d. Even more significant is the high birth-rate of the
foreigner. Statistics show that with the greater birth-rate of the
immigrants there is a corresponding decline in the native birth-rate,
so that the alien is supplanting the native American stock. Along with
race degeneracy goes lack of industrial skill and declining wages, for
the foreigner is ignorant, often unorganized, and willing to work and
live under worse conditions than the native American. Among the
disastrous social effects are increasing poverty and crime, lack of
sanitation, and an increase of diseases that thrive in filth.
Illiteracy and slow mentality lower the general level of intelligence.
Lack of training in democracy renders the average immigrant a poor
citizen, though some State laws give him the ballot without delay. In
morals and religion there is more loss than gain by immigration.
American liberty tends to become license, scores of thousands lose all
interest in the church, and moral restraint is thrown off with the
ecclesiastical yoke. Plainly when the immigrant population is
predominant in a great city the problem of immigration becomes vital
not only to the local municipality but also to the nation, which is
fast becoming urban.

237. =Americanizing the Alien.=--After all is said, the immigrant
problem is not insoluble. There is much in the situation to make one
optimistic. Thus far the native stock has been able to survive and to
give its best to the newcomer. The immigrant himself has no desire to
destroy American institutions. He comes longing to share in their
benefits. America is to him an Eldorado, a promised land flowing with
milk and honey. His children, through the schools and other contacts,
learn the language that his tongue is slow to acquire, and absorb the
ideas and ideals that are typically American. After all, it is the
spirit rather than the form of the institutions that make them
valuable. The upper-class American, who is too indifferent to go to
the polls on election day, is less patriotic and more harmful to
American institutions than the Italian who is too ignorant to vote,
but would die on the battle-field for the defense of his adopted
country. Many agencies are at work to help the alien adjust himself to
American ways and to make him into a good citizen. In the last resort
the Americanization of the foreigner rests with the attitude of the
native American toward him rather than with the immigrant himself.

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