is true of
New York alone. In thirty-three of our largest cities the foreign
population is larger than the native; in Milwaukee and Fall River the
foreign percentage rises as high as eighty-five per cent. In all these
cities the foreign colonies are as distinct and practically as isolated
socially as though they were in Russia or Poland, Italy or Hungary.
Foreign in language, customs, habits, and institutions, these colonies
are separated from each other, as well as from the American population,
by race, customs, and religion.

[Sidenote: Failure in City Government]

To believe that this makes no particular difference so far as the
development of our national life is concerned is to shut one's eyes to
obvious facts. As such an impartial and intelligent student of our
institutions as Mr. James Bryce has pointed out, the conspicuous failure
of democracy in America thus far is seen in the bad government of our
great cities. And it is in these centers that the mass of the immigrants
learn their first and often last lessons of American life.

[Sidenote: Where the Newcomers First Go]

The strong tendency of immigrants is to settle in or near the ports of
entry. Where in the great cities do these newcomers find a dwelling
place? What will their first lessons in American life be? If we deal
largely with New York, it is simply because here are the typical
conditions and here the larger proportion of arrivals. Once admitted at
Ellis Island, the alien is free to go where he will; or rather, where he
can, for his place of residence is restricted, after all. If he is an
Italian, he will naturally and almost of necessity go to one of the
Little Italies; if a Jew, to the ghetto of the East Side; if a Bohemian,
to Little Bohemia; and so on. In other words, he will go, naturally and
almost inevitably, to the colonies which tend to perpetuate race customs
and prejudices, and to prevent assimilation. Worse yet, these colonies
are in the tenement and slum districts, the last environment of all
conceivable in which this raw material of American citizenship should be
placed.

_II. Tenement-House Life_

[Sidenote: Vice-Breeding Conditions]

To those who have not made personal investigation, the present
conditions, in spite of laws and efforts to ameliorate the worst evils,
are well nigh unbelievable. The cellar population, the blind alley
population, the swarming masses in buildings that are little better than
rat-traps, the herdin