptly to appease itself with the products of the
vast forests, the masts, the tar and pitch, the furs;
with the fish from the coast waters, the abundant
cod, herring, and mackerel; nor was it many years
before tobacco, indigo, sugar, cotton, maize, and
other commodities brought to the merchants of
England a great American conunerce.
The first attempts to found colonies in the coun-
try by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Ra-
leigh were pitiable failiu*es. But the settlement
on the James in 1607 marked the beginning of a
nation. What sort of nation? What race of peo-
ple? Sir Walter Raleigh, with true English ten-
acity, had said after learning of the collapse of his
own colony, " I shall yet live to see it an English
nation." The new nation certainly was English in its
foundation, whatever may be said of its superstruc-
ture. Virginia, New England, Maryland, the Caro-
linas. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia were
begun by Englishmen; and New England, Virginia,
6 OUR FOREIGNERS
and Maryland remained almost entirely English
throughout the seventeenth century and well into
the eighteenth. These colonies reproduced, in so
far as their strange and wild surroundings permitted,
the towns, the estates, and the homes of English-
men of that day. They were organized and gov-
erned by Englishmen under English customs and
laws; and the Englishman's constitutional liberties
were their boast until the colonists wrote these
rights and privileges into a constitution of their
own. "Foreigners" began early to straggle into
the colonies. But not until the eighteenth century
was well under way did they come in appreciable
numbers, and even then the great bulk of these non-
English newcomers were from the British Isles —
of Welsh, Scotch, Irish, and Scotch-Irish extraction.
These colonies took root at a time when profound
social and religious changes were occurring in Eng-
land. Churchmen and dissenters were at war with
each other; autocracy was struggling to survive the
representative system; and agrarianism was con-
tending with a newly created capitalism for eco-
nomic supremacy. The old order was changing.
In vain were attempts made to stay progress by
labor laws and poor laws and corn laws. The laws
rather served to fill the highways with vagrants,
OPENING THE DOOR 7
vagabonds, mendicants, beggars, and worse. There
was a general belief that the country was over-
populated. For the restive, the discontented, the
ambitious, as well as for the undesirable surplus,
the new colonies across the Atlantic provided a
welcome outlet.
To the southern plantations were lured those to
whom land-owning offered not only a means of
livelihood but social distinction. As word was
brought back of the prosperity of the great estates
and of the limitless areas awaiting cultivation, it
tempted in substantial numbers those who were dis-
satisfied with their lot: the yeoman who saw no es-
cape from the limitations of his class, either for
himself or for his children; the younger son who dis-
dained trade but was too poor to keep up family
pretensions; professional men, lawyers, and doctors,
even clergymen, who were ambitious to become
landed gentlemen; all these felt the irresistible call
of the New World.
The northern colonies were, on the other hand,
settled by townfolk, by that sturdy middle class
which had wedged its way socially between the |
aristocracy and the peasantry, which asserted it- \
self poHtically in the Cromwellian Commonwealth
and later became the industrial master of trade
8 OUR FOREIGNERS
and manufacture. These hard-headed dissenters
founded New England. They built towns and al-
most immediately developed a profitable trade and
manufacture. With a goodly sprinkling of uni-
versity men among them, they soon had a college
of their own. Indeed, Harvard graduated its first
class as early as 1642.
Supplementing thei^e pioneers, came mechanics
and artisans eager to better their condition. Of
the serving class, only a few came willingly. TTiese
were the "free-willers" or "redemptioners," who
sold their services usually for a term of five years to
pay for their passage money. But the great mass
of unskilled labor necessary to clear the forests and
do the other hard work so plentiful in a pioneer
land came to America under duress. Kidnaping
or "spiriting" achieved the perfection of a fine art
under the second Charles. Boys and girls of the
poorer classes, those wretched waifs who thronged
the streets of London and other towns, were hustled
on board ships and virtually sold into slavery for a
term of years. It is said that in 1670 alone ten
thousand persons were thus kidnaped; and one
kidnaper testified in 1671 that he had sent five
hundred persons a year to the colonies for twelve
years and another that he had sent 840 in one year.
OPENING THE DOOR 9
Transportation of the idle poor was another com-
mon source for providing servants. In 1663 an act
was passed by Parliament empowering Justices of
the Peace to send rogues, vagrants, and "sturdy
beggars" to the colonies. These men belonged to
the class of the unfortunate rather than the vicious
and were the product of a passing state of soci-
ety, though criminals also were deported. Virginia
and other colonies vigorously protested against
this practice, but their protests were ignored by the
Crown. When, however, it is recalled that in those
years the list of capital offenses was appalling in
length, that the larceny of a few shillings was pun-
ishable by death, that many of the victims were
deported because of religious differences and po-
litical offenses, then the stigma of crime is erased.
And one does not wonder that some of these trans-
ported persons rose to places of distinction and
honor in the colonies and that many of them be-
came respected citizens. Maryland, indeed, re-
cruited her schoolmasters from among their ranks.
Indentured service was an institution of that
time, as was slavery. The lot of the indentured
servant was not ordinarily a hard one. Here and
there masters were cruel and inhuman. But in a
new country where hands were so few and work
10 OUR FOREIGNERS
so abundant, it was wisdom to be tolerant and
humane. Servants who had worked out their time
usually became tenants or freeholders, often mov-
ing to other colonies and later to the interior be-
yond the "fall line," where they became pioneers
in their turn.
The most important and influential influx of non-
English stock into the colonies was the copious
stream of Scotch-Irish. Frontier life was not a new
experience to these hardy and remarkable people.
Ulster, when they migrated thither from Scotland
in the early part of the seventeenth century, was a
wild moorland, and the Irish were more than im-
friendly neighbors. Yet these transplanted Scotch
changed the fens and mires into fields and gardens;
in three generations they had built flourishing
towns and were doing a thriving manufacture in
linens and woolens. Then England, in her mercan-
tilist blindness, began to pass legislation that aimed
to cut off these fabrics from English competition.
Soon thousands of Ulster artisans were out of work.
Nor was their religion immune from English attack,
for these Ulstermen were Presbyterians. These
civil, religious, and economicpersecutions thereupon
drove to America an ethnic strain that has had an
influence upon the character of the nation far out
OPENING THE DOOR 11
of proportion to its relative numbers. In the long
list of leaders in American politics and enterprise
and in every branch of learning, Scotch-Irish names
are common.
There had been some trade between Ulster and
the colonies, and a few Ulstermen had settled on
the eastern shore of Maryland and in Virginia be-
fore the close of the seventeenth century. Between
1714 and 1720, fifty-four ships arrived in Boston
with immigrants from Ireland. They were care-
fully scrutinized by the Puritan exclusionists. Cot-
ton Mather wrote in his diary on August 7, 1718:
"But what shall be done for the great number of
people that are transporting themselves thither
from ye North of Ireland.^ " And John Winthrop,
speaking of twenty ministers and their congregar
tions that were expected the same year, said, "I
wish their coming so over do not prove f atall in the
End." They were npt welcome, and had, evi-
dently, no intention of burdening the towns. Most
of them promptly moved on beyond the New
England settlements.
The great mass of Scotch-Irish, however, came
to Pennsylvania, and in such large numbers that
James Logan, the Secretary of the Province, wrote
to the Proprietors in 1729: "It looks as if Ireland
12 OUR FOREIGNERS
is to send all its inhabitants hither, for last week
not less than six ships arrived, and every day two
or three arrive also. " ' These colonists did not re-
main in the towns but, true to their traditions,
pushed on to the frontier. They found their way
over the mountain trails into the western part of
the colony; they pushed southward along the fertile
plateaus that terrace the Blue Ridge Mountains
and offer a natiu-al highway to the South; into Vir-
ginia, where they possessed themselves of the beau-
tifid Shenandoah Valley; into Maryland and the
Carolinas; imtil the whole western frontier, from
Georgia to New York and from Massachusetts to
Maine, was the skirmish line of the Scotch-Irish
taking possession of the wilderness.
The rebellions of the Pretenders in Scotland in
1715 and 1745 and the subsequent break-up of the
clan system produced a considerable migration
to the colonies from both the Highlands and the
Lowlands. These new colonists settled largely in
the Carolinas and in Maryland. The political
^ In 1773 and 1774 over thirty thousand came. In the latter
year Benjamin Franklin estimated the population of Pennsyl-
vania at 350,000, of which number one-third was thought to be
Scotch-Irish. John Fiske states that half a million, all told, ar-
rived in the colonies before 1776, "making not less than one-sixth
part of our population at the time of the Revolution. *'
OPENING THE DOOR 13
prisoners, of whom there were many in consequence
of the rebellions, were sold into service, usually for
a term of fourteen years. In Pennsylvania the
Welsh founded a number of settlements in the
neighborhood of Philadelphia. There were Irish
servants in all the colonies and in Maryland many
Irish Catholics joined their fellow Catholics from
England.
In 1683 a group of religious refugees from the j
Rhineland founded Germantown, near Philadel-'
phia. Soon other German communities were
started in the neighboring counties. Chief among
these German sectarians were the Mennonites, fre-
quently called the German Quakers, so nearly did
their religious peculiarities match those of the fol-
lowers of Penn; the Dunters, a Baptist sect, who
seem to have come from Germany boot and bag-
gage, leaving not one of their number behind; and
the Moravians, whose missionary zeal and gentle
demeanor have made them beloved in many lands.
The peculiar religious devotions of the sectarians
still left them time to cultivate their inclination for
Hterature and music. There were a few distin-
guished scholars among them and some of the finest
examples of early American books bear the imprint
of their presses.
14 OUR FOREIGNERS
This modest beginning of the German invasion
was soon followed by more imposing additions.
The repeated strategic devastations of the Rhenish
Palatinate during the French and Spanish wars re-
duced the peasantry to beggary, and the medieval
social stratification of Germany reduced them
to virtual serfdom, from which America offered
emancipation. Queen Anne invited the harassed
peasants of this region to come to England, whence
they could be transferred to America. Over thirty
thousand took advantage of the opportunity in
the years 1708 and 1709.^ Some of them found
occupation in England and others in Ireland, but
the majority migrated, some to New York, where
they settled in the Mohawk Valley, others to the
Carolinas, but far more to Pennsylvania, where,
with an instinct born of generations of contact with
the soil, they sought out the most promising areas
in the limestone valleys of the eastern part of that
colony, cleared the land, built their solid homes and
ample barns, and clung to their language, customs,
and religion so tenaciously that to this day their
descendants are called "Pennsylvania Dutch."
After 1717 multitudes of German peasants were
*John Fiske: The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, vol.
U, p. 851.
OPENING THE DOOR 15
lured to America by unscrupulous agents called
"new-landers" or "soul-stealers," who, for a com-
mission paid by the shipmaster, lured the peasant
to sell his belongings, scrape together or borrow
what he could, and migrate. The agents and cap-
tains then saw to it that few arrived in Philadelphia
out of debt. As a result the immigrants were sold
to "soul-drivers," who took them to the interior
and indentured them to farmers, usually of their
own race. These redemptioners, as they were
called, served from three to five years and generally
received fifty acres of land at the expiration of
their service.
On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by
Louis XIV in 1685 French Protestants fled in vast
numbers to England and to Holland. Thence I
many of them found their way to America, but J
very few came hither directly from France. South
Carolina, Virginia, New York, Rhode Island, and
Massachusetts were favored by those noble refu-
gees, who included in their numbers not only
skilled artisans and successful merchants but dis-
tinguished scholars and professional men in whose
veins flowed some of the best blood of France.
They readily identified themselves with the indus-
tries and aspirations of the colonies and at once
16 OUR FOREIGNERS
became leaders in the professional and business life
in their communities. In Boston, in Charleston,
in New York, and in other commercial centers, the
names of streets, squares, and public buildings at-
test their prominence in trade and politics. Few
names are more illustrious than those of Paul Re-
vere, Peter Faneuil, and James Bowdoin of Mas-
sachusetts; John Jay, Nicholas Bayard, Stephen
DeLancey of New York; Elias Boudinot of New
Jersey ; Henry Laurens and Francis Marion of South
Carolina. Like the Scotch-Irish, these French Prot-
estants and their descendants have distinguished
themselves for their capacity for leadership.
The Jews came early to New York, and as far /
back as 1691 they had a synagogue in Manhattan. !
The civil disabilities then so common in Europe
were not enforced against them in America, except j
that they could not vote for members of the legis-|
lature. As that body itself declared in 17S7, the
Jews did not possess the parliamentary franchise in
England, and no special act had endowed them
with this right in the colonies. The earliest repre-
sentatives of this race in America came to New
Amsterda;m with the Dutch and were nearly all
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who had found
refuge in Holland after their wholesale expulsion
OPENING THE DOOR 17
from the Iberian peninsula in 1492. Rhode Island,
too, and Pennsylvania had a substantial Jewish
population. The Jews settled characteristically in
the towns and soon became a factor in commercial
enterprise. It is to be noted that they contributed
liberally to the patriot cause in the Revolution.
While the ships bearing these many different
stocks were sailing westward, England did not gain
possession of the whole Atlantic seaboard without
contest. The Dutch came to Manhattan in 1623
and for fifty years held sway over the imperial valley
of the Hudson. It was a brief interval, as history
goes, but it was long enough to stamp upon the
town of Manhattan the cosmopolitan character it
has ever since maintained. Into its liberal and con-
genial atmosphere were drawn Jews, Moravians,
and Anabaptists; Scotch Presbyterians and Eng-
lish Nonconformists ; Waldenses from Piedmont and
Huguenots from France. The same spirit that made
Holland the lenient host to political and religious
refugees from every land in that restive age charac-
terized her colony and laid the foimdations of the
great city of today. England had to wrest from
the Dutch their ascendancy in New Netherland,
where they split in twain the great English colonies
of New England and of the South and controlled
18 OUR FOREIGNERS
the magnificent harbor at the mouth of the Hud-
son, which has since become the water gate of
the nation.
While the Enghsh were thus engaged in estab-
Kshing themselves on the coast, the French girt
them in by a strategic circle of forts and trading
posts reaching from Acadia, up the St. Lawrence,
around the Great Lakes, and down the valley of
the Mississippi, with outposts on the Ohio and
other important confluents. When, after the final
struggle between France and Britain for world
empire, France retired from the North American
continent, she left to England all her possessions
east of the Mississippi, with the exception of a few
insignificant islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence
and the West Indies; and to Spain she ceded New
Orleans and her vast claims beyond the great river.
Thus from the first, the lure of the New World
beckoned to many races, and to every condition
of men. By the time that England's dominion
spread over half the northern continent, her col-
onies were no longer merely English. They were
the most cosmopolitan areas in the world. A few
European cities had at times been cities of refuge,
but New York and Philadelphia were more than
mere temporary shelters to every creed. Nowhere
OPENING THE DOOR 19
else could so many tongues be heard as in a stroll
down Broadway to the Battery. No European
commonwealths embraced in their citizenry one-
half the ethnic diversity of the Carolinas or of
Pennsylvania. And within the wide range of his
American domains, the English King could point
to one spot or another and say: "Here the Span-
iards have built a chaste and beautiful mission;
here the French have founded a noble city; here
my stubborn Roundheads have planted a whole
nest of commonwealths; here my Dutch neigh-
bors thought they stole a march on me, but I fore-
stalled them; this valley is filled with Germans, and
that plateau is covered with Scotch-Irish, while the
Swedes have taken possession of all this region."
And with a proud gesture he could add, " But every-
where they read their laws in the King's English
and acknowledge my sovereignty. "
Against the shifting background of history these
many races of diverse origin played their individual
parts, each contributing its essential characteris-
tics to the growing complex of a new order of
society in America. So on this stage, broad as
the western world, we see these men of different
strains subduing a wilderness and welding its di-
verse parts into a great nation, stretching out the
20 OUR FOREIGNERS
eager hand of exploration for yet more land, bring-
ing with arduous toil the ample gifts of sea and for-
est to the townsfolk, hewing out homesteads in the
savage wilderness, laboring faithfully at forge and
shipyard and loom, bartering in the market place,
putting the fear of God into their children and the
fear of their own strong right arm into him whoso-
ever sought to oppress them, be he Red Man with
his tomahawk or English King with his Stamp Act.
CHAPTER II
THE AMERICAN STOCK
In the history of a word we may frequently find
a fragment, sometimes a large section, of univer-
sal history. This is exemplified in the term
American, a name which, in the phrase of George
Washington, "must always exalt the pride of
patriotism" and which today is proudly borne
by a hundred million people. There is no ob-
scurity about the origin of the name America.
It was suggested for the New World in 1507 by
Martin WaldseemUUer, a German geographer at
the French college of Saint-Die. In that year
this savant printed a tract, with a map of the
world or mappemonde, recognizing the dubious
claims of discovery set up by Amerigo Vespucci
and naming the new continent after him. At
first applied only to South America, the name was
afterwards extended to mean the northern conti-
nent as well; and in time the whole New World,
21
%% OUR FOREIGNERS
from the Frozen Ocean to the Land of Fire, came
to be called America.
Inevitably the people who achieved a prepon-
derating influence in the new continent came to
be called Americans. Today the name Ameri-
can everywhere signifies belonging to the United
States, and a citizen of that country is called an
American. This unquestionably is geographically
anomalous, for the neighbors of the United States,
both north and south, may claim an equal share in
the term. Ethnically, the only real Americans are
the Indian descendants of the aboriginal races. But
it is futile to combat universal usage: the World
War has clinched the name upon the inhabitants
of the United States. The American army, the
American navy, American physicians and nurses,
American food and clothing — these are phrases
with a definite geographical and ethnic meaning
which neither academic ingenuity nor race rivalry
can erase from the memory of mankind.
This chapter, however, is to discuss the Ameri-
can stock, and it is necessary to look farther back
than mere citizenship; for there are millions of
American citizens of foreign birth or parentage
who, though they are Americans, are clearly not of
any American stock.
THE AMERICAN STOCK 23
At the time of the Revolution there was a defi-
nite American population, knit together by over
two centuries of toil in the hard school of frontier
life, inspired by common political purposes, speak-
ing one language, worshiping one God in divers
manners, acknowledging one sovereignty, and com-
plying with the mandates of one common law.
Through their common experience in subduing the
wilderness and in wresting their independence from
an obstinate and stupid monarch, the English colo-
nies became a nation. Though they did not ful-
fill Raleigh's hope and become an English nation,
they were much more English than non-English,
and these Revolutionary Americans may be called
today, without abuse of the term, the original
American stock. Though they were a blend of
various races, a cosmopolitan admixture of ethnic
strains, they were not more varied than the original
admixture of blood now called English.
We may, then, properly begin our survey of the
racial elements in the United States by a brief scru-
tiny of this American stock, the parent stem of the
American people, the great trunk, whose roots have
penetrated deep into the human experience of the
past and whose branches have pushed upward and
outward until they spread over a whole continent.
24 OUR FOREIGNERS
The first census of the United States was taken
m 1790. More than a hundred years later, in 1909,
the Census Biu:eau published A Century of Popu-
lation Growth in which an attempt was made to as-
certain the nationality of those who comprised the
population at the taking of the first census. In
that census no questions of nativity were asked.
This omission is in itself significant of the homo-
geneity of the population at that time. The only
available data, therefore, upon which such a calcu-
lation could be made were the surnames of the
heads of families preserved in the schedules. A
careful analysis of the list disclosed a surprisingly
large number of names ostensibly English or Brit-
ish. Fashions in names have changed since then,
and many that were so curious, simple, or fantas-
tically compounded as to be later deemed undigni-
fied have undergone change or disappeared. '
* Among the names which have quite vanished were those per-
taining to household matters, such as Hash, Butter, Waffle, Booze,
Frill, Shirt, Lace; or describing human characteristics, as Booby,
Dunce, Sallow, Daft, Lazy, Measley, Rude; or parts of the body
and its ailments, as Hips, Bones, Chin, Glands, Gout, Corns,
Physic; or representing property, as Shingle, Gutters, Pump,
Milkhouse, Desk, Mug, Auction, Hose, Tallow. Nature also was
drawn upon for a large number of names. The colors Black,
Brown, and Gray survive, but Lavender, Tan, and Scarlet have
gone out of vogue. Bogs, Hazelgrove, Woodyfield, Oysterbanks,
Chestnut, Pinks, Ragbush, Winterberry, Peach, Walnut, Freeze,
THE AMERICAN STOCK 25
Upon this basis the nationality of the white popu-
lation was distributed among the States in accord-
ance with Table A printed on pages 26-27. Three
of the original States are not represented in this
table: New Jersey, Delaware, and Georgia. The
schedules of the First Census for those States
were not preserved. The two new States of Ken-
tucky and Tennessee are also missing from the list.
Estimates, however, have been made for these
missing States.
For Delaware, the schedules of the Second Cen-
sus, 1800, survived. As there was little growth
and very little change in the composition of the
population during this decade, the Census Bureau
used the later figures as a basis for calculating the
population in 1790. Of three of the missing South-
ern States the report says: "The composition of
the white population of Georgia, Kentucky, and of
the district subsequently erected into the State of
Tennessee is also unknown; but in view of the fact
that Georgia was a distinctly English colony, and
that Tennessee and Kentucky were settled largely
Coldair, Bear, Tails, Chick, Bantam, Stork, Worm, Snake, and
Maggot indicate the simple origin of many names. There were
many strange combinations of Christian names and surnames:
'Peter Wentup, Christy Forgot, Unity Bachelor, Booze Still, Cut-
lip Hoof, and Wanton Bump left little to the imagination.
26
OUB FOREIGNERS
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28 OUR FOREIGNERS
TABLE B
Computed distribution of white population, 1790, according
TO nationality, in each State for which schedules
ARE missing
NATIONALITY
NEW JERSEY
DELAWARE
GEORGIA
All Nationalities
169,954
100.0
46,310
100.0
52,886
100.0
English
98,620
58.0
39,966
86.3
43,948
83.1
Scotch
13,156
7.7
3,473
7.5
5,923
11.2
Irish
12,099
7.1
1,806
3.9
1,216
2.3
Dutch
21.581
12.7
463
1.0
106
0.2
French
3,565
2.1
232
0.5
159
0.3
German
15,678
9.2
185
0.4
1,481
2.8
All others*
5,255
3.1
185
0.4
53
0.1
NATIONALITY
KENTUCKY
TENNESSEE
All Nationalities
61,133
100.0
31,913
100.0
English
50,802
83.1
26,519
83.1
Scotch
6,847
11.2
3,574
11.2
Irish
1,406
2.3
734
2.8
Dutch
122
0.2
64
0.2
French
183
0.3
96
0.3
German
1,712
2.8
894
2.8
All others*
61
0.1
32
0.1
* Including Hebrews.
from Virginia and North Carolina, the application
of the North Carolina proportions to the white
population of these three results in what is doubt-
less an approximation of the actual distribution. "
THE AMERICAN STOCK 29
New Jersey presented a more complex problem. ~
Here were Welsh and Swedes, Finns and Danes,
as well as French, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, and English.
A careful analysis was made of lists of freeholders,
and other available sources, in the various counties.
The results of these computations in the States
from which nc schedules of the First Census sur-
vive are given in Table B printed on page 28.
The calculations for the entire country in 1790,
based upon the census schedules of the States from
which reports are still available and upon estimates
for the others are summed up in the following
manner:
Number and per cent distribution of the white population,
1790:
Nationality
Number
Per Cen
All Nationalities
3,172,444
100.0
English
2,605,699
82.1
Scotch
221,562
7.0
Irish
61,534
1.9
Dutch
78,959
2.5
French
17,619
0.6
German
176,407
5.6
All others
10,664
0.3
To this method of estimating nationality, it will
at once be objected that undue prominence is given
30 OUR FOREIGNERS
to the derivation of the surname, an objection fully
understood by those who made the estimate and
one which deprives their conclusions of strict scien-
tific verity. In a new country, where the popula-
tion is in a constant flux and where members of a
community composed of one race easily migrate to
another part of the country and fall in with people
of another race, it is very easy to modify the name
to suit new circumstances. We know, for instance,
that Isaac Isaacks of Pennsylvania was not a Jew,
that the Van Buskirks of New Jersey were German,
not Dutch, that D'Aubigne was early shortened
into Dabny and Aulnay into Olney. So also many
a Brown had been Braun, and several Blacks had
once been only Schwartz. Even the universal Smith
had absorbed more than one original Schmidt.
These rather exceptional cases, however, probably
do not vitiate the general conclusion here made as
to the British and non-British element in the popu-
lation of America, for the Dutch, the German, the
French, and the Swedish cognomens are character-
istically different from the British. But the dif-
ferentiation between Irish, Welsh, Scotch, Scotch-
Irish, and English names is infinitely more difficult.
The Scotch-Irish particularly have challenged the
conclusions reached by the Census Bureau. They
^
ENGLISH ITALIAN
A M ERIC AN
m
SLOVAK POLE
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine.
: Lilly
and
ne which
ti--'V •
OC-'
of
to mit new cir*
^■•^' Dutch, that D'A -* ' ;iea
hi to Dahny and Aulna^ „. . ., ,, ._ • .-
a Brown had been Braun, and several Bj
once been ,vaR^^^^9^>feh the univer
had absoi ban one original
'Hifise rathei al case?
',,,, V' •^,of.^ , ,^_ i^v-'icral conc\;.MOLi nere maac as
nd non-British fh-mi-nt n ?•,.■• ^^/.-nj.
ognomt icter-
*' Briti. the dif-
Welsh, b oich, Scotch-
^^^^^^ infinitel?«»?*difficult.
?v have challenge the
iisus Bureau. They
THE AMERICAN STOCK 81
claim a much larger proportion of the original bulk
of our population than the seven per cent included
under the heading Scotch. Henry Jones Ford con-
siders the conclusions as far as they pertain to the
Scotch-Irish as "fallacious and untrustworthy."
"Many Ulster names," he says/ "are also com-
mon English names. . . . Names classed as Scotch
or Irish were probably mostly those of Scotch-Irish
families. . . . The probability is that the Eng-
lish proportion should be much smaller and that the
Scotch-Irish, who are not included in the Census
Bureau's classification, should be much larger than
the combined proportions allotted to the Scotch and
the Irish."
Whatever may be the actual proportions of these
British elements, as revealed by a study of the
patronymics of the population at the time of Amer-
ican independence, the fact that the ethnic stock . /
was overwhelmingly British stands out most prom- j
inently. We shall never know the exact ratios be-
tween the Scotch and the English, the Welsh and
the Irish blended in this hardy, self-assertive, and
fecund strain. But we do know that the lan-
guage, the political institutions, and the common
law as practiced and established in London had a
« The Scotch-Irish in America, pp. 219-20.
82 OUR FOREIGNERS
predominating influence on the destinies of the Unit-
ed States. While the colonists drifted far from the
religious establishments of the mother country and
found her commercial policies unendurable and her
political hauteur galling, they nevertheless retained
those legal and institutional forms which remain
the foundation of Anglo-Saxon life.
For nearly half a century the American stock re- \
mained almost entirely free from foreign admixture. /
It is estimated that between 1790 and 1820 only
250,000 immigrants came to America, and of these
the great majority came after the War of 1812.
The white population of the United States in 1820
was 7,862,166. Ten years later it had risen to!
10,537,378. This astounding increase was almost
wholly due to the fecundity of the native stock.
The equitable balance between the sexes, the ease
of acquiring a home, the vigorous pioneer environ-
ment, and the informal frontier social conditions all
encouraged large families. Early marriages were
encouraged. Bachelors and unmarried women were
rare. Girls were matrons at twenty-five and grand-
mothers at forty. Three generations frequently
dwelt in one homestead. Families of five persons
were the rule; families of eight or ten were common,
while families of fourteen or fifteen did not elicit
THE AMERICAN STOCK 38
surprise. It was the father's ambition to leave a
farm to every son and, if the neighborhood was
too densely settled easily to permit this, there was
the West — always the West.
This was a race of nation builders. No sooner
had he made the Declaration of Independence a real-
ity than the eager pathfinder turned his face towards
the setting sun and, prompted by the instincts of
conquest, he plunged into the wilderness. Within
a few years western New York and Pennsylvania
were settled; Kentucky achieved statehood in 1792
and Tennessee four years later, soon to be followed
by Mississippi in 1817 and Alabama in 1819. The
great Northwest Territory yielded Ohio in 1802,
Indiana in 1816, Illinois in 1818, and Michigan in
1837. Beyond the Mississippi the empire of Lou-
isiana doubled the original area of the Republic;
Louisiana came into statehood in 1812 and Mis-
souri in 1821. Texas, Oregon, and the fruits of the
Mexican War extended its confines to the Western
Sea. Incredibly swift as was this march of the Stars,
the American pioneer was always in advance.
The pathfinders were virtually all of American
stock. The States admitted to the Union prior to
1840 were not only founded by them; they were!
almost wholly settled by them. When the influx of
34 OUR FOREIGNERS
foreigners began in the thirties, they found all the
trails already blazed, the trading posts established,
and the first terrors of the wilderness dispelled.
They found territories already metamorphosed in-
to States, counties organized, cities established.
Schools, churches, and colleges preceded the immi-
grants who were settlers and not strictly pioneers.
The entire territory ceded by the Treaty of 1783
was appropriated in large measure by the American
before the advent of the European immigrant.
Washington, with a ring of pride, said in 1796
that the native population of America was "fill-
ing the western part of the State of New York
and the country on the Ohio with their own sur-
plusage. " And James Madison in 1821 wrote that
New England, "which has sent out such a contin-
ued swarm to other parts of the Union for a number
of years, has continued at the same time, as the cen-
sus shows, to increase in population although it is
well known that it has received but comparatively
few emigrants from any quarter." Beyond the
Mississippi, Louisiana, with its Creole population,
was feeling the effect of American migration.
A strange restlessness, of the race rather than of \
the individual, possessed the American frontiers- \
man. He moved from one locality to another, but
THE AMERICAN STOCK 35
always westward, like some new migratory species
that had willingly discarded the instinct for return-
ing. He never took the back trail. A traveler,
writing in 1791 from the Ohio Valley, rather super-
ficially observed that "the Americans are lazy and
bored, often moving from place to place for the sake
of change; in the thirty years that the [western]
Pennsylvania neighborhood has been settled, it has
changed owners two or three times. The sight of
money will tempt any American to sell and off he
goes to a new country. " Foreign observers of that
time constantly allude to this universal and inex-
plicable restiveness. It was obviously not laziness,
for pioneering was a man's task; nor boredom, for
the frontier was lonely and neighbors were far apart.
It was an ever-present dissatisfaction that drove
this perpetual conqueror onward — a mysterious
impulse, the urge of vague and unfulfilled desires.
He went forward with a conquering ambition in his
heart; he believed he was the forerunner of a great
National Destiny. Crude rhymes of the day voice
this feeling:
So shall the nation's pioneer go joyful on his way.
To wed Penobscot water to San Francisco Bay.
The mighty West shall bless the East, and sea
shall answer sea,
36 OUR FOREIGNERS
And mountain unto mountain call, praise God,
for we are free !
Again a popular chorus of the pathfinder rang:
Then o'er the hills in legions, boys;
Fair freedom's star
Points to the sunset regions, boys.
Ha, Ha, Ha-ha!
Many a New Englander cleared a farm in west-
ern New York, Ohio, or Indiana, before settling
finally in Wisconsin, Iowa, or Minnesota, whence
he sent his sons on to Dakota, Montana, Oregon,
and California. From Tennessee and Kentucky
large numbers moved into southern Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, and across the river into Missouri, Arkansas,
Louisiana, and Texas. Abraham Lincoln's father
was one of these pioneers and tried his luck in vari-
ous localities in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.
Nor had the movement ceased after a century of
continental exploitation. Hamlin Garland in his
notable autobiography, A Son of the Middle B order ,
brings down to our own day the evidence of this na-
tive American restiveness. His parents came of
New England extraction, but settled in Wisconsin.
His father, after his return from the Civil War,
moved to Iowa, where he was scarcely ensconced
THE AMERICAN STOCK 37
before an opportunity came to sell his place. The
family then pushed out farther upon the Iowa
prairie, where they "broke" a farm from the prime-
val turf. Again, in his ripe age, the father found
the urge revive and under this impulse he moved
again, this time to Dakota, where he remained long
enough to transform a section of prairie into wheat
land before he took the final stage of his western
journeyings to southern California. Here he was
surrounded by neighbors whose migration had been
not unlike his own, and to the same sunny region
another relative found his way "by way of a long
trail through Iowa, Dakota, Montana, Oregon, and
North California. "
When the last frontier had vanished, it was seen
that men of this American stock had penetrated
into every valley, traversed every plain, and ex-
plored every mountain pass from Atlantic to Paci-
fic. They organized every territory and prepared
each for statehood. It was the enterprise of these
sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of the
Revolutionary Americans, obeying the restless im-
pulse of a pioneer race, who spread a network of
settlements and outposts over the entire land and
prepared it for the immigrant invasion from Europe.
Owing to this influx of foreigners, the American
88 OUR FOREIGNERS
stock has become mingled with other strains, especi-
ally those from Great Britain.
The Census Bureau estimated that in 1900 there
were living in the United States approximately
thirty-five million white people who were descended
from persons enumerated in 1790. If these thirty-
five milhon were distributed by nationality accord-
ing to the proportions estimated for 1790, the result
would appear as follows:
English 28,735,000
Scotch 2,450,000
Irish 665,000
Dutch 875,000
French 210,000
German 1,960,000
All others 105,000
In 1900 there were also thirty-two million descend-
ants of white persons who had come to the United
States after the First Census, yet of these over
twenty million were either foreign born or the chil-
dren of persons born abroad. If this ratio of in,-
crease remained the same, the American stock
would apparently maintain its own, even in the
midst of twentieth century immigration. But the
birth rate of the foreign stock, especially among
the recent comers, is much higher than of the na-
tive American stock. Conditions have so changed
THE AMERICAN STOCK 39
that, according to the Census, the American peo-
ple "have concluded that they are only about
one-half as well able to rear children — at any
rate, without personal sacrifice — under the con-
ditions prevailing in 1900 as their predecessors
proved themselves to be under the conditions
which prevailed in 1790."
The difficulty of ascertaining ethnic influences
increases immeasurably when we pass from the
physical to the mental realm. There are subtle
interplays of delicate forces and reactions from en-
vironment which no one can measure. Leadership
nevertheless is the gift of but few races; and in the
United States eminence in business, in statecraft,
in letters and learning can with singular directness
be traced in a preponderating proportion to this
American stock.
In 1891 Henry Cabot Lodge published an essay
on The Distribution of Ability in the United States y^
based upon the 15,514 names in Appleton's Cyclo-
pcBdia of American Biography (1887) . He ** treated
as immigrants all persons who came to the United
States after the adoption of the Constitution,"
and on this division he found 14,243 "Americans"
» See The Century Magazine, September, 1891, and Lodge's
Huiorieal and Political Essays, 1892.
