What Are Americans?
To many thousands of intelligent Englishmen the United States is merely a foreign nation, distant three thousand miles from Great Britain. Social and economic conditions in America, when discussed in British magazines, can be expected to arouse in their readers little more than mild and passing interest. Naturally, however, equally intelligent Americans have a lively interest in British or Continental comment upon affairs in their own country. Hence those who read Mr. Oliver Madox Hueffer’s paper in the February British National Review, entitled ‘Americans Mirrored in the English Mind,’ found food for reflection in the lively comment and criticism it contained, and were inclined to give most of the paper amused approval. At one point, however, the mirror distorted the image, and the real population conditions in the United States seem not to have been understood. At any rate, just where Mr. Hueffer should have made an important explanation, he falls into his only serious misstatement. It relates to the composition of the American population, as follows: —
‘To begin with, you must dispossess your mind of the idea that there is an American people at all, as we understand a people in Europe. ... If you took the whole population of Europe, mixed it roughly in a mortar, added a certain flavoring of Africans, Asiatics, and the like, crushed it with your pestle and scattered the result thinly over the Continent, you would have something approximating to America. It would, however, more closely approximate to a “people” than do the Americans at present; for instead of being properly mixed, they are divided into ethnographic strata, which only touch at the edges. America tries to forget this, and succeeds by vigorous newspaper propaganda in making Europe forget it, because in these stirring times it is well to belong to a “united people.” ’
Curiously enough, almost every English writer upon American conditions fails to understand the composition of our American population, or at least to make clear or accurate statements concerning this subject. American men of letters or affairs returning to the United States from visits to England often complain of the apparent inability of Englishmen—however well educated — to understand America. All sorts of misconceptions exist in Great Britain concerning American characteristics, intentions, and ideals, and particularly concerning the American people themselves. In the hope that a brief analysis of facts which seem to be so uniformly overlooked or misinterpreted may be of real service in making American social conditions and problems more clearly understood, an American ventures to answer the heretofore seemingly unanswered question, ‘ What are Americans?’
The United States has become, and is likely to continue to be, so great a factor in European affairs, that some knowledge at least of the real composition of the American people becomes increasingly important. The British public ought to make a business of understanding us. The affairs of the world demand it. In the United States, also, there are many citizens who are themselves as ignorant of this subject as if it did not intimately concern them. Racial excitements, moreover, have added to the confusion. It is time that the fog should be cleared away, even in America.
In 1790 the white population of the United States was, in round numbers, 3,200,000. In 1910 (the result of the Census of 1920 not being available, this analysis is based upon the Census of 1910) it was 82,000,000, and in 1920 it may be estimated at 94,000,000, or about thirty times the number returned at the First Census. Of what is this large total composed?
In 1910 the census classified the population as follows: —
White —
Natives of Native Parentage 49,488,575 Natives of Foreign or Mixed
Parentage. 18,897,837
Foreign-Born. 13,345,545
Colored —
Negro.. 9.827,763
Indian, Japanese, Chinese, etc. 412,546 Total. 91,972,266
Increase in the white population has been derived from two obvious sources: natural increase of the population enumerated at the First Census, and arrivals since 1790, their children and descendants.
The United States, according to what seems to be the European view, consists principally of a conglomerate of immigrants from all nations and their children, loosely held together by selfinterest. It is important, therefore, first to test the accuracy of this belief.
Together, the foreign-born and natives of foreign and mixed parentage, as specified above, in 1910, numbered, in round figures, 32,500,000. To this important section of the population Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany together contributed more than half.
Persons born in England, Scotland, Wales, and English Canada, with the natives of the United States having one or both parents British or English Canadian, together constituting the British element, numbered 5,100,000.1 Deducting this element from the total census class already referred to as foreign-born and natives of foreign or mixed parentage, leaves a remainder of 27,400,000.
