Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/97

Rh problem whose solution no one can predict. The immigrants did not come here in tribes, but as individuals. If the millions of Germans had come with state encouragement in a body, the results might have been different, but they came as individuals and mingled with our people.

I have already stated the elements that are to be assimilated. For the purpose of convenience, they may be classed into four groups as follows: 1. Colored, 7,000,000, or twelve per cent. 2. Native whites of native parents, 34,000,000, or fifty-five per cent. 3. Native whites of foreign parents, 11,000,000, or eighteen per cent. 4. Foreign born, 9,000,000, or fifteen per cent.

These elements differ by blood, by parentage, and by birthplace, and they are of great importance. No other country has such important elements, and no nation has ever sought to solve such a question in a peaceful way. The native American is the element about which all others must be grouped, and they must be assimilated to this. The third element is very interesting. This class stands halfway between the foreign and the native. It represents the process of assimilation in the act. The fourth element is the foreign born, and it is the most difficult to assimilate on account of its constant renewal.

There are two ways of combining these figures. The third and fourth elements may be added together, and we will then have 20,000,000. These figures show how large the foreign element is. In regard to its distribution in New England and the Northwest, New England would have forty-seven per cent foreign population; in Massachusetts alone this element constitutes fifty-six per cent; in Rhode Island, fifty-eight per cent; in New York, eighty two per cent; in Wisconsin, ninety per cent. But it is not right to consider the second generation as foreigners. They are more American than foreign. It is best to contrast these two classes and measure their relative strength. We find in the East that the first generation outnumbers the second, while in the West the second generation is the stronger. Thus the question of foreign influence is a more serious one in New England than in the Western States.

The chief forces tending toward the assimilation of races in our country are physical environment and social environment. The physical environment means not only the influence of Nature, but also the habits of life. In this respect the influence of frontier life should be considered. From the beginning, the people along the frontier have had a struggle with Nature, and they developed self-reliance and the capacity for self-government. So the pioneer set up self-government in the wilderness, and the State Constitutions of the West and Northwest, where the proportion of immigration is so great, show no signs of foreign