40
OUR FC
)REIGNERS
and 1271 "
immigrani
:s," distributed racially
r as
follows:
AMERICANS
IMMIGRANTS
English
10,876
English
345
Scotch-Irish
1439
German
245
German
659
Irish
200
Huguenot
589
Scotch
151
Scotch
436
Scotch-Irish
88
Dutch
336
French
63
Welsh
159
Canadian and
Irish
109
British Colonial
60
French
85
Scandinavian
18
Scandinavian
31
Welsh
16
Spanish
7
Belgian
15
Italian
7
Swiss
15
Swiss
5
Dutch
14
Greek
3
Pohsh
13
Russian
1
Hungarian
11
PoHsh
1
Italian
10
Greek
3
Russian
2
Spanish
1
Portuguese
1
Of the total number of individuals selected, a
large number were chosen by the editors as being of
enough importance to entitle them to a small por-
trait in the text, and fifty-eight persons who had
achieved some unusual distinction were accorded
THE AMERICAN STOCK 41
a full-page portrait. These, however, represented
achievement rather than ability, for they included
the Presidents of the United States and other
political personages. Of the total number selected
for the distinction of a small portrait, 1200 were
"Americans " and 71 " immigrants. " Of the 1200
"Americans," 856 were of English extraction, 129
Scotch-Irish, 57 Huguenot, 45 Scotch, 39 Dutch,
37 German, 15 Welsh, 13 Irish, 6 French, and one
each of Scandinavian, Spanish, and Swiss. Of
the "immigrants" 15 were English, 14 German,
11 Irish, 8 Scotch-Irish, 7 Scotch, 6 Swiss, 4 French,
S from Spanish Provinces, and 1 each from Scan-
dinavia, Belgium, and Poland. All the 58 whose
full-page portraits are presumed to be an index to
unusual prominence were found to be "Americans "
and by race extraction they were distributed as
follows: English 41, Scotch-Irish 8, Scotch 4,
Welsh 2, Dutch, Spanish, and Irish 1 each.
Whatever may be said in objection to this index
of ability (and Senator Lodge effectively answered
his critics in a note appended to this study in his
volume of Historical and Political Essays), it is,
apparent that a large preponderance of leadership
in American politics, business, art, literature, and
learning has been derived from the American stock.
42 OUR FOREIGNERS
This is a perfectly natural result. The founders
of the Republic themselves were in large degree
the children of the pick of Europe. The Puritan,
Cavalier, Quaker, Scotch-Irish, Huguenot, and
Dutch pioneers were not ordinary folk in any sense
of the term. They were, in a measure, a race of
heroes. Their sons and grandsons inherited their
vigor and their striving. It is not at all singular
that every President of the United States and every
Chief Justice of the Federal Supreme Court has
come from this stock, nor that the vast majority
of Cabinet members, of distinguished Senators, of
Speakers of the House, and of men of note in the
House of Representatives trace back to it their lin-
eage in whole or in part. After the middle of the
nineteenth century the immigrant vote began to
make itself felt, and politicians contended for the
"Irish vote" and the "German vote" and later for
the "Italian vote," the "Jewish vote," and the
"Norwegian vote." Members of the immigrant
races began to appear in Washington, and the new
infusion of blood made itself felt in the political life
of the country.
But, if material were available for a compre-
hensive analysis of American leadership in life
and thought today, a larger number of names of
THE AMERICAN STOCK 48
non-native origin would no doubt appear than was
disclosed in 1891 by Senator Lodge's analysis. All
the learned professions, for instance, and many
lines of business are finding their numbers swelled
by persons of foreign parentage. This change is
to be expected. The influence of environment, es-
pecially of free education and unfettered oppor-
tunity, is calling forth the talents of the children
of the immigrants. The number of descendants
from the American stock yearly becomes relatively
less; intermarriage with the children of the foreign
born is increasingly frequent. Profound changes
have taken place since the American pioneers
pushed their way across the AUeghanies; changes
infinitely more profound have taken place even
since the dawn of the twentieth century and have
put to the test of Destiny the institutions which
are called "American."
Nevertheless in a large sense every great tradi-
tion of the original American stock lives today: the
tradition of free movement, of initiative and enter-,
prise; the tradition of individual responsibility; the!
primary traditions of democracy and liberty. Thes^
give a virile present meaning to the name American.
A noted French journalist received this impression
of a group of soldiers who in 1918 were bivouacked
44 OUR FOREIGNERS
in his country: "I saw yesterday an American
unit in which men of very varied origin abounded
— French, Polish, Czech, German, English, Cana-
dian — such their names and other facts revealed
them. Nevertheless, all were of the same or simi-
lar type, a fact due apparently to the combined in-
fluences of sun, air, primary education, and environ-
ment. And one was not long in discovering that
the intelligence of each and all had manifestly a
wider outlook than that of the man of single ra-
cial lineage and of one country." And these men
were Americans.
CHAPTER III
THE NEGBO
Not many years ago a traveler was lured into a
London music hall by the sign: Spirited American
Singing and Dancing, He saw on the stage a sex-
tette of black-faced comedians, singing darky rag-
time to the accompaniment of banjo and bones,
dancing the clog and the Cakewalk, and reciting
negro stories with the familiar accent and smile, all
to the evident delight of the audience. The man
in the seat next to him remarked, "These Amer-
icans are really lively. " Not only in England, but
on the continent, the negro's melodies, his dialect,
and his banjo, have always been identified with
America. Even Americans do not at once think of /
the negro as a foreigner, so accustomed have they/
become to his presence, to his quaint mythology,
his soft accent, and his genial and accommodating
nature. He was to be found in every colony before
the Revolution; he was an integral part of American
45
46 OUR FOREIGNERS
economic life long before the great Irish and
German immigrations, and, while in the mass he
is confined to the South, he is found today in every
State in the Union.
The negro, however, is racially the most dis-
tinctly foreign element in America. He belongs
to a period of biological and racial evolution far
removed from that of the white man. His habi-
tat is the continent of the elephant and the lion,
the mango and the palm, while that of the race into
whose state he has been thrust is the continent of
the horse and the cow, of wheat and the oak.
There is a touch of the dramatic in every phase of
the negro's contact with America : his unwilling com-
ing, his forcible detention, his final submission, his
emancipation, his struggle to adapt himself to free-
dom, his futile competition with a superior economic
order. Every step from the kidnaping, through
"the voiceless woe of servitude" and the attempted
redemption of his race, has been accompanied by
tragedy. How else could it be when peoples of two
such diverse epochs in racial evolution meet?
His coming was almost contemporaneous with j
that of the white man. "American slavery," ]
says Channing,' "began with Columbus, possibly
' History of the United States, vol. i, p. 116.
THE NEGRO 47
because he was the first European who had a chance
to introduce it: and negroes were brought to the
New World at the suggestion of the saintly Las
Casas to alleviate the lot of the unhappy and
fast disappearing red man." They were first em-
ployed as body servants and were used extensively
in the West Indies before their common use in the
colonies on the continent. In the first plantations
of Virginia a few of them were found as laborers.
In 1619 what was probably the first slave shipf
on that coast — it was euphemistically called a
"Dutch man-of-war*' — landed its human cargo
in Virginia. From this time onward the numbers
of African slaves steadily increased. Bancroft es-
timated their number at 59,000 in 1714, 78,000 in
1727, and 263,000 in 1754. The census of 1790 re- f
corded 697,624 slaves in the United States. This *
almost incredible increase was not due alone to
the fecundity of the negro. It was due, in large
measure, to the unceasing slave trade.
It is diflScult to imagine more severe ordeals than
the negroes endured in the day of the slave trade.
Their captors in the jungles of Africa — usually
neighboring tribesmen in whom the instinct for
capture, enslavement, and destruction was untamed
— soon learned that the aged, the inferior, the
48 OUR FOREIGNERS
defective, were not wanted by the trader. These
were usually slaughtered. Then followed for the less
fortunate the long and agonizing march to the sea-
board. Every one not robust enough to endure the
arduous journey was allowed to perish by the way.
On the coast, the agent of the trader or the middle-
man awaited the captive. He was an expert at de-
tecting those evidences of weakness and disease
which had eluded the eye of the captor or the rigor
of the march. "An African factor of fair repute,"
said a slave captain,^ "is ever careful to select his
human cargo with consummate prudence, so as not
only to supply his employers with athletic laborers,
but to avoid any taint of disease. " But the severest
test of all was the hideous "middle passage" which
remained to every imported slave a nightmare to
the day of his death. The imhappy captives were
crowded into dark, unventilated holds and were
fed scantily on food which was strange to their lips;
they were unable to understand the tongue of their
masters and often unable to understand the dia-
lects of their companions in misfortune; they were
depressed with their helplessness on the limitless
sea, and their childish superstitions were fed by a
' Captain Canot: or Twenty Years in a Slaver^ by Brantz Mayer,
p. 94 S.
THE NEGRO 49
thousand new terrors and emotions. It was small
wonder that, when disease began its ravages in the
shipload of these kidnaped beings, "the mortality
of thirty per cent was not rare." That this was
primarily a physical selection which made no allow-
ance for mental aptitudes did not greatly diminish
in the eyes of the master the slave's utility. The
new continent needed muscle power; and so tens of
thousands of able-bodied Africans were landed on
American soil, alien to everything they found there.
These slaves were kidnaped from many tribes.
"In our negro population," says Tillinghast, "as
it came from the Western Coast of Africa, there
were Wolofs and Fulans, tall, well-built, and very
black, hailing from Senegambia and its vicinity;
there were hundreds of thousands from the Slave
Coast — Tshis, Ewes, and Yorubans, including
Dahomians; and mingled with all these Soudanese
negroes proper were occasional contributions of
mixed stock, from the north and northeast, having
an infusion of Moorish blood. There were other
thousands from Lower Guinea, belonging to Bantu
stock, not so black in color as the Soudanese, and
thought by some to be slightly superior to them. "'^
No historian has recorded these tribal differences.
^ The Negro in Africa and America, p. 113.
4
50 OUR FOREIGNERS
The new environment, so strange, so ruthless,
swallowed them; and, in the welter of their toil, the
black men became so intermingled that all tribal
distinctions soon vanished. Here and there, how-
ever, a careful observer may still find among them
a man of superior mien or a woman of haughty de-
meanor denoting perhaps an ancestral prince or
princess who once exercised authority over some
African jungle village.
Slavery was soon a recognized institution in
every American colony. By 1665 every colony
had its slave code. In Virginia the laws became
increasingly strict until the dominion of the master
over his slaves was virtually absolute. In South
Carolina an insm-rection of slaves in 1739, which
cost the lives of twenty-one whites and forty-four
blacks, led to very drastic laws. Of the Northern
colonies. New York seems to have been most in fear
of a black peril. In 1700 there were about six thou-
sand slaves in this colony, chiefly in the city, where
there were also many free negroes, and on the large
estates along the Hudson. Twice the white people
of the city for reasons that have not been preserved,
believing that slave insurrections were imminent,
resorted to extreme and brutal measures. In 1712
they burned to death two negroes, hanged in chains
THE NEGRO 51
a third, and condemned a fourth to be broken on the
wheel. In 1741 they went so far as to burn fourteen
negroes, hang eighteen, and transport seventy-one.
In New England where their numbers were rel-
atively small and the laws were less severe, the
negroes were employed chiefly in domestic service.
In Quaker Pennsylvania there were many slaves,
the proprietor himself being a slave owner. Ten
years after the founding of Philadelphia, the au-
thorities ordered the constables to arrest all ne-
groes foimd "gadding about" on Sunday without
proper permission. They were to remain in jail
until Monday, receiving in lieu of meat or drink
thirty-nine lashes on the bare back.
Protests against slavery were not uncommon
during the colonial period; and before the Revolu-
tion was accomplished several of the States had
emancipated their slaves. Vermont led the way in
1777; the Ordinance of 1787 forbade slavery in the
Northwest Territory; and by 1804 all the Northern '
States had provided that their blacks should be
set free. The opinion prevailed that slavery was
on the road to gradual extinction. In the Federal
Convention of 1787 this belief was crystallized into
the clause making possible the prohibition of the ;
slave trade after the year 1808. Mutual benefit
52 OUR FOREIGNERS
organizations among the negroes, both slave and
free, appeared in many States, North and South.
Negro congregations were organized. The num-
ber of free negroes increased rapidly, and in the
Northern States they acquired such civil rights as
industry, thrift, and integrity commanded. Here
and there colored persons of unusual gifts distin-
guished themselves in various callings and were
even occasionally entertained in white households.
The industrial revolution in England, with its
spinning jenny and power loom, indirectly influ-
enced the position of the negro in America. The
new machinery had an insatiable maw for cotton.
It could tiu^n such enormous quantities of raw fiber
into cloth that the old rate of producing cotton was
entirely inadequate. New areas had to be placed
under cultivation. The South, where soil and cli-
mate combined to make an ideal cotton land, came
into its own. And when Eli Whitney's gin was
perfected, cotton was crowned king. Statistics tell
the story: the South produced about 8000 bales
of cotton in 1790; 650,000 bales in 1820; 2,469,093
bales in 1850; 5,387,052 bales in 1860. ' This vast
» Coman, Industrial History of the United States, p. 238. Bogart
gives the figures as 1,976,000 bales in 1840. and 4,675,000 bales in
1860. Economic History of the United States, p. it66.
THE NEGRO 5S
increase in production called for human muscle-
which apparently only the negro could supply.
Once it was shown that slavery paid, its status!
became fixed as adamant. The South forthwith^
ceased weakly to apologize for it, as it had formerly
done, and began to defend it, at first with some
hesitation, then with boldness, and finally with vehe-
ment aggressiveness. It was economically neces-
sary ; it was morally right ; it was the pecuHar South-
ern domestic institution ; and, above all, it paid. On
every basis of its defense, the cotton kingdom would
brook no interference from any other section of the
country. So there was formed a race feudality in
the Republic, rooted in profits, protected by the
political power of the slave lords, and enveloped in
a spirit of defiance and bitterness which reacted
without mercy upon its victims. Tighter and
tighter were drawn the coils of restrictions around
the enslaved race. The mind and the soul as well
as the body were placed under domination. They
might marry to breed but not to make homes.
Such charity and kindness as they experienced, they
received entirely from individual humane masters;
society treated them merely as chattels.
Attempted insurrections, such as that in South ,
Carolina in 1822 and that in Virginia in 1831 in
54 OUR FOREIGNERS
which many whites and blacks were killed, only
produced harsher laws and more cruel punishments,!
until finally the slave became convinced that his
only salvation lay in running away. The North
Star was his beacon light of freedom. A few thou-
sand made their way southward through the chain
of swamps that skirt the Atlantic coast and min-
gled with the Indians in Florida. Tens of thou-
sands made their way northward along well recog-
nized routes to the free States and to Canada: the
Appalachian ranges with their far-spreading spurs
furnished the friendliest of these highways; the
Mississippi Valley with its marshlands, forests, and
swamps provided less secure hiding places; and the
Cumberland Mountains, well supplied with lime-
stone caves, offered a third pathway. At the north-
ern end of these routes the "Underground Rail-
way"' received the fugitives. From the Cumber-
lands, leading through the heart of Tennessee
and Kentucky, this benevolent transfer stretched
through Ohio and Indiana to Canada; from south-
ern Illinois it led northward through Wisconsin;
and from the Appalachian route mysterious byways
led through New York and New England.
' See The Anti-Slavery Crusade, by Jesse Macy (in The Chronicle
of America), Chapter viii.
THE NEGRO 55
How many thus escaped cannot be reckoned, but
it is known that the number of free negroes in the
North increased so rapidly that laws discriminating
against them were passed in many States. No-
where did the negro enjoy all the rights that the
white man had. In some States the free negroes
were so restricted in settling as to be virtually pro-
hibited; in others they were disfranchised; in others
they were denied the right of jury duty or of testify-
ing in court. But in spite of this discrimination on
the part of the law, a great sympathy for the runa-
way slave spread among the people, and the fugitive
carried into the heart of the North the venom of
the institution of which he was the unhappy victim.
Meanwhile the slave trade responded promptly
to the lure of gain which the increased demand for
cotton held out. The law of 1807 prohibiting the
importation of slaves had, from the date of its
enactment, been virtually a dead letter. Messages
of Presidents, complaints of government attorneys,
of collectors and agents called attention to the con-
tinuous violation of the law; and its nullity was a
matter of common knowledge. When the market
price of a slave rose to $325 in 1840 and to $500 after |
1850, the increase in profits made slave piracy a
rather respectable business carried on by American
56 OUR FOREIGNERS
citizens in American built ships flying the American
flag and paying high returns on New York and New
England capital. Owing to this steady importation
there was a constant intermingling of raw stock
from the jungles with the negroes who had been
slaves in America for several generations.
In 1860 there were 4,441,830 negroes in the
United States, of whom only 488,070 were free.
About thirteen per cent of the total number were
mulattoes. Among the four million slaves were men
and women of every gradation of experience with
civilization, from those who had just disembarked
from slave ships to those whose ancestry could be
traced to the earliest days of the colonies. It was
not, therefore, a strictly homogeneous people upon
whom were suddenly and dramatically laid the bur-
dens and responsibilities of the freedman. Among
the emancipated blacks were not a few in whom
there still throbbed vigorously the savage life they
had but recently left behind and who could not
yet speak intelligible English. Though there were
many who were skilled in household arts and in the
useful customary handicrafts, large numbers were
acquainted only with the simplest toil of the open
fields. There were a few free blacks who possessed
property, in some instances to the value of many
THE NEGRO 57
thousands of dollars, but the great bulk were whol-
ly inexperienced in the responsibilities of ownership.
There were some who had mastered the rudiments
of learning and here and there was to be found a
gifted mind, but ninety per cent of the negroes were j
unacquainted with letters and were strangers to|
even the most rudimentary learning. Their reli-i
gion was a picturesque blend of Christian precepts
and Voodoo customs.
The Freedmen's Bureau, authorized by Congress
early in 1865, had as its functions to aid the negro
to develop self-control and self-reliance, to help the
freedman with his new wage contracts, to befriend
bim when he appeared in court, and to provide for
him schools and hospitals. It was a simple, slen-
der reed for the race to lean upon until it learned to
walk. But it interfered with the orthodox opinion
of that day regarding individual independence and
was limited to the period of war and one year there-
after. It was eyed with suspicion and was regarded
with criticism by both the keepers of the laissez
faire faith and the former slave owners. It estab-
lished a number of schools and made a modest be-
ginning in peasant proprietorship and free labor. ^
' See The Sequel of Appomattox, by Walter L. Fleming (in The
Chronicles qf America), Chapter iv.
58 OUR FOREIGNERS
When this temporary guide was withdrawn, pri-
vate organizations to some extent took its place.
The American Missionary Association continued
the educational work, and volunteers shouldered
other benevolences. But no power and no organ-
ization could take the place of the national author-
ity. If the Freedmen's Bureau could have been
stripped of those evil-intentioned persons who used
it for private gain, been so organized as to enlist
the support of the Southern white population, and
been continued until a new generation of blacks
were prepared for civil life, the colossal blunders
and criminal misfits of that bitter period of tran-
sition might have been avoided. But political
opportunism spurned comprehensive plans, and
the negro suddenly found himself forced into
social, political, and economic competition with
the white man.
The social and political struggle that followed
was short-lived. There were a few desperate
years under the domination of the carpetbagger
and the Ku Klux Klan, a period of physical coer-
cion and intimidation. Within a decade the negro
vote was uncast or uncounted, and the grandfather
clauses soon completed the political mastery of the
former slave owner. A strict interpretation of the
THE NEGRO 59
Civil Rights Act denied the application of the
equality clause of the Constitution to social equal-
ity, and the social as well as the political separa-
tion of the two stocks was also accomplished.
"Jim Crow," cars, separate accommodations in
depots and theaters, separate schools, separate
churches, attempted segregations in cities — these
are all symbolic of two separate races forcibly
united by constitutional amendments.
But the economic struggle continued, for the
black man, even if politically emasculated and so-
cially isolated, had somehow to earn a living. In
their first reaction of anger and chagrin, some of
the whites here and there made attempts to reduce
freedmen to their former servitude, but their efforts
were effectually checked by the Fifteenth Amend-
ment. An ingenious peonage, however, was ere
ated by means of the criminal law. Strict statutes!
were passed by States on guardianship, vagrancy,
and petty crimes. It was not diflScult to bring
charges under these statutes, and the heavy penal-
ties attached, together with the wide discretion
permitted to judge and jury, made it easy to sub-
ject the culprit to virtual serfdom for a term of
years. He would be leased to some contractor,
who would pay for his keep and would profit by his
60 OUR FOREIGNERS
toil. Whatever justification there may have been
for these statutes, the convict lease system soon fell \
into disrepute, and it has been generally abandoned, j
It was upon the land that the f reedman natu- \
rally sought his economic salvation. He was ex-
perienced in cotton growing. But he had neither
acres nor capital. These he had to find and turn to
his own uses ere he could really be economically
free. So he began as a farm laborer, passed through
various stages of tenantry, and finally graduated
into land ownership. One finds today examples of
every stage of this evolution.' There is first the
farm laborer, receiving at the end of the year a
fixed wage. He is often supplied with house and
garden and usually with food and clothing. There
are many variations of this labor contract. The
"cropper" is barely a step advanced above the
laborer, for he, too, furnishes nothing but labor,
while the landlord supplies house, tools, live stock,
and seed. His wage, however, is paid not in cash
but in a stipulated share of the crop. From this
share he must pay for the supplies received and
interest thereon. This method, however, has
proved to be a mutually unsatisfactory arrangement
» See The New South by Holland Thompson (in The Chronicles qf
America), Chapters iv and vii.
THE NEGRO . 61
and is usually limited to hard pressed owners of
poor land.
The larger number of the negro farmers are ten-
ants on shares or metayers. They work the land
on their own responsibility, and this degree of inde-
pendence appeals to them. They pay a stipulated
portion of the crop as rent. If they possess some
capital and the rental is fair, this arrangement
proves satisfactory. But as very few negro metay-
ers possess the needed capital, they resort to a sys-
tem of crop-lienage under which a local retail mer-
chant advances the necessary supplies and obtains
a mortgage on the prospective crop. Many negro
farmers, however, have achieved the independence
of cash renters, assuming complete control of their
crops and the disposition of their time. And finally,
241,000 negro farmers are landowners.' By 1910
nearly 900,000 negroes had achieved some degree
of rural economic stability.
The negro has not been so fortunate in his at- f
tempts to make a place for himself in the industrial |
world. The drift to the cities began soon after
emancipation. During the first decade, the dis-
satisfaction with the landlordism which then pre-
vailed, seconded by the demand for unskilled labor
^Negroes in the United States, Census Bulletin No. 129, p. 37.
62 OUR FOREIGNERS
in the rapidly growing cities, drew the negroes from
the land in such considerable numbers that the
landowners were induced to make more liberal
terms to keep the laborers on their farms. While
there has been a large increase in the number of ne-
groes engaged in agriculture, there has at the same
time been a very marked current from the smaller
communities to the new industrial cities of the
South and to some of the manufacturing centers of
the North. In recent years there have been whole-
sale importations of negro laborers into many
Northern cities and towns, sometimes as strike
breakers but more frequently to supply the urgent
demand for unskilled labor. Many of the smaller
manufacturing towns of New York, Ohio, Penn-
sylvania, Illinois, and Indiana are accumulating
a negro population.
Very few of these industrial negroes, however,
are skilled workers. They toil rather as ordinary
day laborers, porters, stevedores, teamsters, and
domestics. There has been a great deal written
of the decline of the negro artisan. Walter F. Wil-
cox, the eminent statistician, after a careful study
of the facts concludes that economically "the negro
as a race is losing ground, is being confined more
and more to the inferior and less remunerative
THE NEGRO 63
occupations, and is not sharing proportionately to
his numbers in the prosperity of the country as a
whole or of the section in which he mainly lives. "
It appears, therefore, that the pathway of eman-
cipation has not led the negro out of the ranks of
humble toil and into racial equality. In order to
equip him more effectively for a place in the world,
industrial schools have been established, among
which the most noted is the Tuskegee Institute.
Its founder, Booker T. Washington, advised his fel-
low negroes to yield quietly to the political and so-
cial distinctions raised against them and to perfect
themselves in handicrafts and the mechanic arts,
in the faith that civil rights would ultimately follow
economic power and recognized industrial capacity.
His teaching received the almost unanimous ap-
proval of both North and South. But opinion
among his own people was divided, and in 1905 the
"Niagara Movement" was launched, followed five
years later by the organizing of the National Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People.
This organization advised a more aggressive atti-
tude towards race distinctions, outspokenly advo-
cated race equality, demanded the negro's rights,
and maintained a restless propaganda. These
champions of the race possibilities of the negro
64 OUR FOREIGNERS
point to the material advance made since slavery;
to the 500,000 houses and the 221,000 farms owned
by them; their 22,000 small retail businesses and
their 40 banks; to the 40,000 churches with nearly
4,000,000 members; to the 200 colleges and second-
ary schools maintained for negroes and largely sup-
ported by them; to their 100 old people's homes,
30 hospitals, 300 periodicals; to the 6000 physicians,
dentists, and nurses; the 30,000 teachers, the 18,000
clergymen. They point to the beacon lights of
their genius: Frederick Douglass, statesman; J. C.
Price, orator; Booker T. Washington, educator;
W. E. B. DuBois, scholar; Paul Laurence Dunbar,
poet; Charles W. Chestnutt, novelist. And they
compare this record of 50 years' achievement with
the preceding 245 years of slavery.
This, however, is only one side of the shield.
There is another side, nowhere better illustrated,
perhaps, than in the neglected negro gardens of the
South. Near every negro hut is a garden patch
large enough to supply the family with vegetables
for the entire year, but it usually is neglected. "If
they have any garden at all, " says a negro critic
from Tuskegee, "it is apt to be choked with weeds
and other noxious growths. With every advan-
tage of soil and climate and with a steady market if
THE NEGRO 65
they live near any city or large town, few of the col-
ored farmers get any benefit from this, one of the
most profitable of all industries. " In marked con-
trast to these wild and unkempt patches are the
gardens of the Italians who have recently invaded
portions of the South and whose garden patches are
almost miraculously productive. And this inva-
sion brings a real threat to the future of the negro.
His happy-go-lucky ways, his easy philosophy of
life, the remarkable ease with which he severs home
ties and shifts from place to place, his indifference
to property obligations — these negative defects in
his character may easily lead to his economic doom
if the vigorous peasantry of Italy and other lands
are brought into competition with him.
CHAPTER IV
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA
America has long been a gigantic Utopia. To
every immigrant since the founding of Jamestown
this coast has gleamed upon the horizon as a Prom-
ised Land. America, too, has provided convenient
plots of ground, as laboratories for all sorts of va-
garies, where, unhampered by restrictions and un-
annoyed by inquisitive neighbors, enthusiastic
dreamers could attempt to reconstruct society.
Whenever an eccentric in Europe conceived a social
panacea no matter how absurd, he said, *' Let's go
to America and try it out. " There were so many
of these enterprises that their exact number is im-
known. Many of them perished in so brief a time
that no friendly chronicler has even saved their
names from oblivion. But others lived, some for a
year, some for a decade, and few for more than a
generation. They are of interest today not only
because they brought a considerable number of
66
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 67
foreigners to America, but also because in their
history may be observed many of the principles
of communism, or socialism, at work under favor-
able conditions. While the theory of Marxian so-
cialism differs in certain details from these com-
munistic experiments, the foreign-made nostrums
so brazenly proclaimed today wherever malcon-
tents are gathered together is in essence nothing
new in America. Communism was tried and found
wanting by the Pilgrim Fathers; since then it has
been tried and found wanting over and over again.
Some of the communistic colonies, it will appear,
waxed fat out of the resources of their lands; but,
in the end, even those which were most fortunate
and successful withered away, and their remnants
were absorbed by the great competitive life that
surrounded them.
There were two general types of these communi- 1
ties, the sectarian and the economic. Frequently/
they combined a peculiar religious belief with the
economic practice of having everything in common.
The sectarians professed to be neither proselyters
nor propagandists but religious devotees, accepting
communism as a physical advantage as well as a
spiritual balm, and seeking in seclusion and quiet
merely to save their own souls.
68 OUR FOREIGNERS
The majority of the religious communists came
from Germany — the home, also, of Marxian so-
cialism in later years — where persecution was the
lot of innumerable little sects which budded after
the Reformation. They came usually as whole
colonies, bringing both leaders and membership
with them.' Probably the earliest to arrive in
America were the Labadists, who denied the doc-
trine of original sin, discarded the Sabbath, and
held strict views of marriage. In 1684, under the
leadership of Peter Sluyter or Schluter (an assumed
name, his original name being Vorstmann), some
of these Labadists settled on the Bohemia River in
Delaware. They were sent out from the mother
colony in West Friesland to select a site for the en-
tire body, but it does not appear that any others
migrated, for within fifteen years the American
« As is usual among people who pride themselves on their pecu-
liarities there were variations of opinion among these sects which
led to schisms. The Mennonites contained at one time no less
than eleven distinct branches, among them the Amish, Old and
New, whose ridiculous singularity of dress, in which they dis-
carded all ornaments and even buttons, earned them the nick-
name "Hooks and Eyes." But no matter how aloof these sects
held themselves from the world, or what asceticism they prac-
ticed upon themselves, or what spiritual and economic fraternity
they displayed to each other, they possessed a remarkable native
cunning in bargaining over a bushel of wheat or a shoat, and for a
time most of their communities prospered.
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 69
colony was reduced to eight men. Sluyter evi-
dently had considerable business capacity, for he be-
came a wealthy tobacco planter and slave trader.
In 1693 Johann Jacob Zimmermann, a distin-
guished mathematician and astronomer and the
founder of an order of mystics called Pietists, (
started for America, to await the coming of the
millennium, which his calculations placed in the
autumn of 1694. But the fate of common mortals
overtook the unfortunate leader and he died just as
he was ready to sail from Rotterdam. About forty
members of his brotherhood settled in the forests on
the heights near Germantown, Pennsylvania, and,
under the guidance of Johann Kelpius, achieved
a unique influence over the German peasantry
in that vicinity. The members of the brother-
hood made themselves useful as teachers and in j
various handicrafts. They were especially in de-
mand among the superstitious for their skill in cast-
ing horoscopes, using divining rods, and carving po- ! '
tent amulets. Their mysterious astronomical tow-
er on the heights of the Wissahickon was the Mecca
of the curious and the distressed. To the gentle
Kelpius was ascribed the power of healing, but
he was himself the victim of consumption. The
brotherhood did not long survive his death in 1708
70 OUR FOREIGNERS
or 1709. Their astrological instruments may now
be seen in the collections of the Pennsylvania
Philosophical Society.
The first group of Dunkards (a name derived i
from their method of baptism, eintunken, to im-
merse) settled in Pennsylvania in 1719. A few I
years later they were joined by Conrad Beissel
(Beizel or Peysel). This man had come to Amer-
ica to unite with the Pietist group in Germantown,
but, as Kelpius was dead and his followers dispersed
he joined the Dunkards. His desires for a monas-
tic life drove him into solitary meditation — tradi-
tion says he took shelter in a cave — where he
came to the conviction that the seventh day of the
week should be observed as the day of rest. This
conclusion led to friction with the Dunkards; and
as a result, with three men and two women, Beissel
founded in 1728 on the Cocalico River, the cloister
of Ephrata. From this arose the first communis-
tic Eden successfully established in America and
one of the few to survive to the present century.
Though in 1900 the community numbered only
seventeen members, in its prime while Beissel was
yet alive it sheltei^ed three hundred, owned a pros-
perous paper mill, a grist mill, an oil mill, a fulling
mill, a printing press, a schoolhouse, dwellings for
ENGLISH FAMILY AT ELLIS ISLAND
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
GREEK CHILD
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine
for Special Survey Mission,
American Red Cross, and
for Pittsburgh Survey.
MAGYAR BOY
Photograph b}'
Lewis W. Hine.
OUR ■^^""^"^^
n i709. Their M^^xn
V iiuW
hi-^ s.i^rn m the cofl^
Ivania
I
Tl
from Ui<-ii- n ' u ;
merse)*\;^W^^^'^^'^^'^'"''^^
A i'ew
year*? T"? ^ ,9iniH .7r ^.i/^-jJ vd i(qin^i.<,
:\.A^..^
(Bei/
ica to unites ipin
Germantown,
but, as K and his followers dispersed
he \o i^BjtMiUM, His d
\ ^-s-
tie lite orove mm into solitary nacu. .
lU
tion says he took shelter in a ca^
came to the conviction that the »evt
week should be observed as the day
cmiclusion led to friction with the Duolcttr
% with three men and two ^
u a in 1728 on the Cocalico Bi\
: ■, ,;
'■• r*. ♦ « From this aitMie tibt ♦
.fully es^?^^-*-*^
a and
ieissel was
:'iy owned a pros-
i oil mill, afulHng
ouse, dwellings for
W^
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA TI
the married members, and large dormitories for the
ceHbates. The meeting-house was built entirely
without metal, following literally the precedent of
Solomon, who built his temple **so that there was
neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron heard in
the house while it was building." Wooden pegs
took the place of nails, and the laths were fastened
laboriously into grooves. Averse to riches, Beis-
sel's people refused gifts from William Penn, King
George III, and other prominent personages. The
pious Beissel was a very capable leader, with a pas-
sion for music and an ardor for simplicity. He
instituted among the unmarried members of the
community a celibate order embracing both sexes,
and he reduced the communal life of both the reli-
gious and secular members to a routine of piety and
labor. The society was known, even in England,
for the excellence of its paper, for the good work-
manship of its printing press, and especially for the
quality of its music, which was composed largely by
Beissel. His chorals were among the first com-
posed and sung in America. His school, too, was
of such quality that it drew pupils from Balti-
more and Philadelphia. After his death in 1786,
in his seventy-second year, his successor tried for
twenty-eight years to maintain the discipline and
n OUR FOREIGNERS
distinction of the order. It was eventually deemed
prudent to incorporate the society under the laws of
the State and to entrust its management to a board
of trustees, and the cloistered life of the commimity
became a memory.
A community patterned after Ephrata was
founded in 1800 by Peter Lehman at Snow Hill, in
Franklin Coimty, Pennsylvania. It consisted of
some forty German men and women living in clois-
ters but relieving the monotony of their toil and the
rigor of their piety with music. As in Ephrata,
there was a twofold membership, the consecrated
and the secular. The entire community, however,
vanished after the death of its founder.
When Beissel's Ephrata was in its heyday, the
Moravians, under the patronage of Count Zinzen-
dorf of Saxony, established in 1741 a community
on the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania, named Beth-
lehem in token of their humility. The colony pro-
vided living and working quarters for both the
married and unmarried members. After about
twenty years of experimenting, the communistic
regimen was abandoned. Bethlehem, however,
continued to thrive, and its schools and its music
became widely known.
The story of the Harmonists, one of the most sue-
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 73
cessful of all the communistic colonies is even more
interesting. The founder, Johann Georg Bapp, had
been a weaver and vine gardener in the little village
of Iptingen in WUrttemberg. He drew upon him-
self and his followers the displeasure of the Church
by teaching that religion was a personal matter be-
tween the individual and his God; that the Bible,
not the pronouncements of the clergy, should be
the guide to the true faith, and that the ordinances
of the Church were not necessarily the ordinances
of God. The petty persecutions which these doc-
trines brought upon him and his fellow separat-
ists turned them towards liberal America. In 1803 (
Rapp and some of his companions crossed the sea
and selected as a site for their colony five thousand
acres of land in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
There they built the new town of Harmony, to t
which came about six hundred persons, all told.
On February 15, 1805 they organized the Harmony
Society and signed a solemn agreement to merge
all their possessions in one common lot. ^ Among
* Under the communal contract, which was later upheld by the
Supreme Court of the United States, members agreed to merge
their properties and to renounce all claims for services; and the
community, on its part, agreed to support the members and to
repay without interest, to any one desiring to withdraw, the
amount he had put into the common fund.
74 OUR FOREIGNERS
them were a few persons of education and property,
but most of them were sturdy, thrifty mechanics
and peasants, who, under the skillful direction of
Father Rapp, soon transformed the forest into a
thriving community. After a soul stirring revival
in 1807, they adopted celibacy. Those who were
married did not separate but lived together in sol-
emn self-restraint, "treating each other as brother
and sister in Christ."' Their belief that the sec-
ond coming of the Lord was imminent no doubt
strengthened their resolution. At this time, also,
the men all agreed to forego the use of tobeicco — no
small sacrifice on the part of hard-working laborers.