Persons born in Ireland resident in the United States and natives of the United States having one or both par-
1 PERSONS RESIDING IN THE UNITED STATES BORN IN GREAT BRITAIN (INCLUDING ENGLISH CANADIANS), IN IRELAND, AND IN GERMANY, AND NATIVES HAVING ONE on BOTH PARENTS BORN IN THOSE COUNTRIES —1850-1910
| Census Year | BRITISH ELEMENT | IRISH ELEMENT | GERMAN ELEMENT1 | ||||||
| Total | Born in Great Britain or English Canada | Natives having one or both parents born in Great Britain or Canada | Total | Born in Ireland | Natives having one or both parents born in Ireland | Total | Born in Germany | Natives having one or both parents born in Germany | |
| 1910 | 5,063,3112 4,665,843 3,983,500 | 2,040,837 | 3,022,474 | 4,504,456 | 1,352,251 | 3,152,205 | 8,282,770 | 2,501,333 | 5,781,437 |
| 1900 | 4,665,843 | 1,952,419 | 2,713,424 | 4,827,131 | 1,615,459 | 3,211,672 | 8,111,668 | 2,813,628 | 5,298,040 |
| 1890 | 3,983,500 | 1,929,844 | 2,053,656 | 4,795,681 | 1,871,509 | 2,924,172 | 6,857,229 | 2,784,894 | 4,072,335 |
| 1880 | 1,428,5983 | 4 | 1,854,571 | 5 | 1,966,742 | 6 | |||
| 1870 | 1,120,4147 | 8 | 1,855,827 | 9 | 1,690,533 | 10 | |||
| 1860 | 787,77511 | 12 | 1,611,304 | 13 | 1,276,075 | 14 | |||
| 1850 | 479,09315 | 16 | 961,719 | 17 | 583,774 | 18 | |||
ents born in Ireland, together numbered, 4,500,000.19 Deduction also of this group leaves 22,900,000.
Of this remainder, which, it will be remembered, now comprises the foreign-born and natives of foreign or mixed parentage exclusive of the British and Irish, the German element — persons born in Germany and natives of the United States having one or both parents of German birth — numbered 8,300,000.20 Deduction in turn of the German element leaves 14,600,000 as the contribution in 1910 of all other foreign nations to the population of the United States.
In determining the number of persons in the British, Irish, and German elements, as given above, three classifications only have been employed: foreign-born, natives having both parents born in the same foreign country, and natives having one parent native and the other born in one of the three countries specified.
Study of the foreign elements in the United States always leads quickly to the statistical complexities of ‘mixed foreign parentage.’ This constitutes, of course, a fourth classification of the foreign clement, by country of origin, and even though not utilized here, it should be clearly understood. Persons included in this group are defined by the Federal Census as ‘ natives having mixed foreign parentage.’ They include, for example, those having fathers born in Germany and mothers born in England, or the reverse. Persons thus classified comprised in 1910 large and significant groups. Mixed foreign parentage necessarily is an important fact in the population of the United States. Under this classification, in 1910, the British, Irish, and German elements appeared, in round numbers, as follows: persons having one parent born in Great Britain or Canada (English) and the other born in some other foreign country, 580,000; persons having one parent born in Ireland and the other born in some other foreign country, 360,000; persons having one parent born in Germany and the other bom in some other foreign country, 430,000; total, 1,370,000. Such combinations lead at once toward the troubled waters of racial antagonisms, so that the natives concerned obviously cannot be classified as identified with any one foreign nation. The degree of readiness, however, which both sexes of each of the three leading immigrant nationalities manifest to marry outside of their own race is suggested by the figures given above for 1910.
British immigration began, of course, with the earliest settlers, and has continued in varying volume to the present time. Between 1880 and 1890 the number of persons born in Great Britain, living in the United States and also those born in Germany, showed the largest increase reported thus far for those countries in any one decade. Much earlier — between 1850 and 1860 — the Irish-born reached maximum numbers arriving during a census tenyear period. The largest number thus far of persons in the United States of English, Welsh, and Irish birth was reported at the Census of 1890. The German-born attained their maximum numbers thus far at the Census of 1900; Scotchand English-Canadianborn, at the Census of 1910.
Persons born in Great Britain and English Canada, considered together, showed in 1910 the highest total thus far reported. In contrast, persons born in Ireland decreased sharply in number after 1890, so that in 1910 the number of Irish-born in the United States had declined more than half a million souls from the maximum return made twenty years earlier. This was a reduction from 1890 to 1910 in the Irish-born living in the United States of 28 per cent. The census reported in 1910, for the first time, a decrease in the number of persons of German birth living in the United States. This decrease amounted to about 12 per cent.
Natives of Great Britain and of Canada (English), in 1910, together exceeded the natives of Ireland in forty-two out of forty-eight states; while in the second generation, persons born in the United States, of British and English-Canadian parentage, exceeded those having Irish parents in thirty-two states or two thirds of all. In 1850 the number of persons in the United States born in Ireland was nearly double the number born in Germany, but in 1880 the German-born exceeded the Irish-born and ever since have greatly outnumbered them.
