Part 17

After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, the country which is now South Dakota had a rush in 1876 and for some years following, much like that of Nevada and Montana during the Civil War and of California in 1849. This frequently does not result in a well-balanced permanent population, and the real settlement of South Dakota dates from the succeeding period when its prairie lands were taken up by wheat growers from the States of the upper Mississippi Valley. The wheat industry in Wisconsin gradually died during the decade of 1870-80, and many who found the ground unprofitable there moved farther west, as did others with similar motives from western New York and the States of the old Northwest Territory.

South Dakota has a slightly higher percentage of old Americans than its sister to the north; otherwise the two differ remarkably little in size, composition, and resources. In 1920, half of the inhabitants of North Dakota claimed South Dakota as a birthplace; while half of the inhabitants of South Dakota claimed North Dakota as theirs. Of all the forty-eight States, these two are unmistakably the Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Nebraska after the Civil War continued to attract mainly the old American pioneer class, but it also became a haven for several foreign groups. It is said to contain about one-eighth of all the Bohemians in the United States. The serious permanent settlement of the State began in the early '70's. Many discharged soldiers seeking to make a new start went West with their families. It was only a few years later that the foreign tide began to reach these prairies and thereafter the State attracted large fractions of the Bohemian, Scandinavian, and German immigrations. Like some of the other prairie States it also received many settlers who were listed as Russian because of their nationality, but who, in fact, were Germans whose ancestors had gone to Russia and failed to prosper there. Nebraska, therefore, though less than three-fourths native, is overwhelmingly Nordic.

Kansas is still four-fifths native and nine-tenths Nordic. It has received the same foreign contributions as Nebraska, but in much smaller quantities. At the same time it has continued to receive settlers from the Mississippi Valley, and even from Eastern States, such as New York and Pennsylvania.

On the whole, the prairie States have been notably successful in assimilating their immigrants and maintaining an American tradition. The newcomers were not segregated in slums but scattered on farms. It was almost a necessity for them to learn the speech and adopt the customs of their hosts. While some of the Scandinavians, as in Minnesota, have tried to have their children learn the language and preserve the traditions of the "old country," these have at least been Nordic traditions, and any feeling of aloofness or separateness is rapidly disappearing.

The mountain States date largely from the Civil War, when another of the country's waves of migration and settlement broke loose from its moorings and started westward.

The first great migration of the American stock began immediately after the Revolution, and resulted in the creation of Kentucky and Tennessee by the Southerners, the transformation of western New York by the New Englanders, and a mingling of these two streams as they crossed the Ohio River to open up the Northwest Territory.

The second great migration reached its crest with the panic of 1819. It completed the settlement of the Ohio Valley and of the States along the lower Mississippi and the Gulf.

The third great migration reached its height with the feverish land speculation promoted by Andrew Jackson's experiments in banking and broke with the collapse of the prosperity which Martin Van Buren inherited from his predecessor. It witnessed the settlement of the Mississippi Valley throughout almost its entire length; together with the Nordic absorption of Texas.

The fourth wave, slightly more diffuse, washed over the "great plains" and broke on the crests of the Rocky Mountains during the Civil War, though a heavy splash had meanwhile reached the Pacific Coast. It began with the settlement of Kansas, motivated in part by land hunger, but also by definite political calculations. Meanwhile the conquest of California, the discovery of gold there, the settlement of Oregon, and the Mormon appropriation of Utah, brought into existence an active traffic across the plains, which was the beginning of Nebraska's existence.

The Rocky Mountain States grew up in the first place out of this traffic, then by the mining discoveries within their limits, and the fact that there was a restless population on the Pacific Coast, ready to surge back eastward, together with a footloose population to the East ready to move into any part of the West.

This Eastern contingent received its impetus from the panic of 1857, when many men, bankrupt or dislocated, were prepared to make a new start. The mining activities in the Far West encouraged adventurers to try their hand at the gold pan, and the country was full of prospectors, some of them professional but mostly amateur. Men who had no jobs at home thought they might as well seek a fortune in this way; it would not cost them much to live, and they could at least see the country. A similar renaissance of prospecting and small-scale mining took place all over the mountains of the West when the depression of 1929 was well under way.

To this element was shortly added another composed of people getting away from the Civil War. Some of these were actual deserters from military service; others went West to escape the pressure of public opinion toward enlistment; others in the border States, ruined by the conflict or unwilling to cast their lot with either combatant, simply started in motion as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them.