The region, however, was unfavorable to the
growth of the grape, which was the favorite WUrt-
temberg crop. In 1814 the society accordingly
sold the communal property for $100,000 and re-
moved to a site on the Wabash River, in Indiana,
where, under the magic of their industry, the beau-
tiful village of New Harmony arose in one year, and
where many of their sturdy buildings still remain
a testimony to their honest craftsmanship. Un-
fortunately, however, two pests appeared which
they had not foreseen. Harassed by malaria and
* Communistic Societies of the United States, by Charles Nord-
hoflf, p. 73.
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 75
meddlesome neighbors, Father Rapp a third time
sought a new Canaan. In 1825 he sold the entire
site to Robert Owen, the British philanthropic so-
cialist, and the Harmonists moved back to Penn-
sylvania. They built their third and last home on
the Ohio, about twenty miles from Pittsburgh, and
called it Economy in prophetic token of the wealth
which their industry and shrewdness would soon
bring in.
The chaste and simple beauty of this village was
due to the skill and good taste of Friedrich Rei-
chert Rapp, an architect and stone cutter, the
adopted son of Father Rapp. The fine proportions
of the plain buildings, with their vines festooned be-
tween the upper and lower windows, the quaint and
charming gardens, the tantalizing labyrinth where
visitors lost themselves in an attempt to reach the
Summer House — these were all of his creation.
Friedrich Rapp was also a poet, an artist, and a
musician. He gathered a worthy collection of
paintings and a museum of Indian relics and ob-
jects of natural history. He composed many of
the fine hymns which impress every visitor to
Economy. He was likewise an energetic and skill-
ful business man and represented the colony in its
external affairs until his death in 1834. He was
76 OUR FOREIGNERS
elected a member of the convention that framed
the first constitution of Indiana, and later he was
made a member of the legislatm*e. Father Rapp,
who possessed rare talents as an organizer, con-
trolled the internal affairs of the colony. Those
who left the community because unwilling to abide
its discipline often pronounced their leader a nar-
row autocrat. But there can be no doubt that
eminent good sense and gentleness tempered his
judgments. He personally led the community in
industry, in prayers, and in faith, until 1847, when
death removed him. A council of nine elders
elected by the members was then charged with the
spiritual guidance of the community, and two trus-
tees were appointed to administer its business affairs.
Economy was a German commimity where Ger-
man was spoken and German customs were main-
tained, although every one also spoke English. As
there were but few accessions to the community
and from time to time there were defections and
withdrawals, the membership steadily declined';
» The largest membership was attained in 1827, when 522 were
enrolled. There were 391 in 1836; 321 in 1846; 170 in 1864; 146
in 1866; 70 in 1879; 34 in 1888; 37 in 1892; 10 in 1897; 8 in 1902,
only two of whom were men; and in 1903, three women and one
man. The population of Economy, however, was always much
larger than the communal membership.
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 77
but while the community was dwindling in mem-
bership it was rapidly increasing in wealth. Oil
and coal were found on some of its lands; the prod-
ucts of its mills and looms, of its wine presses and
distilleries, were widely and favorably known; and
its outside investments, chiefly in manufactories
and railroads, yielded even greater returns. These
outside interests, indeed, became in time the sole
support of the community for, as the membership
fell away, the local industries had to be shut down.
Then it was that communistic methods of doing
business became inadequate and the colony ran in-
to diflBculties. An expert accountant in 1892 dis-
closed the debts of the community to be about one
and a half million dollars. But the outside indus-
trial enterprises in which the community had in-
vested were sound; and the vast debt was paid.
The society remained solvent, with a huge surplus,
though out of prosperity not of its own making.
When the lands at Economy were eventually sold,
about eight acres were reserved to the few survivors
of the society, including the Great House of Father
Rapp and its attractive garden, with the use of the
church and dwellings, so that they might spend
their last days in the peaceful surroundings that
had brought them prosperity and happiness.
78 OUR FOREIGNERS
Lead me, Father, out of harm
To the quiet Zoar fann
If it be Thy will.
So sang another group of simple German separat-
ists, of whom some three hundred came to America
from Wurttemberg in 1817, under the leadership of
Joseph Bimeler (Baumeler) and built the village
of Zoar in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. They ac-
quired Gve thousand acres of land and signed ar-
ticles of association in April, 1819, turning all their
individual property and all their future earnings
into a common fund to be managed by an elected
board of directors. The community provided its
members with their daily necessities and two suits
of clothes a year. The members were assigned to
various trades which absorbed all their time and
left them very little strength for amusement or
reading. Their one recreation was singing. The
society was bound to celibacy until the marriage
of Bimeler to his housekeeper; thereafter marriage
was permitted but not encouraged.
In 1832 the society was incorporated under the
laws of Ohio, and until its dissolution it was man-
aged as a corporation. A few Germans joined the
society. No American ever requested admission.
Joseph Bimeler was elected Agent General and
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 79
thereby became the chosen as well as the natural
leader of the community. Like other patriarchs
of that epoch who led their following into the wil-
derness, he was a man of some education and many
gifts. He was the spiritual mentor; but his piety,
which was sincere and simple, did not rob him of
the shrewdness necessary to material success. His
followers were loyally devoted to him. They built
for him the largest house in the community, a fine
colonial manor house, where he dwelt in compara-
tive luxury and reigned as their "King." When
he died in 1853 he had seen the prosperity of his
colony reach its zenith. It remained small. Scarce-
ly more than three hundred members ever dwelt in
the village which, in spite of its profusion of vines
and flowers, lacked the informal quaintness and
originality of Rapp's Economy. The Tuscarawas
River furnished power for their flour mill, whose
products were widely sought. There was also a
woolen mill, a planing mill, a foundry, and a ma-
chine shop. The beer made by the community
was famous all the country round, and for a time
its pottery and tile works turned out interesting
and quaint products. But one by one these
small industries succumbed to the competition of
the greater world. At last even an alien brew
80 OUR FOREIGNERS
supplanted the good local beer. When the railroad
tapped the village, and it was incorporated (1884)
and assumed an official worldliness with its mayor
and councilmen, it lost its isolation, summer visi-
tors flocked in, and a "calaboose" was needed for
the benefit of the sojourners !
The third generation was now grown. A num-
ber of dissatisfied members had left. Many of the
children never joined the society but found work
elsewhere. A great deal of the work had to be
done by hired help. Under the leadership of the
younger element it was decided in 1898 to abandon
communism. Appraisers and surveyors were set
to work to parcel out the property. Each of the
136 members received a cash dividend, a home in
the village, and a plot of land. The average val-
ue of each share, which was in the neighborhood of
$1500, was not a large return for three generations
of communistic experimentation. But these had
been, after all, years of moderate competence and
quiet contentment, and if they took their toll in
the coin of hope, as their song set forth, then these
simple WUrttembergers were fully paid.
The Inspirationists were a sect that made many
converts in Germany, Holland, and Switzerland in
the eighteenth century. They believed in direct
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 81
revelations from God through chosen "instru-
ments." In 1817, a new leader appeared among
them in the person of Christian Metz, a man of
great personal charm, worldly shrewdness, and
spiritual fervor. Allied with him was Barbara
Heynemann, a simple maid without education, who
learned to read the Scriptures after she was twenty-
three years of age. Endowed with the peculiar
gift of "translation, " she was cherished by the sect
as an instrument of God for revealing His will.
To this pair came an inspiration to lead their
harassed followers to America. In 1842 they pur-
chased the Seneca Indian Reservation near Buffalo,
New York. They called their new home Ebenezer,
and in 1843 they organized the Ebenezer Society,
under a constitution which pledged them to com-
munism. Over eight hundred peasants and ar-
tisans joined the colony, and their industry soon
had created a cluster of five villages with mills,
workshops, schools, and dwellings. But they were
continually annoyed by the Indians from whom they
had purchased the site and were distracted by the
rapidly growing city of Buffalo, which was only
five miles away!
This threat of worldliness brought a revelation
that they must seek greater seclusion. A large tract
82 OUR FOREIGNERS
on the Iowa River was purchased, and to this new
site the population was gradually transferred. There
they built Amana. Within a radius of six miles, five
subsidiary villages sprang up, each one laid out like
a German dxyrf, with its cluster of shops and mills,
and the cottages scattered informally on the main
road. When the railway tapped the neighborhood,
the community in self-defense purchased the town
that contained the railway station. So when the
good Christian Metz died in 1867, at the age of
seventy-two, his pious followers, thanks to his sagac-
ity, were possessed of some twenty-six thousand
acres of rich Iowa land and seven thriving villages,
comfortably housing about 1400 of the faithful.
Barbara Heynemann died in 1883, and since her
death no "instrument" has been found to disclose
the will of God. But many ponderous tomes of
"revelations" have survived and these are faith-
fully read and their naive personal directions and
inhibitions are still generally obeyed. The Bible,
however, remains the main guide of these people,
and they follow its instructions with childish liter-
alism. Until quite recently they clung to the
simple dress and the austere life of their earlier
years. The solidarity of the community has been
maintained with rare skill. The "Great Council
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 83
of the Brethren" upon whom is laid the burden of
directing all the affairs, has avoided government by
mass meeting, discouraged irresponsible talk and
criticism, and, as an aristocracy of elders, has
shrewdly controlled the material and spiritual life
of the community.
The society has received many new members.
There have been accessions from Zoar and Econ-
omy and one or two Americans have joined. The
** Great Council," in its desire to maintain the
homogeneity of the group, rejects the large num-
ber of applications for membership received every
year. Over sixty per cent of the young people
who have left the community to try the world
have come back to "colony trousers" or *' colony
skirts," symbols of the complete submergence of
the individual.
Celibacy has been encouraged but never en-
joined, and the young people are permitted to
marry, if the Spirit gives its sanction, the Elders
their consent, and if the man has reached the age
of twenty-four years. The two sexes are rigidly
separated in school, in church, at work, and in the
communal dining rooms. Each family lives in a
house, but there are communal kitchens, where
meals are served to groups of twenty or more.
84 OUR FOREIGNERS
Every member receives an amiual cash bonus vary-
ing from $25 to $75 and a pass book to record his
credits at the "store." The work is doled out
among the members, who take pride in the quality
rather than in the quantity of their product. All
forms of amusement are forbidden; music, which
floiu'ished in other German communities, is sup-
pressed; and even reading for pleasure or informa-
tion was until recently under the ban.
The only symbols of gayety in the villages are the
flowers, and these are everywhere in lavish abun-
dance, softening the austere lines of the plain and
unpainted houses. No architect has been allowed
to show his skill, no artist his genius, in the shap-
ing of this rigorous life. But its industries flour-
ish. Amana calico and Amana woolens are known
in many markets. The livestock is of the finest
breeds; the products of the fields and orchards are
the choicest. But the modem visitor wonders how
long this prosperity will be able to maintain that
isolation which alone insured the communal soli-
darity. Already store clothes are being worn, pho-
tographs are seen on the walls, "worldly " furniture
is being used, libraries, those openers of closed
minds, are in every schoolhouse, and newspapers
and magazines are "allowed/*
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 85
The experiences of Eric Janson and his devotees
whom he led out of Sweden to Bishop Hill Colony,
in Illinois, are replete with dramatic and tragic
details. Janson was a rugged Swedish peasant,
whose eloquence and gift of second sight made him
the prophet of the Devotionalists, a sect that at-
tempted to reestablish the simplicity of the primi-
tive church among the Lutherans of Scandinavia.
Driven from pillar to post by the relentless hatred
of the Established Church, they sought refuge in
America, where Janson planned a theocratic social-
istic community. Its communism was based en-
tirely upon religious convictions, for neither Janson
nor any of his illiterate followers had heard of the
politico-economic systems of French reformers.
Over one thousand young and vigorous peasants
followed him to America. The first contingent of
four hundred arrived in 1846 and spent their first
winter in untold miseries and privations, with barely
sufficient food, but with enough spiritual fervor to
kindle two religious services a day and three on
Sunday. Attacking the vast prairies with their
primitive implements, harvesting grain with the
sickle and grinding it by hand when their water
power gave out, sheltering themselves in tents and
eaves, enduring agues and fevers, hunger and cold.
86 OUR FOREIGNERS
the majority still remained loyal to the leader
whose eloquence fired them with a sustaining hope.
Thrift, unremitting toil, the wonderful fertility of
the prairie, the high price of wheat, flax, and broom
corn, were bound to bring prosperity. In 1848
they built a huge brick dormitory and dining hall,
a great frame church, and a number of smaller
dwellings. Improved housing at once told on the
general health, though in the next year a scourge
of cholera, introduced by some newcomer, claimed
143 members.
In the meantime John Root, an adventurer from
Stockholm, who had served in the American army,
arrived at the colony and soon fell in love with the
cousin of Eric Janson. The prophet gave his con-
sent to the marriage on condition that, if at any
time Root wished to leave the colony, his wife
should be permitted to remain if she desired. A
written agreement acknowledged Root's consent
to these conditions. He soon tired of a life for
which he had not the remotest liking, and, failing
to entice his wife away with him, he kidnaped her
and forcibly detained her in Chicago, whence she
was rescued by a valiant band of the colonists. In
retaliation the irate husband organized a mob of
frontiers folk to drive out the fanatics as they had a
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 87
short time before driven out Brigham Young and
his Mormons. But the neighbors of the colonists,
having learned their sterling worth, came to the
rescue. Root then began legal proceedings against
Janson. In May, 1850, while in court the rene-
gade deliberately shot and killed the prophet. The
community in despair awaited three days the re-
turn to life of the man whom they looked upon as
a representative of Christ sent to earth to rebuild
the Tabernacle.
Janson had been a very poor manager, how-
ever, and the colony was in debt. In order quick-
ly to obtain money, he had sent Jonas Olsen, the
ablest and strongest of his followers, to Califor-
nia to seek gold to wipe out the debt. Upon hear-
ing of the tragedy, Olsen hastened back to Bish-
op Hill and was soon in charge of affairs. In
1853 he obtained for the colony a charter of in-
corporation which vested the entire management
of the property in seven trustees. These men,
under the by-laws adopted, became also the spirit-
ual mentors, and the colonists, unacquainted with
democratic usages in government, submitted will-
ingly to the leadership of this oligarchy. A new era
of great material prosperity now set in. The vil-
lage was rebuilt. The great house was enlarged so
88 OUR FOREIGNERS
that all the inhabitants could be accommodated in
its vast communal dining room. Trees were planted
along the streets. Shops and mills were erected,
and a hotel became the means of introducing
strangers to the community.
Meanwhile Olsen was growing more and more
arbitrary and, after a bitter controversy, he im-
posed celibacy upon the members. This was the
beginning of the end. One of the trustees, Olaf
Jansen, a good-natured peasant who could not
keep his accounts but who had a peasant's sagacity
for a bargain, wormed his way into financial con-
trol. He wanted to make the colony rich, but he
led it to the verge of bankruptcy. He became a
speculator and promoter. Stories of his shortcom-
ings were whispered about and in 1860 the peasant
colony revolted and deposed Olaf from office. He
then had himself appointed receiver to wind up the
corporation's affairs, and in the following year the
communal property was distributed. Every mem-
ber, male and female, thirty-five years of age re-
ceived a full share which "consisted of 22 acres of
land, one timber lot of nearly 2 acres, one town lot,
and an equal part of all barns, houses, cattle, hogs,
sheep or other domestic animals and all farm-
ing implements and household utensils." Those
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 89
under thirty-five received according to their age.
Had these shares been unencumbered, this would
have represented a fair return for their labor. But
Olaf had made no half-way business of his financial
ambitions, and the former members who now were
melting peacefully and rather contentedly into the
general American life found themselves saddled
with his obligations. The "colony case" became
famous among Blinois lawyers and dragged through
twelve years of litigation. Thus the glowing fra-
ternal communism of poor Janson ended in the
drab discord of an American lawsuit.
In 1862 the followers of Jacob Hutter, a Men-
nonite martyr who was burned at the stake in
Innsbruck in the sixteenth century, foimded the
Old Elmspring Community on the James River
in South Dakota. During the Thirty Years' War
these saintly Quaker-like German folk had foimd
refuge in Moravia, whence they had been driven
into Hungary, later into Rumania, and then in-
to Russia. As their objection to military serv-
ice brought them into conflict with the Czar's
government, they finally determined to migrate
to America. In 1874 they had all reached
South Dakota, where they now live in five small
communities. Scarcely four hundred all told.
90 OUR FOREIGNERS
they cling to their ancient ambition to keep them-
selves "unspotted from the world," and so have
evolved a self-sustaining communal life, char-
acterized by great simplicity of dress, of speech,
and of living. They speak German and refrain
entirely from voting and from other political ac-
tivity. They are farmers and practise only those
handicrafts which are necessary to their own com-
munal welfare.
While most of these German sectarian communi-
ties had only a slight economic effect upon the
United States, their influence upon immigration has
been extensive. In the early part of the last cen-
tury, it was difficult to obtain authentic news con-
cerning America in the remote hamlets of Europe.
All sorts of vague and grotesque notions about this
coimtry were afloat. Every member of these com-
munities, when he wrote to those left behind, be-
came a living witness of the golden opportunities
offered in the new land. And, unquestionably, a
considerable share of the great German influx in
the middle of the nineteenth century can be traced
to the dissemination of knowledge by this means.
Mikkelsen says of the Jansonists that their "letters
home concerning the new country paved the way
for that mighty tide of Swedish immigration which
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 91
in a few years began to roll in upon Illinois and the
Northwest. "
The Shakers are the oldest and the largest com-
munistic sect to find a congenial home in America.
The cult originated in Manchester, England, with
Ann Lee, a "Shaking Quaker," who never learned
to read or write but depended upon revelation for
doctrine and guidance. "By a direct revelation, "
says the Shaker Compendium, she was "instructed
to come to America. " Obedient to the vision, she
sailed from Liverpool in the summer of 1774, ac-
companied by six men and two women, among
whom were her husband, a brother, and a niece.
This little flock settled in the forests near Albany,
New York. Abandoned by her husband, the
prophetess went from place to place, proclaiming
her peculiar doctrines. Soon she became known as
"Mother Ann " and was reputed to have supernat-
ural powers. At the time of her death in 1784 she
had numerous followers in western New England
and eastern New York.
In 1787 they founded their first Shaker conunu-
nity at Mount Lebanon. Within a few years other
societies were organized in New York, Massachu-
setts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Connecticut.
On the wave of the great religious revival at the
92 OUR FOREIGNERS
beginning of the nineteenth century their doc^
trines were carried west. The cult achieved its
highest prosperity in the decade following 1830,
when it numbered eighteen societies and about six
thousand members.
In shrewd and capable hands, the sect soon had
both an elaborate system of theology based upon
the teachings of Mother Ann and also an effec-
tive organization. The communal life, ordaining
celibacy, based on industry, and constructed in
the strictest economy, achieved material prosper-
ity and evidently brought spiritual consolation to
those who committed themselves to its isolation.
Although originating in England, the sect is con-
fined wholly to America and has from the first re-
cruited its membership almost wholly from native
Americans.
Another of these social experiments was the Onei-
da Community and its several ephemeral branches.
Though it was of American origin and the members
were almost wholly American, it deserves passing
mention. The founder, John Humphrey Noyes, a
graduate of Dartmouth and a Yale divinity student,
conceived a system of communal life which should
make it possible for the individual to live without
sin. This perfectionism, he believed, necessitated
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 93
the abolition of private property through com-
munism, the abolition of sickness through com-
plete cooperation of the individual with God, and
the abohtion of the family through a "scientific"
cooperation of the sexes. The Oneida Communi-
ty was financially very prosperous. Its " stirpicul-
ture," Noyes's high-sounding synonym for free
love, brought it, however, into violent conflict with
public opinion, and in 1879 ** complex marriages"
gave way to monogamous families. In the follow-
ing year the communistic holding of property gave
way to a joint stock company, under whose skill-
ful management the prosperity of the community
continues today.
The American Utopias based upon an assiuned
economic altruism were much more numerous than
those founded primarily upon religion but, as
they were recruited almost wholly from Americans,
they need engage our attention only briefly. There
were two groups of economic comitiunistic experi-
ments, similar in their general characteristics but
differing in their origin. One took its inspiration
directly from Robert Owen, the distinguished phi-
lanthropist and successful cotton manufacturer of
Scotland; the other from Fourier, the noted French
social philosopher.
94 OUR FOREIGNERS
In 1825 Robert Owen purchased New Harmony,
Rapp's village in Indiana and its thirty thousand
appurtenant acres. When Owen came to America
he was already famous. Great throngs flocked to
hear this practical man utter the most visionary
sentiments. At Washington, for instance, he lec-
tured to an auditory that included great senators
and famous representatives, members of the Su-
preme Court and of the Cabinet, President Monroe
and Adams, the President-elect. He displayed to
his eager hearers the plans and specifications of
the new human order, his glorified apartment house
with all the external paraphernalia of selective
human perfection drawn to scale.
For a brief period New Harmony was the com-
munistic capital of the world. It was discussed
everywhere and became, says its chronicler, "the
rendezvous of the enlightened and progressive
people from all over the United States and north-
ern Europe." It achieved a sort of motley cosmo-
politanism. A " Boat Load of Knowledge " carried
from Pittsburgh, the most distinguished group of
scientists that had hitherto been brought togeth-
er in America. It included William Maclure, a
Scotchman who came to America, at the age of
thirty-three, ambitious to make a geological survey
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 95
of the country and whose learning and energy
soon earned him the title of "Father of American
Geology"; Thomas Say, **the Father of American
Zoology"; Charles Alexander Lesueur, a distin-
guished naturalist from the Jardin des Plantes
of Paris; Constantino S. Rafinesque, a scientific
nomad whose studies of fishes took him everywhere
and whose restless spirit forbade him remaining
long anywhere; Gerard Troost, a Dutch scientist
who later did pioneer work in western geology;
Joseph Neef, a well-known Pestalozzian educa-
tor, together with two French experts in that sys-
tem; and Owen's four brilliant sons. A few artists
and musicians and all sorts of reformers, including
Fanny Wright, an ardent and very advanced suf-
fragette, joined these scientists in the new Eden.
Owen had issued a universal invitation to the ** in-
dustrious and well disposed," but his project of-
fered also the lure of a free meal ticket for the
improvident and the glitter of novelty for the
restless.
"I am come to this country," Owen said in his
opening words at New Harmony, "to introduce an
entire new state of society, to change it from the
ignorant, selfish system to an enlightened social
system, which shall gradually unite all interests
96 OUR FOREIGNERS
mlo one, and remove all causes for contests
between individuals. " * But the germs of dissolu- j
tion were already present in the extreme individ- l
uality of the members of this new society. Here |
was no homogeneous horde of docile German \
peasants waiting to be commanded. What Father
Rapp could do, Owen could not. The sifting proc-
ess had begun too late. Seven different constitu-
tions issued in rapid succession attempted in vain
to discover a common bond of action. In less than
two years Owen's money was gone, and nine hun-
dred or more disillusioned persons rejoined the
more individualistic world. Many of them sub-
sequently achieved distinction in professional and
public callings. Owen's widely advertised experi-
ment was fecund, however, and produced some
eleven other short-lived communistic attempts, of
which the most noted were at Franklin, Haver-
straw, and Coxsackie in New York, Yellow Springs
and Kendal in Ohio, and Forestville and Macluria
in Indiana.
Fourierism found its principal apostle in this i
country in Arthur Brisbane, whose Social Destiny [
of Man, published in 1840, brought to America
the French philosopher's naive, social regimen of
' ' The New Harmony Movement, by G. B. Lockwood, y. 8S.
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 97
reducing the world of men to simple units called
phalanxes, whose barrack-like routine should insure
plenty, equality, and happiness. Horace Greeley,
with characteristic, erratic eagerness, pounced
upon the new gospel, and Brisbane obtained at
once a wide circle of sympathetic readers through \
the Tribune, Thirty-four phalanxes were organ-
ized in a short time, most of them with an incred-
ible lack of foresight. They usually lasted until
the first payment on the mortgage was due, though
a few weathered the buffetings of fortune for sev-
eral years. Brook Farm in Massachusetts and the
Wisconsin phalanx each endm-ed six years, and the
North American phalanx at Red Bank, New Jersey,
lasted thirteen years.
Icaria is a romantic sequel to the Owen and
Fourier colonies. It antedated Brisbane's revival
of Fourierism, was encouraged by Owenism, sur-
vived both, and formed a living link between the
utopianism of the early nineteenth century and
the utilitarian socialism of the twentieth. Etienne
Cabet was one of those interesting Frenchmen
whose fertile minds and instinct for rapid ac-
tion made France during the nineteenth century
kaleidoscopic with social and political events.
Though educated for the bar, Cabet devoted
98 OUR FOREIGNERS
himself to social and political reform. As a young
man he was a director in that powerful secret order,
the Carbonari, and was elected to the French cham-
ber of deputies, but his violent attitude toward the
Government was such that in 1834 he was obliged
to flee to London to escape imprisonment. Here,
unmolested, he devoted himself for five years to so-
cial and historical research. He returned to France
in 1839 and in the following year published his
Voyage en Icarie, a book that at once took its place
by the side of Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Cabet
pictured in his volume an ideal society where
plenty should be a substitute for poverty and equal-
ity a remedy for class egoism. So great was the
cogency of his writing that Icaria became more
than a mere vision to hundreds of thousands in
those years of social ferment and democratic aspi-
rations. From a hundred sources the demand arose
to translate the book into action. Cabet there-
upon framed a constitution and sought the means
of founding a real Icaria. After consulting Robert
Owen, he unfortunately fell into the clutches of
some Cincinnati land speculators and chose a site
for his colony in the northeastern part of Texas.
When the announcement was made in his paper,
Le Populaire, the responses were so numerous
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 99
that Cabet believed that "more than a million
cooperators" were eager for the experiment.
In February, 1848, sixty-nine young men, all
carefully selected volunteers, were sent forth from
Havre as the vanguard of the contemplated exodus.
But the movement was halted by the turn of great
events. Twenty days after the young men sailed,
the French Republic was proclaimed, and in the
fervor and distraction of this immediate political
victory the new and distant utopia seemed to
thousands less alluring than it had been before.
The group of young volunteers, however, reached
America. After heart-rending disillusionment in
the swamps and forests of Louisiana and on the raw
prairies of Texas, they made their way back to New
Orleans in time to meet Cabet and four hundred
Icarians, who arrived early in 1849. The Gallic
instinct for factional differences soon began to as-
sert itself in repeated division and subdivision on
the part of the idealists. One-half withdrew at
New Orleans to work out their individual salvation.
The remainder followed Cabet to the deserted Mor-
mon town of Nauvoo, Illinois, where vacant houses
offered immediate shelter and where they enjoyed
an interval of prosperity. The French genius for
music, for theatricals, and for literature relieved
100 OUR FOREIGNERS
them from the tedium that characterized most co-
operative colonies. Soon their numbers increased
to five hundred by accessions which, with few
exceptions, were French.
But Cabet was not a practical leader. His pam-
phlet published in German in 1854, entitled // /
had half a million dollars, reveals the naivete of his
mind. He wanted to find money, not to make it.
The society soon became involved in a controversy
in which Cabet's immediate following were out-
numbered. The minority petulantly stopped work-
ing but continued to eat. "The majority decided
that those who would not work should not eat . . .
and gave notice that those who absented them-
selves from labor would be cut off from rations. " '
As a result, Cabet, in 1856, was expelled from his
own Icaria! With 170 faithful adherents he went
to St. Louis, and there a few days later he died.
The minority buried their leader, but their faith in
communal life survived this setback. At Chelten-
ham, a suburb of St. Louis, they acquired a small
estate, where proximity to the city enabled the mem-
bers to get work. Here they lived together six
years before division disrupted them permanently.
* Icaria, A Chapter in the History c§ Communiatn, by Albert
Shaw, p. 58.
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA 101
At Nauvoo in the meantime there had been other
secessions, and the property, in 1857, was in the
hands of a receiver. The plucky and determined
renmant, however, removed to Iowa, where on the
prairie near Corning they planted a new Icaria.
Here, by hard toil and in extreme poverty, but in
harmony and contentment, the communists lived
until, in 1876, the younger members wished to
adopt advanced methods in farming, in finance,
and in management. The older men, with wisdom
acquired through bitter experience, refused to alter
their methods. The younger party won a lawsuit
to annul the communal charter. The property
was divided, and again there were two Icarias, the
"young party" retaining the old site and the "old
party" moving on and founding New Icaria, a few
miles from the old. But Old Icaria was soon split:
one faction removed to California, where the Icaria-
Speranza community was founded; and the other
remained at Old Icaria. Both came to grief in
1888. Finally in 1895 New Icaria, then reduced to
a few veterans, was dissolved by a unanimous vote
of the community.
In 1854 Victor Considerant, the French socialist,
planted a Fourieristic phalanx in Texas, under the
10« OUR FOREIGNERS
liberal patronage of J. B. A. Godin, the godfather
of Fourierism in France who founded at Guise
the only really successful phalanx. A French com-
munistic colony was also attempted at Silkville,
Kansas. But both ventures lasted only a few
years. Since the subsidence of these French com-
munistic experiments, there have been many spo-
radic attempts at founding idealistic communities
in the United States. Over fifty have been tried
since the Civil War. Nearly all were established
under American auspices and did not lure many
foreigners.
CHAPTER V
THE IRISH INVASION
After the Revolution, immigrants began to filter
into America from Great Britain and continental
Europe. No record was kept of their arrival, and
their numbers have been estimated at from 4000 to
10,000 a year, on the average. These people came
nearly all from Great Britain and were driven to
migrate by financial and political conditions.
In 1819 Congress passed a law requiring Collec-
tors of Customs to keep a record of passengers ar-
riving in their districts, together with their age, sex,
occupation, and the country whence they came,
and to report this information to the Secretary of
State. This was the Federal Government's first ef-
fort to collect facts concerning immigration. The
law was defective, yet it might have yielded valu-
able results had it been intelligently enforced. '
« The immigration reports were perfunctory and lacking in
accuracy. Passengers were frequently listed as belonging to the
108
104 OUR FOREIGNERS
From all available collateral sources it appears
that the oflScial figures greatly understated the ac-
tual number of arrivals. Great Britain kept an of-
ficial record of those who emigrated from her ports
to the United States and the numbers so listed
are nearly as large as the total immigration from
all sources reported by the United States oflSciab
during a time when a heavy influx is known to have
been coming from Germany and Switzerland.
Inaccurate as these figures are, they nevertheless
are a barometer indicating the rising pressure of
immigration. The first official figures show that in
1820 there arrived 8385 aliens of whom 7691 were
Europeans. Of these 3614, or nearly one-half,
came from Ireland. Until 1 850 this proportion was
maintained. Here was evidence of the first ground
swell of immigration to the United States whose
subsequent waves in sixty years swept to America
one-half of the entire population of the Little Green
Isle. Since 1820 over four and a quarter million
country whence they sailed. An Irishman taking passage from
Liverpool was quite as likely to be reported English as Irish.
Large numbers of immigrants were counted who merely landed ia
New York and proceeded immediately to Canada, while many
thousands who landed in Canada and moved at once across the
border into northern New York and the Weit did not appear ia
the reports.
THE IRISH INVASION 105
Irish immigrants have found their way hither. In
1900 there were nearly five million persons in the
United States descended from Irish parentage.
They comprise today ten per cent of onr foreign
born population.
The discontent and grievances of the Irish had a
vivid historical background in their own country.
There were four principal causes which induced
the transplanting of the race: rebellion, famine,
restrictive legislation, and absentee landlordism.
Every uprising of this bellicose people from the
time of Cromwell onward had been followed by
voluntary and involuntary exile. It is said that
Cromwell's Government transported many thou-
sand Irish to the West Indies. Many of these
exiles subsequently found their way to the Caro-
liiias, Virginia, and other colonies. After the great
Irish rebellion of 1798 and again after Robert
Emmet's melancholy failure in the rising of 1803
many fled across the sea. The Act of Union in
1801 brought "no submissive love for England,"
and constant political agitations for which the Cel-
tic Irish need but little stimulus have kept the
pathway to America populous.
The harsh penal laws of two centuries ago pre-
scribing transportation and long terms of penal
106 OUR FOREIGNERS
servitude were a compelling agency in driving the
Irish to America. Illiberal laws against religious
nonconformists, especially against the Catholics,
closed the doors of political advancement in their
faces, submitted them to humiliating discrimina-
tions, and drove many from the island. Finally, the
selfish Navigation Laws forbade both exportation
of cattle to England and the sending of foodstuflPs
to the colonies, dealing thereby a heavy blow to Irish
agriculture. These restrictions were followed by
other inhibitions until almost every industry or busi-
ness in which the Irish engaged was unduly limited
and controlled. It should, however, not be forgotten
that these restrictions bore with equal weight upon
the Ulster settlers from Scotland and England, who
managed somehow to endure them successfully.
Absentee landlordism was oppressive both to
the cotter's body and to his soul, for it not only
bound him to perpetual poverty but kindled with-
in him a deep sense of injustice. The historian,
Justin McCarthy, says that the Irishman "re-
garded the right to have a bit of land, his share,
exactly as other people regard the right to live."
So political and economic conditions combined to
feed the discontent of a people peculiarly sensitive
to wrongs and swift in their resentments.
THE IRISH INVASION 107
But the most potent cause of the great Irish /^
influx into America was famine in Ireland. The!
economist may well ascribe Irish failure to the
potato. Here was a crop so easy of culture and
of such nourishing qualities that it led to over-
population and all its attendant ills. The fail-
ure of this crop was indeed an ** overwhelming
disaster," for, according to Justin McCarthy, the
Irish peasant with his wife and his family lived
on the potato, and whole generations grew up,
lived, married, and passed away without ever
having tasted meat. When the cold and damp
summer of 1845 brought the potato rot, the little,
overpopulated island was facing dire want. But
when the next two years brought a plant disease
that destroyed the entire crop, then famine and
fever claimed one quarter of the eight million in-
habitants. The pitiful details of this national dis-
aster touched American hearts. Fleets of relief
ships were sent across from America, and many a
shipload of Irish peasants was brought back. In
1845 over 44,821 came; 1847 saw this number rise
to 105,536 and in the next year to 112,934. Re-
bellion following the famine swelled the number of
immigrants until Ireland was left a land of old
people with a fast shrinking population.
108 OUR FOREIGNERS
There is a prevailing notion that this influx after
the great famine was the commencement of Irish
migration. In reality it was only the climax.
Long before this, Irishmen were found in the col-
onies, chiefly as indentured servants; they were in
the Continental Army as valiant soldiers; they were
in the western flux that filled the Mississippi Valley
as useful pioneers. How many there were we do
not know. As early as 1737, however, there were
enough in Boston to celebrate St. Patrick's Day,
and in 1762 they poured libations to their favorite
saint in New York City, for the Mercury in an-
nouncing the meeting said, "Gentlemen that
please to attend will meet with the best Usage."
On March 17, 1776, the English troops evacu-
ated Boston and General Washington issued the
following order on that date:
Parole Boston
Countersign St. Patrick
The regiments under marching orders to march tomorrow morn-
ing. By His Excellency's conmiand.
Brigadier of the Day
Gen. John Suluvan.
Thus did the Patriot Army gracefully acknowledge
the day and the people.
THE miSH INVASION 109
In 1784, on the first St. Patrick's Day after the
evacuation of New York City by the British, there
was a glorious celebration "spent in festivity and
mirth." As the newspaper reporter put it, "the
greatest unanimity and conviviality pervaded" a
"numerous and jovial company."
Branches of the Society of United Irishmen were
formed in American cities soon after the foimding
of the order in Ireland. Many veterans of '98
found their way to America, and between 1800 and
1820 many thousand followed the course of the
setting sun. Their number cannot be ascertained;
but there were not a few. In 1818 Irish immigrant
associations were organized by the Irish in New
York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore to aid the new-
comers in finding work. Many filtered into the
United States from Canada, Newfoundland, and
the West Indies. These earlier arrivals were not
composed of the abjectly poor who comprised the
majority of the great exodus, and especially among
the political exiles there were to be found men of
some means and education.