Among the Irish-born in the United States, the females greatly outnumbered the males. Among the Britishand German-born the males were in excess.
The number of natives having parents born in Ireland to each thousand persons Irish-born was 1562 in 1890 and 2331 in 1910, the proportion having increased 50 per cent in thirty years, although the Irish-born element decreased sharply during that period. The same analysis of the British element shows 1064 natives in 1890 to every thousand Britishand EnglishCanadian-born, and 1481 in 1910; and of the German element, 1462 in 1890 and 2311 in 1910. Thus the number of natives reported a decade ago as having parents of Irish and of German birth was more than double the number of the natives themselves of those countries then in the United States.
In 1910 three out of nine geographic divisions, — the New England, the Middle Atlantic, and East North Central States, — comprising fourteen out of forty-eight states, contained 72.2 per cent of the persons living in the United States born in Great Britain and Canada (English), 83.5 per cent of those born in Ireland, and 69.8 per cent of those born in Germany. Hence the other geographic divisions, comprising the remaining thirty-four states, vast and widely diversified areas representing somewhat more than half the entire population of the nation, claimed but 27.8 per cent of the British-born, 16.5 per cent of the Irish, and 30.2 per cent of the Germans. The fourteen states in which these elements tend to concentrate contain the great Atlantic seaboard urban centres and the principal industrial areas.
It would be reasonable to expect the second or native generation to push forth into other communities. The extent of this tendency is easily measured. Of all natives having British, Irish, and German parentage (or one native parent), those resident in the fourteen states before specified constituted 65, 79, and 66 per cent respectively. It is clear that the tendency to spread is not especially pronounced.
Having deducted the British, Irish, and German elements from the population reported as of foreign birth or parentage, it will be recalled that there remained in 1910 in the foreign-population class 14,600,000 persons. The principal racial elements comprised in this total were: Austro-Hungarians, 2,000,000; French and Canadian French, 1,200,000; Italians, 2,100,000; Russians (principally Hebrews), 2,500,000; Scandinavians, 2,800,000; in all, 10,600,000.
Nationals of these countries also tended to concentrate in the three geographic divisions previously specified, in proportions even greater than those shown by the British-, Irish-, and German-born. The proportions of such concentration in 1910 were: Austrians, 80 per cent; Italians, 83 per cent; Russians (Hebrews), 85 per cent, and French Canadians, 91 per cent.
Withdrawal of the groups shown above leaves still about 4,000,000 persons of foreign birth and parentage as reported in 1910. These are divided between native white persons of mixed foreign parentage, already defined (about one third), and natives, or children of natives, of all the remaining countries of the world. Contributions by individual countries were comparatively small and do not justify detailed consideration.
The foregoing brief summary sketches the distribution of the foreign-born and their children in the population of the United States as reported at the last census. Large as the aggregate is (about one third of the total population of the nation), does it justify the European conception of a mongrel America? Before such a claim could be admitted, it would be necessary to attack, and prove to be largely foreign, the principal element of the white population, to which thus far no reference has been made. This element, classified by the census as ‘natives of native parentage,’ numbered in 1910 nearly fifty millions of persons, and constituted much the largest group of the population of the United States. Has this great majority section of the people a foreign or mongrel character?
At the First Census the white population was principally English and was practically all of British origin. A small proportion was Irish. There were Dutch in and about New York, a few Germans in various scattered communities, and still smaller and negligible numbers of natives of other countries. The immense majority of the white population was of English descent or parentage. So great, indeed, was this preponderance that to all intents and purposes the entire population was homogeneous and Anglo-Saxon. This was the basic or original population of the nation, from which all census computations begin; and this original white stock, for the first half-century of the Republic, was exceedingly prolific. Hence, a very large part of the fifty millions of Americans classified in 1910 as ‘natives of native parentage’ is descended from the basic British stock (or the minor but fully assimilated elements) enumerated in 1790. It is important, however, to determine approximately the proportion.
From 1790 to 1830 practically no immigration to the United States occurred. Such accessions as there were came chiefly from Great Britain. The total immigration for this forty-year period was estimated in 1850 to have been approximately 234,000. It was also estimated in 1850 that the number of persons arriving after 1790, and their offspring, numbered approximately 3,000,000. At that census (1850) the total white population was 19,500,000. The native white population enumerated in 1790 had increased, therefore, in sixty years to 16,500,000, or fivefold.
