ic in
character, supporting an established church, while at the same time the
marvellous growth of the universities produced a class of educated
liberals. In the revolution of 1848 these took a leading part, and
although constitutional governments were then established, yet those who
had been prominent in the popular uprisings found their position
intolerable under the reactionary governments that followed. The
political exiles sought America, bringing their liberalism in politics
and religion, and forming with their descendants in American cities an
intellectual aristocracy. They sprang from the middle classes of
Germany, and latterly, when the wars with Austria and France had
provoked the spirit of militarism, thousands of peasants looked to
emigration for escape from military service. The severe industrial
depression of 1873-79 added a powerful contributing cause. Thus there
were two periods when German migration culminated; first in 1854, on
political grounds, second in 1882, on military and economic grounds.
Since the latter date a significant decline has ensued, and the present
migration of 32,000 from Germany is mainly the remnants of families
seeking here their relatives. A larger number of German immigrants,
55,000, comes from Austria-Hungary and Russia, those from the latter
country being driven from the Baltic provinces and the Volga settlements
by the "Russianizing" policy of the Slav.

=The Changing Character of European Immigration.=--Besides the Germans
and the Irish, the races which contributed the largest numbers of
immigrants during the middle years of the nineteenth century were the
English and Scandinavian. After the decline during the depression of
1879 there was an increase of all those races in 1882, a year when
nearly 800,000 immigrants arrived. At about that time began a remarkable
change in the character of immigration destined to produce profound
consequences.

This change was the rapid shifting of the sources of immigration from
Western to Eastern and Southern Europe. A line drawn across the
continent of Europe from northeast to southwest, separating the
Scandinavian Peninsula, the British Isles, Germany, and France from
Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Turkey, separates countries not only
of distinct races but also of distinct civilizations. It separates
Protestant Europe from Catholic Europe; it separates countries of
representative institutions and popular government from absolute
mo