America became extremely popular in Ireland
after the Revolution of 1776, partly because the
English were defeated, partly because of Irish
democratic aspirations, but particularly because it
110 OUR FOREIGNERS
was a land of generous economic and political pos-
sibilities. The Irish at once claimed a kinship with
the new republic, and the ocean became less of a
barrier than St. George's Channel.
"The States," as they were called, became a
synonym of abundance. The most lavish reports
of plenty were sent back by the newcomers — of
meat daily, of white bread, of comfortable clothing.
"There is a great many ill conveniences here,"
writes one, "but no empty bellies." In England
and Ireland and Scotland the number of poor who
longed for this abundance exceeded the capacity
of the boats. Many who would have willingly gone
to America lacked the passage money. The Irish
peasant, born and reared in extreme poverty, was
peculiarly unable to scrape together enough to
pay his way. The assistance which he needed,
however, was forthcoming from various sources.
Friends and relatives in America sent him money;
in later years this practice was very common. So-
cieties were organized to help those who could not
help themselves. Railroad and canal companies,
in great need of labor, imported workmen by the
thousands and advanced their passage money.
And finally, the local authorities found shipping
their paupers to another country a convenient way
THE IRISH INVASION 111
of getting rid of them. England early resorted
to the same method. In 1849 the Irish poor law
guardians were given authority to borrow money
for such "assistance," as it was called. In 1881 the
Land Commission and in 1882 the Commissioner
of Public Works were authorized to advance money
for this purpose. In 1884 and 1885 over sixteen
thousand persons were thus assisted from Galway
and Mayo counties.
Long before the great Irish famine of 1846-47
America appeared like a mirage, and wondering
peasants in their dire distress exaggerated its opu-
lence and opportunities. They braved the perils
of the sea and trusted to luck in the great new
world. The journey in itself was no small ad-
venture. There were some sailings directly from
Ireland; but most of the Irish immigrants were
collected at Liverpool by agents not always scrup-
ulous in their dealings. A hurried inspection at
Liverpool gained them the required medical cer-
tificates, and they were packed into the ships.
Of the voyage one passenger who made the journey
from Belfast in 1795 said: "The slaves who are
carried from the coast of Africa have much more
room allowed them than the immigrants who
pass from Ireland to America, for the avarice of
112 OUR FOREIGNERS
captains in that trade is such that they think they
can never load their vessels suflBciently, and they
trouble their heads in general no more about the
accommodation and storage of their passengers
than of any other lumber aboard." When the
great immigrant invasion of America began, there
were not half enough ships for the passengers, all
were cruelly overcrowded, and many were so filthy
that even American port officials refused a landing
before cleansing. Under such conditions sickness
was a matter of course, and of the hordes who
started for the promised land thousands perished
on the way. '
Hope sustained the voyagers. But what must
have been the disappointment of thousands when
they landed! No ardent welcome awaited them,
nor even jobs for the majority. Alas for the rosy
dreams of opulence! Here was a prosaic place
* According to the Edinburgh Review of July, 1854, "Liverpool
was crowded with emigrants, and ships could not be found to do
the work. The poor creatures were packed in dense masses, in
ill* ventilated and unsea worthy vessels, under charge of improper
masters, and the natural results followed. Pestilence chased the
fugitive to complete the work of famine. Fifteen thousand out
of ninety thousand emigrants in British bottoms, in 1847, died on
the passage or soon after arrival. The American vessels, owing to
a stringent passenger law, were better managed, but the hospitals
of New York and Boston were nevertheless crowded with patients
from Irish estates."
THE IRISH INVASION US
where toil and sweat were the condition of mere
existence. As the poor creatures had no means of
moving on, they huddled in the ports of arrival.
Almshouses were filled, beggars wandered in every
street, and these peasants accustomed to the soil
and the open country were congested in the cities,
unhappy misfits in an entirely new economic en-
vironment. Unskilled in the handicrafts, they[
were forced to accept the lot of the common laborer, i
Fortimately, the great influx came at the time of
rapid turnpike, canal, and railroad expansion.^
Thousands found their way westward with con-
tractors' gangs. The free lands, however, did not
lure them. They preferred to remain in the cities.
New York in 1850 sheltered 133,000 Irish. Phila-
delphia, Boston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Albany,
Baltimore, and St. Louis, followed, in the order
given, as favorite lodging places, and there was not
one rapidly growing western city, such as Buffalo,
Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago, that did not
have its "Irish town" or "Shanty town" where
the immigrants clung together.
Their brogue and dress provoked ridicule; their
poverty often threw them upon the community;
the large percentage of illiteracy among them
evoked little sympathy; their inclinations towards
114 OUR FOREIGNERS
intemperance and improvidence were not neutral-
ized by their great good nature and open-handed-
ness; their religion reawoke historical bitterness;
their genius for politics aroused jealousy; their pro-
clivity to unite in clubs, associations, and semi-mili-
tary companies made them the objects of official
suspicion; and above all, their willingness to assume
the offensive, to resent instantly insult or intimi-
dation, brought them into frequent and violent
contact with their new neighbors. "America for
Americans" became the battle cry of reactionaries,
who organized the American or "Know-Nothing"
party and sought safety at the polls. While all
foreign elements were grouped together, indiscrimi-
nately, in the mind of the nativist, the Irishman
unfortunately was the special object of his spleen,
because he was concentrated in the cities and there-
fore offered a visual and concrete example of the
danger of foreign mass movements, because he was
a Roman Catholic and thus awakened ancient re-
ligious prejudices that had long been slumbering,
and because he fought back instantly, valiantly,
and vehemently.
Popular suspicion against the foreigner in Amer-
ica began almost as soon as immigration assumed
large proportions. In 1816 conservative newspapers
THE IRISH INVASION 115
called attention to the new problems that the
Old World was thrusting upon the New: the pov- ^
erty of the foreigner, his low standard of living,
his illiteracy and slovenliness, his ignorance of
American ways and his unwillingness to submit to
them, his clannishness, the danger of his organizing
and capturing the political offices and ultimately
the Government. In addition to the alarmist and
the prejudiced, careful and thoughtful citizens
were aroused to the danger. Unfortunately, how-
ever, religious antagonisms were aroused and, as
is always the case, these differences awakened the
profoundest prejudices and passions of the human
heart. There were many towns in New England
and in the West where Roman Catholicism was un-
known except as a traditional enemy of free in-
stitutions. It is diflficult to realize in these days of
tolerance the feelings aroused in such communities
when Catholic churches, parochial schools, and con-
vents began to appear among them; and when the
devotees of this faith displayed a genius for prac-
tical politics, instinctive distrust developed into
lively suspicion.
The specter of ecclesiastical authority reared it-
self, and the question of sharing public school
moneys with parochial schools and of reading the
116 OUR FOREIGNERS
Bible in the public schools became a burning issue.
Here and there occurred clashes that were more
than barroom brawls. Organized gangs infested
the cities. Both sides were sustained and en-
coiu-aged by partisan papers, and on several oc-
/ / casions the antagonism spent themselves in riots
and destruction. In 1834 the Ursuline convent at
Charlestown, near Boston, was sacked and burned.
Ten years later occurred the great anti-Irish riots
in Philadelphia, in which two Catholic churches
and a schoolhouse were burned by a mob inflamed
to hysteria by one of the leaders who held up a torn
American flag and shouted, "This is the flag that
was trampled on by Irish papists. " Prejudice ac-
companied fear into every city and "patented citi-
zens" were often subject to abuse and even perse-
cution. Tammany Hall in New York City became
the political fortress of the Irish. Election riots
of the first magnitude were part of the routine of
elections, and the "Bloody Sixth Ward Boys" were
notorious for their hooliganism on election day.
The suggestions of the nativists that paupers
and criminals be excluded from immigration were
not embodied into law. The movement soon was
lost in the greater questions which slavery was
thrusting into the foreground. When the fight
THE IRISH INVASION 117
with nativism was over, the Irish were in posses-
sion of the cities. They displayed an amazing apti-
tude for political plotting and organization and for
that prime essential to political success popularly
known as "mixing." Policemen and aldermen,
ward heelers, bosses, and mayors, were known by
their brogue. The Irish demonstrated their loy-
alty to the Union in the Civil War and merged
readily into American life after the lurid prejudices
against them faded.
Unfortunately, a great deal of this prejudice was
revived when the secret workings of an Irish organ-
ization in Pennsylvania were unearthed. Among
the anthracite coal miners a society was formed,
probably about 1854, called the Molly Maguires, a
name long known in Ireland. The members were
all Irish, professed the Roman Catholic faith, and
were active in the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
The Church, the better class of Irishmen, and the
Hibernians, however, were shocked by the doings
of the Molly Maguires and utterly disowned them.
They began their career of blackmail and bullying
by sending threats and death notices embellished
with crude drawings of coffins and pistols to those
against whom they fancied they had a grievance,
usually the mine boss or an unpopular foreman.
118 OUR FOREIGNERS
If the recipient did not heed the threat, he was
waylaid and beaten and his family was abused. By
the time of the Civil War these bullies had terror-
ized the entire anthracite region. Through their
political .influence they elected sherifPs and con-
stables, chiefs of police and county commissioners.
As they became bolder, they substituted arson and
murder for threats and bullying, and they made life
intolerable by their reckless brutality. It was im-
possible to convict them, for the hatred against an
informer, inbred in every Irishman through genera-
tions of experience in Ireland, united with fear in
keeping competent witnesses from the courts. Fi-
nally the president of one of the large coal companies
employed James McParlan, a remarkably clever
Irish detective. He joined the Mollies, somehow
eluded their suspicions, and slowly worked his way
into their confidence. An unusually brutal and
cowardly murder in 1875 proved his opportunity.
When the courts finished with the Mollies, nineteen
of their members had been hanged, a large number
imprisoned, and the organization was completely!
wiped out.
Meantime the Fenian movement served to keep j
the Irish in the public eye. This was no less than
an attempt to free Ireland and disrupt the British
THE IRISH INVASION 119
Empire, using the United States as a fulcrum, the
Irish in America as the power, and Canada as the
lever. James Stephens, who organized the Irish
Repubhcan Brotherhood, came to America in 1858
to start a similar movement. After the Civil War,
which supplied a training school for whole regi-
ments of Irish soldiers, a convention of Fenians was
held at Philadelphia in 1865 at which an *' Irish
Republic" was organized, with a full complement
of officers, a Congress, a President, a Secretary of
the Treasury, a Secretary of War, in fact, a replica
of the American Federal Government. It assumed
the highly absurd and dangerous position that
it actually possessed sovereignty. The luxurious
mansion of a pill manufacturer in Union Square,
New York, was transformed into its government
house, and bonds, embellished with shamrocks and
harps and a fine portrait of WoKe Tone, were issued,
payable "ninety days after the establishment of
the Irish Republic. " Differences soon arose, and
Stephens, who had made his escape from Rich-
mond, near Dublin, where he had been in prison,
hastened to America to compose the quarrel which
had now assumed true Hibernian proportions. An
attempt to land an armed gang on the Island of
Campo Bello on the coast of New Brunswick was
120 OUR FOREIGNERS
frustrated; invaders from Vermont spent a night
over the Canadian border before they were driven
back; and for several days Fort Erie on Niagara
River was held by about 1500 Fenians.^ General
Meade was thereupon sent by the Federal au-
thorities to put an end to these ridiculous breaches
of neutrality.
Neither Meade nor any other authority, however,
could stop the flow of Fenian adjectives that now
issued from a hundred indignation meetings all over
the land when Canada, after due trial, proceeded to
sentence the guilty culprits captured in the "Battle
of Limestone Ridge, " as the tussle with Canadian
regulars near Fort Erie was called. Newspapers
abounded with tales of the most startling designs
upon Canada and Britain. There then occurred
a strong reaction to the Fenian movement, and the
American people were led to wonder how much of
truth there was in a statement made by Thomas
D'Arcy McGee. ^ " This very Fenian organization
in the United States, " he said, "what does it really
* Oberholtzer, History of the United States since the Civil War,
Tol. I, p. 526 ff.
» Thomas D'Arcy McGee (1825-1868), one of the leaders of the
"Young Ireland" party, fled for political reasons to the United
States in 1848, where he established the New York Nation and the
American Celt, When he changed his former attitude of opposi-
tion to British rule in Ireland he was attacked by the extreme
THE IRISH INVASION 121
prove but that the Irish are still an alien popula-
tion, camped but not settled in America, with for-
eign hopes and aspirations, unshared by the people
among whom they live?"
The Irishman today is an integral part of every
large American community. Although the restric-
tive legislation of two centuries ago has long been
repealed and a new land system has brought great
prosperity to his island home, the Irishman has not
abated one whit in his temperamental attitude to-
wards England and as a consequence some 40,000
or 50,000 of his fellow countrymen come to the
United States every year. Here he has been dis-
possessed of his monopoly of shovel and pick by
the French Canadian in New England and by the
Irish patriots in the United States and in consequence moved to
Canada, where he founded the New Era and began to practice law.
Subsequently, with the support of the Irish Canadians, he repre-
sented Montreal in the Parliament of United Canada (1858) and
was President of the Council (1862) in the John Sandfield Mac-
donald Administration. When the Irish were left unrepresented
in the reorganized Cabinet in the following year, McGee became
an adherent of Sir John A. Macdonald, and in 1864 he was made
Minister of Agriculture in the Tache- Macdonald Administration.
An ardent supporter of the progressive policies of his adopted
country, he was one of the Fathers of Confederation and was a
member of the first Dominion Parliament in 1867. His denuncia-
tions, both in Ireland (1865) and in Canada, of the policies and
activities of the Fenians led to his assassination at Ottawa on
April 7, 1868.
122 OUR FOREIGNERS
Italian, Syrian, and Armenian in other parts of the
country. He finds work in factories, for he still
shuns the soil, much as he professes to love the "old
sod. " A great change has come over the economic
condition of the second and third generation of
Irish immigrants. Their remarkable buoyancy of
temperament is everywhere displayed. Bridget's
3^ daughter has left the kitchen and is a school teacher,
'iP\^ a stenographer, a saleswoman, a milliner, or a dress-
maker; her son is a clerk, a bookkeeper, a traveling
salesman, or a foreman. Wherever the human
touch is the essential of success, there you find the
Irish. That is why in some cities one-half the teach-
ers are Irish; why salesmanship lures them; why
they are the most successful walking delegates,
solicitors, agents, foremen, and contractors. In
the higher walks of life you find them where dash,
brilliance, cleverness, and emotion are demanded.
The law and the priesthood utilize their eloquence,
journalism their keen insight into the human side
of news, and literature their imagination and
humor. They possess a positive genius for organi-
zation and management. The labor unions are led
by thein; and what would municipal politics be
without them.f^ The list of eminent names which
they have contributed to these callings will increase
THE IRISH INVASION 123
as their generations multiply in the favorable Ameri-
can environment. But remote indeed is the day and
complex must be the experience that will erase the
memory of the ancient Erse proverb, which their
racial temperament evoked: " Contention is better
than loneliness."
CHAPTER VI
THE TEUTONIC TIDE
As the Irish wave of immigration receded the Teu-
tonic wave rose and brought the second great influx j
of foreigners to American shores. A greater ethnic
contrast could scarcely be imagined than that which
was now afforded by these two races, the phleg-
matic, plodding German and the vibrant Irish, a
contrast in American life as a whole which was soon
represented in miniature on the vaudeville stage by
popular burlesque representations of both types.
The one was the opposite of the other in temper- j
ament, in habits, in personal ambitions. The Ger-
man sought the land, was content to be let alone,
had no desire to command others or to mix with \
them, but was determined to be reliable, philo-
sophically took things as they came, met opposi-
tion with patience, clung doggedly to a few cher-
ished convictions, and sought passionately to pos-
sess a home and a family, to master some minute
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 125
mechanical or teclinical detail, and to take his lei-
sure and his amusements in his own customary way.
The reports of the Immigration Conunissioner
disclose the fact that well over five and a third mil-
lions of Germans migrated to America between
1823 and 1910. If to this enormous number were
added those of German blood who came from Aus-
tria and the German cantons of Switzerland, from
Luxemburg and the German settlements of Russia,
it would reach a grand total of well over seven mil-
lion Germans who have sought an ampler life in
America. The Census of 1910 reports "that there
were 8,282,618 white persons in the United States
having Germany as their country of origin, com-
prising 2,501,181 who were born in Germany,
3,911,847 born in the United States both of whose
parents were born in Germany, and 1,869,590 born
in the United States and having one parent born
in the United States and the other in Germany."^
' According to the Census of 1910 the nationality of the total
number of white persons of foreign stock in the United States is
distributed chiefly as follows:
Germany
8,282,618
or
25.7 per cent
Ireland
4,504,360
or
14.0 " "
Canada
2,754,615
or
8.6 " "
Russia
2,541,649
or
7.9 " "
England
2,322,442
or
7.2 " "
Italy
2,098,360
or
6.6 " "
Austria
2,001,559
or
6.2 « "
126 OUR FOREIGNERS
The coming of the Germans may be divided into
three quite distinct migrations: the early, the mid-
dle, and the recent. The first period includes all
who came before the radical ferment which began
to agitate Europe after the Napoleonic wars. The
Federal census of 1790 discloses 176,407 Germans
living in America. But German writers usually
maintain that there were from 225,000 to 250,000
Germans in the colonies at the time of the Declara-
tion of Independence. They had been driven f roF»
the fatherland by religious persecution and eco-
nomic want. Every German state contributed to
their number, but the bulk of this migration came
from the Palatinate, Wiirttemberg, Baden, and Al-
sace, and the German cantons of Switzerland. The
majority were of the peasant and artisan class who
usually came over as redemptioners. Yet there
were not wanting among them many persons of
means and of learning.
Pennsylvania was the favorite distributing point j
for these German hosts. Thence they pushed]
Furthermore, the significance of the foreign born element in the
population of the United States can be gathered from the fact
that, in 1910, of the 91,972,266 inhabitants of the United
States, no less than 13,515,886 or 14.6 per cent were born in
some other country.
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 127
southward through the beautiful Shenandoah Val-
ley into Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina,
and northward into New Jersey. Large numbers
entered at Charleston and thence went to the fron-
tiers of South Carolina. The Mohawk Valley in
New York and the Berkshires of Massachusetts
harbored many. But not all of them moved in-
land. They were to be found scattered on the
coast from Maine to Georgia. Boston, New York
City, Baltimore, New Bern, Wilmington, Charles-
ton, and Savannah, all counted Germans in their
populations . However strictly these German neigh-
borhoods may have maintained the customs of
their native land, the people thoroughly identi-
fied themselves with the patriot cause and supplied
soldiers, leaders, money, and enthusiasm to the
cause of the Revolutionary War.
Benjamin Rush, the distinguished Philadelphia
physician and publicist, one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, wrote in 1789 a de-
scription of the Germans of Pennsylvania which
would apply generally to all German settlements
at that time and to many of subsequent date. The
Pennsylvania German farmer, he says, was distin-
guished above everything else for his self-denying
thrift, housing his horses and cattle in commodious.
128 OUR FOREIGNERS
warm barns, while he and his family lived in a log
hut until he was well able to afford a more comfort-
able house; selling his "most profitable grain,
which is wheat" and "eating that which is less
profitable but more nourishing, that is, rye or In-
dian corn"; breeding the best of livestock so that
"a German horse is known in every part of the
State" for his "extraordinary size or fat"; clear-
ing his land thoroughly, not "as his English or
Irish neighbors"; cultivating the most bountiful
gardens and orchards; living frugally, working con-
stantly, fearing God and debt, and rearing large
families. " A German farm may be distinguished,"
concludes this writer, "from the farms of other
citizens by the superior size of their barns, the plain
but compact form of their houses, the height of
their enclosures, the extent of their orchards, the
fertility of their fields, the luxuriance of their mead-
ows, and a general appearance of plenty and neat-
ness in everything that belongs to them. " ' Rush's
praise of the German mechanics is not less stinted.
They were found in that day mainly as "weavers,
taylors, tanners, shoe-makers, comb-makers, smiths
of all kinds, butchers, paper makers, watchmakers,
^An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of
Pennsylvania.
A GERMAN FAMILY AT ELLIS ISLAND
LITHUANIAN
BOHEMIAN
GERMAN-HUNGA RIA N
Photographs In Lewis W. Hine.
m OUR CrNERS
w»rm baxnjs, while be ard his family lived in a log
hut until he was weD ifford a more comfort-
able house; selling his 'most profitable grain,
which is wheat" and "eating that which is less
prpfitable but more nourishing, that isy rye or In-
dian cora'^^^br^^^ji^ that
"a German horse i:s known in everx part of the
State" for his "extraordinary size or fat"; clear-
ing his land ghly, not "as his English or
Irish neighb iltivating the most bountiful
gardens and i* if.aus; living frugally, working con-
stantly, fearing God and debt> jmrl ppnriTuy }iirge
families. "A German farm ma j l/*
concludes this writer, "from the farms of other
citizens by the superior size of their barns, the plain
but compact form of their houses, th' ' " of
their * n Io<«T^- ** y^K^^^te^fet^ttheir hv
frrinit\ Ol tL .. .,^, theluxiirint.. .i.v.,ttd-
and a general appearajr d neat-
erything that Iw^liHig.^ ' Rush's
the German mechauies is not less stinted.
1 in that day mainly as "weavers,
^ ' "^ * mb-makers, smiths
ers, watchmakers
German InkaiktanT
till :ir ^iw-Kl /d grfqBi^oJoriS
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 129
and sugar bakers. " Their first desire was " to be-
come freeholders, " and they almost invariably suc-
ceeded. German merchants and bankers also pros-
pered in Philadelphia, Germantown, Lancaster,
and other Pennsylvania towns. One-third of the
population of Pennsylvania, Rush says, was of
German origin, and for their convenience a German
edition of the laws of the State was printed.
After the Revolution, a number of the Hessian
hirelings who had been brought over by the British
settled in America. They usually became farmers,
although some of the officers taught school. They
joined the German settlements, avoiding the Eng-
lish-speaking communities in the United States
because of the resentment shown towards them.
Their number is unknown. Frederick Kapp, a
German writer, estimates that, of the 29,875 sent
over, 12,562 never returned — but he fails to tell
us how many of these remained because of Yankee
bullets or bayonets.
The second period of German migration began
about 1820 and lasted through the Civil War. Be- 1
fore 1830 the number of immigrants fluctuated be-
tween 200 and 2000 a year; in 1832 it exceeded
10,000; in 1834 it was over 17,000; three years later
it reached nearly 24,000; between 1845 and 1860
180 OUR FOREIGNERS
there arrived 1,250,000, and 200,000 came during
the Civil War.
There were several causes, working in close con-
junction, that impelled these thousands to leave
Germany. Economic disturbances doubtless turned
the thoughts of the hungry and harassed to the land
of plenty across the sea. But a potent cause of the
great migration of the thirties and forties was the
universal social and political discontent which fol-
lowed in the wake of the Napoleonic wars. The
German people were still divided into numberless
small feudalities whose petty dukes and princes
clung tenaciously to their medieval prerogatives
and tyrannies. The contest against Napoleon had
been waged by German patriots not only to over-
come a foreign foe but to break the tyrant at home.
The hope for constitutional government, for a re-
presentative system and a liberal legislation in the
German States rose mightily after Waterloo. But
the promises of princes made in days of stress were
soon forgotten, and the Congress of Vienna had
established the semblance of a German federation
upon a unity of reactionary rulers, not upon a
constitutional, representative basis.
The reaction against this bitter disappointment
was led by the eager German youth, who, inspired
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 131
by liberal ideals, now thirsted for freedom of
thought, of speech, and of action. Friedrich Lud-
wig Jahn, a German patriot, organized everywhere
Turnvereine, or gymnastic clubs, as a tangible form
of expressing this demand. Among the students
of the universities liberal patriotic clubs called
Burschenschaften were organized, idealistic in their
aims and impractical in their propaganda, where
"every man with his bonnet on his head, a pot of
beer in his hand, a pipe or seegar in his mouth, and a
song upon his lips, never doubting but that he and
his companions are training themselves to be the
regenerators of Europe, " vowed "the liberation of
Germany.'* Alas for the enthusiasms of youth!
In 1817 the Burschenschaften held a mass reunion at
the Wartburg. Their boyish antics were greatly ex-
aggerated in the conservative papers and the gov-
ernments increased their vigilance. In 1 8 1 9 Kotze-
bue, a reactionary publicist, was assassinated by a
member of the Jena Burschenschaft, and the retalia-
tion of the government was prompt and thoroughly
Prussian — gagging of the press and of speech, dis-
solution ol all liberal organizations, espionage, the
hounding of all suspects. There seemed to remain
only flight to liberal democratic America. But the
suppression of the clubs did not entirely put out the
132 OUR FOREIGNERS
fires of constitutional desires. These smoldered
until the storms of '48 fanned them into a fitful
blaze. For a brief hour the German Democrat had
the feudal lords cowed. Frederick William, the
"romantic'* Hohenzollern, promised a constitution
to the threatening mob in Berlin; the King of Sax-
ony and the Grand Duke of Bavaria fled their capi-
tals; revolts occurred in Silesia, Posen, Hesse-Cas-
sel, and Nassau. Then struck the first great hour
of modern Prussia, as, with her heartless and disci-
plined soldiery, she restored one by one the fright-
ened dukes and princes to their prerogatives and
repressed relentlessly and with Junker rigor every
liberal concession that had crept into laws and in-
stitutions. Strangled liberalism could no longer
breathe in Germany, and thousands of her revolu-
tionists fled to America, bringing with them almost
the last vestige of German democratic leadership.
In the meantime, economic conditions in Ger-
many remained unsatisfactory and combined with
political discontent to uproot a population and
transplant it to a new land. The desire to immi-
grate, stimulated by the transportation companies,
spread like a fever. Whole villages sold out and,
with their pastor or their physician at their head,
shipped for America. A British observer who
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 133
visited the Rhine country in 1846 commented on
"the long files of carts that meet you every mile,
carrying the whole property of these poor wretches
who are about to cross the Atlantic on the faith of
a lying prospectus." But these people were nei-
ther "poor wretches" nor dupes. They had coin
in their pockets, and in their heads a more or less
accurate knowledge of the land of their desires. At
this time the German bookshops were teeming with
little volumes giving, in the methodical Teutonic
fashion, conservative advice to prospective immi-
grants and rather accurate descriptions of Ameri-
ca, with statistical information and abstracts of Am-
erican laws. Many of the immigrants had further
detailed information from relatives and friends al-
ready prospering on western farms or in rapidly grow-
ing towns. This was, therefore, far from a pauper
invasion. It included every class, even broken-down
members of the nobility. The majority were, nat-
urally, peasants and artisans, but there were multi-
tudes of small merchants and farmers . And the po-
litical refugees included many men of substantial
property and of notable intellectual attainments. '
» J. G. EKcker, a well-informed and prosperous German who
took the journey by steerage in a sailing vessel in 1849» wrote an
instructive description of his experiences. Of his fellow passengers
134 OUR FOREIGNERS
Bremen was the favorite port of departure for
these German emigrants to America. Havre,
Hamburg, and Antwerp were popular, and even
London. During the great rush every ship was
overcrowded and none was over sanitary. Steer-
age passengers were promiscuously crowded to-
gether and furnished their own food; and the ship's
crew, the captain, the agents who negotiated the
voyage, and the sharks who awaited their arrival
in America, all had a share in preying upon the in-
experience of the immigrants. Arrived in America,
these Germans were not content to settle, like
dregs, in the cities on the seacoast. They were
land lovers, and westward they started at once, usu-
ally in companies, sometimes as whole communities,
by way of the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes,
and later by the new railway lines, into Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois^ Michigan, Missouri, Wisconsin,
and Iowa, where their instinct for the soil taught
them to select the most fertile spots. Soon their log
cabins and their ample barns and flourishing stock
bespoke their success.
he said ; " Our company was very mixed. There were many young
people: clerks, artists, musicians, architects, miners, mechanics,
men of various professions, peasants, one man seventy-eight years
old, another very aged Bavarian farmer, several families of Jews,
etc., and a fair collection of children."
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 135
The growing Western cities called to the skilled
artisan, the small tradesman, and the intellectuals.
Cincinnati early became a German center. In
1830 the Germans numbered Bve per cent of its
population; in 1840, twenty-three per cent; and in
1869, thirty-four per cent. Milwaukee, "the Ger-
man Athens, '* as it was once called, became the dis-
tributing point of German immigration and influ-
ence in the Northwest. Its Gesangvereine and Turn-
vereine became as famous as its lager beer, and
German was heard more frequently than English
upon its streets. St. Louis was the center of a Ger-
man influence that extended throughout the Mis-
souri Valley. Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo,
and many of the minor towns in the Middle West
received substantial additions from this migration.
Unlike the Irish, the Germans brought with
them a strange language, and this proved a strong
bond in that German solidarity which maintained
itself in spite of the influence of their new en-
vironment. In the glow of their first enthusiasm
many of the intellectuals believed they could es-
tablish a German state in America. " The founda-
tions of a new and free Germany in the great
North American Republic shall be laid by us,"
wrote Follenius, the dreamer, who desired to land
136 OUR FOREIGNERS
enough Germans in "one of the American terri-
tories to estabHsh an essentially German state."
In 1833 the Giessener Gesellschaft, a company or-
ganized in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, grew out of
this suggestion and chose Arkansas as the site for
its colony. But unfavorable reports turned the
immigrants to Missouri, where settlements were
made. These, however, never grew into a Ger-
man state but merged quite contentedly into the
prosperous American population.
A second attempt, also from Hesse, had a tragic
denouement. A number of German nobles formed
a company called the Mainzer Adelsverein and in
1842 sent two of their colleagues to Texas to seek
out a site. The place chosen was ill-suited for a
colony, however, and the whole enterprise from be-
ginning to end was characterized by princely in-
competence. Thousands of immigrants, lured by
the company's liberal offers and glowing prospec-
tus, soon found themselves in dire want; many per-
ished of disease and hunger; and the company end-
ed in ignominious disaster. The surviving colo-
nists in Texas, however, when they realized that
they must depend upon their own efforts, succeed-
ed in finding work and eventually in establishing
several flourishing communities.
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 137
Finally, Wisconsin and Illinois were considered
as possible sites for a Germany in America. But
this ambition never assumed a concrete form.
Everywhere the Americans, with their energy and
organizing capacity, had preceded the incoming
Germans and retained the political sovereignty of
the American state.
But while they did not establish a German state,
these immigrants did cling to their customs wher-
ever they settled in considerable numbers. Espe-'
cially did they retain their original social life, their
Turnvereine, their musical clubs, their sociable beer
gardens, their picnics and excursions, their churches
and parochial schools. They still celebrated their
Christmas and other church festivals with Ger-
man cookery and KucheUy and their weddings
and christenings were enlivened but rarely de-
bauched with generous libations of lager beer and
wine. In the Middle West were whole regions
where German was the familiar language for two
generations.
There were three strata to this second German
migration. The earlier courses were largely peas-
ants and skilled artisans, those of the decade of the
Civil War were mostly of the working classes, and
between these came the "Forty-eighters." Upon
138 OUR FOREIGNERS
them all, however, peasant, artisan, merchant, and
intellectual, their experiences in their native land
had made a deep impression. They all had a back-
ground of political philosophy the nucleus of which
was individual liberty; they all had a violent dis-
taste for the petty tyrannies and espionages which
contact with their own form of government had
produced; and in coming to America they all
sought, besides farms and jobs, political freedom.
They therefore came in humility, bore in patience
the disappointments of the first *rough contacts
with pioneer America and its nativism, and few, if
any, cherished the hope of going back to Germany.
Though some of the intellectual idealists at first
had indefinite enthusiasms about a Devischtum in
America, these visions soon vanished. They ex-
pressed no love for the governments they had
left, however strong the cords of sentiment bound
them to the domestic and institutional customs of
their childhood.
This was to a considerable degree an idealistic
migration and as such it had a lasting influence
upon American life. The industry of these people
and their thrift, even to paring economy, have of-
ten been extolled; but other nationalities have
worked as hard and as successfully and have spent
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 139
as sparingly. The special contribution to America
which these Germans made lay in other qualities.
Their artists and musicians and actors planted the
first seeds of aesthetic appreciation in the raw West
where the repertoire had previously been limited to
Money Musk, The Arkansas Traveler, and Old Dog
Tray. The liberal tendencies of German thought
mellowed the austere Puritanism of the prevalent
theology. The respect which these people had for
intellectual attainments potently influenced the
educational system of America from the kinder-
garten to the newly founded state universities.
Their political convictions led them to espouse with
ardor the cause of the Union in the war upon slav-
ery; and their sturdy independence in partisan poli-
tics was no small factor in bringing about civil
service reform. They established German news-
papers by the hundreds and maintained many Ger-
man schools and German colleges. They freely in-
dulged their love for German customs. But while
their sentimentalism was German, their realism
was American. They considered it an honor to
become American citizens. Their leaders became
American leaders. Carl Schurz was not an isolated
example. He was associated with a host of able,
careful, constructive Germans.
140 OUR FOREIGNERS
The greatest quarrels of these German immi-
grants with American ways were over the so-called
"Continental Sabbath " and the right to drink beer
when and where they pleased. "Only when his
beer is in danger, " wrote one of the leading Forty-
eighters, " does the German- American rouse himself
and become a berserker. " The great numbers of
these men in many cities and in some of the West-
ern States enabled them to have German taught in
the public schools, though it is only fair to say that
the underlying motive was liberalism rather than
Prussian provincialism. Frederick Kapp, a distin-
guished interpreter of the spirit of these Forty-
eighters, expressed their conviction when he said
that those who cared to remain German should
remain in Germany and that those who came to
America were under solemn obligations to become
Americans.
The descendants of these immigrants, the second
and the third and fourth generations, are now thor-
oughly absorbed into every phase of American life.
Their national idiosyncrasies have been modified
and subdued by the gentle but relentless per-
sistence of the English language and the robust
vigor of American law and American political
institutions.
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 141
After 1870 a great change came over the German
immigration. More and more industrial workers,
but fewer and fewer peasants, and very rarely an
intellectual or a man of substance, now appeared at
Ellis Island for admission to the United States.*
The facilities for migrating were vastly increased
by the great transatlantic steamship companies.
The new Germans came in hordes even outnumber-
ing the migrations of the fifties. From 1870 to 1910
over three and a quarter millions arrived. The
highest point of the wave, however, was reached
in 1882, when 250,630 German immigrants entered
the United States. Thereafter the number rapid-
ly subsided; the lowest ebb, in 1898, brought only
17,111, but from that time until the Great War
the number of annual arrivals fluctuated between
25,000 and 40,000.
The majority of those who came in the earlier
part of this period made their way to the Western
lands. The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa,
' There were three potent reasons for this migration: financial /
stringency, overpopulation, and the growing rigor of the military |
service. Over ten thousand processes a year were issued by the
German Government in 1872 and 1873 for evasion of military
duty. Germans who had become naturalized American citizens
were arrested when they returned to the Fatherland for a visit
on the charge of having evaded military service. A treaty be-
tween the two countries finally adjusted this diflSculty.
142 OUR FOREIGNERS
and the Far West, still offered alluring opportuni-
ties. But as these lands were gradually taken, the
later influx turned towards the cities. Here the
immigrants not only found employment in those
trades and occupations which the Germans for
years had virtually monopolized, but they also be-
came factory workers in great numbers, and many
of them went into the mining regions.
It soon became apparent that the spirit of this
latest migration was very different from that of the
earlier ones. "I do not believe," writes a well-
informed and patriotic Lutheran pastor in 1917,
"that there is one among a thousand that has emi-
grated on account of dissatisfaction with the Ger-
man Government during the last forty-five years. "
Humility on the part of these newcomers now grad-
ually gave way to arrogance. Instead of appear-
ing eager to embrace their new opportunities, they
criticized everything they found in their new home.