The subject of increase in the original white population enumerated in 1800 was carefully analyzed in 1909 by the Federal Census Office. One of the three methods of inquiry employed eliminated as accurately as possible the foreign element. By this method 35,500,000 was established as approximately the number of persons in the total population in 1900 who were descended from the white population enumerated in 1800. Assuming an increase of 10 per cent from 1900 to 1910 in the native stock, this element hi the United States in the latter year doubtless closely approximated 39,000,000. whom were fleeing from oppression. They were easily and quickly assimilated.
Classification based solely on descendants of the original white population resident in the United States in or before 1800 is too exclusive for a study of present conditions, since immigrant arrivals from 1790 to 1860 (a large proportion of whom were British), and their descendants, have now become so identified with America that for all practical purposes they are part of the original stock. Furthermore, it should be remembered that German emigrants to America prior to 1860 were nearly all serious and high-minded men and women, most of
Since, then, the descendants of persons arriving between 1790 and 1860 are indistinguishable, as all Americans will agree, from the distinctly native stock, there is no good reason why they should not be included. It was estimated by the Census Bureau that in 1900 the contribution to the native white population by immigrants arriving between 1790 and 1853 amounted to 1,500,000, and by those arriving between 1853 and 1870, to 6,000,000.21 Of this total of 7,500,000, comprising the contribution of persons arriving prior to 1870, at least half can be regarded as representing arrivals from 1790 to 1860, and their offspring now completely identified with the native element. Allowing an increase of 10 per cent during the succeeding decade, and combining this group with the estimated original stock, the total in 1910 was 43,100,000.
It ’wall be recalled that in 1910 the total number of native whites of native parentage was 49,500,000. Thus, in addition to the element of native stock as above specified, there were 6,400,000 persons apparently not eligible to that classification. Since this group comprises the grandchildren of all foreignborn other than those of persons who arrived before 1860, it must contain the grandchildren of the combined British elements arriving since 1860; but to determine accurately what proportion of the entire group is of British parentage is obviously impossible, though the Anglo-Saxon element undoubtedly was large. It will be observed that natives having one or both parents British or English Canadian formed roughly one sixth of the total native whites of foreign, or mixed foreign and native, parentage. If this proportion be utilized in the absence of an accurate one, approximately 1,100,000 persons had British grandparents. This figure may thus be utilized to represent the number of persons having English, Scotch, Welsh, and Canadian-English ancestors in the entire white population having foreign grandparents who arrived since 1860. The aggregate of original stock reinforced by offspring of later British stock thus computed becomes 44,200,000.
The foregoing analysis has indicated the development and probable numerical strength of the homogeneous element constituting the native white stock. Why, then, should not newcomers of British stock since 1860, and their children, be regarded as allies, as well as their grandchildren ? With common ancestry and ideas, they should, for some purposes, at least, be reckoned with the original stock element. In Rhode Island, far back in the early Colonial days, colonist arrivals were entered in the town records as ‘from home,’ if from Great Britain, or as ‘foreigners’ if from other countries. Clearly the only foreign-born eligible for classification for any purpose with the original stock would be the natives of Great Britain. Furthermore, emigration to the United States of persons born in Great Britain has no doubt occurred in each year that has elapsed since natives of Britain founded the North American colonies in the seventeenth century. Hence the number of natives of England, Scotland, Wales, or Canada (English) returned as residing in the United States in 1850, and at each succeeding census, may be regarded merely as the late manifestation of the oldest immigration movement to eastern North America. It will be recalled that there were enumerated at the Census of 1910 5,100,000 persons of Anglo-Saxon birth or parentage. By including this element with the native and allied stock, the total becomes 49,300,000.
In the second division of the table on page 271, the Irish element in 1910 was shown to include four and a half million persons. This total includes the so-called Orange group, or North of Ireland Scotch-Irish, opposed in all particulars to the Celtic Irish, and identified by race-sympathy and religious beliefs with natives of Great Britain. The proportion formed by this group of all those persons in the United States classified as Irish or of Irish parentage is not known. Approximately one quarter of the present population of Ireland is Protestant. Hence, if only 10 per cent of the persons classified as belonging to the Irish element in the United States should be regarded as of Scotch or North of Ireland ancestry, and classified on the basis of race and belief with the British element, as these people insistently demand, rather than with the Irish, the latter would be reduced about half a million persons, and the former increased correspondingly. Inclusion of the Scotch-Irish element wdth the native and allied stock increases the total to 49,800,000 in 1910.
