Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Fort, Fortress Monroe, the great Hampton School, and Soldiers' Home, the shipyards at Newport News, and the Gosport Navy Yard. And boats specially equipped for tourists will be run to Jamestown Island, the Dismal Swamp, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. A thoughtful stranger from a distance, coming to eastern Virginia for the purpose of widening his knowledge and gaining inspiration from the past, will find more to uplift him, even if he never entered the exposition's doors, than he could have obtained from a close study of many an exposition that has been considered great.

HOTEL FACILITIES.

The exposition will continue seven months, from April 26 to November 30. It is claimed upon the folders issued by the exposition authorities that, on account of the attractiveness of the exposition and its superior location (being upon the sea and within twelve hours' ride of 21,000,000 people), the total attendance is expected to be not less than 10,000,000.

Should the attendance reach this enormous figure, the problem will be as to how the visitors may be entertained in the Hampton Roads cities. The authorities have been quite solicitous about this matter. Within the exposition grounds the exposition people have erected a gigantic building, a part of which will be a permanent structure, which is known as the Inside Inn. It will accommodate about 2000 people. The hotel facilities in the cities about Hampton Roads, always good, and in some cases luxurious, have been enormously increased within the past year. A large number of hotels and apartment houses, some permanent and some temporary, have been erected in the city of Norfolk and its suburbs; and just outside of the exposition grounds a number of other similar buildings have been erected. The many hotels and cottages that line the coast for twenty miles will be at the disposal of the visitors. It is estimated that good accommodations may be had for 150,000 or 200,000 people should so many be present at any one time during the progress of the exposition.

[graphic][merged small]

IN

BY WILLIAM S. ROSSITER.

(Chief Clerk, United States Census Office.)

arrived in the United States from the date of the adoption of the federal Constitution to and including 1900 approximates 19,500,000.* There have been three general periods of immigration: 1789 to 1820; 1821 to 1870; and 1871 to the present time. Prior to 1820 the arrivals are estimated to have amounted to but 250,000. Accurate immigration records began in 1820. From that year to 1840 the arrivals numbered 724,564, an annual average of only 37,128. The total, however, for the succeeding 30 years reached 6,500,000; for the half century, to 1870, the aggregate was 7,368,853. From 1870 to 1900 the arrivals numbered 11,746,368.

N the year 1907 the population of the United States is approximately 85,000,ooo, and the material resources of the nation, as nearly as can be estimated, are valued at $118,000,000,000. Little more than a century, our strenuous American century, has elapsed since the Constitution was adopted by 13 sparsely populated, poor, and more or less reluctant States; therefore, the unparalleled progress which has been made in this brief period cannot be regarded as entirely the result of normal conditions; with greater propriety it might be attributed to a forced, or hothouse, growth. The fathers were actuated by the loftiest motives when they proclaimed this republic an asylum for the oppressed of all nations, but this policy, although originating largely in sentiment, proved, as the years passed, to have an exceedingly practical side, for it provided a ready-made population at the expense of Europe. Under the guidance of a resourceful native population this resulted in phenomenally rapid progress. The United States pose, and political ideals. Prior to 1870, would be far from its present position among the nations had not millions of foreign-born men and women contributed their increment of humanity and wealth to the New World. Having thus frankly admitted at the outset the debt which is owed to the immigrant, the privilege should be ours to pause and wonder what would have happened if the founders of the republic had not established the policy of inviting the natives of other lands so generously to our shores.

Is there not, indeed, as much justification for an excursion into the might-have-beens of the nation as there is for an individual to wonder, as many a man frequently does, what would have happened and how he would have fared if he had stayed in his home town instead of drifting away? It is the purpose of this paper to dispose theoretically of the foreign-born, and to consider the statistics of the native American of native parentage, as far as the plain traveled path of federal census statistics permits.

IMMIGRATION FROM 1790 TO 1900.

According to conservative estimates, the aggregate number of immigrants who have

Immigration during the period from 1820 to 1870 materially affected the industrial growth of the nation, but the newcomers were not foreigners within the present-day meaning of the word. They were almost exclusively English, Scotch, Irish, and German, and thus were more or less allied to the existing American stock in race, religion, pur

therefore, existed practically no problems of assimilation, such as now confront the republic.†

Since every young and growing nation is entitled to and receives the addition of inhabitants born elsewhere (for increasing power always attracts the active, venturesome, and restless from older communities), the additions by immigration up to 1870 should be regarded as the just due of the young republic. They may be classed merely as belated arivals of the original settler stock, who were speedily and completely assimilated.

The third and last period is marked by different conditions. By 1870 knowledge of the possibilities in the New World for the individual had at length penetrated all Europe, and the tide of immigration to the United States from more distant or entirely unrelated nations rose as that from nations which had previously contributed most lib

* 19,365,221.-" Immigration," by P. F. Hall, p. 9.

"During this century down to 1875, as in the two which preceded it, there had been scarcely any immigration to this country except from kindred or allied races, and no other which was sufficiently

numerous to have produced any effect on the nation. a characteristics, or to be taken into account here."

-Hon. H. C. Lodge, U. S. Senate, 1896.

erally fell. Therefore, the immigrant, as we know him to-day, is the product of a recent or comparatively recent date, differing from the American in race, language, and ideals.

Since 1870 the federal census has analyzed with increasing detail the elements of the population. It is, therefore, possible to withdraw theoretically not only the persons of foreign birth living in the United States in 1900, but also the natives born of foreign parents. This analysis pursued as far as it is possible to proceed statistically leads to interesting results, for obviously by disposing of all foreigners and children of foreigners, those who remain not only are natives but are the children of natives (which presupposes residence, or parental residence, in the United States for at least twenty years). The population which remains after thus eliminating the foreign element is homogeneous and distinctly American, doubtless approximating in composition the population which actually existed prior to 1870.