The contemptuous hauteur and provincial egotism
of the modern Prussian, loathsome enough in the
educated, were ridiculous in the poor immigrants.
Gradually this Prussian spirit increased. In 1883
it could still be said of the three hundred German-
American periodicals, daily, weekly, and monthly,
that in their tone they were thoroughly American.
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 143
But ten or fifteen years later changes were appar-
ent. In 1895 there were some five hundred Ger-
man periodicals published in America, and many
of the newer ones were rabidly Germanophile.
The editors and owners of the older publications
were dying out, and new hands were guiding the
editorial pens. Often when there was no Ameri-
can-born German available, an editor was import-
ed fresh from Germany. He came as a German
from a new Germany — that Prussianized Germany
which unmasked itself in August, 1914, and which
included in its dream of power the unswerving
and undivided loyalty of all Germans who had
migrated. The traditional American indifference
and good nature became a shield for the Machi-
avellian editors who now began to write not for
the benefit of America but for the benefit of Ger-
many. Political scandals, odious comparisons of
American and German methods, and adroit criti-
cisms of American ways were the daily pabulum
fed to the German reader, who was left with the
impression that everything in the United States
was wrong, while everything in Germany was
right. Before the United States entered the Great
War, there was a most remarkable unanimity of
expression among these German publications;
144 OUR FOREIGNERS
afterwards, Congress found it necessary to enact
rigorous laws against them. As a result, many of
them were suppressed, and many others suspended
publication.
German pastors, also, were not infrequently im-
ported and brought with them the virus of the new
Prussianism. This they injected into their con-
gregations and especially into the children who
attended their catechetical instruction. German
"exchange professors, " in addition to their univer-
sity duties, usually made a pilgrimage of the cities
where the German influence was strong. The fos-
tering of the German language became no longer
merely a means of culture or an appurtenance to
business but was insisted upon as a necessity to
keep alive the German spirit, der Deutsche Geist.
German parents were warned, over and over again,
that once their children lost their language they
would soon lose every active interest in Kultur.
The teaching of German in the colleges and uni-
versities assumed, undisguised and unashamed,
the character of Prussian propaganda. The new
immigrants from Germany were carefully protected
from the deteriorating effect of American contacts,
and, unlike the preceding generations of German
immigrants, they took very little part in politics.
THE TEUTONIC TIDE 145
Those who arrived after 1900 refused, usually, to
become naturalized.
The diabolical ingenuity of the German propa-
ganda was subsequently laid bare, and it is known
today that nearly every German club, church,
school, and newspaper from about 1895 onward was
being secretly marshaled into a powerful Teutonic
homogeneity of sentiment and public opinion. The
Kaiser boasted of his political influence through the
German vote. The German-American League, in-
corporated by Congress, had its branches in many
States. Millions of dollars were spent by the Im- ;
perial German Government to corrupt the millions
of German birth in America. These disclosures,
when they were ultimately made, produced in the
United States a sharp and profound reaction against
everything Teutonic. The former indifference com-
pletely vanished and hyphen-hunting became a
popular pastime. The charter of the German-
American League was revoked by Congress. City
after city took German from its school curriculum.
Teutonic names of towns and streets were erased —
half a dozen Berlins vanished overnight — and in
their places appeared the names of French, British,
and American heroes.
But though the names might he erased, the
146 OUR FOREIGNERS
German element remained. It had become incor-
porated into the national bone and sinew, contrib-
uting its thoroughness, stolidity, and solidity to
the American stock. The power of liberal politi-
cal institutions in America has been revealed, and
thousands upon thousands of the sons and grand-
sons of German immigrants crossed the seas in
1917 and 1918 to bear aloft the starry standard up-
on the fields of Flanders against the arrogance and
brutality of the neo-Prussians.
CHAPTER VII
THE CALL OF THE LAND
For over a century after the Revolution the great
fact in American life was the unoccupied land, that
vast stretch of expectant acreage lying fallow in
the West. It kept the American buoyant, for it
was an insurance policy against want. When his
crops failed or his business grew dull, there was
the West. When panic and disaster overtook him,
there remained the West. When the family grew
too large for the old homestead, the sons went west.
And land, unlimited and virtually free, was the
magnet that drew the foreign home seeker to the
American shores.
The first public domain after the formation of
the Union extended from the Alleghanies to the
Mississippi. This area was enlarged and pushed
to the Rockies by the Louisiana Purchase (1803)
and was again enlarged and extended to the Pacific
by the acquisition of Oregon (1846) and the Mexican
147
148 OUR FOREIGNERS
cession (1848) . The total area of the United States
from coast to coast then comprised 8,025,000*
square miles, of which over two-thirds were at one
time or another public domain. Before the close
of the Civil War the Government had disposed of
nearly four hundred million acres but still retained
in its possession an area three times as great as the
whole of the territory which had been won from
Great Britain in the Revolution.
The public domain was at first looked upon as a
source of revenue, and a minimum price was fixed
by law at $2 an acre, though this rate was subse-
quently (1820) lowered to $1.25 an acre. The
West always wanted liberal land laws, but the
South before the Civil War, fearing that the growth
of the West would give the North superior strength,
opposed any such generosity. When the North
dominated Congress, the Homestead Law of 1862,
providing that any person, twenty-one years of age,
who was a citizen of the United States or who had
declared his intention of becoming one, could ob-
tain title to 160 acres of land by living upon it five
years, making certain improvements, and paying
the entry fee of ten dollars.
^ Oberholtzer, History of the United States tinee tiie Citfil War,
vol. I. p. 275.
THE CALL OF THE LAND 149
The Government laid out its vast estate in
townships six miles square, which it subdivided
into sections of 640 acres and quarter sections of
160 acres. The quarter section was regarded as
the public land unit and was the largest amount
permitted for individual preemption and later
for a homestead. Thus was the whole world in-
vited to go west. Under the new law, 1,160,000
acres were taken up in 1865. ' The settler no longer
had to suffer the wearisome, heart-breaking tasks
that confronted the pioneer of earlier years, for
the railway and steamboat had for some time
taken the place of the Conestoga wagon and the
fitful sailboat.
But the movement by railway and by steamboat
was merely a continuation on a greater scale of what
had been going on ever since the Revolution. The
westward movement was begun, as we have seen,
not by foreigners but by American farmers and
settlers from seaboard and back country, thousands
of whom, before the dawn of the nineteenth cen-
tury, packed their household goods and families
into covered wagons and followed the sunset trail. .
The vanguard of this westward march was Amer- f
lean, but foreign immigrants soon began to mingle
^ Oberholtzer, supra cit, p. 278.
150 OUR FOREIGNERS
with the caravans. At first these newcomers who
heard the far call of the West were nearly all from
the British Isles. Indeed so great was the exodus
of these farmers that in 1816 the British journals
in alarm asked Parliament to check the "ruinous
drain of the most useful part of the population
of the United Kingdom. " Public meetings were
held in Great Britain to discuss the average man's
prospect in the new country. Agents of land com-
panies found eager crowds gathered to learn parti-
culars. Whole neighborhoods departed for Amer-
ica. In order to stop the exodus, the newspapers
dwelt upon the hardship of the voyage and the ex-
cesses of the Americans. But, until Australia,
New Zealand, and Canada began to deflect migra-
tion, the stream to the United States from England,
Scotland, and Wales was constant and copious.
Between 1820 and 1910 the number coming from
Ireland was 4,212,169, from England 2,212,071,
from Scotland 488,749, and from Wales 59,540.
What proportion of this host found their way to
the farms is not known. ' In the earlier years, the
» The census of 1910 discloses the fact that of the 6,361,502
farms in the United States 75 per cent were operated by native
white Americans and only 10.5 per cent by foreign born whites.
The foreign born were distributed as follows: Austria, 33,336;
Hungary, 3827; England, 39,728; Ireland, 33,480; Scotland,
SLOVAK GIRLS
A GIRL FROM SOUTHERN ITALY
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine.
heard ilie far ca!!
the British Isk
of these farmers tl
ill alarm asked Parliai ruinous
drain of the mosi tiie population
of the Unit —^ ^^ -meetings " -"'
held in Op verage m
prosper Agents of land corn-
pan i wds gathered to learn parti-
euL orhoods departed for Amer-
ica. In order to stop the ' ' '<
dwelt upon the hardship oi li
cesses of the Americans. Bi
New Zealand, and Canada began to deflect migra-
tion, the stream to the United States from England,
Sco Wales was oo
•otland 488,741).
- proportion of thi.^ thek* way to
t know T years, the
e. operate
V foreiga 1
follows: Ausi
('land. 33.4S<^
.saiH .W aiwdJ y^d grfqaisoiodl
THE CALL OF THE LAND 151
majority of the English and Scotch sought the land.
In western New York, in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan,
and contiguous States there were many Scotch and
English neighborhoods established before the Civil
War. Since 1870, however, the incoming British
have provided large numbers of skilled mechanics
and miners, and the Welsh, also, have been drawn
largely to the coal mines.
The French Revolution drove many notables to
exile in the United States, and several attempts
were made at colonization. The names Gallipolis
and Gallia County, Ohio, bear witness to their
French origin. Gallipolis was settled in 1790 by
adventurers from Havre, Bordeaux, Nantes, La
Rochelie, and other French cities. The colony was
promoted in France by Joel Barlow, an Ananias
even among land sharks, representing the Scioto
Land Company, or Companie du Scioto, one of the
numerous speculative concerns that early sought to
capitalize credulity and European ignorance of the
West. The Company had, in fact, no title to the
lands, and the wretched colonists found themselves
10,220; Wales, 4110; France, 5832; Germany, 221,800; Holland,
13,790; Italy, 10,614; Russia, 25,788; Poland, 7228; Denmark,
28,375; Norway, 59,742; Sweden, 67,453; Switzerland, 14.333;
Canada, 61,878.
152 OUR FOREIGNERS
stranded in a wilderness for whose conquest they
were unsuited. Of the colonists McMaster says:
**Some could build coaches, some could make
perukes, some could carve, others could gild with
such exquisite carving that their work had been
thought not unworthy of the King."' Congress
came to the relief of these unfortunate people in
1795 and granted them twenty-four thousand
acres in Ohio. The town they founded never fully
realized their early dreams, but, after a bitter
struggle, it survived the log cabin days and was lat-
er honored by a visit from Louis Philippe and from
Lafayette. Very few descendants of the French
colonists share in its present-day prosperity.
The majority of the French who came to Amer-
ica after 1820 were factory workers and profes-
sional people who remained in the cities. There
are great numbers of French Canadians in the
factory towns of New England. There are, too,
French colonies in America whose inhabitants can-
not be rated as foreigners, for their ancestors were
veritable pioneers. Throughout the Mississippi
Valley, such French settlements as Kaskaskia,
Prairie du Rocher, Cahokia, and others have left
much more than a geographical designation and
» HiHory of the People of the United States, vol. vii, p. 20S.
THE CALL OF THE LAND 153
have preserved an old world aroma of quaintness
and contentment.
Swiss immigrants, to the number of about 250,-
000 and over 175,000 Dutch have found homes in
America. The majority of the Swiss came from
the German cantons of Switzerland. They have
large settlements in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Cali-
fornia, where they are very successful in dairying
and stock raising. The Hollanders have taken
root chiefly in western Michigan, between the Kala-
mazoo and Grand rivers, on the deep black bottom
lands suitable for celery and market gardening.
The town of Holland there, with its college and
churches, is the center of Dutch influence in the
United States. Six of the eleven Dutch periodicals
printed in America are issued from Michigan, and
the majority of newcomers (over 80,000 have ar-
rived since 1900) have made their way to that
State. These sturdy and industrious people from
Holland and Switzerland readily adapt themselves
to American life. J
No people have answered the call of the land in
recent years as eagerly as have the Scandinavians.
These modern vikings have within one generation
peopled a large part of the great American North-
west. In 1850 there were only eighteen thousand
154 OUR FOREIGNERS
Scandinavians in the United States. The tide rose
rapidly in the sixties and reached its height in the
eighties, until over two million Scandinavian immi-
grants have made America their home. They and
their descendants form a very substantial part of the
rural population. There are nearly half as many
Norwegians in America as in Norway, which has
emptied a larger proportion of its population into
the American lap than any other country save Ire-
land. About one-fourth of the world's Swedes
and over one-tenth of the world's Danes dwell
in America.
The term Scandinavian is here used in the loose
sense to embrace the peoples of the two peninsulas
where dwell the Danes, the Norwegians, and the
Swedes. These three branches of the same family
have much in common, though for many years they
objected to being thus rudely shaken together into
one ethnic measure. The Swede is the aristocrat,
the Norwegian the democrat, the Dane the conserv-
ative. The Swede, polite, vivacious, fond of music
and literature, is "the Frenchman of the North,"
the Norwegian is a serious viking in modern dress;
the Dane remains a landsman, devoted to his fields,
and he is more amenable than his northern kinsmen
to the cultural influence of the South.
THE CALL OF THE LAND 155
The Norwegian, true to viking traditions, led
the modern exodus. In 1825 the sloop Restoration^
the Mayflower of the Norse, landed a band of fifty-
three Norwegian Quakers on Manhattan. These
peasants settled at first in western New York.
But within a few years most of them removed to
Fox River, Illinois, whither were drawn most of
the Norwegians who migrated before 1850. After
the Civil War, the stream rapidly rose, until nearly
seven hundred thousand persons of Norwegian
birth have settled in America.
The Swedish migration started in 1841, when
Gustavus Unonius, a former student of the Uni-
versity of Upsala, founded the colony of Pine Lake,
near Milwaukee. His followers have been de-
scribed as a strange assortment of "noblemen, ex-
army officers, merchants, and adventurers, " whose
experiences and talents were not of the sort that
make pioneering successful. Frederika Bremer,
the noted Swedish traveler, has left a description of
the little cluster of log huts and the handful of peo-
ple who "had taken with them the Swedish inclina-
tion for hospitality and a merry life, without suflSc-
iently considering how long it could last. " Their
experiences form a romantic prelude to the great
Swedish migration, which reached its height in the
156 OUR FOREIGNERS
eighties. Today the Swedes form the largest ele-
ment in the Scandinavian influx, for well over one
million have migrated to the United States.
Nearly three hundred thousand persons of Dan-
ish blood have come into the country since the Civil
War. A large number migrated from Schleswig-
Holstein, after the forcible annexation of that prov-
ince by Prussia in 1866, preferring the freedom of
America to the tyranny of Berlin.
Whatever distinctions in language and customs
may have characterized these Northern peoples,
they had one ambition in common — the desire to
own tillable land. So they made of the Northwest
a new Scandinavia, larger and far more prosperous
than that which Gustavus Adolphus had planned
in colonial days for his colony in Delaware. One
can travel today three hundred miles at a stretch
across the prairies of the Dakotas or the fields of
Minnesota without leaving land that is owned by
Scandinavians. They abound also in Wisconsin,
Northern Illinois, Eastern Nebraska, and Kansas,
and Northern Michigan. Latterly the lands of Ore-
gon and Washington are luring them by the thou-
sands, while throughout the remaining West there
are scattered many prosperous farms cultivated by
representatives of this hardy race. Latterly this
THE CALL OF THE LAND 157
stream of Scandinavians has thinned to about one-
half its former size. In 1910, 48,000 came; in 1911,
42,000; in 1912, 27,000; in 1913, 33,000. The later
immigrant is absorbed by the cities, or sails upon
the Great Lakes or in the coastwise trade, or works
in lumber camps or mines. Wherever you find a
Scandinavian, however, he is working close to na-
ture, even though he is responding to the call of
the new industry.
It is the consensus of opinion among competent f
observers that these northern peoples have been!
the most useful of the recent great additions to the
American race. They were particularly fitted by
nature for the conquest of the great area which
they have brought under subjugation, not merely
because of their indomitable industry, perseverance,
honesty, and aptitude for agriculture, but because
they share with the Englishman and the Scotch-
man the instinct for self-government. Above all,
the Scandinavian has never looked upon himself as
an exile. From the first he has considered himself
an American. In Minnesota and Dakota, the
Norse pioneer often preceded local government.
"Whenever a township became populous enough to
have a name as well as a number on the surveyor's
map, that question was likely to be determined by
158 OUR FOREIGNERS
the people on the ground, and such names as Chris-
tiana, Swede Plain, Numedal, Throndhjem, and
Vasa leave no doubt that Scandinavians officiated
at the christening. " These people proceeded with
the organizing of the local government and, "ex-
cept for the peculiar names, no one would suspect
that the town-makers were born elsewhere than in
Massachusetts or New York. " ^ This, too, in spite
of the fact that they continued the use of their
mother tongue, for not infrequently election notices
and even civic ordinances and orders were issued
in Norwegian or Swedish. In 1893 there were 146
Scandinavian newspapers, and their number has
since greatly increased.
In politics the Norseman learned his lesson quick-
ly. Governors, senators, and representatives
in Congress give evidence to a racial clannish-
ness that has more than once proven stronger than
party allegiance. Yet with all their influence
in the Northwest, they have not insisted on un-
reasonable race recognition, as have the Germans
in Wisconsin and other localities. Minnesota and
Dakota have established classes in "the Scan-
dinavian language" in their state universities,
V ^ K. C. Babcock, The Scandinavian Element in the United States,
\A^ p. 148.
THE CALL OF THE LAND 159
evidently leaving it to be decided as an aca-
demic question which is the Scandinavian lan-
guage. Without brilliance, producing few leaders,
the Norseman represents the rugged common-
place of American life, avoiding the catastrophes
of a soaring ambition on the one hand and the pit-
falls of a jaded temperamentalism on the other.
Bent on self -improvement, he scrupulously patro-
nizes farmers' institutes, high schools, and exten-
sion courses, and listens with intelligent patience
to lectures that would put an American audience
to sleep. This son of the North has greatly but-
tressed every worthy American institution with
the stern traditional virtues of the tiller of the soil.
Strength he gives, if not grace, and that at a time
when all social institutions are being shaken to
their foundations.
Among the early homesteaders in the upper Mis-
sissippi Valley there were a substantial number of
Bohemians. In Nebraska they comprise nine per^ i
cent of the foreign born population, in Oklahoma
seven per cent, and in Texas over six per cent.
They began migrating in the turbulent forties. \
They were nearly all of the peasant class, neat, in-
dustrious and intelligent, and they usually settled
in colonies where they retained their native tongue
160 OUR FOREIGNERS
and customs. They were opposed to slavery and
many enlisted in the Union cause.
Among the Polish immigrants who came to Amer-
ica before 1870, many settled on farms in Illinois,
Wisconsin, Texas, and other States. They proved
much more clannish than the Bohemians and more
reluctant to conform to American customs.
Many farms in the Northwest are occupied by
Finns, of whom there were in 1910 over two hun-
dred thousand in the United States. They are a
Tatar race, with a copious sprinkling of Swedish
blood. Illiteracy is rare among them. They are
eager patrons of night schools and libraries and
have a flourishing college near Duluth. They are
eager for citizenship and are independent in poli-
tics. The glittering generalities of Marxian social-
ism seem peculiarly alluring to them; and not a few
have joined the I. W. W. Drink has been their
curse, but a strong temperance movement has re-
cently made rapid headway among them. They
are natural woodmen and wield the axe with the
skill of our own frontiersmen. Their peculiar
houses, made of neatly squared logs, are features
of every Finnish settlement. All of the North
European races and a few from Southern and East-
ern Europe have contributed to the American rural
THE CAIX OP THE LAND 161
population; yet the Census of 1910 disclosed the
fact that of the 6,361,502 white farm operators
in the United States, 75 per cent were native
American and only 10.5 per cent were foreign born.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CITY BUILDERS
"What will happen to immigration when the pub-
lie domain has vanished?'* was a question fre-
quently asked by thoughtful American citizens.
The question has been answered: the immigrant
has become a job seeker in the city instead of
a home seeker in the open country. The last
three decades have witnessed "the portentous
growth of the cities" — and they are cities of a
new type, cities of gigantic factories, towering
skyscrapers, electric trolleys, telephones, automo-
biles, and motor trucks, and of fetid tenements
swarming with immigrants. The immigrants,
too, are of a new type. When Henry James
revisited Boston after a long absence, he was
shocked at the "gross little foreigners" who in-
fested its streets, and he said it seemed as if the
fine old city had been wiped with "a sponge satu-
rated with the foreign mixture and passed over
162
THE CITY BUILDERS 163
almost everything I remembered and might have
still recovered."'
Until 1882 the bulk of immigration, as we have
seen, came from the north of Europe, and these
immigrants were kinsmen to the American and for
the most part sought the country. The new immi-
gration, however, which chiefly sought the cities,
hailed from southern and eastern Europe. It has
shown itself alien in language, custom, in ethnic
aflSnities and political concepts, in personal stand-
ards and assimilative ambitions. These immigrants
arrived usually in masculine hordes, leaving women
and children behind, clinging to their own kind with
an apprehensive mistrust of all things American, and
filled with the desire to extract from this fabulous
mine as much gold as possible and then to return
to their native villages. Yet a very large number
of those who have gone home to Europe have re-
turned to America with bride or family. As a result
the larger cities of the United States are congeries
of foreign quarters, whose alarming fecundity fills
the streets with progeny and whose polyglot chat-
ter on pay night turns even many a demure New
England town into a veritable babel.
» This lament of Henry James's is cited by E. A. Ross in The
Old World in the New, p. 101.
164 OUR FOREIGNERS
There are in the United States today roughly
eight or ten millions of these new immigrants. A
line drawn southward from Minneapolis to St.
Louis and thence eastward to Washington would
embrace over four-fifths of them, for most of the
great American cities lie in this northeastern comer
of the land. Whence come these millions? From
the vast and mysterious lands of the Slavs, from
Italy, from Greece, and from the Levant.
The term Slav covers a welter of nationalities
whose common ethnic heritage has long been con-
cealed under religious, geographical, and political
diversities and feuds. They may be divided into
North Slavs, including Bohemians, Poles, Ruthen-
ians, Slovaks, and "Russians," and South Slavs,
including Bulgarians, Serbians and Montenegrins,
Croatians, Slovenians, and Dalmatians. As one
writer on these races says, "It is often impossible
in America to distinguish these national groups
Yet the differences are there. ... In American
communities they have their different churches,
societies, newspapers, and a separate social life. . . .
The Pole wastes no love on the Russian, nor the
Ruthenian on the Pole, and a person who acts in
ignorance of these facts, a missionary for instance,
or a political boss, or a trade union organizer, may
RUSSIAN TYPES
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
1 HEBREW' PATRIARCH
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine for Special Survey Mission,
American Red Cross, and for Pittsburgh Survey.
'.j^FSnT^ re
ARMENIAN REFUGEES
Photograph copyright by Underwood and Underwood,
New York.
OUR F'^^
T AJJJi^K.^
kiiKZL^ t^ic in the ^ ^^^ States today roughly
eight or ten millioiis »f tf^etse new immigrants. A
line drawn southwm Minneapolis to St.
Louis and thmoe eiir¥iM^M^B||^hington would
embrace over foiii^iMiiivolE IjtftiviiiiMriKliost of the
great American cities ■ j^ tiortheastem comer
of the land. Wbe v < at iheae millioiis? Prom
the vast and m:^ ^ rious lands of the Slavs, from
Italy, froTii Greece, and from the Levan i
The term Slav covers a welter of nationalities
whose common ethnic heritage has long been con-
cealed under religious, geograpb' ' ! political
diversities and feuds. They mav vidkid into
North Slavs, incluamg Bohemians, i*.^ti Ittetlien-
mn^. ^ovals. rang TT^S&iaift?f„„jipaCT ^^fl.,„A^^.s,
ing Bulgarians, Serbians and Moatetkegrins,
Slovenians, and Dalmatiaos. Xs one
^ m impossible
ii^viA%ii ■ iir-7w- u«» ^.Jiv^iuuu groups. • . .
es are there. ... In American
they h& v different churches,
es, newgpatgibe^j^im^^lM^ipcial lif
iilt-_ t :>l^ifiusriaJar nor Ajbe
^aii^rson who acts in
losionary for instancr
nj boss, or a trade union organiser* may
l)nt- hoowisbnU vrf
i.ii'::y%j Jict«.,i«5, ti «j.iij
Andersen -Lawt,^o -V Y.
THE CITY BUILDERS 165
find himself in the position of a host who should
innocently invite a Fenian from Cork County to
hobnob with an Ulster Orangeman on the ground
that both were Irish." '
The Bohemians (including the Moravians) are
the most venturesome and the most enlightened
of the great Slav family. Many of them came to
America in the seventeenth century as religious
pilgrims; more came as political refugees after
1848; and since 1870, they have come in larger
numbers, seeking better economic conditions. All
told, they numbered over 220,000, from which it
may be estimated that there are probably today
half a million persons of Bohemian parentage in the
United States. Chicago alone shelters over 100,000
of these people, and Cleveland 45,000. These im-
migrants as a rule own the neat, box-like houses
in which they live, where flower-pots and tiny
gardens bespeak a love of growing things, and lace
curtains, carpets, and center tables testify to the
influence of an American environment. The Bo-
hemians are much given to clubs, lodges, and so-
cieties, which usually have rooms over Bohemian
saloons. The second generation is prone to free
thinking and has a weakness for radical socialism.
' Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, p. 8-9.
166 OUR FOREIGNERS
The Bohemians are assiduous readers, and illit-
eracy is almost unknown among them. They sup-
port many periodicals and several thriving pub-
lishing houses. They cling to their language with
a religious fervor. Their literature and the his-
tory which it preserves is their pride. Yet this love
of their own traditions is no barrier, apparent-
ly, to forming strong attachments to American
institutions. The Bohemians are active in politics,
and in the cities where they congregate they see
that they have their share of the public offices.
There are more highly skilled workmen among
them than are to be found in any other Slavic
group; and the second generation of Bohemians in
America has produced many brilliant professional
men and successful business men. As one writer
puts it: "The miracle which America works upon
the Bohemians is more remarkable than any other
of our national achievements. The downcast look
so characteristic of them in Prague is nearly gone,
the surliness and unfriendliness disappear, and the
young Bohemian of the second or third genera-
tion is as frank and open as his neighbor with his
Anglo-Saxon heritage."'
The bitter political and racial suppression that
' Edward A. Steiner, On the Trail of the Immigrant, p. US.
THE CITY BUILDERS 167
made the Bohemian surly and defiant seem, on the
other hand, to have left the Polish peasant stolid,
patient, and very illiterate. Polish settlements
were made in Texas and Wisconsin in the fifties
and before 1880 a large number of Poles were
scattered through New York, Pennsylvania, and
Illinois. Since then great numbers have come over
in the new migrations until today, it is estimated,
at least three million persons of Polish parent-
age live in the United States.^ The men in the
earlier migrations frequently settled on the land;
the recent comers hasten to the mines and the met-
al working centers, where their strong though un-
trained hands are in constant demand.
The majority of the Poles have come to America
to stay. They remain, however, very clannish and
according to the Federal Industrial Commission,
without the "desire to fuse socially." The recent
Polish immigrant is very circumscribed in his men-
tal horizon, clings tenaciously to his language,
which he hears exclusively in his home and his
» This is an estimate made by the Reverend W. X. Kruszka
of Ripon, Wisconsin, as reported by E. G. Balch in Our Slavic
Fellow Citizens, p. 262. Of this large number, Chicago claims
350,000; New York City, 250,000; Buffalo, 80,000; Milwaukee,
75,000; Detroit, 75,000; while at least a dozen other cities have
substantial Polish settlements. These numbers include the
suburbs of each city.
168 OUR FOREIGNERS
church, his lodge, and his saloon, and is unrespon-
sive to his American environment. Not until the
second and third generation is reached does the
spirit of American democracy make headway
against his lethal stolidity. Now that Poland has
been made free as a result of the Great War, it
may be that the Pole's inherited indifference will
give way to national aspirations and that, in the
resurrection of his historic hope of freedom, he
will find an animating stimulant.
The Pole, however, is more independent and
progressive than the Slovak, his brother from the
northeastern corner of Hungary. For many genera-
tions this segment of the Slav race has been piti-
fully crushed. Turks, Magyars, and Huns have
taken [delight in oppressing him. An early, spo-
radic migration of Slovaks to America received a
sudden impulse in 1882. About 200,000 have come
since then, and perhaps twice that number of per-
sons of Slovak blood now dwell in the mining
and industrial centers of the United States. Many
of them, however, return to their native villages.
They keep aloof from things American and only
too often prefer to live in squalor and ignorance.
Their social life is centered in the church, the
saloon, and the lodge. It is asserted that their
THE CITY BUILDERS 169
numerous organizations have a membership of
over 100,000, and that there were almost as many
Slovak newspapers in America as in Hungary.'
Little Russia, the seat of turmoil, is the home
of the Ruthenians, or Ukranians. They are also
found in southeastern Galicia, northern Hungary,
and in the province of Bukowina. They have mi-
grated from all these provinces and about 350,000,
it is estimated, now reside in the United States.
They, too, are birds of passage, working in the
mines and steel mills for the coveted wages that
shall free them from debt at home and insure their
independence. Such respite as they take from
their labors is spent in the saloon, in the club rooms
over the saloon, or in church, where they hear no
English speech and learn nothing of American ways.
It is impossible to estimate the total number of
Russian Slavs in the United States, as the census
figures until recently included as "Russian" all
nationalities that came from Russia. They form
the smallest of the Slavic groups that have mi-
grated to America. From 1898 to 1909 only 66,282
arrived, about half of whom settled in Pennsyl-
vania and New York. It is surprising to note,
» This is accounted for by the fact that the Hungarian Govern-
ment rigorously censored Slovak publications.
170 OUR FOREIGNERS
however, that every State in the Union except
Utah and every island possession except the Philip-
pines has received a few of these immigrants. The
Director of Emigration at St. Petersburg in 1907
characterized these people as "hardy and indus-
trious," and "though iUiteraie they are intelligent
and unbigoted."^
So much in brief for the North Slavs. Of the
South Slavs, the Bulgarians possess racial charac-
teristics which point to an intermixture in the re-
mote past with some Asiatic strain, perhaps a
Magyar blend. Very few Bulgarian immigrants,
who come largely from Macedonia, arrived before
the revolution of 1904, when many villages in
Monastir were destroyed. For some years they
made Granite City, near St. Louis, the center of
their activities but, like the Serbians, they are now
well scattered throughout the country. In Seattle,
Butte, Chicago, and Indianapolis they form con-
siderable colonies. Many of them return yearly
to their native hills, and it is too early to deter-
mine how fully they desire to adapt themselves to
American ways.
» Since the Russo-Japanese War, Siberia has absorbed great
numbers of Russian immigrants. This accounts for the small
number that have come to America.
A STREET IN BELGRADE
m^^'
#
A SERB A
FIGHTING SERB
MAN REFUGEE
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine for Special Survey Mission,
American Red Cross, and for Pittsburgh Survey.
oi;
lali and ever
e Union e
Kcept the P'
/grants, liu
viijburg in 1907
iTdy ai> • ^
jL/irectoi oi ijinigi
( hmpLf 'imzed thes
in(HX</' and "the:
and unbig(
So much in brii^^^^^' Of the
South Sla^ i» possess racial charac
teristicji whui an intennixture in the re-
mote past witi* iv.^ Asiatic strain, perhar^
Magyar blend. Very few Bulgarian i iirn^
who come largely from Macedonia, a;
the revolution of 1904, when miiii>
Monastir were destroyed. For som
made Granite City, near St. Lou'
" ' V. uM .Titles but, like the Serbic'^
d throughout the r vi t
and I
1.
o deter-
beria ha« abs<
'^'^(?ounts for
•S'-avure, An'i^'''
THE CITY BUILDERS 171
Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria, countries
that have been thrust forcibly into the world's
vision by the Great War, have sent several hundred
thousand of their hardy peasantry to the United
States. The Montenegrins and Serbians, who
comprise three-fourths of this migration, are vir-
tually one in speech and descent. They are to be
found in New England towns and in nearly every
State from New York to Alaska, where they work
in the mills and mines and in construction gangs.
The response which these people make to educa-
tional opportunities shows their high cultural
possibilities.
The Croatians and Dalmatians, who constitute
the larger part of the southern Slav immigration,
are a sturdy, vigorous people, and splendid speci-
mens of physical manhood. The Dalmatians are a
seafaring folk from the Adriatic coast, whose sailors
may be found in every port of the world. The Dal-
matians have possessed themselves of the oyster
fisheries near New Orleans and are to be found in
Mississippi making staves and in California making
wine. In many cities they manage restaurants.
The exceptional shrewdness of the Dalmatians is
in bold contrast to their illiteracy. They get on
amazingly in spite of their lack of education. Once
172 OUR FOREIGNERS
they have detdtmined to remain in this country,
they take to American ways more readily than do
the other southern Slavs.
Croatia, too, has its men of the sea, but in
America most of the immigrants of this race are
to be found in the mines and coke furnaces of Penn-
sylvania and West Virginia. In New York City
there are some 15,000 Croatian mechanics and
longshoremen. The silver and copper mines of
Montana also employ a large number of these
people. It is estimated that fully one-half of the
Croatians return to their native hills and that they
contribute yearly many millions to the home-folks.
From the little province of Carniola come the
Slovenians, usually known as "Griners" (from the
German Krainer, the people of the Krain), a frag-
ment of the Slavic race that has become much more
assimilated with the Germans who govern them
than any other of their kind. Their national cos-
timie has all but vanished and with it the virile
traditions of their forefathers. They began coming
to America in the sixties, and in the seventies they
founded an important colony at Joliet, Illinois.
Since 1892 their numbers have increased rapidly,
until today about 100,000 live in the United States.
Over one-half of these immigrants are to be found
THE CITY BUILDERS 17S
fa the steel and mining towns of Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and Illinois, where the large majority of
them are unskilled workmen. Among the second
generation, however, are to be found a number of
successful merchants.
All these numerous peoples have inherited in
common the impassive, patient temperament and
the unhappy political fate of the Slav. Their
countries are mere eddies left by the mighty cur-
rents of European conquest and reconquest, back-
ward lands untouched by machine industry and
avoided by capital, whose only living links with
the moving world are the birds of passage, the
immigrants who flit between the mines and cities
of America and these isolated European villages.
Held together by national costume, song, dance,
festival, traditions, and language, these people live
in the pale glory of a heroic past. Most of those
who come to America are peasants who have been
crushed by land feudalism, kept in ignorance by
political intolerance, and bound in superstition
by a reactionary ecclesiasticism. The brutality
with which they treat their women, their disregard
for sanitary measures, and their love for strong
drink are evidences of the survival of medievalism
in the midst of modern life, as are their notions of
174 OUR FOREIGNERS
class prerogative and their concept of the State.
Buffeted by the world, their language suppressed,
their nationalism reviled, poor, ignorant, unskilled,
these children of the open country come to the
ugliest spots of America, the slums of the cities,
and the choking atmosphere of the mines. Here,
crowded in their colonies, jealously shepherd-
ed by their church, neglected by the community,
they remain for an entire generation immune to
American influences. According to estimates giv-
en by Emily G. Balch,^ between four and six mil-
lion persons of Slavic descent are now dwelling
among us, and their fecundity is amazing. Equal-
ly amazing is the indifference of the Government
and of Americans generally to the menace in-
volved in the increasing numbers of these invet-
erate aliens to institutions that are fundamentally
American.
The Lithuanians and Magyars are often classed
with the Slavs. They hotly resent this inclusion,
however, for they are distinct racial strains of an-
cient lineage. An adverse fate has left the Lithu-
anian little of his old civilization except his lan-
guage. Political and economic suppression has
made sad havoc of what was once a proud and
^ Oiar Slavic Fellow Citizens^ p. 280.
