Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/74

70. Their fair complexion, long face and clear-cut features make them readily distinguishable from the Slavs, whose squat figures and wide faces are accentuated by the contrast. Their language is very old and primitive and is said to resemble Sanskrit so closely that Lithuanian peasants can understand Sanskrit phrases. Their written literature is very scanty, but their unwritten popular folk-lore is rich in idyllic and lyric songs and poetry of a pastoral variety and melancholy tone. They are very proud of their ancestry and resent being considered Slavs. They claim with pride that most of Poland's great men, Kosciusko, Chodkiewicz, Sienkewicz and others were Lithuanians. Their occupation is agriculture. The land owners have always been Polish or German and business is carried on by Jews and Germans.

Few words are necessary to convince one of the desirability of the Russian-German. He has the industry, thrift and sterling honesty that have made his brother Germans from the Fatherland welcome and successful in this country. He is a picturesque figure clad in sheepskin garments, which add to his appearance of splendid physique. He represents the best type of the agricultural immigrant who comes here to make a home in the far west with the necessary money in his pocket to buy land and give him his start.

The Finns are also an agricultural or pastoral people, and if they possess less money than the Russian-Germans their sturdy physique and willingness to work make their success certain in this country. They work on farms in the northern central states and have been valuable as laborers in the development of the mines of northern Michigan and Wisconsin. The ability of the Finns to withstand the rigors of a northern climate, and their well-known thrift and industry, have suggested the possibility of their being valuable in the agricultural and mining development of Alaska. A colony of Finns in Canada has been very successful in wheat raising on the shores of Great Slave Lake, a latitude once considered scarcely habitable for white men.

The Lithuanians are also agricultural or pastoral in occupation, but in this country are largely employed as laborers in the mines of Pennsylvania and other mining states. Their rugged physique fits them for this rough work, and so long as the industrial demand for unskilled labor keeps up so long will the Lithuanian be valuable as the best type of this class of immigrants.

A careful study of the statistics of immigration and of economic and social conditions in this country will convince any one that there is little to fear from such races as the Russian-German, Finn and Lithuanian properly inspected under our present laws; and that future legislation aiming to cut down the number of undesirable immigrants must be directed toward debarring the competitive and parasitic classes which now crowd our great cities.