The population of the mountain States varied remarkably from month to month, as the crowd moved from one reputed bonanza to another. The government at Washington showed itself unusually ready to set up new governments in that region, because it was on the whole of unquestioned Union loyalty and, if the South, at the close of the war, should be brought back into the Union on the old terms, as President Lincoln evidently planned, a dozen new senators from half as many new Western States could easily be secured, leaving the South in the minority and breaking that deadlock of almost half a century which had been the source of so many compromises and the occasion of so many conflicts.

Colorado, at that time a part of Kansas, was an almost unknown "Indian territory" when prospectors struck gold in the neighborhood of Denver in 1858 and 1859. The rush from Kansas and Nebraska, when the legend "Pike's Peak or Bust," lettered on the sides of emigrant wagons, became traditional, disclosed how little was known of the country. Pike's Peak, though not near the gold diggings, was the only place in Colorado of which most Americans had ever heard.

In 1861 there was enough population to justify territorial government. Statehood was not attained until 1876. From then on until the agricultural period, the history of Colorado was the history of its fluctuating mining camps. But by 1930 the State had reached a permanent basis and a population of more than a million, of which two-thirds was native and the other third a heterogeneous lot, partly Nordic but containing strong Slav, Italian, and Mexican elements. So far as the native American population was concerned, its geographical origin still represented a fan spreading out from Pike's Peak until it reached the Atlantic Ocean. In large or small proportions, emigrants from most of the older States had converged on the Rockies.

Wyoming, first explored by trappers and fur traders, became important because it was traversed by the Oregon Trail; but it was merely a place to pass through, until the arrival of the Union Pacific Railway and the discovery of gold in the same year (1867) gave it a life of its own. Nearly 6000 persons spent the following winter in Cheyenne--a cosmopolitan crowd of adventurers and speculators. After its organization as a territory in 1859, agriculture had begun, stock raising became important, there were local gold rushes, and the region slowly developed until admitted to the Union in 1890.

Wyoming's population, smaller than that of any other State with the single exception of Nevada, is less than two-thirds native stock, and this represents a blend from all parts of the United States. Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, have all contributed more inhabitants than either of its neighbors, Colorado and Utah. In these mountain States the general rule that a State is settled by its neighbors, quite breaks down. Its foreign stock is equally mixed; while much is Nordic the State has also attracted its quota of Slavs and Italians, and even of Mexicans.

Idaho, after small Mormon settlements of farmers, owed most of its early population to its mines. During the Civil War it grew remarkably, but the fact that it could be reached more easily from the West than from the East, due to access by the Columbia River, made its settlement somewhat anomalous in American history, for it was settled largely by Westerners moving east from Oregon, Washington, and northern California.

In Idaho the development of Mormon colonies has given Utah a strong influence in the State. Apart from this, its population is made up nowadays more from the Mississippi Valley than from the mountain and Pacific Coast States. It is only three-fourths native, but most of the remainder is Nordic, British and Scandinavians both having sought its opportunities. A territory in 1863 and a State in 1890, Idaho now has a population of nearly half a million.

Montana, in the winter of 1862 and 1863 had a total population of 670 inhabitants of whom _The Chronicle_ complacently says: "Fifty-nine were evidently respectable women." Like Idaho, it attracted an element of Southern men escaping from the draft into the Confederate Army, but from then on a large part of its population was from the Northern States. Its growth of population was closely linked up with the fortunes of the mining industry.

Territorial status was given Montana at the time of the great gold discoveries in 1864, and the character of its population fluctuated a good deal, both as to quantity and quality, between that date and 1889 when it was admitted to Statehood. It has now more than half a million inhabitants, nearly half of whom are of foreign stock and largely Roman Catholics. Most of the natives are from the Central States; most of the foreigners are Irish, Germans, or Canadians, though Montana has also attracted more than 50,000 Scandinavians.

Utah's population is now about the size of that of Montana, and but slightly more native in character (three-fifths). These natives are to a large extent born in the State, the descendants of the Mormon pioneers. The "Gentiles" are of widely scattered origin. The foreign stock is mostly English or Scandinavian, the Mormon missionaries having worked diligently in those kingdoms. Utah, therefore, represents a Nordic population, and one with a high birthrate, whence it is evidently destined to continue spreading steadily in the Great Basin.

Nevada sprang almost full grown from the desert, as Venus did from the waves. It scarcely existed, though on the maps as a transmontane part of California, until the gold rush of 1849 brought settlements into existence to take care of the travellers. Then it was attached administratively to Utah, which was also inconveniently distant. The discovery of silver in the fabulously rich Comstock Lode (1859) led to the establishment of Virginia City, and to the inrush of a torrent of miners, particularly from California, where the gold deposits were becoming exhausted.