THE CITY BUILDERS 175
prosperous people. Most of them are now crowded
iMo the Baltic province that bears their name, and
they are reduced to the mental and economic level of
the Russian moujik. In 1868 a famine drove the first
of these immigrants to America, where they were
soon absorbed by the anthracite mines of Penn-
sylvania. They were joined in the seventies by
numbers of army deserters. The hard times of the
nineties caused a rush of young men to the western
El Dorado. Since then the influx has steadily
continued until now over 200,000 are in America.
They persistently avoid agriculture and seek the
coal mine and the factory. The one craft in which
they excel is tailoring, and they proudly boast of
being the best dressed among all the Eastern-
European immigrants. The one mercantile ambi-
tion which they have nourished is to keep a saloon.
Drinking is their national vice; and they measure
the social success of every wedding, christening,
picnic, and jollification by its salvage of empty
beer kegs.
Over 338,000 Magyars immigrated to the United
States during the decade ending 1910. These bril-
liant and masterful folk are a Mongoloid blend
that swept from the steppes of Asia across east-
ern Europe a thousand years ago. As the wave
176 OUR FOREIGNERS
receded, the Magyars remained dominant in beau-
tiful and fertile Hungary, where their aggressive
nationalism still brings them into constant rivalry
on the one hand with the Germans of Austria and
on the other with the Slavs of Hungary. The im-
migrants to America are largely recruited from the
peasantry. They almost invariably seek the cities,
where the Magyar neighborhoods can be easily
distinguished by their scrupulously neat house-
keeping, the flower beds, the little patches of well-
swept grass, the clean children, and the robust and
tidy women. Among them is less illiteracy than in
any other group from eastern and southern Europe,
excepting the Finns, who are their ethnic brothers.
As a rule they own their own homes. They learn
the English language quickly but unfortunately
acquire with it many American vices. Drinking
and carousing are responsible for their many crimes
of personal violence. They are otherwise a socia-
ble, happy people, and the cafes kept by Hunga-
rians are islands of social joUity in the desert of
urban strife.
In bold contrast to these ardent devotees of
nationalism, the Jew, the man of no country and of
all countries, is an American immigrant still to be
considered. By force of circumstance he became
THE CITY BUILDERS 177
*
a city dweller; he came from the European city;
he remained in the American city; and all attempts
to colonize Jews on the land have failed. The doors
of this country have always been open to him. At
the time of the Revolution several thousand Jews
dwelt in American towns. By 1850 the number
had increased to 50,000 and by the time of the Civil
War to 150,000. The persecutions of Czar Alex-
ander III in the eighties swelled the number to
over 400,000, and the political reactions of the
nineties added over one million. Today at least
one fifth of the ten million Jews in the world live
in American cities.
The first to seek a new Zion in this land were
the Spanish-Portuguese Jews, who came as early
as 1655. They remain a select aristocracy among
their race, clinging to certain ritualistic character-
istics and retaining much of the pride which their
long contact with the Spaniard has engendered.
They are found almost exclusively in the eastern
cities, as successful bankers, merchants, and pro-
fessional men. There next came on the wave of
the great German immigration the German Jews.
They are to be found in every city, large and small,
engaged in mercantile pursuits, especially in the
drygoods and the clothing business. Nearly all
178 OUR FOREIGNERS
of the prominent Jews in America have come from
this stock — the great bankers, financiers, lawyers,
merchants, rabbis, scholars, and public men. It
was, indeed, from their broad-minded scholars
that there originated the widespread liberal Juda-
ism which has become a potent ethical force in our
great cities.
The Austrian and Hungarian Jews followed.
The Jews had always received liberal treatment
in Hungary, and their mingling with the social
Magyars had produced the type of the coffee-
house Jew, who loved to reproduce in American
cities the conviviality of Vienna and Budapest
but who did not take as readily to American
ways as the German Jew. Most of the Jews from
Hungary remained in New York, although Chi-
cago and St. Louis received a few of them. In
commercial life they are traders, pawnbrokers,
and peddlers, and control the artificial-flower and
passementerie trade.
By far the largest group are the latest comers,
the Russian Jews. " Ultra orthodox," says Edward
A. Steiner, "yet ultra radical; chained to the past,
and yet utterly severed from it; with religion per-
meating every act of life, or going to the other ex-
treme and having 'none of it'; traders by instinct.
THE CITY BUILDERS 179
and yet among the hardest manual laborers of
our great cities. A complex mass in which great
things are yearning to express themselves, a
brooding mass which does not know itself and
does not lightly disclose itself to the outside."'
Nearly a milHon of these people are crowded
into the New York ghettos. Large numbers of
them engage in the garment industries and the
manufacture of tobacco. They graduate also
into junk-dealers, pawnbrokers, and peddlers,
and are soon on their way "up town." Among
them socialism thrives, and the second generation
displays an unseemly haste to break with the faith
of its fathers.
The Jews are the intellectuals of the new immi-
gration. They invest their political ideas with
vague generalizations of human amelioration.
They cannot forget that Karl Marx was a Jew: and
one wonders how many Trotzkys and Lenines are
being bred in the stagnant air of their reeking
ghettos. It remains to be seen whether they will
be willing to devote their undoubted mental ca-
pacities to other than revolutionary vagaries or to
gainful pursuits, for they have a tendency to com-
mercialize everything they touch. They have
« On the Trail of the Immigrant, p. 27.
180 OUR FOREIGNERS
shown no reluctance to enter politics; they learn
English with amazing rapidity, throng the public
schools and colleges, and push with characteristic
zeal and persistence into every open door of this
liberal land.
From Italy there have come to America well
over three million immigrants. For two decades
before 1870 they filtered in at the average rate of
about one thousand a year; then the current in-
creased to several thousand a year; and after 1880
it rose to a flood. ^ Over two-thirds of these Ital-
ians live in the larger cities; one-fourth of them are
crowded into New York tenements. "" Following in
order, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, New Orleans,
Cleveland, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Portland,
and Omaha have their Italian quarters, all char-
acterized by overcrowded boarding houses and
tenements, vast hordes of children, here and there
an Italian bakery and grocery, on every cor-
ner a saloon, and usually a private bank with a
* The census figures show that approximately half the Italian
immigrants return to their native land. American oflBcers in the
Great War were surprised to find so many Italian soldiers who
spoke English. In 1910 there remained in the United States only
1,343,000 Italians who were born in Italy, and the total number
of persons of Italian stock in the United States was 2,098,000.
2 According to the Census of 1910 there were 544,000 Italians
in New York City.
WOMEN OF NORTHERN ITALY
Photographs by Lewis W. Hine for Special Survey
Mission, American Red Cross, and for Pittsburgh Survey.
or.v iNERS-
....>, a no reluctii., it politics; they lear?^
English with amazir ty, throng the pubi
schools and colleges. sh with characterisl
zeal and persistence into every open door of this
liberal land.
Prom Ital- r ^^-f America well
over fhr-f^t^ ^\' . ■' v>\ v'An/ \v\ A'AU^Wo decades
befor Lge rate of
about attsamd a year; then the current in-
creased to several thousand a year; and after 1880
it rose to a flood. ' Over two-thirds of these It ^
ians live in the larger cities; one ' ' * '^ *
crowded into New York tenemei . . . , ,,.... ..-^ ^
order, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, New QrleanB>
Cleveland, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Portland,
and Omaha have their Italian quarters, all char-
a ercrowded boa I
i vM hordes of child) . Liit^re
a., ^._ akery and i/t<w'-< y cor-
ner a saloon, and u^tjfi? with a
rK*» /.#-n«iifi nr.ir; . If the Italian
fficera in the
i»»3 wri / ji « I . 1 vf u soldiers who
^^.ajrlish. maiaed iti the United States only
Ital3% and the total number
.cd States was 2.068»000
V eiMU4 i^ iiiiO there were 544,600 Itslinns
Y9vw8 laioaqa lol saill .N aiw^J vd ?.nqm:ioi(.il4
/vS^ts^M?. s\Q-\vjd*«V*\ nol buiJ ,88Oi0 baJI flaoiiamA .noiKglM
Bra'^u.re. JKncersen -J^a.mb, Ho.N-^
THE CITY BUILDERS 181
steamship agency and the oflBce of the local ^padrone.
Scores of the lesser cities also have their Italian
contingent, usually in the poorest and most neg-
lected part of the town, where gaudily painted door
jambs and window frames and wonderfully pros-
perous gardens proclaim the immigrant from sunny
Italy. Not infrequently an old warehouse, store,
or church is transformed into an ungainly and evil-
odored barracks, housing scores of men who do
their own washing and cooking. Those who do
not dwell in the cities are at work in construc-
tion camps — for the Italian has succeeded the
Irishman as the knight of the pick and shovel.
The great bulk of these swarthy, singing, hopeful
young fellows are peasants, unskilled of hand but
willing of heart. Nearly every other one is un-
able to read or write. They have not come for
political or religious reasons but purely as seek-
ers for wages, driven from the peasant villages
by overpopulation and the hazards of a precari-
ous agriculture.
They have come in two distinct streams: one
from northern Italy, embracing about one-fifth
of the whole; the other from southern Italy. The
two streams are quite distinct in quality. North-
ern Italy is the home of the old masters in art and
182 OUR FOREIGNERS
literature and of a new industrialism that is bringing
renewed prosperity to Milan and Turin. Here the
virile native stock has been strengthened with the
blood of its northern neighbors. They are a ca-
pable, creative, conservative, reliable race. On the
other hand, the hot temper of the South has been
fed by an infusion of Greek and Saracen blood.
In Sicily this strain shows at its worst. There the
vendetta flourishes; and the Camorra and its sinis-
ter analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically
remind us that thousands of these swarthy crimi-
nals have found refuge in the dark alleys of our
cities. Even in America the Sicilian carries a dirk,
and the "death sign" in a court room has silenced
many a witness. The north Italians readily iden-
tify themselves with American life. Among them
are found bakers, barbers, and marble cutters, as
well as wholesale fruit and olive oil merchants,
artists, arid musicians. But the south Italian is a
restless, roving creature, who dislikes the confine-
ment and restraint of the mill and factory. He
is found out of doors, making roads and excava-
tions, railways, skyscrapers, and houses. If he
has a liking for trade he trundles a pushcart filled
with fruit or chocolates; or he may turn a jolly
hurdy-gurdy or grind scissors. In spite of his
THE CITY BUILDERS 18S
native sociability, the south ItaHan is very slow
to take to American ways. As a rule, he comes
here intending to go back when he has made
enough money. He has the air of a sojourner.
He is picturesque, volatile, and incapable of effec-
tive team work.
About 300,000 Greeks have come to America
between 1908 and 1917, nearly all of them young
men, escaping from a country where they had meat
three times a year to a land where they may have
it three times a day. "The whole Greek world,"
says Henry P. Fairchild, writing in 1911, "may
be said to be in a fever of emigration. . . . The
strong young men with one accord are severing
home ties, leaving behind wives and sweethearts,
and thronging to the shores of America in search
of opportunity and fortune.'* Every year they
send back handsome sums to the expectant family.
Business is an instinct with the Greek, and he has
almost monopolized the ice cream, confectionery,
and retail fruit business, the small florist shops and
bootblack stands in scores of towns, and in every
large city he is running successful restaurants. As
a factory operative he is found in the cotton mills
of New England, but he prefers merchandizing to
any other calling.
184 OUR FOREIGNERS
Years ago when New Bedford was still a whaling
port a group of Portuguese sailors from the Azores
settled there. This formed the nucleus of the Por-
tuguese immigration which, in the last decade,
included over 80,000 persons. Two-thirds of these
live in New England factory towns, the remaining
third, strange to say, have found their way to the
other side of the continent, where they work in the
gardens and fruit orchards of California. New
Bedford is still the center of their activity. They
are a hard-working people whose standard of living,
according to oflScial investigations "is much low-
er than that of any other race," of whom scarcely
one in twenty become citizens, and who evince
no interest in learning or in manual skill.
Finally, American cities are extending the radius
of their magnetism and are drawing ambitious
tradesmen and workers from the Levant. Over
100,000 have come from Arabia, Syria, Armenia,
and Turkey. The Armenians and Syrians, form-
ing the bulk of this influx, came as refugees from
the brutalities of the Mohammedan regime. The
Levantine is first and always a bargainer. His
little bazaars and oriental rug shops are bits of
Cairo and Constantinople, where you are privi-
leged to haggle over every purchase in true oriental
THE CITY BUILDERS
185
style. Even the peddlers of lace and drawn-work
find it hard to accustom themselves to the oc-
cidental idea of a market price. With all their
cunning as traders, they respect learning, prize
manual skill, possess a fine artistic sense, and are
law-abiding. The Armenians especially are eager
to become American citizens. Since the settle-
ment of the Northwestern lands, many thousands
of Scandinavians and Finns have flocked to the
cities, where they are usually employed as skilled
craftsmen.^
Thus the United States, in a quarter of a century,
has assumed a cosmopolitanism in which the early
German and Irish immigrants appear as veteran
* The Census of 1910 gives the following distribution of the
American white population by percentages:
Location
Native stock
Native born of
Foreign or
mixed parentage
Foreign
born
Rural districts
Cities 2,500- 10,000
10,000- 25,000
25,000-100,000
" 100,000-500,000
" 500,000 and over
64.1
57.5
50.4
45.9
38.9
25.6
13.3
20.6
24.6
26.5
31.3
37.2
7.5
13.9
17.4
20.2
22.1
33.6
The native white element predominates in the country but is
only a fraction of the population in the larger cities.
186 OUR FOREIGNERS
Americans. This is not a stationary cosmopolitan-
ism, like that of Constantinople, the only great city
in Europe that compares with New York, Chicago,
or Boston in ethnic complexity. It is a shifting
mass. No two generations occupy the same quar-
ters. Even the old rich move "up town" leaving
their fine houses, derelicts of a former splendor, to
be divided into tenements where six or eight Italian
or Polish families find ample room for themselves
and a crowd of boarders.
Thousands of these migratory beings throng the
steerage of transatlantic ships every winter to
return to their European homes. The steamship
companies, whose enterprise is largely responsible
for this flow of populations, reap their harvest;
and many a decaying village buried in the southern
hills of Europe, or swept by the winds of the great
Slav plains, owes its regeneration ultimately to
American dollars.
They pay the price of their success, these flitting
beings, links between distant lands and our own.
The great maw of mine and factory devours thou-
sands. Their lyric tribal songs are soon drowned
by the raucous voices of the city; their ancient
folk-dances, meant for a village green, not for a
reeking dance-hall, lose here their native grace;
THE CITY BUILDERS 187
and the quaint and picturesque costumes of the
European peasant give place to American store
clothes, the ugly badge of equality.
The outward bound throng holds its head high,
talks back at the steward, and swaggers. It has
become "American." The restless fever of the
great democracy is in its veins. Most of those who
return home will find their way back with others of
their kind to the teeming hives and the coveted
fleshpots they are leaving. And again they will
tax the ingenuity of labor unions, political and
social organizations, schools, libraries, and churches,
in the endeavor to transform medieval peasants
into democratic peers.
CHAPTER IX
THE ORIENTAL
America, midway between Europe and Asia, was
destined to be the meeting-ground of Occident and
Orient. It was in the exciting days of '49 that gold
became the lodestone to draw to California men
from the oriental lands across the Pacific. The
Chinese for the moment overcame their religious
aversion to leaving their native haunts and, lured
by the promise of fabulous wages, made their way
to the "gold hills." Of the three hundred thousand
who came to America during the three decades of
free entry, the large majority were peasants from
the rural districts in the vicinity of Canton. They
were thrifty, independent, sturdy, honest young
men who sought the great adventure unaccom-
panied by wife or family. Chinese tradition for-
bade the respectable woman to leave her home,
even with her husband; and China was so isolated
from the world, so encrusted in her own traditions,
188
THE ORIENTAL 189
that out of her uncounted millions even the paltry
thousands of peasants and workmen who filtered
through the port of Canton into the great world
were bound by ancient precedent as firmly as if
they had remained at home. They invariably
planned to return to the Celestial Empire and it
was their supreme wish that, if they died abroad,
their bodies be buried in the land of their ancestors.
The Chinaman thus came to America as a work-
man adventurer, not as a prospective citizen. He
preserved his queue, his pajamas, his chopsticks,
and his joss in the crude and often brutal surround-
ings of the mining camp. He maintained that
gentle, yielding, unassertive character which suc-
cumbs quietly to pressure at one point, only to
reappear silently and unobtrusively in another
place. In the wild rough and tumble of the camp,
where the outlaw and the bully found congenial
refuge, the celestial did not belie his name. He was
indeed of another world, and his capacity for pa-
tience, his native dignity without suspicion of hau-
teur, baffled the loud self-assertion of the Irish
and the Anglo-Saxon.
During the first years of the gold rush, the
Chinaman was welcome in California because he
was necessary. He could do so many things that
190 OUR FOREIGNERS
the miner disdained or found no time to do. He
could cook and wash, and he could serve. He was
a rare gardener and a patient day laborer. He
could learn a new trade quickly. In the city he
became a useful domestic servant at a time when
there were very few women. In all his tasks he was
neat and had a genius for noiselessly minding his
own business.
As the number of miners increased, race preju-
dice asserted itself. "California for Americans"
came to be a slogan that reflected their feelings
against Mexicans, Spanish- Americans, and Chinese
in the mines. Race riots, often instigated by men
who had themselves but recently immigrated to
America, were not infrequent. In these disor-
ders the Chinese were no match for the aggressors
and in consequence were forced out of many good
mining claims.
The labor of the cheap and faithful Chinese ap-
pealed to the business instincts of the railroad con-
tractors who were constructing the Pacific railways
and they imported large numbers. In 1866 a line
of steamships was established to run regularly be-
tween Hong Kong and San Francisco. In 1869 the
first transcontinental railway was completed and
American laborers from the East began to flock to
THE ORIENTAL 191
California, where they immediately found them-
selves in competition with the Mongolian standard
of living. Race rivalry soon flared up and the anti-
Chinese sentiment increased as the railroads neared
completion and threw more and more of the orien-
tal laborers into the general labor market. Chinese
were hustled out of towns. Here and there violence
was done. For example, in the Los Angeles riots
of October 24, 1871, fifteen Chinamen were hanged
and six were shot by the mob.
This prejudice, based primarily upon the China-
man's willingness to work long hours for little pay
and to live in quarters and upon fare which an
Anglo-Saxon would find impossible, was greatly
increased by his strange garb, language, and cus-
toms. The Chinaman remained in every essential
a foreigner. In his various societies he maintained
to some degree the patriarchal government of his
native village. He shunned American courts,
avoided the Christian religion, rarely learned much
of the English language, and displayed no desire
to become naturalized. Instead of sympathy in
the country of his sojourn he met discrimination,
jealousy, and suspicion. For many years his testi-
mony was not permitted in the courts. His contact
with only the rough frontier life failed to reveal to
192 OUR FOREIGNERS
him the gentle amenities of the white man's faith,
and everywhere the upper hand seemed turned
against him. So he kept to himself, and this isola-
tion fed the rumors that were constantly poisoning
public opinion. Chinatown in the public mind be-
came a synonym for a nightmare of filth, gambling,
opium-smoking, and prostitution.
Alarm was spreading among Americans concern-
ing the organizations of the Chinese in the United
States. Of these, the Six Companies were the
most famous. Mary Roberts Coolidge, after long
and careful research, characterized these societies
as "the substitute for village and patriarchal as-
sociation, and although purely voluntary and be-
nevolent in their purpose, they became, because of
American ignorance and prejudice, the supposed
instruments of tyranny over their countrymen."'
They each had a club house, where members were
registered and where lodgings and other accommo-
dations were provided. The largest in 1877 had a
membership of seventy-five thousand; the smallest,
forty-three thousand. The Chinese also main-
tained trade guilds similar in purpose to the Ameri-
can trade union. Private or secret societies also
flourished among them, some for good purposes,
^ Chinese Immigration, p. 402.
THE ORIENTAL 193
others for illicit purposes. Of the latter the High-
binders or Hatchet Men became the most notori-
ous, for they facilitated the importation of Chinese
prostitutes. Many of these secret societies thrived
on blackmail, and the popular antagonism to the
Six Companies was due to the outrages committed
by these criminal associations.
When the American labor unions accumulated
partisan power, the Chinese became a political
issue. This was the greatest evil that could befall
them, for now racial persecution received official
sanction and passed out of the hands of mere
ruffians into the custody of powerful political
agitators. Under the lurid leadership of Dennis
Kearney, the Workingman's party was organized
for the purpose of influencing legislation and "rid-
ding the country of Chinese cheap labor." Their
goal was "Four dollars a day and roast beef"; and
their battle cry, "The Chinese must go." Under
the excitement of sand-lot meetings, the Chinese
were driven under cover. In the riots of July, 1 877,
in San Francisco, twenty-five Chinese laundries
were burned. " For months afterward," says Mary
Roberts Coolidge, "no Chiniman was safe from
personal outrage even on the* main thoroughfares,
and the perpetrators of the abuses were almost
13
194 OUR FOREIGNERS
never interfered with so long as they did not molest
white men's property."'
This anti-Chinese epidemic soon spread to other
Western States. Legislatures and city councils
vied with each other in passing laws and ordinances
to satisfy the demands of the labor vote. All
manner of ingenious devices were incorporated into
tax laws in an endeavor to drive the Chinese out
of certain occupations and to exclude them from
the State. License and occupation taxes multiplied.
The Chinaman was denied the privilege of citizen-
ship, was excluded from the public schools, and
was not allowed to give testimony in proceedings
relating to white persons. Manifold ordinances
were passed intended to harass and humiliate him:
for instance, a San Francisco ordinance required
the hair of all prisoners to be cut within three
inches of the scalp. Most extreme and unreason-
able discriminations against hand laundries were
framed. The new California constitution of 1879
endowed the legislature and the cities with large
powers in regulating the conditions under which
Chinese would be tolerated. Jn 1880 a state law
declared that all corporations operating under a
state charter should be prohibited from employing
' Chinese Immigration, p. 265.
THE ORIENTAL 195
Chinese under penalty of forfeiting their charter.
Chinese were also excluded from employment m
all public works. Nearly all these laws and ordi-
nances, however, were ultimately declared to be
unconstitutional on account of their discriminatory
character or because they were illegal regulations
of commerce.
The States having failed to exclude the Chinese,
the only hope left was in the action of the Federal
Government. The earliest treaties and trade con-
ventions with China (1844 and 1858) had been
silent upon the rights and privileges of Chinese re-
siding or trading in the United States. In 1868,
Anson Burlingame, who had served for six years
as American Minister to China, but who had now
entered the employ of the Chinese Imperial Gov-
ernment, arrived at the head of a Chinese mission
sent for the purpose of negotiating a new treaty
which should insure reciprocal rights to the Chinese.
The journey from San Francisco to Washington
was a sort of triumphal progress and everywhere
the Chinese mission was received with acclaim.
The treaty drawn by Secretary Seward was ratified
on July 28, 1868, and was hailed even on the Pacific
coast as the beginning of more fortunate relations be-
tween the two countries. The treaty acknowledged
196 OUR FOREIGNERS
the "inherent and inalienable right of man to
change his home and allegiance, and also the
mutual advantage of the free migration and emi-
gration of their citizens and subjects respectively,
from the one country to the other, for purposes of
curiosity, of trade or as permanent residents." It
stated positively that "citizens of the United
States visiting or residing in China shall enjoy
the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in
respect to travel and residence as may be enjoyed
by the citizens of the most favored nation. And,
reciprocally, Chinese subjects visiting or residing
in the United States shall enjoy the same privileges,
immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel
or residence." The right to naturalization was
by express statement not conferred by the treaty
upon the subjects of either nation dwelling in
the territory of the other. But it was not in any
way prohibited.
The applause which greeted this international
agreement had hardly subsided before the anti-
Chinese agitators discovered that the treaty was
in their way and they thereupon demanded its
modification or abrogation. They now raised the
cry that the Chinese were a threat to the morals
and health of the country, that the majority of
THE ORIENTAL 197
Chinese immigrants were either coolies under con-
tract, criminals, diseased persons, or prostitutes.
As a result, in 1879 a representative from Nevada,
one of the States particularly interested, intro-
duced in Congress a bill limiting to fifteen the
Chinese passengers that any ship might bring to
the United States on a single voyage, and requiring
the captains of such vessels to register at the port
of entry a list of their Chinese passengers. The
Senate added an amendment requesting the Presi-
dent to notify the Chinese Government that the
section of the Burlingame treaty insuring recipro-
cal interchange of citizens was abrogated. After
a very brief debate the measure that so flagrantly
defied an international treaty passed both houses.
It was promptly vetoed, however, by President
Hayes on the ground that it violated a treaty
which a friendly nation had carefully observed.
If the Pacific cities had cause of complaint, the
President preferred to remedy the situation by
the "proper course of diplomatic negotiations."^
^ So intense was the feeling in the West that at this time a
letter purporting to have been written by James A. Garfield, the
Republican candidate, favoring unrestricted immigration, was
published on the eve of the Presidential election (1880). Though
the letter was shown to be a forgery, yet it was not without in-
fluence. In California Garfield received only one of the six
electoral votes; and in Nevada he received none. In Denver,
198 OUR FOREIGNERS
The President accordingly appointed a com-
mission, under the chairmanship of James B.
Angell, president of the University of Michigan,
to negotiate a new treaty. The commission pro-
ceeded to China and completed its task in Novem-
ber, 1880. The new treaty provided that, "when-
ever, in the opinion of the Government of the
United States, the coming of Chinese laborers to
the United States, or their residence therein, affects
or threatens to affect the interests of that country,
or to endanger the good order of the said country
or of any locality within the territory thereof, the
Government of China agrees that the Government
of the United States may regulate, limit, or sus-
pend such coming or residence, but may not ab-
solutely prohibit it." Other Chinese subjects who
had come to the United States, "as travelers, mer-
chants, or for curiosity, " and laborers already in
the United States, were to "be allowed to go and
come of their own free will," with all of the "rights,
privileges, immunities, and exemptions which are
accorded to the citizens of the most favored na-
tion." The United States furthermore undertook
where only four hundred Chinese lived, race riots occurred which
cost one Chinaman his life and destroyed Chinese property to the
amount of $50,000.
THE ORIENTAL 199
to protect the Chinese in the United States against
"ill treatment" and to "devise means for their
protection.*'
Two years after the ratification of this treaty, a
bill was introduced to prohibit the immigration of
Chinese labor for twenty years. Both the great
political parties had included the subject in their
platforms in 1880. The Democrats had espoused
exclusion and were committed to "No more
Chinese immigration"; the Republicans had pre-
ferred restriction by "just, humane, and reason-
able laws." The bill passed, but President Arthur
vetoed it on the ground that prohibiting immigra-
tion for so long a period transcended the provisions
of the treaty. A bill which was then passed short-
ening the period of the restriction to ten years
received the President's signature, and on August
5, 1882, America shut the door in the face of
Chinese labor.
The law, however, was very loosely drawn and
administrative confusion arose at once. Chinese
laborers leaving the United States were required to
obtain a certificate from the collector of customs
at the port of departure entitling them to reentry.
Other Chinese — merchants, travelers, or visitors
— who desired to come to the United States were
200 OUR FOREIGNERS
required to have a certificate from their Govern-
ment declaring that they were entitled to enter
under the provisions of the treaty. As time went
on, identification became a joke, trading in certi-
ficates a regular pursuit, and smuggling Chinese
across the Canadian border a profitable business.
Moreover, in the light of the law, who was a "mer-
chant" and who a "visitor"? In 1884 Congress
attempted to remedy these defects of phraseology
and administration by carefully framed definitions
and stringent measures. ' The Supreme Court up-
held the constitutionality of exclusion as incident
to American sovereignty.
Meanwhile in the West the popular feeling
against the Chinese refused to subside. At Rock
Springs, Wyoming, twenty-eight Chinese were
killed and fifteen were injured by a mob which also
destroyed Chinese property amounting to $148,000.
At Tacoma and Seattle, also, violence descended
upon the Mongolian. In San Francisco a special
grand jury which investigated the operation of the
exclusion laws and a committee of the Board of
Supervisors which investigated the condition of
Chinatown both made reports that were violent-
ly anti-Chinese. A state anti-Chinese convention
^ Wong Wing vs. U. S.. 163 U. S. 235.
THE ORIENTAL 201
soon thereafter declared that the situation "had
become well-nigh intolerable." So widespread
and venomous was the agitation against Chinese
that President Cleveland was impelled to send to
Congress two special messages on the question,
detailing the facts and requesting Congress to pay
the Chinese claims for indemnity which Wyoming
refused to honor. The remonstrances of the Chi-
nese Government led to the drafting of a new
treaty in 1888. But while China was deliberating
over this treaty. Congress summarily shut off
any hope for immediate agreement by passing the
Scott Act prohibiting the return of any Chinese
laborer after the passage of the act, stopping the
issue of any more certificates of identification, and
declaring void all certificates previously issued.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this
brutal political measure was passed with an eye to
the Pacific electoral vote in the pending election.
In the next presidential year the climax of harsh-
ness was reached in the Geary law, which required,
within an unreasonably short time, the registration
of all Chinese in the United States. The Chinese, un-
der legal advice, refused to register until the Federal
Supreme Court had declared the law constitutional.
Subsequently the time for registration was extended.
202 OUR FOREIGNERS
The anti-Chinese fanaticism had now reached its
highest point. While the Government maintained
its policy of exclusion, it modified the drastic de-
tails of the law. In 1894 a new treaty provided
for the exclusion of laborers for ten years, except-
ing registered laborers who had either parent, wife,
or child in the United States, or who possessed
property or debts to the amount of one thou-
sand dollars. It required all resident Chinese labor-
ers to register, and the Chinese Government was
similarly entitled to require the registration of all
American laborers resident in China. The treaty
made optional the clause requiring merchants,
travelers, and other classes privileged to come to
the United States, to secure a certificate from their
Government vised by the American representative
at the port of departure. ^
In 1898 General Otis extended the exclusion acts
to the Philippines by military order, owing to the
fact that the country was in a state of war, and
Congress extended them to the Hawaiian Islands.
In 1904 China refused to continue the treaty of
1894, and Congress substantially reenacted the
existing laws "in so far as not inconsistent with
treaty obligations." Thus the legal status quo has
been maintained, and the Chinese population in
THE ORIENTAL 203
America is gradually decreasing. No new laborers
are permitted to come and those now here go home
as old age overtakes them. But the public has come
to recognize that diplomatic circumlocution cannot
conceal the crude and harsh treatment which the
Chinaman has received; that the earlier laws were
based upon reports that greatly exaggerated the
evils and were silent upon the virtues of the Orien-
tal; and that a policy which had its conception in
frontier fears and in race prejudice was sustained
by politicians and perpetuated by demagogues.
Rather suddenly the whole drama of discrimina-
tion was re-opened by the arrival of a considerable
number of Japanese laborers in America. In 1900,
there were some twenty-four thousand in the United
States and a decade later this number had increased
threefold. About one-half of them lived in Califor-
nia, and the rest were to be found throughout the
West, especially in Washington, Colorado, and Or-
egon. They were nearly all unmarried young men
of the peasant class. Unlike the Chinese, they mani-
fested a readiness to conform to American customs
and an eagerness to learn the language and to
adopt American dress. The racial gulf, however,
is not bridged by a similarity in externals. The
Japanese possess all the deep and subtle contrasts
904 OUR FOREIGNERS
of mentality and ideality which difiFerentiate the
Orient from the Occident. A few are not averse to
adopting Christianity ; many more are free-thinkers ;
but the bulk remain loyal to Buddhism. They
have reproduced here the compact trade guilds
of Japan. The persistent aggressiveness of the
Japanese, their cunning, their aptitude in taking
advantage of critical circumstances in making
bargains, have by contrast partially restored to
popular favor the patient, reliable Chinaman.
At first the Japanese were welcomed as unskilled
laborers. They found employment on the rail-
roads, in lumber mills and salmon canneries, in
mines and on farms, and in domestic service. But
they soon showed a keen propensity for owning or
leasing land. The Immigration Commission found
that in 1909 they owned over sixteen thousand
acres in California and leased over one hundred
and thirty-seven thousand. Nearly all of this land
they had acquired in the preceding five years.
In Colorado they controlled over twenty thousand
acres, and in Idaho and Washington over seven
thousand acres each. This acreage represents
small holdings devoted to intensive agriculture,
especially to the raising of sugar beets, vegetables,
and small fruits.
THE ORIENTAL 205
The hostility which began to manifest itself
against the Japanese especially in California
brought that State into sharp contact with the
Federal Government. In 1906 the San Francisco
authorities excluded the Japanese from the public
schools. This act was immediately and vigorously
protested by the Japanese Government. After
due investigation, the matter was finally adjusted
at a conference held in Washington between
President Roosevelt and a delegation from Cali-
fornia. This incident served to re-awaken the
ghost of Mongolian domination on the Pacific
coast, for it occurred during the notorious regime
of Mayor Schmitz. Labor politics were rampant.
Isolated instances of violence against Japanese
occurred, and hoodlums, without fear of police
interference, attacked a number of Japanese res-
taurants. Political candidates were pledged to an
anti-Japanese policy.
In 1907 the two governments reached an agree-
ment whereby the details of issuing passports to
Japanese laborers who desired to return to the
United States was virtually left in the hands of the
Japanese Government, which was opposed to the
emigration of its laboring population. As a con-
sequence of this agreement, passports are granted
206 OUR FOREIGNERS
only to laborers who had previously been residents
of the United States or to parents, wives, and
children of Japanese laborers resident in America.
Under authority of the immigration law of 1907,
the President issued an order (March 14, 1907)
denying admission to "Japanese and Korean
laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have received
passports to go to Mexico, Canada, Hawaii and
come therefrom" to the United States.
' Anti-Japanese feeling was crystallized into the
alien land bill of California in 1913. So serious was
the international situation that President Wilson
sent Mr. Bryan, then Secretary of State, across the
continent to confer with the California legislature
and to determine upon some action that would at
the same time meet the needs of the State and
"leave untouched the international obligations of
the United States." The law subsequently passed
was thought by the Californians to appease both
of these demands. ^ But the Japanese Government
made no less than five vigorous formal protests
* The Alien Land Act of May 19, 1913, confers upon all aliens
eligible to citizenship the same rights as citizens in the owning and
leasing of real property; but in the case of other aliens (i.e. Asiatics)
it limits leases of land for agricultural purposes to terms not exceed-
ing three years and permits ownership *' to the extent and for the
purposes prescribed by any treaty."
i
THE ORIENTAL 207
and filled a lengthy brief which characterized the
law as unfair and intentionally discriminating and
in violation of the treaty of Commerce and Navi-
gation entered into in 1911. While anti- Japanese
demonstrations were taking place in Washington,
there was a corresponding outbreak of anti-
American feeling in the streets of Tokyo. On
February 2, 1914, during the debate on a new im-
migration bill, an amendment was proposed in
the House of Representatives, at the instigation
of members from the Pacific coast, excluding all
Asiatics, except such as had their entry right es-
tablished by treaty. But this drastic proposal was
defeated by a decisive vote.
The oriental question in America is further
complicated by the fact that since 1905 some five
thousand East Indians have come to the United
States. Of these the majority are Hindoos, the
remainder being chiefly Afghans. How these
people who have lived under British rule will adapt
themselves to American life and institutions re-
mains to be seen.
CHAPTER X
RACIAL INFILTRATION
With the free land gone and the cities crowded
to overflowing, the door of immigration, though
guarded, nevertheless remains open and the pres-
sure of the old-world peoples continues. Where
can they go? They are filling in the vacant spots
of the older States, the abandoned farms, stagnant
half -empty villages, undrained swamps, uninviting
rocky hillsides. This infiltration of foreigners pos-
sessing themselves of rejected and abandoned land,
which has only recently begun, shows that the
peasant's instinct for the soil will reassert itself
when the means are available and the way opens.
