Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/29

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VERY new factor of our immigration is looked on with suspicion. It is the right and duty of every American to criticize justly the raw material for future citizenship passing within our gates and to insist that this material shall be measured and weighed, measured by the standard of humanity, weighed in the scale of justice, and if found wanting sent back without ceremony or sentiment whence it came. But too often the criticism is blinded by race prejudice and ignorance of the immigrant. Every race that has figured prominently in our immigration statistics has had to bear the brunt of attacks by well-meaning pessimists, who, in many instances, never saw an immigrant in the rough. In this regard the Slav is not more fortunate than his predecessors, the German, the Irishman and the Scandinavian.

One of the most striking facts shown by recent immigration statistics is the rapid increase of Slavic arrivals. From almost nothing before 1868, it has grown progressively year by year, until it now constitutes nearly one fourth of our total immigration. In view, therefore, of the fact that the desirability of Slavs as immigrants is in question at the present time, and that they constitute such a large proportion of our total immigration inflow, a consideration of the Slavonic immigrant seems pertinent.

The Slavic race may be conveniently divided into three great divisions according to their geographical distribution in Europe: an eastern division, embracing all the Russian Slavs; a southern division, the Slavic inhabitants of the Balkan states, and that portion of Hungary