INFLUENCE OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 333 



relatively large proportion of our city population is composed of 

 people of foreign birth. The great tide of immigration that comes 

 to our shores tends to lodge chiefly in our cities and large num- 

 bers never get beyond the original port of entry. New York 

 which receives by far the largest number of arriving aliens had in 

 1910 a foreign born population of 1,927,703 or 40.4 per cent of her 

 total inhabitants. The proportion of foreign born and their 

 immediate descendants in our cities has increased rapidly in 

 successive decades. In the Abstract of the Thirteenth Census of 

 the United States it is stated that "Of the aggregate urban popu- 

 lation this is, the population of incorporated places of 2.500 

 inhabitants or more, including New England towns of that size 

 of the United States in 1910, 41.9 per cent were native whites of 

 native parentage, 29 per cent native whites of foreign or mixed 

 parentage, 22.6 per cent foreign-born whites and 6.3 per cent 

 negroes. In the rural population, on the other hand, 64.1 per 

 cent were native whites of native parentage, only 13.3 per cent 

 were native whites of foreign or mixed parentage, and 7.5 per 

 cent were of foreign born whites, while negroes constituted 14.5 

 per cent. Thus the foreign born whites and their children con- 

 stituted fully one-half (51.6 per cent) of the urban population and 

 only about one-fifth of the rural" (p. 91, 1916). 



It is in New England and the Middle Atlantic States and 

 some states of the north such as Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Mich- 

 igan and Wisconsin that the foreign born constitute an especially 

 large part of our city population; the south in general has been 

 less affected by foreign immigration. The native born population 

 of native white parents is in many cities decidedly in the minority. 

 Thus this element in New York constituted hi 1910 only 19.3 per 

 cent, in Chicago, 20.4 per cent, in Boston 23.5 per cent, in Phila- 

 delphia, 37.7 per cent, in Milwaukee, 21.1 per cent, and in San 

 Francisco, 27.7 per cent. Our larger cities especially of the 

 east and north are becoming populated by foreigners and their 

 immediate descendants. In view of the fact that this condi- 

 tion obtained to a considerable extent for several decades and 

 that a considerable proportion of those counted as native Ameri- 