It is surprising, indeed, how many are the ways
that are opening for this movement. Transporta-
tion companies are responsible for a number of col-
onies planted bodily in cut-over timber regions of
the South. The journals and the real estate agents
of the diflFerent races are always alert to spy out
208
RACIAL INFILTRATION 209
opportunities. Dealing in second-hand farms has
become a considerable industry. The advertising
columns of Chicago papers announce hundreds of
farms for sale in northern Michigan and Wiscon-
sin. In all the older States there are for sale thou-
sands of acres of tillable land which have been left
by the restless shiftings of the American population.
In New England the abandoned farm has long been
an institution. Throughout the East there are de-
pleted and dying villages, their solidly built cot-
tages hidden in the matting of trees and shrubs
which neglect has woven about them. One can
see paralysis creeping over them as the vines creep
over their deserted thresholds and they surrender
one by one the little industries that gave them life.
These are the opportunities of the immigrant
peasant. Wherever the new migration swarms,
there the receding tide leaves a few energetic in-
dividuals who have made for themselves a perma-
nent home. In the wake of construction gangs
and along the lines of railways and canals one dis-
covers these immigrant families taking root in the
soil. In the smaller cities, an immigrant day la-
borer will often invest his savings in a tumble-down
house and an acre of land, and almost at once he
becomes the nucleus for a gathering of his kind.
14
210 Om FOREIGNERS
The market gardens that surround the large cities
offer work to the children of the factory operatives,
and there they swarm over beet and onion fields
like huge insects with an unerring instinct for weeds.
Now and then a family finds a forgotten acre, builds
a shack, and starts a small independent market
garden. Within a few years a whole settlement of
shacks grows up around it, and soon the trucking of
the neighborhood is in foreign hands. Seasonal
agricultural work often carries the immigrant in-
to distant canning centers, hop fields, cranberry
marshes, orchards, and vineyards. Every time a
migration of this sort occurs, some settlers remain
on land previously thought unfit for cultivation —
perhaps a swamp which they drain or a sand-hill
which they fertilize and nurture into surprising
fertility by constant toil. This racial seepage is
confined almost wholly to the Italian and the Slav.
There is a vast acreage of unoccupied good land
in the South, which the negro, usually satisfied
with a bare living, has neither the enterprise nor
the thrift to cultivate. The prejudice of the former
slave owner against the foreign immigration for
many years retarded the development of this land.
About 1880, however, groups of Italians, attracted
by the sunny climate and the opportunities for
RACIAL INFILTRATION «11
making a livelihood, began to seep into Louisiana.
By 1900 they numbered over seventeen thousand.
When direct sailings between the Mediterranean
and the Gulf of Mexico were established, their num-
bers increased rapidly and New Orleans became
one of the leading Italian centers in the United
States. From the city they soon spread into the
adjoining region. Today they grow cotton, sugar-
cane, and rice in nearly all the Southern States. In
the deep black loam of the Yazoo Delta they pros-
per as cotton growers. They have transformed
the neglected slopes of the Ozarks into apple and
peach orchards. New Orleans, Dallas, Galveston,
Houston, San Antonio, and other Southern cities
are supplied with vegetables from the Italian truck
farms. At Independence, Louisiana, a colony
raises strawberries. In the black belt of Arkansas
they established Sunnyside in 1895, a colony which
has survived many vicissitudes and has been the
parent of other similar enterprises. In Texas there
are a number of such colonies, of which the largest,
at Bryan, numbers nearly two thousand persons.
Li California the Italian owns farms, orchards,
vineyards, market gardens, and even ranches.
Here he finds the cloudless sky and mild air of his
native land. The sunny slopes invite vine culture.
212 OUR FOREIGNERS
In the North and the East the alert Italian has
found many opportunities to buy land. In the en-
virons of nearly every city northward from Norfolk,
Virginia, are to be found his truck patches. At
Vineland and Hammonton, New Jersey, large col-
onies have flourished for many years. In New
York and Pennsylvania, many a hill farm that was
too rocky for its Yankee owner, and many a back-
breaking clay moraine in Ohio and Indiana has
been purchased for a small cash payment and, un-
der the stimulus of the family's coaxing, now yields
paying crops, while the father himself also earns
a daily wage in the neighboring town. Where one
such Italian family is to be found, there are sure to
be found at least two or three others in the neigh-
borhood, for the Italians hate isolation more than
hunger. Often they are clustered in colonies, as at
Genoa and Cumberland in Wisconsin, where most
of them are railroad workmen paying for the land
out of their wages.
The Slavs, too, wedge into the most surprising
spaces. Their colonies and settlements are to be
found in considerable numbers in every part of the
Union except the far South. They are on the cut-
over timber lands of Michigan, Wisconsin, and*
Minnesota, usually engaged in dairying or raising
RACIAL INFILTRATION 213
vegetables for canning. On the great prairies in
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas, the
Bohemians and the Poles have learned to raise
wheat and corn, and in Texas, Oklahoma, and Ar-
kansas, they have shown themselves skillful in
cotton raising. Wherever fruit is grown on the Pa-
cific slope, there are Bohemians, Slavonians, and
Dalmatians. In New England, Ohio, Illinois, In-
diana, and Maryland, the Poles have become pio-
neers in the neglected corners of the land. For
instance in Orange County, New York, a thriving
settlement from old Poland now flourishes where
a quarter of a century ago there was only a mos-
quito breeding swamp. The drained area pro-
duces the most surprising crops of onions, lettuce,
and celery. Many of these immigrants own their
little farms. Others work on shares in anticipa-
tion of ownership, and still others labor merely
for the season, transients who spend the winter
either in American factories or flit back to their
native land.
In Pennsylvania it is the mining towns which
furnished recruits for this landward movement. In
some of the counties an exchange of population has
been taking place for a decade or more. The land
dwelling Americans are moving into the towns and
214 OUR FOREIGNERS
cities. The farms are offered for sale. Enterpris-
ing Slavic real estate dealers are not slow in per-
suading their fellow countrymen to invest their
savings in land.
The Slavonic infiltration has been most marked
in New England, especially in the Connecticut Val-
ley. From manufacturing centers like Chicopee,
Worcester, Ware, Westfield, and Fitchburg, areas
of Polish settlements radiate in every direction,
alien spokes from American hubs. Here are little
farming villages ready made in attractive settings
whose vacant houses invite the alien peasant. A
Polish family moves into a sedate colonial house;
often a second family shares the place, sometimes
a third or a fourth, each with a brood of children
and often a boarder or two. The American fam-
ilies left in the neighborhood are scandalized by
this promiscuity, by the bare feet and bare heads,
by the unspeakable fare, the superstition and cre-
dulity, and illiteracy and disregard for sanitary
measures, and by the ant-like industry from star-
light to starlight. Old Hadley has become a pro-
totype of what may become general if this racial
infiltration is not soon checked. In 1906 the Poles
numbered one-fifth of the population in that town,
owned one-twentieth of the land, and produced
RACIAL INFILTRATION 215
two-thirds of the babies. Dignified old streets
that formerly echoed with the tread of patriots
now resound to the din of Polish weddings and
christenings, and the town that sheltered William
Goffe, one of the judges before whom Charles I was
tried, now houses Polish transients at twenty-five
cents a bed weekly.
The transient usually returns to Europe, but
the landowner remains. His kind is increas-
ing yearly. It is even probable that in a gen-
eration he will be the chief landowner of the
Connecticut Valley. It will take more than an
association of old families, determined on keep-
ing the ancient homes in their own hands, to
check this transformation.
The process of racial replacement is most rapid
in the smaller manufacturing towns. In the New
England mills the Yankee gave way to the Irish,
the Irish gave way to the French Canadian, and
the French Canadian has been largely superseded
by the Slav and the Italian. Every one of the
older industrial towns has been encrusted in layer
upon layer of foreign accretions, until it is diffi-
cult to discover the American core. Everywhere are
the physiognomy, the chatter, and the aroma of
the modem steerage. Lawrence, Massachusetts, is
216 OUR FOREIGNERS
typical of this change. In 1848 it had 5923 inhab-
itants, of whom 63.3 per cent were Americans, 36
per cent were Irish, and about forty white persons
belonged to other nationalities. In 1910 the same
city had 85,000 inhabitants, of whom only about
14 per cent were Americans, and the rest foreigners,
two-thirds of the old and one-third of the new
immigration.
A like transformation has taken place in the
manufacturing towns of New York, New Jersey,
and Delaware and in the iron and steel towns of
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the Middle West.
For forty years after the establishment of the first
iron furnace in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1842,
the mills were manned exclusively by Americans,
English, Welsh, Irish, and Germans. In 1880
Slavic names began to appear on the pay rolls.
Soon thereafter Italians and Syrians were brought
into the town, and today sixty per cent of the popu-
lation is of foreign birth, largely from southeastern
Europe. The native Americans and Welsh live in
two wards, and clustered around them are settle-
ments of Italians, Slovaks, and Croatians.
The new manufacturing towns which are de-
pendent upon some single industry are almost whol-
ly composed of recent immigrants. Gary, Indiana,
Ifte^
HUNGARIAN
Photograph copyright by Underwood and Underwood, New York.
RUSSIAN POLE
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
ITALIAN
Photograph by Lewis W. Hine.
, - j^,.wiil of this change ... iio48 it had 5923 inhab-
itants, of whom 6f? ^ ^rr c«it were Americans, 36
per cent were Iri ^ ^^^^orty white persona
city had 85,000 inhabitairt^, of whom only about
14 per cent were Americans, and the rest foreigners,
two-thirds of thie old and one-third of the new
immigration.
A Kke transformation has taken place in the
manufacturing towns of New York, New Jersey,
and Delaware and in the iron and steel towns of
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and the Middle West.
For forty years after the establishment of the first
iron furnace in JohMtWW^feHflsylvania, in 1842,
the mills weresjgftiMeAytiicliiaihMiiQJay Ahm ricans,
English, Welsh, Irish, and Germi 30
Slavic names began to app
" eafter Italians and a;|TiJMMs were Drought
"-^ and today aixtv '^*-»- ^-^^nt of the popu-
eign birth, larg' , southeastern
Eiiropt . The native Americans and Welsh live in
two wards, and clustered around them are settle-
r Italians, Slovaks, and Croatians.
' ' towns which are de-
. .. ..»^v. ^, .. ., \ .. as try are almost whol-
otmjBt m&iMT'^y, Indiana,
f
4m
/
^
RACIAL INFILTRATION 217
built by the United States Steel Corporation, and
Whiting, Indiana, established by the Standard Oil
Company for its refining industry, are examples of
new American towns of exotic populations. At a
glass factory built in 1890 in the village of Charleroi,
Pennsylvania, over ten thousand Belgians, French,
Slavs, and Italians now labor. An example of
lightning-like displacement of population is af-
forded by the steel and iron center at Granite City
and Madison, Illinois. The two towns are prac-
tically one industrial community, although they
have separate municipal organizations. A steel mill
was erected in 1892 upon the open prairies, and
in it American, Welsh, Irish, English, German, and
Polish workmen were employed. In 1900 Slovaks
were brought in, and two years later there came
large numbers of Magyars, followed by Croatians.
In 1905 Bulgarians began to arrive, and within two
years over eight thousand had assembled. Arme-
nians, Servians, Greeks, Magyars, every ethnic fac-
tion found in the racial welter of southeastern Eu-
rope, is represented among the twenty thousand in-
habitants that dwell in this new industrial town.
In "Hungary Hollow" these race fragments iso-
late themselves, effectively insulated against the
currents of American influence.
218 OUR FOREIGNERS
The mining communities reveal this relative dis-
placement of races in its most disheartening form.
As early as 1820 coal was taken from the anthracite
veins of northeastern Pennsylvania, but until 1880
the industry was dominated by Americans and
north Europeans. In 1870 out of 108,000 foreign
born in this region, 105,000 or over ninety-seven
per cent came from England, Wales, Scotland, Ire-
land, and Germany. In 1880 a change began and
continued until in 1910 less than one-third of the
267,000 foreign born were of northern European
extraction. In 1870 there were only 306 Slavs
and Italians in the entire region; in 1890 there were
43,000; in 1909 there were 89,000; and in 1910 the
number increased to 178,000.
Today these immigrants from the south of Eu-
rope have virtually displaced the miner from the
north. They have rooted out the decencies and
comforts of the earlier operatives and have sup-
planted them with the promiscuity, the filth, and
the low economic standards of the medieval peas-
ant. There are no more desolate and distressing
places in America than the miserable mining
"patches" clinging like lichens to the steep hill-
sides or secluded in the valleys of Pennsylvania.
In the bituminous fields conditions are no better.
RACIAL INFILTRATION 219
In the town of Windber in western Pennsylvania,
for example, some two thousand experienced Eng-
lish and American miners were engaged in opening
the veins in 1897. No sooner were the mines in
operation than the south European began to drift
in. Today he outnumbers and underbids the
American and the north European. He lives in
isolated sections, reeking with everything that
keeps him a "foreigner" in the heart of Amer-
ica. The coal regions of Virginia, West Virginia,
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and the ore regions of
northern Michigan and Minnesota are rapidly
passing under the same influence.
Every mining and manufacturing community is
thus an ethnic pool, whence little streams of for-
eigners trickle over the land. These isolated min-
ers and tillers of the soil are more immune to Amer-
ican ideals than are their city dwelling brethren.
They are not jostled and shaken by other races;
no mental contagion of democracy reaches them.
But within the towns and cities another process
of replacement is going on. Its index is written
jlarge in the signs over shops and stores and clearly
in the lists of professional men in the city director-
[ies and in the pay roll of the public school teach-
^ers. The unpronounceable Slavic combinations of
220 OUR FOREIGNERS
consonants and polysyllabic Jewish patronymics
are plentiful, while here and there an Italian name
makes its appearance. The second generation is
arriving. The sons and daughters are leaving the
factory and the construction gang for the counter,
the office, and the schoolroom.
American ideals and institutions have borne and
can bear a great deal of foreign infiltration. But
can they withstand saturation.'^
CHAPTER XI
THE GUARDED DOOR
"Whosoever will may come" was the generous
welcome which America extended to all the world
for over a century. Many alarms, indeed, there
were and several well-defined movements to save
America from the foreigner. The first of these at-
tempts resulted in the ill-fated Alien and Sedition
laws of 1798, which extended to fourteen years the
period of probation before a foreigner could be nat-
uralized and which attempted to safeguard the
Government against defamatory attacks. The
Jeffersonians, who came into power in 1801 largely
upon the issue raised by this attempt to curtail free
speech, made short shrift of this unpopular law and
restored the term of residence to five years. The
second anti-foreign movement found expression in
the Know-Nothing party, which rose in the decade
preceding the Civil War. The third movement
brought about a secret order called the American
£S1
222 OUR FOREIGNERS
Protective Association, popularly known as the
A. P. A., which, like the Know-Nothing hysteria,
was aimed primarily at the Catholic Church. Its
platform stated that "the conditions growing out
of our immigration laws are such as to weaken our
democratic institutions," and that "the immigrant
vote, under the direction of certain ecclesiastical
institutions, " controlled politics. In 1896 the or-
ganization claimed two and a half million ad-
herents, and the air was vibrant with ominous
rumors of impending events. But nothing hap-
pened. The A. P. A. disappeared suddenly and
left no trace.
For over a century it was almost universally be-
lieved that the prosperity of the country depended
largely upon a copious influx of population. This
sentiment found expression in President Lincoln's
message to Congress on December 8, 1863, in
which he called immigration a "source of national
wealth and strength " and urged Congress to estab-
lish "a system for the encouragement of immigra-
tion." In conformity with this suggestion. Con-
gress passed a law designed to aid the importa-
tion of labor under contract. But the measure
was soon repealed, so that it remains the only in-
stance in American history in which the Federal
THE GUARDED DOOR 223
Government attempted the direct encouragement
of general immigration. ^
It was in 1819 that the first Federal law pertain-
ing to immigration was passed. It was not
prompted by any desire to regulate or restrict im-
migration, but aimed rather to correct the terrible
abuses to which immigrants were subject on ship-
board. So crowded and unwholesome were these-
quarters that a substantial percentage of all the im-
migrants who embarked for America perished dur-
ing the voyage. The law provided that ships could
carry only two passengers for every five tons bur-
den; it enjoined a suflScient supply of water and
food for crew and passengers; and it required the
captains of vessels to prepare lists of their passen-
gers giving age, sex, occupation, and the country
whence they came. The law, however good its
intention, was loosely drawn and indifferently
enforced. Terrible abuses of steerage passengers
crowded into miserable quarters were constantly
brought to the public notice. From time to time
the law was amended, and the advent of steam
navigation brought improved conditions without,
however, adequate provision for Federal inspection.
^ Congress has on several occasions granted aid for specific
colonies or groups of immigrants.
2^ OUR FOREIGNERS
Indeed such supervision and care as immigrants
received was provided by the various States. Bos-
ton, New York, Baltimore, and other ports of en-
try, found helpless hordes left at their doors. They
were the prey of loan sharks and land sharks, of
fake employment agencies, and every conceivable
form of swindler. Private relief was organized, but
it could reach only a small portion of the needy.
About three-fourths of the immigrants disem-
barked at the port of New York, and upon the
State of New York was imposed the obligation of
looking after the thousands of strangers who landed
weekly at the Battery. To cope with these con-
ditions the State devised a comprehensive system
and entrusted its enforcement to a Board of Com-
missioners of Immigration, erected hospitals on
Ward's Island for sick and needy immigrants, and
in 1855 leased for a landing place Castle Garden,
which at once became the popular synonym for the
nation's gateway. Here the Commissioners ex-
amined and registered the immigrants, placed at
their disposal physicians, money changers, trans-
portation agents, and advisers, and extended to
them a helping hand. The Federal Government
was represented only by the customs officers who
ransacked their baggage.
THE GUARDED DOOR 225
In 1875 the Federal Supreme Court decided that
it was unconstitutional for a State to regulate im-
migration. **We are of the opinion,'* said the
Court, "that this whole subject has been confided
to Congress by the Constitution; that Congress
can more appropriately and with more acceptance
exercise it than any other body known to our law,
state or national; that, by providing a system of
laws in these matters applicable to all ports and to
all vessels, a serious question which has long been
a matter of contest and complaint may be effec-
tively and satisfactorily settled. " ' Congress dal-
lied seven years with this important question, and
was finally forced to act when New York threat-
ened to close Castle Garden. In 1882 a Federal
immigration law assessed a head tax of fifty cents
on every passenger, not a citizen, coming to the
United States, and provided that the States should
share with the Secretary of the Treasury the obli-
gation of its enforcement. This law inaugurated
the policy of selective immigration, as it excluded
convicts, lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to be-
come a public charge. Three years later, contract
laborers were also excluded.
' Henderson et al. vs. The Mayor of New York City et al. 92
U.S., 259.
IS
226 OUR FOREIGNERS
The unprecedented influx of immigrants now
began to arouse public discussion. Over 788,000
arrived in America during the first year the new
law was in operation. In 1889 both the Senate and
the House appointed standing committees on im-
migration. The several investigations which were
held culminated in the law of 1891, wherein the list
of ineligibles was extended to include persons suf-
fering from a loathsome or contagious disease, poly-
gamists, and persons assisted in coming by others,
unless upon special inquiry they were found not to
belong to any of the excluded classes. Thus for
the first time the Federal Government assumed
complete control of immigration. Now also both
the great political parties adopted planks in their
national platforms favoring the restriction of im-
migration. The Republicans favored "the enact-
ment of more stringent laws and regulations for the
restriction of criminal, pauper, and contract immi-
gration." The Democrats "heartily" approved
"all legislative efforts to prevent the United States
from being used as a dumping ground for the
known criminals and professional paupers of Eu-
rope, " and they favored the exclusion of Chinese
laborers. They favored, however, the admission
of "industrious and worthy" Europeans.
THE GUARDED DOOR 227
Selective immigration thus became a political
issue in 1892, partly under the stimulus of labor un-
ions, which feared an over-supply of labor, and
partly because of the growing popular belief that
many imdesirable foreigners were entewng the
country. No adequate and just criteria for any
process of selection have been discovered. In 1896
Senator Lodge introduced an immigration bill,
which contained the famous literacy test, excluding
all persons between fourteen and sixty years of
age "who cannot both read and write the English
language or some other language. " The bill was
simultaneously introduced into the House of Re-
presentatives by McCall of Massachusetts. The
debate on this measure marks a new departure in
immigration policy. A senatorial inquiry made
among the States in the preceding year had dis-
closed a universal preference for immigrants from
northern Europe. Moreover, a number of States
through their governors, had declared that further
immigration was not desired immediately; and the
opinion prevailed that the great influx from south-
eastern Europe should be checked. Fortified by
such solidarity of sentiment. Congress passed the
Lodge bill with certain amendments. President
Cleveland, however, returned it with a strong veto
228 OUR FOREIGNERS
message on March 2, 1897. He could not concur
in so radical a departure from the traditional liberal
policy of the Government; and he believed the lit-
eracy test so artificial that it was more rational
"to admit a hundred thousand immigrants who,
though unable to read and write, seek among us
only a home and opportunity to work, than to ad-
mit one of those unruly agitators and enemies of
governmental control who can not only read and
write, but delights in arousing by inflammatory
speech the illiterate and peacefully inclined to dis-
content and tumult. " The House passed the bill
over the President's veto, but the Senate took no
further action.
In 1898 the Industrial Commission was empow-
ered "to investigate questions pertaining to immi-
gration" and presented a report which prepared
the way for the immigration law of 1903, approved
on the 3rd of March. This law, which was based
upon a careful preliminary inquiry, may be called
the first comprehensive American immigration
statute. It perfected the administrative machin-
ery, raised the head tax, and multiplied the vig-
ilance of the Government against evasions by the
excluded classes. Anarchists and prostitutes were
added to the list of excluded persons. The literacy
THE GUARDED DOOR 229
test was inserted by the House but was rejected by
the Senate.
This law, however, did not allay the demand for
a more stringent restriction of immigration. A few
persons believed in stopping immigration entirely
for a period of years. Others would limit the num-
ber of immigrants that should be permitted to en-
ter every year. But it was felt throughout the
country that such arbitrary checks would be mere-
ly quantitative, not qualitative, and that undesir-
able foreigners should be denied admission, no mat-
ter what country they hailed from. A notable
immigration conference which was called by the
National Civic Federation in December, 1905, and
which represented all manner of public bodies, re-
commended the "exclusion of persons of enfeebled
vitality " and proposed ** a preliminary inspection of
intending immigrants before they embark. " Presi-
dent Roosevelt laid the whole matter before Con-
gress in several vigorous messages in 1906 and 1907.
He pointed to the fact that
In the year ending June 30, 1905, there came to the
United States 1,026,000 alien immigrants. In other
words, in the single year . . . there came ... a
greater number of people than came here during the
one hundred and sixty-nine years of our colonial life.
OUR FOREIGNERS
... It is clearly shown in the report of the Com-
missioner General of Immigration that, while much
of this enormous immigration is undoubtedly healthy
and natural . . . a considerable proportion of it, prob-
ably a very large proportion, including most of the un-
desirable class, does not come here of its own initiative
but because of the activity of the agents of the great
transportation companies. . . . The prime need is
to keep out ail immigrants who will not make good
American citizens.
In consonance with this spirit, the law of 1907
was passed. It increased the head tax to four dol-
lars and provided rigid scrutiny over the transpor-
tation companies. The excluded classes of immi-
grants were minutely defined, and the powers and
duties of the Commissioner General of Immigra-
tion were very considerably enlarged. The act
also created the Immigration Commission, consist-
ing of three Senators, three members of the House,
and three persons appointed by the President,
for making "full inquiry, examination, and in-
vestigation ... into the subject of immigra-
tion." Endowed with plenary power, this commis-
sion made a comprehensive investigation of the
whole question. The President was authorized to
"send special commissioners to any foreign coun-
try for the purpose of regulating by international
THE GUARDED DOOR 231
agreement . . . the immigration of aliens to the
United States."
Here at last is congressional recognition of the
fact that immigration is no longer merely a domes-
tic question, but that it has, through modern eco-
nomic conditions, become one of serious interna-
tional import. No treaties have been perfected
under this authority. The question, however, re-
ceived serious attention in 1909 when Lieutenant
Joseph Petrosino of the New York police was miu*-
dered in Sicily by banditti, whither he had pursued
a Black Hand criminal from the East Side.
In the meantime many measures for restricting
immigration were suggested in Congress. Of these,
the literacy test met with the most favor. Three
times in recent years Congress enacted it into law,
and each time it was returned with executive dis-
approval: President Taft vetoed the provision
in 1913, and President Wilson vetoed the acts of
1915 and 1917. In his last veto message on Jan-
uary 29, 1917, President Wilson said that "the
literacy test ... is not a test of character, of
quality, or of personal fitness, but would operate in
most cases merely as a penalty for lack of oppor-
tunity in the country from which the alien seeking
admission came. " ♦
232 OUR FOREIGNERS
Congress, however, promptly passed the bill over
the President's objections, and so twenty years
after President Cleveland's veto of the Lodge Bill,
the literacy test became the standard of fitness for
immigrant admission into the United States. ' The
law excludes all aliens over sixteen years of age who
are physically capable of reading and yet who can-
not read. They are required to read " not less than
thirty or more than eighty words in ordinary use"
in the English language or some other language or
dialect. Aliens who seek admission because of re-
ligious persecution, and certain relatives of citizens
or of admissible aliens, are exempted.
The debate upon this law disclosed the trans-
formation that has come over the nation in its atti-
tude towards the alien. Exclusion was the domi-
nant word. Senator Reed of Missouri wished to
exclude African immigrants; the Pacific coast Re-
presentatives insisted upon exclusion of Asiatics,
in the face of serious admonitions of the Secretary
of State that such a course would cause interna-
tional friction; the labor members were scornful
in their denunciation of **the pauper and criminal
classes" of Europe. The traditional liberal sym-
pathies of the American people foimd but few
^ The new act took effect May 1, 1917.
THE GUARDED DOOR «33
champions, so completely had the change been
wrought in the thirty years since the Federal Gov-
ernment assumed control of immigration.
By these tokens the days of unlimited freedom
in migration are numbered. Nations are begin-
ning to realize that immigration is but the obverse
of emigration. Its dual character constitutes a
problem requiring delicate international readjust-
ments. Moreover, the countries released to a new
life and those quickened to a new industrialism by
the Great War will need to employ all their muscle
and talents at home.
It is an inspiring drama of colonization that has
been enacted on this continent in a relatively short
period. Its like was never witnessed before and
can never be witnessed again. Thirty-three na-
tionalities were represented in the significant group
of American pilgrims that gathered at Mount Ver-
non on July 4, 1918, to place garlands of native
flowers upon the tomb of Washington and to pledge
their honor and loyalty to the nation of their adop-
tion. This event is symbolic of the great fact that
the United States is, after all, a nation of immi-
grants, among whom the word foreigner is descrip-
tive of an attitude of mind rather than of a place
of birth.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
General Histories
Edward Channing, History of the United States, 4 vols.
(1905). Vol. II. Chapter xiv contains a fascinating
account of "The Coming of the Foreigner."
John Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America,
% vols. (1899). The story of "The Migration of the
Sects" is charmingly told.
John B. McMaster, History of the People of the Unit-
ed States, 8 vols. (1883-1913). Scattered throughout
the eight volumes are copious accounts of the coming
of immigrants, from the year of American independ-
ence to the Civil War. The great German and Irish
inundations are dealt with in volumes vi and vii.
J. H. Latan6, America as a World Power (1907).
Chapter xvii gives a concise summary of immigration
for the years 1880-1907.
Works on Immigration
Reports of the Immigration Commission, appointed
under the Congressional Act of Feb, 20, 1907, 42 vols.
(1911). This is by far the most exhaustive study that
has been made of the immigration question. It em-
braces a wide range of details, especially upon the
economic and sociological aspects of the problem.
235
236 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Census Bureau, A Century of Population Growth from
the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth,
1790-1900 (1909) . The best analysis of the population
of the United States. It contains a number of chapters
on the population at the time of the First Census in 1790.
John R. Commons, Races and Immigrants in America
(1907).
Prescott F. Hall, Immigration and its Effects upon
the United States (1906).
Henry P. Fairchild, Immigration, a World Movement
and its American Significance (1913). A good histor-
ical survey of immigration as well as a suggestive
discussion of its sociological and economic bearings.
Jeremiah W. Jenks and W. Jett Lauck, The Immi-
gration Problem (1913). A summary of the Report of
the Immigration Commission.
Peter Roberts, The New Immigration (1912). A
discussion of the recent influx from Southeastern
Europe.
E. A. Ross, The Old World in the New (1914) contains
some refreshing racial characteristics.
Richmond Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immi-
gration (1890). This is one of the oldest American
works on the subject and remains the best scientific
discussion of the sociological and economic aspects of
immigration.
Edward A, Steiner, On the Trail of the Immigrant
(1906). A popular and sympathetic account of the
new immigration.
The Negro
B. G. Brawley, A Short History of the American
Negro (1913).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 237
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Negro (1915). A small well-
written volume, with a useful bibliography and an
illuminating chapter on the negro in the United States;
also, by the same author. Suppression of the African
Slave Trade (1896).
Carter G. Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration
(1918).
J. R. Spears, The American Slave Trade (1900).
A. H. Stone, Studies in the American Race Prob-
lem (1908). Contains several of Walter F. Wilcox's
valuable statistical studies on this subject.
J. A. Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America
(1902) contains a suggestive comparison of negro life
in Africa and America.
Special Groups
Kendrick C. Babcock, The Scandinavian Element in
the United States (1914). The best treatise on this
subject.
Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens
(1910). A comprehensive study of the Slav in America.
J. M. Campbell, A History of the Friendly Sons of
St. Patrick (1892).
Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration
(1909). A sympathetic and detailed account of the
Chinaman's experience in America.
A. B. Faust, The German Element in the United
States. 2 vols. (1909). Like some other books written
to prove the vast influence of certain elements of the
population, this work is not modest in its claims.
Henry Jones Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America
(1915).
238 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Lucian J. Fosdick, The French Blood in America (1906) .
Devoted principally to the Huguenot exiles and th«ir
descendants.
Charles A. Hanna, The Scotch-Irish, or the Scot in
North Britain, North Ireland, and North America. 2
vols. (1902).
Eliot Lord, John J. D. Trevor, and Samuel J.
Barrows, The Italian in America (1905).
T. D'Arcy McGee, History of the Irish Settlers in
North America (1852).
O. N. Nelson, History of the Scandinavians and
Successful Scandinavians in the United States, 2 vols.
(1900).
J. G. Rosengarten, French Colonists and Exiles in
the United States (1907). Contains an interesting bib-
liography of French writings on early American condi-
tions.
Utopias
J. A. Bole, The Harmony Society (1904). Besides
a concise history of the Rappists, this volume con-
tains many letters and documents illustrative of their
customs and business methods.
W. A. Hinds, American Communities and Coopera-
tive Colonies, (2d revision 1908.) A useful summary
based on personal observations.
G. B. Lockwood, The New Harmony Communities
(1902). It contains a detailed description of Owen's
experiment and interesting details of the Rappists
during their sojourn in Indiana.
M. A. Mikkelsen, The Bishop Hill Colony, A Religi-
ous Communistic Settlement in Henry County, Illinois
(1892).
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 2S9
Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the
United States (1875). A description of communities
visited by the author.
J. H. Noyes, History of American Socialisms (1870).
W. R. Perkins, History of the Amana Society or
Community of True Inspiration (1891).
E. O. Randall, History of the Zoar Society (2ded. 1900) .
Bertha M. Shambaugh, Amana, the Community of
True Inspiration (1908) gives many interesting details.
Albert Shaw, Icaria, a Chapter in the History of
Communism (1884). A brilliant account.
INDEX
A. P. A., see American Protec-
tive Association
Acadia, French in, 18
Adams, J. Q., and Owen, 94
Afghans in United States, 207
Africans, Reed favors exclusion
of, 232; see also Negroes
Alabama admitted as State
(1819), S3
Albany, Shakers settle near,
91; Irish in, 113
Alien and Sedition laws (1798),
221
Amana, 82-84
America, cosmopolitan char-
acter, 19-20; American stock,
21 etseq.'y origin of name, 21-
22; now applied to United
States, 22; Shakers confined
to, 92; "America for Amer-
icans," 114; see also United
States
American Celt, McGee estab-
lishes, 120 (note)
American Missionary Associa-
tion, work with negroes, 58
American party, 114; see also
Know-Nothing party
American Protective Associa-
tion, 221-22
Amish, 68 (note)
Anabaptists in Manhattan,
17
Ancient Order of Hibernians,
117
Angell, J. B., on commission to
negotiate treaty with China,
198
i6 Ml
Antwerp, German emigrants
embark at, 134
Arkansas, frontiersmen in, 36;
chosen as site by Giessener
Gesellschaft, 136; Italians in,
211; Slavs in, 213
Armenians, 184; as laborers,
122; at Granite City (111.),
217
Arthur, C. A., and Chinese ex-
clusion act, 199
Asiatics, Pacific coast favors
exclusion of, 232; see also
Orientals
Australia deflects migration to
United States, 150
Babcock, K. C, The Scandi-
navian Element in the United
States f quoted, 158
Balch, E. G., Our Slavic Fellow
Citizens, quoted, 164-65;
cited, 167 (note), 174
Baltimore, Ephrata draws pu-
pils from, 71; Irish immi-
grant association, 109; Irish
in, 113; Germans in, 127;
Italians in, 180; condition of
immigrants landing in, 224
Bancroft, George, estimates
number of slaves, 47
Barlow, Joel, 151
Baumeler, see Bimeler
Bayard, Nicholas, 16
Beissel, Conrad (or Beizel, or
Peysel), 70, 71
Belgians in Charleroi (Penn.),
217
242
INDEX
Berkshires, Germans in, 127
Bethlehem, communistic col-
ony, 72
Bimeler, Joseph (or Baumeler),
78-79
Bishop Hill Colony, 85-89
Black Hand, 182
"Boat Load of Knowledge,"
94>
Bogart, E. L., Economic His-
tory of the United States,
cited, 52 (note)
Bohemians, in United States,
159-60, 165-66; as North
Slavs, 164; on the prairies,
213; on Pacific slope, 213
Boston, immigrants from Ire-
land (1714-20), 11; French
in, 16; Irish in, 108, 113;
Germans in, 127; Italians in,
180; condition of immigrants
landing in, 224
Boudinot, Elias, 16
Bowdoin, James, 16
Bremen, German emigrants
embark at, 134
Bremer, Frederika, quoted,
155
Brisbane, Arthur, Social Des-
tiny of Man, 96
Brook Farm, 97
Bryan, W. J., Secretary of
State, and California Alien
Land Act, 206
Bryan (Tex.) Italian colony,
211
Buffalo, Inspirationists near,
81; Irish in, 113; Germans in,
135; Poles in, 167 (note)
Bulgarians, as South Slavs,
164; in United States, 170;
in Granite City (111.), 170,
217
Burlingame, Anson, 195
Burlingame treaty, 195-96, 197
Burschenschaften, 131
Butler County (Penn.), Har-
monists in, 73
Butte, Bulgarians in, 170
Cabet, Etienne, 97-98, 99,
100; Voyage en Jcarie, 98;
Le Populaire, 98
Cabinet, President's, majority
of members from American
stock, 42
Cabot, John, 2
Cabot, Sebastian, 2
Cahokia, French settlement,
152
California, frontiersmen in, 36,
37; Icaria-Speranza com-
munity, 101; Swiss in, 153;
Dalmatians in, 171; Portu-
guese in, 184; discovery of
gold, 188; Chinese in, 189-
190; "California for Amer-
icans," 190; constitution
(1879), 194; legislation
against Chinese, 194-95; vote
for Garfield (1880), 197
(note); Japanese in, 203;
Alien Land Act (1913), 206;
Italians in, 211
Campo Bello, Island, Fenians
attempt to land on, 119
Canada, fugitive slaves, 54;
Irish come through, 109;
Fenian raids, 120; deflects
migration to United States,
150
Carbonari, Cabet and, 98
Carolinas, English settle, 5;
Scotch-Irish in, 12; Scotch
in, 12; Germans in, 14; cosmo-
politan character of, 18;
Irish in, 105; see also North
Carolina, South Carolina
Castle Garden, landing place
for immigrants in New York,
224, 225
Catholics, in Maryland, 13;
Irish, 114; prejudice against,
115-16; American Protec-
tive Association against, 222
Census (1790), 24-25, 29;
A Century of Population
Growth (1909), 24; (1800).
