Part 15

A continent was occupied and the territory of the Union was swept westward to the Pacific. The forests were cut down and the wild life destroyed. The Indians were evicted. The mineral wealth of the western mountains was ransacked. The coal was exploited, and the once fertile soil of the Southern States greatly depleted through the reckless growing of tobacco and cotton. Waste was the order of the day in America.

All this was perhaps inevitable, but never since Cæsar plundered Gaul has so large a territory been sacked in so short a time. Probably no more destructive human being has ever appeared on the world stage than the American pioneer with his axe and his rifle.

In 1860, at the end of this period, we find the essential elements of national unity still unchanged, but we were about to engage in a fratricidal war, which was to destroy the best blood of the nation. We had admitted large numbers of Irish and German immigrants who impaired, in the case of the Irish, our religious system and introduced certain undesirable racial elements. The Germans who came were largely Protestants and only temporarily disturbed our unity by clinging to their foreign language. Both of these elements, however, were pre-dominantly Nordic, and it was not until the next and final period that the unassimilable Alpines and Mediterraneans came here from southern and eastern Europe. The tragedy of the Civil War and the introduction of cheap labor were still to come, so that in 1860 the United States was at its high-water mark of national unity.

The Indians had been ruthlessly swept aside, as was unavoidable because a few hunting tribes could not be allowed to possess a continent, but the Negro question could have been postponed, and the men who died needlessly on Southern battle-fields could have been used to populate the States of the Far West.

In the next chapter we shall study the swamping of this American civilization, which reached its zenith in 1860.

XII

THE ALIEN INVASION

The period 1860-1930, with which we are now dealing, is characterized by the end of free public land in the West about 1880. It is also marked by the great development of industries in the North and East, which created a demand for cheap labor, and attracted a mass immigration of non-British and non-Nordic workmen from southern and eastern Europe. This immigration for the most part went to the cities and industrial districts.

The Southern States, which had not entered upon an industrial expansion before the Civil War, did not welcome immigrants of the low-grade factory type, hence the South has remained characteristically American. One of the strange results of the Civil War has been that while the victorious North sold its birthright of culture, religion, and racial purity for a mess of industrial pottage, the South, though defeated and impoverished, retained its racial inheritance unimpaired.

Some of the earlier immigrants in this period sought the lands in the West, while they were still to be had. The land hunger having carried most of the energetic, ambitious, and able Nordic immigrants westward, the industrial expansion of New England, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and of some of the adjacent States resulted in an unfilled demand for low-grade factory labor in the East. This demand was quickly recognized by the steamship companies, which began scouring Europe for immigrants to transport to America.

The most fertile recruiting ground for this type of humanity was in South Europe, Italy, the Balkan countries, and the provinces of the then Austrian Empire and Russia. Inducements were offered potential immigrants to come to America. There was no discrimination as to type or quality. Many criminals were rounded up, especially in southern Italy and Sicily, with the connivance if not the actual initiative of their governments.

As to the ratio of criminals to the native American population, some interesting figures have been compiled through a first-hand survey of 242 State and federal prisons in the United States during 1931-32. Most of the criminals referred to were committed for serious offenses. The criminals from northwestern Europe were well under (sometimes only one-quarter) their ratio to the general population. South Europe and eastern Europe were very much higher. The Filipinos were over twice as many as the proper allowance, native-born Negroes were two-and three-quarters above their allowance and the Mexicans were six and one-half times as many as their ratio to the general population would entitle them to be.

It was in this period that the Polish Jews began their tumultuous and frantic invasion, a flood which only recently has been checked, and that with the greatest difficulty. The great mass of immigrants from South Poland, Galicia, and Russia were Ashkanazim Jews, descendants in part of Alpine Khozars, with a Mongol admixture, who entered the eastern Ukraine from Asia in the early centuries of our era. Many of the Khozars and their Khan were converted by Jewish missionaries and they formally accepted Judaism in 740 A.D. It is doubtful whether there is a single drop of the old Palestinian, Semitic-speaking Hebrew blood among these East European Jews. They are essentially a non-European people. The language they speak, Jüdisch, or Yiddish, is a corrupt German of the Franconian dialect mixed with Slavic and Hebrew elements, which fact strengthens the tradition of a large migration of German Jews into Poland in the Middle Ages. It may be that the strain of these German Jews has died out, leaving only their language behind, but in any event the Polish Jews are now distinctly Alpine--a mixture of Slavs and of Asiatic invaders of Russia.

Exact figures of Jewish immigration are not obtainable until 1899, when this group was listed separately. Prior to that year probably 500,000 Jews had arrived; after that date nearly 2,000,000. From the beginning of this century the Jews made up 10 per cent of the total immigration into this country, and there are now more than 4,000,000 of them here, half of the number being in New York City. This is more than one-fifth of the Jews of the world.

Because they speak Yiddish, they are often colloquially referred to as "German Jews." But, in fact, the number who come from Germany is small, and, as said, the great bulk of them are more properly described as "Polish Jews" and are much despised socially by the true German Jews. Many of them are from those parts of Poland which were held by Russia prior to the World War. Immigration figures show the last place of residence of Jewish arrivals, 1899-1924, to be as follows:

_Countries_ Russia and Poland 1,243,000 Austria-Hungary 260,000 Rumania 103,000 United Kingdom 73,000 Turkey 20,000 Germany 15,000 British North America 57,000 All other countries 67,000 --------- 1,838,000

Meanwhile the immigration from northern Europe declined, not only relatively but absolutely, and at the same time the native American, whose ancestry was pre-dominantly Nordic, began to be crowded to the wall. In certain sections of New England that progressive change soon became all too evident and has made them no longer American but foreign communities. The French Canadians, Irish, and Poles took over whole districts and occupied the abandoned farms. The Polish Jews, settling almost entirely in the larger cities, built up a Ghetto population similar in most respects to the congested urbanism of their homeland.

Americans were so obsessed with the idea of a "Refuge for the Oppressed" that they even welcomed the draining into our country of that morass of human misery found in the Polish Ghettos. When the objection arose that there were already 1,000,000 Jews in New York City, an effort was made to divert this migration into Texas, where the wide-open spaces were supposed to provide room for the 7,000,000 Polish Jews.

The German Jews, who also came into this country in smaller numbers at the end of the last century, were of the Alpine type, closely resembling those from Poland, Galicia, and Russia. All of these Jews are in sharp contrast to the Sephardim Jews, a superior group, largely Mediterranean in race, a very few of whom came from Holland to America in Colonial times. These latter had reached Spain by way of North Africa and later fled to Holland to escape the Inquisition.

The immigration from Scandinavia was entirely Nordic. Sweden is purely Nordic, and Norway and Denmark are overwhelmingly so. Lithuania and North Poland are also Nordic lands, as are the German provinces along the Baltic; but South Poland and Galicia are Alpine, as are the majority of the immigrants who come from South Germany. Those from the provinces of the former Austrian Empire are mostly Alpine, although a few Nordics came from the Tyrol.

The Balkans, Greece, Asia Minor, and Armenia sent over practically only Alpine immigrants. French-speaking Switzerland was originally Burgundian territory and contributed some very valuable Nordic racial elements to America. Those from German-speaking Switzerland were largely Alpine.

The period of the great European migration to the United States covered just a century. Prior to that time, since the founding of the Union, most of the immigration had been English and Scotch. Up to 1860, as will be recalled, this British character of the immigration continued, except for the beginning of the great stream of Germans who have been, next to the English, the largest single element in our population.

The early Germans in the United States were, as previously described, mostly Alpines from the upper Rhine--the Palatinate and Swabia. In the '40's the area of the German emigration spread. At first to the western states and provinces, which were much more Nordic in character (Hesse, the Rhineland, Westphalia, Thuringia). All this region had an easy outlet by the Rhine to the seaports; moreover emigration was stimulated by the result of revolutionary activities, which forced many to leave.

After transportation began to be improved by railways, the main currents of emigration began to flow from central and eastern Germany. Emigration reached its first crest in the southwest and west of Germany in the middle of the '50's, its second in Central Germany toward the end of that decade, its third in the eastern part of the empire in the '70's and '80's. This later emigration was, on the whole, more Nordic than the earlier stream.

After the World War, when business conditions in Germany brought about some years of active emigration with the United States as its main objective, the current of emigration shifted again to the northwestern and southwestern districts (the former Nordic, the latter mainly so) and away from the northeast, which was even more Nordic.

The Scandinavian immigration, another main source of the Nordic population of the United States, dates almost entirely from the period since the Civil War. The largest volume was between 1877 and 1898, when more than 1,000,000 arrived. One-fifth of the entire population of Norway and Sweden moved to the New World, nearly all of them seeking farms in the States of the upper Mississippi Valley. There has been also an active immigration from Scandinavia since the end of the World War. In general, the United States was the only destination which a Scandinavian emigrant considered. Of those who left the homeland, not one Swede in fifty directed his course elsewhere than to America. No other emigrant population has shown such a single-minded interest in the United States, though the Norwegians have not been far behind, with 96 per cent of their departures destined to the United States; and the Danes, with 88 per cent.

