n the case of Chicago, were the
foreigners (those not American beyond the third generation) to be
eliminated, the population would dwindle from 2,000,000 to about 100,00.
In this city fourteen languages are spoken by groups of not less than
10,000 persons each. Newspapers are regularly published in ten different
languages and church services conducted in twenty different tongues.
Measured by the size of its foreign colonies, Chicago is the second
Bohemian city in the world, the third Swedish, the fourth Polish, and
the fifth German. There is one large factory employing over 4,000 people
representing twenty-four nationalities. Here the rules of the
establishment are printed in eight languages. So it is with the other
cities. New York, for example, has a larger Italian population than
Rome, and is the greatest Jewish city, for there are in the city some
800,000 Jews. In all eighty per cent of the population of New York are
foreigners or the children of foreigners. In Boston the per cent reaches
seventy and in Milwaukee about eighty-six.

The charge that criminality has increased rapidly with the increased
immigration from southern Europe seems to be substantiated by
statistics. From 1904 to 1908 the number of aliens charged with
committing grave crimes nearly doubled. While this fact will not prove
the point, it suggests thought on the question.

It has been truthfully said that the fundamental problem in this
question of immigration is most frequently overlooked. Back of the
statistics of illiteracy, pauperism, criminality, and the economic value
of immigrants lies another one of great proportions. What has been the
effect upon our native stock? What has been the expense, to our native
stock, of this increase of population and wealth through immigration?
The decreasing birth rate of our native population some contend is due
to the industrial competition caused by the foreign element. If this be
true, the foreigners have supplanted not supplemented the American, and
the question arises, how long can the assimilation go on before we lose
our American characteristics?

[Illustration]
Swedish immigrant family considered desirable and qualified to enter.

The number of Europeans who return to their native lands after living a
time in the United States is comparatively small and the loss is not
great. The emigration of our farmers to Canada is a more serious thing.
Since 1897 the Dominion Government has fostered high-c