The Census of 1920 is likely to show stationary numbers, or even a decrease, for the principal elements of the foreign-born, and increase for all the native elements. The total population in 1920 will be found to approximate 105,000,000, of which, as estimated at the outset, the whites number about 94,000,000. Applying again but 10 per cent increase to the distinctly native and allied elements, the latter group increases in 1920 to 54,800,000.
Since this analysis has been concerned solely with the white population, the negroes have not been considered. In a sense the negro is the most native of all racial elements. He alone has no historic background. Brought to North America by force, from savage environment, mostly during the Colonial period, the American-born negroes quickly lost all tradition of their African origin. In 1920 the negro knows nothing but America. Moreover, his interests are associated with the native whites, and he takes his ideas and ambitions from them. He has little use for the foreignborn. The Civil War freed the African element from slavery, and though its members are still principally employed in the humbler callings, the race as a whole has made great progress. In all juslice, at least half the negro population, comprising the more intelligent element, ought to be classed as standing with native white stock in purposes and ideals.
Thus far, racial composition alone has been considered. Such information, however, presented as clearly and concisely as possible, is only a necessary preliminary in answering the question,
‘ What are Americans?’
Primarily they are a mighty company of nearly fifty-five millions of men, women, and children of British ancestry, including the descendants in the second or later generations of Irish, German, and other immigrants who came to America sixty years ago, or earlier, and including also later Anglo-Saxon arrivals and their children, welded into one vast and surprisingly homogeneous element. This element is the pillar which supports the Republic. It is the element which manages and controls the United States. Even in places where it is in a minority, it generally leads. The activities of the nation, infinite in variety and extent, both intellectual and material, are principally in the hands of persons of the native and allied stock. The farmers are largely native, as are lawyers, clergymen, physicians, school-teachers, bankers, manufacturers, and managers. Yet this is no exclusive company or class, since these vocations are open to all who qualify.
At the close of the Revolution, the young Republic occupied a sparsely settled but extended coast-line. Through the years that followed came the steady march westward and northwestward into the wilderness of the descendants of the early settlers. Connecticut and Rhode Island Colonial stock, for example, moved north along the Connecticut River and west to Ohio. Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania sent their sons and daughters to the Middle West; Virginia and North Carolina to Tennessee and Kentucky; South Carolina and Georgia to Arkansas, Missouri, and northwestward. Iowa was settled largely by New England, and in turn contributed to the settlement of California and Oregon.
Hence it comes about — no American needs to be told — that the great central, inspiring, mid controlling element of American population over a domain of three million square miles is singularly homogeneous and singularly at one in ideals. Any intelligent stranger from New England, entering the home of a well-to-do family selected at random in a far Southern state, would, upon inquiry, find similar origin, — perhaps the same English county, — and the existence of opinions, hopes, and principles varying from his own only to the extent which might be expected as a result of totally different climate and different environment. He would find, also, exactly the same language, varied only by a slight local accent. Were he similarly to enter a farmhouse in Iowa, he would be likely to find the descendants of respected citizens of his own state, or even county, a century ago; and they probably would exhibit among their household goods some prized bits of furniture or silver that were brought over by the Pilgrims or made in Colonial days. In such households are found the old national spirit, and here, also, the traditions of the past. They are substantially the same in this basic national stock, whether its members be resident in New England, the far South, or the far West.
The American native stock, with its assimilated early additions, is the greatest Anglo-Saxon element in the world. In numbers it is greater than the entire combined population of England, Scotland, Wales, and Canada. It possesses, except in small areas in the South, a strikingly high average of education. The real American, like his distant British forebears, is undemonstrative. He is patient under provocation, but intensely independent, and, once aroused, rather pugnacious. During the past century the native-stock element has been so strong of character that it has imparted its own ideals to many hundred thousand newcomers. It was this element that aroused itself when America entered the Great War. Large as were both population and geographic area, the nation then had no two opinions. Men and women of Maine and Oregon and Florida were doing the same things in war-preparation and doing them in the same way.
The average native American is not especially pro-British. The ancestors of many of this element emigrated from Great Britain two or three centuries ago. The relationship is far removed. Moreover, the Revolution left lingering traces of animosities only recently wiped out by the realization that German influences were potent even in 1776. Nevertheless, the American and the Briton, springing in the main from the same blood, speak the same language of ideals and purposes. They have much the same weaknesses and likewise similar elements of strength. When General Haig, in his famous appeal to the British armies in the dark days of 1918, told his men that their ‘backs were against the wall,’a thrill went through listening America. The Anglo-Saxon stock understood.