Arriving at New York or sometimes Quebec, the immigrants made their way to Chicago or Detroit, and thence were distributed to the States west of the Great Lakes. The Norwegian movement was the earlier, beginning with the southern and central counties of that kingdom and gradually working its way north until arrivals were giving as their birthplaces little towns far north of the Arctic Circle.

In a few decades Norwegians owned six times as much farming land in the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and the Dakotas (four-fifths of the immigration being found in the States named) as did all the farmers in the "Old Country." No nationality has sent such a small percentage of its people into the cities--one in five of the whole, as compared with a half of the Germans, and a still higher percentage of the Irish and Italians, who seek an urban life.

This tendency to agricultural life and to prompt and whole-hearted Americanism has made the great body of Scandinavian immigrants one of the most valuable that America has received.

Meanwhile there continued a steady immigration of English and Irish. The latter envenomed our political life up to the last few years, by introducing into the United States their old political and religious feuds with Great Britain, and endeavoring to involve this country in their plans for Irish freedom. As a consequence, the friendly relations which should exist between the two great Anglo-Saxon nations have been kept disturbed, and a systematic policy of twisting the lion's tail was pursued, not merely by the Fenian agitators, but by American demagogues anxious to cultivate the "Irish vote."

Prior to 1880 only 5 per cent of the immigration was from southern and eastern Europe. Between 1860 and 1880 less than 250,000 immigrants from eastern and southern Europe came over. Then came the rush, and between 1890 and 1910 more than 8,000,000 immigrants reached our shores from southern and eastern Europe.

A group not homogeneous with the old native American population is the Italian. It began arriving after 1870, but did not reach large proportions until after 1890. Then it soon became a flood. From 1900 until the World War cut down immigration, the Italians far outnumbered all other peoples arriving on our shores.

Northern Italy has furnished us some fine types of immigrants. They are mostly Alpine with a Nordic admixture. Southern Italy, that is, Naples and Sicily, sent us almost exclusively a Mediterranean stock, which formed the great mass of Italian immigration and was of extremely inferior type. They are derived to some extent from the slaves whom the Romans gathered along the coasts of the Mediterranean from Syria to Morocco and employed on their large estates or latifundia. Among them, however, are to be found remnants of the pre-Nordic Mediterranean population of Italy.

In earlier decades the emigration from Italy was mostly of North Italians, commonly spoken of as "Genoese," but mainly from the crowded Italian Riviera west of Genoa. These went to neighboring countries, particularly France, and to South America, few of them reaching the United States. When Italian mass emigration to this country began, it was from central and southern Italy and Sicily, who are of quite different racial stock from those of the more northerly districts.

The northern Italians are well thought of in the countries to which they have gone. The southern Italians seem to be far inferior in quality. While the country of their origin, Magna Græcia, two thousand five hundred years ago was the source of a large part of the world's progress in civilization, it is doubtful whether the reader can name a single man produced in that region during the last two thousand years, whose ability or eminence was such as to give him a worthy place in the world's history.

Add to this that the United States did not receive even the best of the southern Italian population, but in some instances rather the part that the local authorities were most happy to get rid of, and it is easy to understand how the Italian children in the American schools have shown themselves in almost every test to be a group apart, widely separated from every other white racial group and close to the Negro-Mulatto children in their ability.

Of the non-English-speaking peoples who have arrived in the United States during the last century, the 4,500,000 of Italians are outnumbered by only one group, namely, the nearly 6,000,000 Germans.

The Italians have been more inclined to return home than some others. In all the immigration, it has been observed that a considerable proportion of the immigrants stayed only temporarily, sometimes for a season of work, sometimes for a generation or until they had accumulated enough money to return to the "Old Country" and live on their investments. It is usually figured that the arrivals should be diminished by about one-third to give the net of permanent immigration. There are of course exceptions--thus it is relatively rare for a Jew who came to the United States to move out of the country later.

During the sixteen years, 1908-23, the total alien emigration from the United States was 35 per cent of the total alien immigration, and the differences between the racial groups in respect to this tendency were immense.[10]

This ebb and flow of migration is often overlooked. It is impossible to understand the population figures without bearing it in mind.

While the departure of so many unassimilable aliens is highly favorable, the fact that migratory cheap labor thus floats into and out of the country to compete with the native white, may of course have most serious effects socially and economically on the older stock. Fortunately, this has now been stopped by suitable restrictions.

Taking a long view over the whole history of immigration into the United States in the century and a half before 1930 one sees that approximately half of the total was from the countries of northern and western Europe, which are largely and some distinctly Nordic in population, and which sent us people who, in most cases, were easily assimilated by the Native Americans. Most of these came in during the first century of the Republic's life, as pointed out above.