In 1861 Nevada was established as a separate territory, and Lincoln's administration pushed it through to Statehood in 1864 to get the advantage of two more friendly senators. With the exhausting of the silver deposits in a quarter of a century, Nevada had a severe decline, many of her inhabitants moving away. There was another mining boom in the first ten or fifteen years of this century, but the State has never made a steady and substantial growth, and the 1930 census credited it with no more than 91,058 inhabitants. Not much more than half of these were of the native stock. The foreigners were a scattered lot, with an unexpectedly large Italian contingent.

Arizona was cut loose from New Mexico in 1863, and, after the Civil War, became a typical Western mining community, with a fluctuating frontier population. A district might be active one year and a few years later abandoned.

The Mormons made some of the early settlements in the State and still form a significant part of its population. Like Colorado, Arizona has more than its share of Mexicans, while some of the other Western States, Utah and Nevada for instance, have only negligible numbers of them. The presence of more than 100,000 Mexicans in 1930 gave Arizona, with less than half a million inhabitants all told, a bad position as to its proportion of native stock. If one takes account only of the Whites, 80 per cent are natives of native parentage, the others mostly British or German, with again a surprisingly large Canadian contingent, considering how far removed the two regions are. The American population is of notably cosmopolitan origin, people having gone there from every State in the Union, in connection with mining, or for reasons of health. But Texas is by far the largest single contributor, with California a poor second.

New Mexico stands in the anomalous position of having an almost unparalleled percentage of its population born not merely in the United States, but within its own borders; and yet of having an unparalleled proportion of its population speaking an alien language. An official interpreter is still required in its State legislature, so that the local statesmen who boast of their Americanism but cannot speak English, can make their views known to the Americans. Since the "Spanish-Americans" are classified by the census as white, three-fourths of the population are listed as native white of native parentage. There were also, in 1930, about 60,000 Mexicans born south of the line, hence aliens. The other residents of foreign stock are scattering, with no one nationality greatly predominating.

California, which in 1860 had the highest percentage of foreigners, had not changed this situation strikingly in 1930, despite the great influx of old American stock from the Central States. Of its 5,677,251 residents, just over a half were native Whites of native parentage. The general character of the migration to California since the beginning of this century is too well known to require extended comment. Every part of the Union has contributed; even Florida is credited with a couple of thousand converts. On the whole, this influx has been of the purest Nordic stock, but if a constitutional convention were now to be called, its make-up would perhaps not differ greatly from that of 1849, which was attended by delegates born in thirty different States of the Union.

The foreign element in California is equally heterogeneous, though largely Nordic, so far as it is white at all. Canada has sent a quarter of a million, nearly all of English ancestry. Italy has contributed nearly a quarter of a million, who make an important part of the population in the northern half of the State. Unlike their fellow nationals in the Atlantic States, these California Italians are mostly from the northern part of that kingdom. Between North and South Italians there is not great sympathy--representatives of the two groups avoid intermarriage. They also avoid migrating to the same territories and, if the Neapolitan occupies the Atlantic States, the Genoese will push on to the other side of the continent. These northern Italians have played a much more prominent rôle around San Francisco than one would anticipate who knows only the southern Italian in New York or Boston.

The State has also attracted 150,000 Russians, partly refugees since the Bolshevik revolution, but mostly agriculturists of an earlier period; more than half a million British, including Irish, more than 300,000 Germans, more than 200,000 Scandinavians.

It is the non-white element that has attracted attention most continuously from the outside world. California had nearly half a million Mexicans, until the exodus which began after the depression of 1929 had made their manual labor less valuable.

It had 45,000 Filipinos, who created serious problems in some regions, both by competing with native labor, and by paying attention to white girls, which is resented by the Americans.

The State's population of 37,000 Chinese is declining steadily. The memorable agitation of the '70's for Chinese exclusion is now only a historical event, but it was important as helping to lay the foundation for a wise immigration policy in the United States. Mining, war times, and the building of the transcontinental railway had kept up inflated conditions for years. Chinese were pouring in, partly to the mines, and partly to the railway, which used them in construction work. Some 15,000 of these Oriental laborers, turned out of work by the completion of the Central Pacific Railway, principally in 1869-70, poured into San Francisco and made their presence unmistakable. A decade of dissatisfaction followed, particularly among American workingmen. The most conspicuous agitator was the Irish drayman, Dennis Kearney. In 1879 the State voted against the further immigration of Chinese by a majority of 154,638 to 883. There have been few issues in American history carried by a more nearly unanimous vote. In the same year the Federal Congress passed an exclusion act which established the principle that an unassimilable people may be shut out entirely, if necessary to protect American standards.