25; tables, 26-28; (1900), SB-
INDEX
S43
Census — Continued
39; slaves in United States,
47; Bulletin No. 129,
Negroes in the United States,
cited, 61 (note); (1910),
Germans in United States,
125; foreigners in United
States, 125-26 (note); for-
eign born on farms, 150-51
(note), 161; Italians in New
York City, 180 (note); dis-
• tribution of American white
population, 187
Channing, Edward, History of
the United States, quoted,
46-47
Charleroi (Penn.), foreigners
in, 217
Charleston (S. C.)» French in,
16; Germans in, 127
Charlestown (Mass.), Ursuline
convent burned, 116
Cheltenham, Icarians in, 100
Chestnutt, C. W., negro novel-
ist, 64
Chicago, Irish in, 113; Ger-
mans in, 135; Bohemians in,
165; Poles in, 167 (note);
Bulgarians in, 170; Hunga-
rian Jews in, 178; Italians in,
180; papers announce land
for sale, 209
Chicopee, Poles in, 214
China, Burlingame treaty, 195-
196, 197; treaty (1880), 198-
199; treaty (1894), 202
Chinese, in United States, 188-
203; societies, 192; mission
to United States (1868), 195;
exclusion act, 199, 201;
Scott Act, 201 ; Geary law, 201
Cincinnati, Irish in, 113; Ger-
man center, 135
Cities, immigration to, 162 et
seg.; cosmopolitanism, 185;
racial changes in, 219-20
Civil Rights Act, 59
Civil War, German immigrants
during, 130
Cleveland, Grover, messages to
Congress on Chinese agita-
tion, 201; vetoes Lodge bill.
227-28
Cleveland, Irish in, 113; Ger-
mans in, 135; Bohemians in,
165; Italians in, 180
Cocalico River, cloister of
Ephrata on, 70
Colorado, Japanese in, 204
Coman, Industrial History of
the United States, cited, 52
(note)
Communistic colonies, 67 et
seq.; Labadists, 68-69; Pie-
tists, 69-70; Ephrata, 70-
72; Snow Hill, 72; Bethle-
hem, 72; Harmonist, 72-77;
Harmony, 73; New Har-
mony, 74-75, 94-96; Econ-
omy, 75-77; Zoar, 78-80;
Inspirationists, 80-84; Eben-
ezer,81; Amana, 82-84; Bish-
op Hill Colony, 85-89; Old
Elmspring Community, 89-
90; Shakers, 91-92; Oneida
Community, 92-93; Robert
Owen and, 94-96; Brook
Farm, 97; Fourierism, 96-
97, 101-02; Icaria, 97-101;
bibliography, 238-39
Congress, noted members from
American stock, 42; author-
izes Freedmen's Bureau
(1865), 57; immigration law
(1819), 103; laws against
German newspapers, 144;
German-American League
incorporated by, 145; char-
ter of German-American
League revoked, 145; Home-
stead Law (1862), 148;
grants land to French, 152;
Cleveland's special messages,
201; Scott Act, 201; Geary
law, 201; extends Chinese
exclusion to Hawaii (1898),
202; Lincoln's message, Dec.
8, 1868, 222; and regulation
244
INDEX
Congress — Continued
of immigration, 225; Lodge
bill, 227-28; Roosevelt's
messages, 220
Connecticut, Shakers in, 91
Connecticut Valley, Poles in,
214-15
Consid^rant, Victor, 101
Constantinople, cosmopolitan-
ism compared with American
cities, 186
Constitution, Fifteenth Amend-
ment, 59
Coolidge, M. R,., Chinese Immi-
gration, quoted, 192, 193-94
Cotton, effect on slavery, 52
Coxsackie (N. Y.), communis-
tic attempt at, 06
Croatians, as South Slavs, 164;
in United States, 171, 172;
in Johnstown (Penn.), 216;
in Granite City (111.), 217
Cumberland (Wis.), Italian
colony, 212
Cumberland Mountains, fugi-
tive slaves in, 54
Dakotas, frontiersmen in, 36;
Germans in, 141; Scandi-
navians in, 156, 157; "Scan-
dinavian language" in uni-
versities, 158-59; Slavs in,
213; see also South Dakota
Dallas (Tex.), Italians in, 211
Dalmatians, as South Slavs,
164; in United States, 171-
172; on Pacific slope, 213
Danes, in America, 154, 156;
character, 154; see also Scan-
dinavians
DeLancey, Stephen, 16
Delaware, not represented in
first census, 25; second cen-
sus (1800), 25; Labadists in,
68-69; Scandinavian colony,
156; racial changes in manu-
facturing towns, 216
Democratic party on restric-
tion of immigration, 226
Denver, anti-Chinese riots,
197-98 (note)
Detroit, Irish in, 113; Germans
in, 135; Poles in, 167 (note);
Italians in, 180
Devotionalists, 85-89, 90
Douglass, Frederick, 64
DuBois, W. £. B., negro schol-
ar, 64
Duluth, Finnish college near,
160
Dunbar, P. L., negro poet, 64
Dunkards, 70
Dunkers, 13
Dutch, in United States, 17-
18; number of immigrants,
153
Ebenezer Society, 81
Economy, Harmonists estab-
lish, 75; Rapp as leader, 75-
76; as a communistic com-
munity, 76-77; membership,
76 (note); Amana gains
members from, 83
Emmet, Robert, emigration
from Ireland after failure of,
105
England, reasons for expansion,
2-3; imports, 3; social and
religious changes, 6-7; kid-
naping, 8; emigration of
poor, 9, 110, 111; criminals
sent to colonies, 9; and Ul-
ster, 10; French Protestants
flee to, 15; Jews in, 16; in-
dustrial revolution and the
American negro, 52; emi-
gration from, 150
English, in Virginia, 1 ; in New
World, 2-10; serving class,
8; Nonconformists in Man-
hattan, 17; and Dutch, 17-
18; and French, 18; on land,
151; in Johnstown (Penn.),
216; in Granite City (111.),
217; in coal mines of Penn-
sylvania, 218
Ephrata, 70-72
INDEX
245
Erie, Fort, Fenians hold, 120
Europe, migrations, 1-2; im-
migration from, 103; see also
names of peoples
Fairchild, H. P., quoted, 183
Faneuil, Peter, 16
Fenian movement, 118-21
Finns in America, 160, 176.
185
Fiske, John, on Scotch-Irish in
colonies, 12 (note); The
Dutch and Quaker Colonies
in America, cited, 14 (note)
Fitchburg, Poles in, 214
Fleming, W. L., The Sequel of
Appomattox, cited, 57 (note)
Florida, fugitive slaves in, 54
FoUenius quoted, 135-36
Ford, H. J., The Scotch-Irish in
America, quoted, 31
Forestville (Ind.), communis-
tic attempt, 96
Fourierism in United States,
93, 96-97, 101-02
Franklin, Benjamin, estimates
population of Pennsylvania
(1774), 12 (note)
Franklin (N. Y.)» communistic
attempt at, 96
Freedmen's Bureau, 57, 58
French, Protestants leave
France, 15; forts and trading
posts of, 18; in United States,
151-53; in Charleroi (Penn.).
217; see also Huguenots
French Canadians in New Eng-
land, 122, 152, 215
Frontiersmen, 34-36
Gallipolis (O.) settled by French,
151
Galveston, Italians in, 211
Garfield, J. A., and Chinese
immigration, 197 (note)
Garland, Hamlin, A Son of the
Middle Border, 36-37
Gary (Ind.). character of town,
216-17
Genoa (Wis.), Italian colony,
212
Georgia, English settle, 5; not
represented in first census, 25
German-American League, 145
Germans, in Pennsylvania, 13,
14; lured by "soul-stealers,"
15; religious communists
from, 68 et seq.; contrasted
with Irish, 124; immigration
tide, 124 et geq.; first period
of migration, 126-29; second
period of migration, 129-40;
causes of emigration, 130;
sailing conditions, 134; social
life, 137, 140; laborers, 137,
141; "Forty-eighters," 137-
138 ; contribution to America,
139; newspapers, 139, 142-
144; number of immigrants
(1870-1910), 141; third pe-
riod of migration, 141-46;
Prussian spirit among later
immigrants, 142-44; propa-
ganda, 143-45; "exchange
professors," 144; in Great
War, 146; in Johnstown
(Penn.), 216; in Granite
City (HI.), 217; in coal mines
of Pennsylvania, 218
Germantown (Penn.), founded,
13; Pietists at, 69
Giessener Gesellschaft, 136
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 5
Godin, J. B. A., 102
Granite City (III.), Bulgarians
in, 170; racial changes in,
217
Great Britain, immigrants
from, 103; record of emigra-
tion, 104; see also England,
English.Irish, Scotch, Scotch-
Irish, Welsh
Great Lakes, French on, 18
Great War, German news-
papers in, 143-44; soldiers of
German descent in, 146;
Poland and, 168; effect on
immigration, 233
246
INDEX
Greeks in United States, 183,
217
Greeley, Horace, 97
Guise, only successful Fourier-
istic colony, 102
Hacker, J. G., quoted, 183r34
(note)
Hadley, Poles in, 214-15
Hakluyt, Kichard, quoted, 4
Hamburg, German emigrants
embark at, 134
Hammonton (N. J.), Italian
colony at, 212
Harmonists, 72-77
Harmony, town established, 73
Harmony Society, 73
Harvard College, 8
Hatchet Men, 193
Haverstraw (N. Y.), commu-
nistic attempt at, 96
Havre, German emigrants em-
bark at, 134
Hayes, R. B., vetoes amend-
ment to Burlingame treaty,
197; appoints commission
to negotiate new treaty with
China, 198
Hessians, settle in America,
129; Giessener Gesellschaft,
136
Heynemann, Barbara, leader
of Inspirationists, 81, 82
Highbinders, 193
Hindoos in United States, 207
Holland, French Protestants
flee to, 15; Spanish and Por-
tuguese Jews find refuge in,
16-17; Inspirationists, 80
Holland (Mich.), center of
Dutch influence, 153
Homestead Law (1862), 148
"Hooks and Eyes," nickname
for Amish, 68 (note)
Houston (Tex.). Italians in,
211
Hudson Valley, Dutch in, 17
Huguenots in Manhattan, 17;
see also French
Hungarians, see Jews, Magyars
Hungary, Mennonites in, 89
Hutter, Jacob, Mennonite
martyr, 89
I. W. W., see Industrial Work-
ers of the World
Icaria, 97-101
Icaria-Speranxa community,
101
Idaho, Japanese in, 204
Illinois, admitted as State
(1818), 33; frontiersmen in,
36; " Underground Railway"
in, 54; negroes in, 62; Bishop
Hill Colony, 85-89; Swedish
immigration, 91; Icarians in,
99-100; Germans in, 134,
137; Norwegians, 155; Scan-
dinavians in, 156; Poles in,
160, 167, 213; Slovenians in,
173; racial changes in coal
regions of, 219
Immigration (1790-1820), 32;
legislation, 201, 207, 222 et
seq.'y present opportunities,
208-10; Lincoln on, 222;
only attempt of Federal
Government to encourage,
222-23; state regulation,
224-25; bibliography, 235-
236 ; see also names of peoples
Immigration Commission,
created, 230; and Japanese,
204
Independence (La.), Italians
in, 211
Indiana, admitted as State
(1816), 33; western migra-
tion through, 36; "Under-
ground Railway" in, 54;
negroes in, 62; New Har-
mony, 74-75, 94-96; Ger-
mans in, 134; Scotch and
English in, 151; Italian farm-
ers in, 212; Poles in, 213;
racial changes in coal regions,
219
1^ Indianapolis. Bulgarians in, 1 70
INDEX
247
Indians real Americans, 22
Indians, East, in America, 207
Industrial Commission, on Pol-
ish immigrants, 167; report
on immigration, 228
Industrial Workers of the
World, Finns in, 160
Inspirationists, 80-84
Iowa, frontiersmen in, 36; In-
spirationists in, 82-84; Ica-
rians in, 101; Germans in,
134, 141; Slavs in, 213
Irish, in America, 6, 103 et seq.;
half population of Ireland
emigrates to America, 104;
reasons for emigration, 105-
107; in Continental Army,
108; pauperimmigrantsfrom,
110; travel conditions for
immigrants, 111-12; present
immigration, 121; economic
advance in America, 122-23;
contrasted with Germans,
124; number of immigrants
(1820-1910), 150; in New
England mills, 215; in Law-
rence (Mass.)? 216; in Johns-
town (Penn.), 216; in Gran-
ite City (111.), 217; in coal
mines of Pennsylvania, 218
Irish Republican Brotherhood,
119
Isaacks, Isaac, 30
Italians, in South, 65, 210-11;
as laborers, .122; in United
States, 180-83; on poor land,
210; in New England mills,
215; in Pennsylvania, 216,
217, 218
Jahn, F. L., organizes Turn-
vereine, 131
James, Henry, on foreigners in
Boston, 162-63
Jansen, Olaf, 88, 89
Janson, Eric, 85-87, 89
Jansonists, 85-89, 90
Japan, agreement with (1907),
205-06
Japanese, in United States, 203-
207; hostility toward, 205-
207; order of exclusion from
United States, 206
Jay, John, 16
Jews, in America, 16-17, 176-
180 ; S p a n i s h-Portuguese,
177; German, 177; Austrian,
178; Hungarian, 178; Rus-
sian, 178-79
Johnstown^ (Penn.), racial
changes in, 216
Joliet (111.), Slovenians in, 172
Kansas, Germans in, 141 ; Scan-
dinavians in, 156; Slavs in,
213
Kapp, Frederick, 129, 140
Kaskaskia, French settle, 152
Kearney, Dennis, 193
Kelpius, Johann, leader of
Pietists, 69
Kendal (O.), communistic at-
tempt at, 96
Kentucky, not represented in
First Census, 25; admitted as
State (1792), 33; pioneers
leave, 36
Kidnaping, labor brought to
America by, 8
" Know- Nothing" party, 114,
221
Kotzebue, German publicist,
131
Kruszka, Rev. W. X., esti-
mates number of Poles, in
United States, 167 (note)
Ku Klux Klan, 58
Labadists, 68-69
Labor, kidnaping of, 8; inden-
tured service, 9-10; Scotch
political prisoners sold into
service, 12-13; negro, 60-63;
Irish displaced by other na-
tionalities, 121-22; Italian,
181; Chinese, 190-91; at-
titude toward Chinese, 193,
194; treaty limiting Chinese,
248
INDEX
Labor — Continued
198; bill to prohibit immigra-
tion of Chinese, 199; Scott
Act, 201; Japanese, 204;
racial changes in, 216-17;
law to aid importation of
contract labor, 222; contract
labor excluded, 225
Lafayette, Marquis de, visits
Gallipolis, 152
Land, immigrants on the, 147
et seg.; immigrants on aban-
doned or rejected land, 208-
214
Laurens, Henry, 16
Lawrence (Mass.), racial
changes in, 215-16
Lee, Ann, founder of Shakers,
91, 92
Legislation, negro, 59-60; Chi-
nese immigration, 199-200,
201-03; California Alien
Land Act, 206-07; immigra-
tion, 222 et seq.
Lehigh River, Moravian com-
munity on, 72
Lehman, Peter, 72
Lesueur, C. A., 95
Levant, immigrants from the,
184
Limestone Ridge, Battle of,
120
Lincoln, Abraham, father a
pioneer, 36; message to Con-
gress Dec. 8, 1863, 222
Literacy test for immigrants, in
Lodge bill, 227; rejected in
law of 1903, 228-29; execu-
tive disapproval of, 231; bill
passes over veto (1917), 232;
provisions of act, 232
Lithuanians in United States,
174-75
Liverpool, Irish immigrants at,
111, 112 (note)
Lockwood, G. B., The New
Harmony Movement, cited,
96 (note)
Lodge, H. C, The Distribution
of Ability in the United States,
39-41, 43; immigration bill,
227
Logan, James, Secretary of
Province of Pennsylvania,
on Scotch-Irish, 11-12
London, German emigrants
embark at, 134
Los Angeles, anti-Chinese riots,
191
Louis Philippe visits Galli-
polis, 152
Louisiana, admitted as State
(1812), 33; American migra-
tion to, 34; Icarians in, 99;
Italians in, 211
Louisiana Purchase (1803), 147
McCall, of Massachusetts, in-
troduces Lodge bill in House,
227
McCarthy, Justin, quoted,
106; cited, 107
Macedonia, Bulgarians from,
170
McGee, T. D'A., leader of
" Young Ireland" party, 120-
121
Maclure, William, "Father of
American Geology," 94-95
Macluria (Ind.), communistic
attempt, 96
McMaster, J. B., History of the
People of the United States,
quoted, 152
McParlan, James, 118
Macy, Jesse, The Anti-Slavery
Crusade, cited, 54 (note)
Madison, James, on population
of New England, 34
Madison (111.), racial changes
in, 217
Magyars, distinct race, 174;
in United States, 175-76; in
Granite City (111.), 217
Maine, Shakers in, 91
Mainzer Adelsverein, 136
Manchester (England), Shak-
ers originate in, 91
INDEX
U9
Manhattan, Jewish synagogue
in (1691), 16; Dutch in, 17;
cosmopolitan character, 17;
Norwegian Quakers land on,
155; see also New York City
Marion, Francis, 16
Marx, Karl, 179
Maryland, English settle, 5-6;
recruits schoolmasters from
criminals, 9; Scotch-Irish in,
11, 12; Scotch in, 12; Irish
in, 13; Germans in, 127;
Poles in, 213
Massachusetts, French in, 15;
Shakers in, 91; Brook Farm,
97
Mather, Cotton, on Scotch-
Irish, 11
Mayer, Brantz, Captain Canot:
or Twenty Years in a Slaver,
quoted, 48
Meade, General, against Fe-
nians, 120
Mennonites, 13, 68 (note)
Mercury, New York, quoted,
108
Metz, Christian, leader of In-
spirationists, 81, 82
Mexican War extends United
States territory. 33, 148
Mexicans, feeling against, in
California, 190
Michigan, admitted as State
(1837), 33; Germans in, 134;
Scotch and English in, 151;
Dutch in, 153; Scandinavi-
ans in, 156; farms for sale in,
209; Slavs in, 212; racial
changes in ore regions of, 219
Mikkelsen, quoted, 90-91
Milwaukee, ' ' the German
Athens," 135; Poles in, 167
(note)
Minnesota, frontiersmen in,
36; Scandinavians in, 157;
"Scandinavian language" in
university, 158-59; Slavs in,
212; racial changes in ore
regions of, 219
Mississippi, admitted as State
(1817), S3; American migra-
tion to, 34; Dalmatians in,
171
Mississippi River, French on,
18
Mississippi Valley, fugitive
slaves in, 54; Irish in, 108;
German influence, 135;
French in, 152; Bohemians
in, 159
Missouri, admitted as State
(1821), S3; frontiersmen in,
36; Germans in, 134; Gies-
sener Gesellschaft in, 136
Mohawk Valley, Germans in,
127
Molly Maguires, society among
anthracite coal miners, 117-
118
Monroe, James, and Owen, 94
Montenegrins, as South Slavs,
164; in United States, 171
Moravians. 13, 17, 72, 165
More, Sir Thomas, Utopia, 98
Mormons, 87
Mount Lebanon, Shaker com-
munity, 91
Mount Vernon, nationalities
represented on July 4, 1918,
at, 233
Names, disappearance of, 24-
25 (note); modifications, 30
Nantes, Edict of, revocation of,
15
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People, 63
National Civil Federation calls
immigration conference
(1905), 229
Nauvoo (111.). Icarians at, 99-
100, 101
Navigation Laws, 106
Nebraska, Germans in, 141;
Scandinavians in, 156; Bo-
hemians in, 150; Slavs in,
213
250
INDEX
Neef, Joseph, 95
Negroes, 45 et seq.; identified
with America, 45; most dis-
tinctly foreign element, 46;
tribes represented among
slaves, 49; mutual benefit or-
ganizations, 51-52, 63; popu-
lation (I860), 56; education,
57; religion, 57; as farmers,
59-60; advance, 64; char-
acteristics shown by neg-
lected gardens, 64-65; bib-
liography, 236-37; see also
Africans, Slavery, Slave
trade
Nevada, vote for Garfield
(1880), 197 (note)
New Amsterdam, Jews come to,
16
New Bedford, Portuguese in,
184
New Bern, Germans in, 127
New England, English settle,
6-6; dissenters found, 8;
Scotch-Irish leave, 11; Dutch
and, 17; Madison on popu-
lation of, 34; slavery, 51;
" Underground Railway'* in,
54; capital in slave trade, 56;
Montenegrins and Serbians
in, 171; Portuguese in, 184;
abandoned farms, 209; Poles
in, 213; Slavs in, 214; racial
changes in mills, 215-16
New Era founded by McGee,
121 (note)
New Hampshire, Shakers in,
91
New Harmony (Ind.), Rapp's
colony, 74-75; sold to Robert
Owen, 75; Owen's colony,
94-96
New Jersey, English settle, 5;
not represented in first cen-
sus, 25; census computations
for 1790, 28-29; Germans in,
127; racial changes in manu-
facturing towns, 216
New Netherland, 17
New Orleans, Spain acquires,
18; Icarians in, 99; Irish in,
113; Dalmatians in, 171;
Italians in, 180,211
New York (State), Germans in,
14; French in, 15; Jews in,
16; western part settled, 33;
migration through, 36; slav-
ery, 50-51; "Underground
Railway" in, 54; and slave
trade, 56; negroes in, 62;
Shakers in, 91; Scotch and
English in, 151; Norwegians
in, 155; Poles in, 167; Rus-
sians in, 169; Italian farmers,
212; racial changes in manu-
facturing towns, 216; State
relief for immigrants, 224
New York City, French in, 16;
cosmopolitanism, 18-19;
Irish in, 108, 109, 113; Tam-
many Hall, 116; Germans in,
127; Poles in, 167 (note);
Croatiansin, 172; Hungarian
Jews, 178; Russian Jews, 179;
Italians, 180; see also Man-
hattan
New York Nation, McGee es-
tablishes, 120 (note)
New Zealand, deflects migra-
tion to United States, 150
Newfoundland, Irish come
through, 109
Newspapers, German, 139, 142-
144; Scandinavian, 158; Slo-
vak, 169
"Niagara Movement," 63
Norsemen, see Scandinavians
North, colonies settled by
townfolk, 7-8; negroes in,
55; negro laborers, 62
North Carolina, Germans in,
127
Northwest, Scandinavians in,
156; see also names of States
Northwest Territory, slavery
forbidden in, 51
Norwegians, number in Amer-
ica, 154; character, 154;
INDEX
251
Norwegians — Continued
lead Scandinavian migra-
tion, 155; see also Scandi-
navians
Noyes, J. H., 92, 93
Oberholtzer, History of the
United States since the Civil
War, cited, 120 (note), 148
(note), 149 (note)
Ohio, admitted as State (1802),
S3; western migration
' through, 36; "Underground
Railway" in, 64; negroes in,
62; Zoar colony, 78-80; Ger-
mans in, 134; Scotch and
English in, 151; French in,
151-52; Swiss in, 153; Sloven-
ians in, 173; Italian farmers,
212; Poles in, 213; racial
changes in coal regions of,
219
Ohio River, French on, 18
Oklahoma, Bohemians in, 159;
Slavs in 213
Old Elmspring Community, 89
Olsen, Jonas, 87, 88
Omaha, Italians in, 180
Oneida Community, 92-93
Orange County (N. Y.), Polish
settlement, 213
Ordinance of 1787, 51
Oregon, acquisition of (1846),
33, 147; Scandinavians in,
156; Japanese in, 203
Orientals, 188 et seq.; see also
Chinese, Indians, East, Jap-
anese
Otis, General, 202
Owen, Robert, 75, 98-96, 98
Ozark Mountains, Italians in,
211
Palatinate, peasants come to
America from, 14
Penn, William, 71
Pennsylvania, English settle,
5; Scotch-Irish in, 11-12;
Welsh in, 13; Germans in.
13, 14, 126-27; Dutch in, 14;
Jews in, 17; cosmopolitan
character, 19; western part
settled, 33; slavery, 61;
negroes in, 62; Dunkards in,
70; Poles in, 167; Russians
in, 169; Croatians in, 172;
Slovenians in, 173; Lithua-
nians in, 175; Italian farm-
ers, 212; landward movement
of Slavs in, 213-14; racial
changes, 216, 218-19 ^
Pennsylvania Philosophical So-
ciety, Pietists' astrological
instruments in collection of,
70
Petrosino, Lieutenant Joseph,
murdered, 231
Peysel, see Beissel
Philadelphia, Welsh near, 13;
cosmopolitan character, 18;
negroes arrested, 61; Ephra-
ta draws pupils from, 71;
Irish immigrant association,
109; Irish in, 113; Italians in,
180
Philippines, Chinese exclusion,
202
Pietists, 69-70
Pine Lake (Wis.)» Swedish col-
ony, 155
Pittsburgh, **Boat Load of
Knowledge'* from, 94
Poles, in America, 160, 167-69,
213, 214-15, 217; as North
Slavs, 164^
Politics, foreigners in, 42; Irish
in, 116, 117; Germans in, 139,
144; Bohemians in, 166;
Chinese as issue, 193; selec-
tive immigration as issue
(1892), 226-27
Population, increase in, 32;
see also Census
Portland, Italians in, 180
Portuguese in United States,
184
Prairie du Rocher, French
settlement, 162
252
INDEX
Presbyterians, Scotch-Irish, 10
Presidents of United States
from American stock, 42
Price, J. C, negro orator, 64
Quakers, Norwegian, 155
Rafinesque, C. S., 95
Railroads, Chinese laborers on,
190
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 5
Rapp, F. R., adopted son of
Father Rapp, 75-76
Rapp, J. G., founder of Har-
monists, 73; " Father Rapp,"
74; at Harmony, 73-74; at
New Harmony, 74-75; at
Economy, 75-77
Reconstruction after Civil War,
57-59
Red Bank (N. J.), communis-
tic colony at, 97
Reed, of Missouri, wishes to ex-
clude African immigrants,
232
Republican party on immigra-
tion restriction, 226
Restoration (sloop), 155
r.evere, Paul, 16
Revolutionary War, Irish in,
108; Germans and, 127
Rhode Island, French in, 15;
Jews in, 17
Rock Springs (Wyo.), anti-
Chinese riot, 200
Roosevelt, Theodore, confer-
ence with delegation from
California, 205; on restric-
tion of immigration, 229-SO
Root, John, 86-87
Ross, E. A., The Old World in
the New, cited, 163 (note)
Rumania, Mennonites in, 89
Rush, Benjamin, Manners of
the German Inhabitants of
Pennsylvania, 127-29
Russia, Mennonites in, 89
Russians, as North Slavs, 164;
in United States, 169-70
Ruthenians (Ukranians), as
North Slavs, 164; in United
States, 169
St. Lawrence River, French on,
18
St. Louis, Cabet in, 100; Irish
in, 113; Germans in, 135;
Hungarian Jews in, 178;
Italians in, 180
St. Patrick's Day, observed in
Boston (1737), 108; in New
York City (1762), 108;
(1776), 108; (1784), 109
San Antonio, Italians in, 211
San Francisco, anti-Chinese at-
titude, 193, 194, 200; Japa-
nese excluded from public
schools, 205
Savannah, Germans in, 127
Say, Thomas, "Father of
American Zoology," 95
Scandinavians in United States,
85, 153-59, 185
Schleswig-Holstein, Danes emi-
grate from, 156
Schluter, see Sluyter
Schmitz, Mayor of San Fran-
cisco, 205
Schurz, Carl, 139
Scioto Land Company (Com-
panie du Scioto), 151-52
Scotch, in America, 6, 12-13;
in Manhattan, 17; immi-
grants, 110, 150; on the land,
151; in coal mines of Penn-
sylvania, 218
Scotch-Irish, in America, 6,
10, 11; in Pennsylvania,
11-12, 12 (note); names,
30-31
Seattle, Bulgarians in, 170;
anti-Chinese feeling, 200
Seneca Indians Reservation, In-
spirationists purchase (1841),
81
Serbians, as South Slavs, 164;
in United States, 171, 217
Seward, W. H., Secretary of
INDEX
S53
Seward, W. H. — Continued
State, treaty with China
(1868), 195-96
Shaker Compendium quoted, 91
Shakers, 91-92
Shaw, Albert, Icaria, A Chapter
in the History of Commu-
nism, quoted, 100
Siberia, Russian immigrants
to, 170 (note)
Sicilians, 182; see also Italians
Silkville (Kan.), French com-
munistic colony in, 102
Six Companies, Chinese organ-
ization. 192, 193
Slavery, as recognized institu-
tion, 9, 50; Channing on,
46-47; protests against, 51;
influence of cotton demand
on, 52-53; fugitive slaves,
54-55; condition when eman-
cipated, 56-57; Germans
against, 139; see also Ne-
groes, Slave trade
Slave trade, beginning of, 47;
capture and transportation
of slaves, 47-50; law pro-
hibiting, 55; effect of cotton
demand on, 55-56
Slavonians on Pacific slope, 213
Slavs, use of term, 164; on
poor land, 210; colonies, 212-
213; in New England mills,
214, 215; in Pennsylvania,
216, 217, 218; see also Bo-
hemians, Bulgarians, Croa-
tians, Dalmatians, Monte-
negrins, Poles, Russians,
Ruthenians, Serbians, Slo-
vaks, Slovenians
Slovaks, as North Slavs, 164;
in United States, 168-69,
216, 217; see also Slavs
Slovenians, as South Slavs,
164; "Griners," 172; see
also Slavs
Sluyter, Peter (or Schluter),
(Vorstmann), leader of Laba-
dists, 68
Snow Hill (Penn.). community,
72
Society of United Irishmen,
109
South, plantationslure English,
7; Scotch-Irish in, 12; cot-
ton production, 52-53; Re-
construction, 67-59; opposes
liberal land laws, 148; im-
migrants in cut-over timber
regions, ^ 208; opportunities
for immigrants in, 210
South Carolina, French in, 15;
slave laws, 50; insurrection
(1822), 53; Germans in, 127
South Dakota, Old Elmspring
Community, 89
Spain, England's victory over,
2; France cedes New Or-
leans to, 18
Spanish- Americans in Cali-
fornia, 190
Standard Oil Company builds
Whiting (Ind.), 217
Steiner, E. A.. On the Trail of
the Immigrant, quoted, 166,
178-79
Stephens, James, 119
Sullivan, General John, order
of March 17, 1776, 108
Sunnyside (Ark.)» Italians es-
tablish (1895). 211
Supreme Court, Chief Justices
from American stock, 42;
upholds communal contract,
73; upholds exclusion, 200;
on state regulation of im-
migration, 225
Swedes, in America, 85, 154,
155-56; "Frenchmen of the
North," 154; see also Scan-
dinavians
Switzerland, Inspirationists
from, 80; immigration from,
104; number of immigrants,
153
Syrians, as laborers, 122; in
United States, 184; in Johns-
town (Penn.), 21«
S54
INDEX
Tacoma, anti-Chinese feeling,
200
Taft, W. H. vetoes literacy
test provision (1913), 231
Tammany Hall, 116
Tennessee, not represented in
First Census, 25; admitted
as State (1796), 33; pioneers
leave, 86
Texas, added to United States,
S3; Icarians in, 99; Fourier-
istic community in, 101-02;
Mainzer Adelsverein in, 136;
Bohemians in, 159; Poles in,
160, 167; Italian colonies,
211; Slavs in, 213
Thompson, Holland, The New
South, cited, 60 (note)
Tillinghast, The Negro in Afri-
ca, quoted, 49
Tokyo, anti-American feeling,
207
Tone, Wolfe, portrait on Fe-
nian bonds by, 119
Transportation, development
of, 149
Tribune, New York, Brisbane
and, 97
Troost, Gerard, 95
Turks in United States, 184
Turnvereine, 131, 137
Tuskegee Institute, 63
Ukranians, see Ruthenians
Ulster, Scotch in, 10
Ulstermen, see Scotch-Irish
"Underground Railway," 54
United States, now called
America, 22; population at
close of Revolution, 23;
American stock, 23; census
(1790), 24; names changed
or disappeared, 24-25 (note) ;
population (1820), 82; Irish
population, 105; expansion,
147-48; nation of immi-
grants, 233; see also America
United States Steel Corporation
builds Gary (Ind.), 216-17
Unonius, Gustavus, 155
Utopias in America, 66 et seq.;
bibliography, 238-39
Vermont, slaves emancipated,
51
Vespucci, Amerigo, claim of
discovery recognized, 21
Vineland (N. J.), Italian colony
at, 212
Virginia, English occupation
(1607), 1; English in, 5;
protests receiving criminals,
9; Scotch-Irish in, 11, 12;
French in, 15; slavery, 47,
50; insurrection (1831), 53-
54; Irish in, 105; Germans in,
127; racial changes in coal
regions of, 219
Vorstmann, see Sluyter
Waldenses in Manhattan, 17
WaldseemUller, Martin, and
name America, 21
Ward's Island, hospitals for
immigrants on, 224
Ware, Poles in, 214
Washington, Booker T., 63
Washington, George, on name
America, 21; on spread of
native population, 34; order
of March 17, 1776, 108
Washington (State), Scandi-
navians in, 156; Japanese in,
203, 204
Washington (D. C.) Owen lec-
tures at, 94; anti- Japanese
demonstration at, 207
Welsh, in United States, 6,
150, 151, 216, 217, 218
West, Far, Germans in, 142;
draws homeseekers, 147; and
land laws, 14t8; see also names
of States
West Indies, French in, 18;
negro slavery, 47; Irish
transported to, 105; Irish
come through, 109
INDEX
255
I
West, Middle, racial changes in,
216; see also names of States
West Virginia, Croatians in,
172;racialchangesin, 216,219
Westfield, Poles in, 214
Whiting (Ind.)» foreigners in,
217
Whitney, Eli, cotton gin, 52
Wilcox, W. F., quoted, 62-63
Wilmington, Germans in, 127
Wilson, Woodrow, and anti-
Japanese feeling, 206; on
literacy test, 231
Windber(Penn.), racial changes
in, 219
Winthrop, John, on immigra-
tion of Scotch-Irish, 11
Wisconsin, frontiersmen in, 36;
''Underground Railway" in,
54; Fourieristic colony in,
97; Germans in, 134. 137;
Swiss in, 153; Scandinavians
in, 156; Poles in, 160, 167;
farms available in, 209;
Slavs in, 212
Worcester, Poles in, 214
Workingmen's party, 193
Wright, Fanny, 95
Wyoming, and Chinese in-
demnity claim, 201
Yazoo Delta, Italians in, 211
Yellow Springs (O.), commu-
nistic attempt, 96
Young, Brigham, 87
"Young Ireland" party, 120
Zimmermann, J. J., founder of
Pietists, 69
Zinzendorf, Count, 72
Zoar, colony at, 78-80; Amana
gains members from, 83
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