After 1890 the tide turned strongly to southern and eastern Europe, the countries of which in 1913 (the last year of unrestricted immigration) sent 85 per cent of the total as against 15 per cent from northern and western Europe. The main contributors to this later stream, often called the "new immigration" as distinct from the "old immigration" were, in order of importance, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and the Russian Empire.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: The Chinese stood at the head of the list, emigrants from here exceeding immigrants by 30 per cent--that is, none were coming in as permanent residents, because of legislative restrictions; and some of the earlier arrivals were going home to stay. In a number of groups the outflow was more than half of the inflow--Bulgarians, Serbians, Montenegrins, 89 per cent; Turkish, 86 per cent; Koreans, 73 per cent; Rumanians, 66 per cent; Magyars, 66 per cent; Italians (South), 60 per cent; Cubans, 58 per cent; Slovaks, 57 per cent; Russians, 52 per cent.

The lowest rate of re-migration was that of the Jews, 5 per cent. The Irish showed 11 per cent; Scotch and Welsh, 13 per cent; Armenians, 15 per cent; Dutch and Flemish, 18 per cent; Mexican, 19 per cent; English and French, 21 per cent; Scandinavian, 22 per cent; Syrian, 24 per cent; Lithuanian, 25 per cent; and Finnish, 29 per cent.]

XIII

THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICA

Under the impact of the "new immigration," most of it dating from the beginning of the present century, the complexion of the States which, as repeatedly shown, was almost wholly Nordic and Protestant, began to change rapidly. As concerned their native-born population, most of the States followed the rule, often mentioned in these pages, that a State is populated, in the first instance by its own increase, and secondly by movements from the States directly adjacent to it.

Maine, according to the 1930 census, with about one-tenth of the population of New England, is only five-eighths native stock, _i.e._, native white of native parents. These were mostly people born in Maine, with a few from surrounding States. Of its foreign stock, three-fourths were French Canadians.

New Hampshire presents a similar picture, with a slightly higher percentage of native Americans from nearby States.

Vermont's native population, aside from that portion born in the State itself, came from New Hampshire or Massachusetts and even more from New York. As in the two States previously mentioned, most of the foreign stock is from French Canada, and that which was not from Quebec is mostly Irish.

The Slavs and Italians have made little inroad in these three States.

Massachusetts in 1930 was more cosmopolitan, with 300,000 residents from other New England States and nearly 100,000 from New York. The old white stock, however, now makes up but one-third of the population of the Bay State. French Canadians, Irish, Italians, Poles, Russians, and Scandinavians, in the order named, have completely overwhelmed the native stock--even such a small country as Lithuania is represented in Massachusetts by more than 50,000 people.

Rhode Island's population, similarly, is now only one-third from the old stock. Its complexion is similar to that of Massachusetts. French Canadian Catholics control the government in many communities.

Connecticut, like Rhode Island, has about one-third old American stock. Here the Italians are the dominant element in number, with Irish, Slavs, and French Canadians almost equally numerous.

Thus New England, with its more than 8,000,000 population, has been virtually lost to the native Americans. Their birthrate in that area has long been far below the level necessary to prevent its dying out, and migration to the west is not now caused by the region's increase, as in Colonial times, but by an actual uprooting of families whose place is taken by others who in race, language, religion, culture, and institutions are quite out of harmony with American traditions.

A similar picture is observed when one turns to the 26,000,000 inhabitants of the Middle Atlantic States--the most populous, the wealthiest, and in many ways the most powerful section of the country.

The old stock makes up but one-third of New York's population. For its composition every State in the Union has been drawn on, with Pennsylvania and New Jersey furnishing the largest contingents. The State has well on to half a million Negroes--mostly in Manhattan, though the ratio of increase of Negroes in some of the other cities of the State vastly outstripped the ratio of increase of Whites between 1920 and 1930. Thus while the Whites of Buffalo increased 11 per cent in the decade, the Negroes increased 200 per cent; in Syracuse they increased twice, in Utica four times, in Rochester seven times, in Albany eight times, as fast as the whites--due, of course, to the migration of great numbers of mulattoes from the Southern States northward.

With its two million Jews, its million and a half Italians, its million Germans, and its three-quarters of a million each of Poles and Irish, together with substantial contingents from almost every other country on the map, the Empire State is scarcely able to meet the requirements of the Founders of the Republic, who, like Thomas Jefferson, feared above everything else the formation of an alien, urban proletariat as creating a condition under which a democratic form of government could not function successfully.

Three-eighths of New Jersey's population were still of the old native stock in 1930, though half of these were born in other States, particularly New York and Pennsylvania. The rest of the population was a heterogeneous mixture of half a million British (largely Irish), half a million southern Italians, a quarter of a million Poles, a somewhat larger number of Germans, and so on down the list.