Agitation along similar lines sprang up about 1906-7, due to the rapid increase of Japanese in the State. It was settled, first by a "gentlemen's agreement" between the United States and Japan, by which the latter undertook to prevent the emigration of its laboring class to the Pacific Coast States; second, by a law later adopted in California, which prevented alien Japanese from owning land; third, by a final exclusion of all Orientals through national legislation.

The hundred thousand Japanese shown in the 1930 census are no longer increasing rapidly, in spite of a fairly high birthrate. The existence of these second-generation Japanese (and the same is true, in proportion, of the Chinese) has, however, created a serious problem all its own, since they are not accepted by either race. They usually do not speak the Japanese language. They are inclined to look down upon its institutions, and admire those of America. Hence the real Japanese element both dislikes them, and does not employ them because of the language barrier. On the other hand, the American does not accept them as Americans, and they cannot be employed easily alongside of and in competition with white natives of the United States. The second-generation Oriental is practically a man without a country. Because of these special racial problems, California has had difficulties that some of the other States have not fully or sympathetically understood.

Oregon's million inhabitants are two-thirds native Whites of the old stock. Canada, the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia, have been the other large contributors. The American population is largely from the Central States.

Washington now has more than a million and a half inhabitants, 56 per cent of whom are of old native stock. Eastern Washington felt a boom in 1862 when it began to accumulate population attracted partly by mines and partly by farming possibilities, until it reached an equilibrium with the Puget Sound end of the State which has always been an important political factor. Many settlers at this time were immigrants from the "border States" of the Civil War, who became disgusted with the guerrilla warfare to which they were subjected, and who were not enthusiastically for either side. During the '80's, the rapid construction of railway lines brought the population of Washington up to a respectable figure in a very few years.

The present Whites are mainly from the States of the upper Mississippi Valley. Canada has furnished 100,000 more of British ancestry, and a slightly larger number has come direct from the British Isles. Germany has contributed 100,000, Scandinavia 175,000. As against this, Italy is represented by less than 25,000, and the Slav countries altogether by not much more than 60,000. Hence Washington is entitled to claim that it is one of the most Nordic of the States.

XIV

CHECKING THE ALIEN INVASION

During the earlier part of the immigration period, the tradition of an "Asylum for the Oppressed" of all nations was the ruling principle in the national attitude towards aliens, though even then there was occasional objection to the undesirable character of some of the immigrants.

Various States adopted their own restrictions. Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and others tried to control the flow of new arrivals by head taxes and administrative regulations, while foreign governments sometimes opposed these measures, as in the case of Wurtemberg in 1855. The United States having sent back some paupers who had been dumped on its shores, public resolutions are said to have been passed by the Wurtembergers, protesting at this lack of hospitality. If the paupers were returned, they complained bitterly, "we shall have defrayed the expense of their journey in vain." But the right to deport undesirable aliens had been set forth by the famous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, and the Federal Government has never wavered in its assertion of this right.

For a generation before the Civil War, the undesirability of unrestricted immigration was debated, but without definite action. The first federal restriction was the law of 1875, excluding foreign convicts and prostitutes. President Roosevelt in 1907 appointed an Immigration Commission which made a long investigation and a voluminous report that served as a base for future measures and by 1914 most of the undesirable classes, except illiterates, were formally excluded.

The opposition to restriction was from the steamship companies, whose interest was obvious, and from the large employers of cheap labor, who were likewise not at all disinterested. It also arose among alien groups in the United States, that wished to get more of their own people into this country.

The most active forces in its favor were, primarily, organized labor, which wished no more competition from floating aliens with a wholly un-American standard of living and, most of all, the native American groups, eugenists and others who were far-sighted and unwilling to see the racial character and national unity of America destroyed and republican ideals endangered and undermined.

The first attempt at a general restriction to improve the quality of immigration was the adoption by Congress of the literacy test, which provided that those who could not read and write some language should be excluded. This was vetoed by President Wilson.

Meanwhile the outbreak of the World War had, for the time, put a virtual stop to international movements of population, and the nation had a breathing space to consider its future policies. In 1917 the Burnett Act consolidated the existing provisions for excluding undesirables, and included the literacy test. President Wilson vetoed it also, but it was passed over his veto.