IF THE FOREIGN-BORN WENT BACK.

In 1900 the total population consisted of 75,994,575, of which 65,653,299 were native-born, and 10,341,276 were foreign-born, a proportion of 86 per cent. and 14 per cent., respectively, or one foreigner to every six natives. Let us suppose that the mighty tide of immigration turns to emigration, and the ten and a half million foreign-born citizens of the United States, enumerated at the last census, return shipload by shipload to their native lands.

The population conditions of Europe would be materially affected by the advent of so many persons. Germany would receive 2,667,000; Ireland, 1,619.cco; Canada, 1,181,000; England and Wales, 936,000; Sweden, 573,000; and the remainder would be distributed in numbers varying from 100,000 to 500,000, among the other nations.

reinforcement upon the industrial and commercial activities of the Old World of course cannot be measured. Doubtless it would be very far-reaching, for most of the great multitude of foreign-born which would thus depart from America are active and useful.

Assuming that we have bidden farewell to our foreign-born fellow citizens, and have returned to our own reduced communities, we find ourselves a nation of native-born citizens, many of whom, however, are the sons and daughters of foreigners. The remaining population, and the proportion now lost, would be as follows:

[blocks in formation]

The exodus of the foreign-born would af fect most seriously the North Atlantic States and affect least the Southern and Southwestern States. In fact, the population of certain Northern States would be reduced much more than appears from the geographical grouping shown above. Rhode Island and Massachusetts would each lose about onethird of their population, and both Connecticut and New York would lose more than 25 per cent., while in the Northwest and Far West, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and California would sustain exceptionally heavy losses. On the other hand, the departures from States embraced in the South Atlantic and South Central groups would be insignificant in number,-less, in fact, than 600,000 people. Yet these two groups comprise fifteen States, two Territories, and the District of Columbia, and contributed about one-third of the total population of the United It should be remembered that the increase States at the last census. The proportion of in population in most European countries and foreign-born in the South varies from but in Canada was small during the last decade two-tenths of 1 per cent. in North Carolina of record. In Germany it was 14 per cent.; to about 7.9 per cent. in Maryland. Of all in Canada, England and Wales, Scotland, the distinctly Southern States, Texas has the and Norway it ranged between 10 and 12 largest proportion of foreigners, and, as a per cent. The accession of Americanized na- matter of fact, contributed about one-third of tives would result in the following propor- the total found in the two groups of States tions of increase: Germany, 5 per cent.; Ire- above mentioned. It is thus clear that the land, 36 per cent.; Norway, 15 per cent.; departure of the foreign element, although Canada, 22 per cent.; England and Wales, 3 seriously reducing the population of New per cent.; Sweden, 11 per cent.; and other England and that of a dozen other Northcountries in proportion. The effect of such ern and Western States, would leave a large,

[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed]

95 AND OVER

PROPORTION OF NATIVE-BORN POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1900.

prosperous, and growing section of the Union parents. practically untouched.

In short, the exodus of the foreign-born would set the population back in numbers to approximately the total reported for 1890,or about a decade. Yet it cannot be said that the reduction would be so serious anywhere as to completely destroy the usefulness of communities.

DEPARTURE OF NATIVE-BORN

PARENTAGE.

OF FOREIGN

It must be remembered that the line between the foreign-born, whom we have now dismissed, and the native-born of foreign parentage, is often very indistinct. The foreignborn citizen generally rears a larger family than the native, and his children are often, to all intents and purposes, as little identified with this country as the parents; yet in the preceding analysis the children of foreigners if born in this country necessarily fall into the native class, although we have returned the parents to their birthplaces. Under such native" is someconditions the Census term thing of a misnomer, and to reach the American,-genuine so far as his own birthplace and the birthplace of his parents can make him, it is necessary to discard the semi-foreign class also, the native-born of foreign

By this exclusion there would return to the countries in which their fathers were born an additional 15,646,017 persons.

Of this number 5,153,266 would return to Germany; 3,218,722 to Ireland; 1,495,509 to England and Wales; 953,203 to Sweden and Norway; and 1,296,693 to Canada, still further augmenting the population of those countries; so that the total per cent. of increase resulting from the accession of natives and their American-born children becomes 12.2, 52.0, 7.0, 20.2, and 31.6, respectively. Such generous addition to the population of the Old World doubtless would create in some instances over-population. Yet this theoretical process has merely returned the natives of those countries and their children, perhaps somewhat improved and thus better citizens because of their sojourn in America.

The population increase which would result from this theoretical transfer to Europe of her sons and daughters suggests that in this peaceful period of history immigration has taken the place of warfare. Instead of keeping down the surplus of inhabitants by constant war and revolution, as in the past, the continent disposes of them to America. Thus if in theory we return our foreign element to the place of origin, we have a pic

[blocks in formation]

EFFECT UPON THE POPULATION OF PRINCIPAL FOREIGN COUNTRIES PRODUCED BY THE RETURN OF NATIVES AND CHILDREN OF NATIVES FROM THE UNITED STATES.

[blocks in formation]

New England and her North Atlantic neighbors, and the North Central and Far Western States continue the principal sufferers. There are twenty-four States in which the population would shrink half or much more than half. North Dakota, indeed, would lose four-fifths of her inhabitants, and Wisconsin and Minnesota each approximately three-fourths. On the other hand the group of States generally known as "the South," exclusive of Louisiana and Texas, but including Kentucky and Tennessee, would remain practically unaffected. Of the total population which

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »