THE DECLINING BIRTH BATE. 359 



set by their own particular classes. Consequently the cares of a family 

 are deferred. If one enters the lodging houses in the south and west 

 ends of Boston, for example, one will find a large class of lodgers from 

 northern New England and from the British Provinces, the majority 

 of whom are not married and never will be. This class represents a 

 part of the population which is refraining from marriage in order to 

 keep up its social position. In the words of M. Dumont, 'social capil- 

 larity' is so strong that they refrain from marriage. This state of 

 affairs is unfortunate for the future good of the city. Cities have come 

 to depend upon fresh blood from the country to reinforce their declin- 

 ing stock, and there is no reason to believe that former immigrants 

 from rural sections found it necessary to refrain from marriage as the 

 present immigrants do. In other words, a change is taking place in 

 the character of the population of large cities which only the next gen- 

 eration will realize. Cities of the present time are making use of rural 

 Americans and also of the children of rural Americans who came to the 

 city about the middle of the nineteenth century. In the next genera- 

 tion the proportion of children of rural immigrants will be greatly re- 

 duced, and the probabilities are that the largest cities will offer small 

 inducements for the immigration of rural Americans. 



With this application of the general law of population I pass to the 

 discussion of two conditions in the eastern part of the United States 

 which tend to intensify the action of this law and make the birth rate 

 in this new country as low as it is in some of the old European coun- 

 tries. First, the increased competition which naturally results from a 

 growing population has been augmented by the entrance of women into 

 industrial pursuits. As women find fewer opportunities for marriage, 

 they throw themselves into industrial life, and by their increased com- 

 petition make the possibility of marriage even more remote. As writers 

 have frequently noted the depression of wages resulting from the com- 

 petition of women, however, I will pass on to the second phenomenon 

 which affects the social law of population — that is, immigration. Com- 

 petition resulting from increased population is much more serious if it 

 is caused by the incoming of classes on a different social plane. Irish, 

 Italian, and Jewish immigrants compete indirectly, and frequently 

 directly with American labor, yet these immigrants live in a different 

 world and under different conditions from the American laborer. 

 Most foreigners form a stratum below Americans. Between the lodging 

 house and the tenement is a wide gap which is not paralleled by an 

 industrial separation. Americans in lodging houses are not attempt- 

 ing so much to raise their standard as they are to retain the accus- 

 tomed standard of their homes and to save themselves from fallinsr 

 into the social position of the foreign population. 