It is high time that public opinion in the United States should be reminded, and also that the perplexed Englishman should be informed, of the significance of the great basic population of the Republic. Talk of serious disagreements between Great Britain and the United States is preposterous. Were Irish agitators to attempt to precipitate trouble, the great Anglo-Saxon bulk of the nation would be heard from in no uncertain tones. Meanwhile, it is hard — especially for foreign observers — to realize that, just as the waves break and roar upon the surface over untroubled deeps, so on the surface of the great body of the American people, nearly fifty-five millions strong, Irish agitators roar and the restless and frothy of other nationalities shout and intrigue. With us, patient endurance is part of the great task of assimilation.
Englishmen, as a matter of fact, should not become impatient, concerning breaches of propriety in America over Ireland. They who themselves have struggled vainly for centuries to solve the Irish problem should have full understanding and sympathy with Americans when they realize that the same problem has been thrust upon our unwilling shoulders, although Ireland is no part of America’s business.
It is not surprising that even the most intelligent visitors to America from England and the Continent completely fail to grasp the facts here outlined. The traveler from Europe generally lands at New York. With its huge population and wealth, New York has become the world’s capital in both respects. All the races of the earth meet there. Out of every thousand of population, 786 are foreign-born or of foreign parentage, and but 193 are in the class even of white natives of native parentage. Is this extremely large foreign element in New York exceptional? Have not world-capitals through the centuries been gathering-places for the nations ? Obviously assimilation is wellnigh impossible. In fact, it is creditable that so much of American traditions and ideals persists, and remarkable that, comprising less than one fifth of the total, the native grandparentage element, as classified by the census, still controls so great a part of New York’s business, finance, and society.
In the fourteen states comprised in the three urban and industrial geographic divisions elsewhere referred to there were twenty-nine cities in 1910 with a population exceeding 100,000. In every thousand of the aggregate population of these cities the white natives of native parentage number but 266. Within the same geographic areas were forty smaller cities with populations, in the same census year, ranging between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand. In these cities white natives of native parentage averaged 413 persons per thousand. But if we discard both groups of cities and consider only the population (in the same geographic areas) residing in cities of less than fifty thousand inhabitants, and in towns and country districts, the number of white natives having native parents rises sharply to 595 in each thousand inhabitants. Thus, outside of large cities, even in the foremost industrial states, white persons either of original native stock, or, at the other extreme, those having foreign grandparents, contribute three fifths of every thousand of population, in contrast to the low proportions shown by the large cities in the same group of states.
Leaving New York, the traveler from England or the Continent journeys to other cities, generally located in industrial states; he seldom has access to the inner life of a community: he lives in hotels and public places, he sees and hears principally the foreign element; he marvels (as does Mr. Hueffer) at the dangerously numerous and separate strata of American society and passes by in ignorance the myriad homes of the native stock which bind the whole of that society together. He knows nothing of the hundred thousand cities, towns, and villages scattered over the wide domain of the Republic in which the native Americans follow their profitable tasks in field and factory and mine.
In all justice it must be added that the burden of control and assimilation does not fall entirely upon the original or native element. We rejoice to testify that there are thousands of newcomers, foreign-born, and especially their children, of all races, who have realized the real meaning of America, and their own opportunity. They exist in all walks of life. They labor earnestly and helpfully with those who have the widest vision. Many of these allies are to be found among the Italians and Scandinavians even of recent arrival. There are many Germans and Irish who take no part in agitating, but perform irreproachably their duties as citizens and workers. For such men and women the opportunity in America is as wide as the continent. When they join the native element in the effort to preserve the Anglo-Saxon ideals of law, order, and wise freedom, every privilege is theirs.
If, to bewildered observers, whether at home or in distant Europe, America seems inconsistent and uncertain; if there appear vagaries on the part of government or public; if echoes of the shouts of agitators who claim to voice American opinions resound through the land, and across the water, remember then the unruffled fifty-five millions. Assuredly they are the placid deeps of the nation, which lie far beneath the roaring surface waves. If foreign complications were actually threatened by the latitude allowed to public expression, swift and overwhelming would be their condemnation.
- Prior to 1900, persons reporting Poland as country of origin are not included.↩
- to 1900, persons reporting as↩
- † English, 2,323,706; Scotch, 659,705; Welsh, 248,956; Canadian (English), 1,830,944.↩
- ‡ English Canadians computed prior to 1890.↩
- Not separately tabulated prior to 1890.↩
- See table on p. 271 (footnote).↩
- United States Census, ‘Century of Population Growth,’ p. 87.↩