THE FOREIGNER IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 387 



mines proved very fatal. The pearl fisheries also caused much mor- 

 tality. These were chiefly worked by Indians from the Bahamas, 

 who were expert divers and able to remain long under water; but 

 so little care was taken of the men that they gradually died off, and, 

 as the Bahama Islands had been entirely depopulated, it was impos- 

 sible to supply their places. 



Of course, the cruelty experienced, from their conquerors was 

 one among other causes of the disappearance of the Arrowauks, but 

 if the Indians were so numerous, it would be contrary to experience 

 that oppression alone would so soon have exterminated such a mul- 

 titude, in islands of such considerable area and so inaccessible to 

 invaders. 



THE FOREIGN ELEMENT IN AMERICAN 

 CIVILIZATION. 



By AETHUE HOUGHTON HYDE. 



THE history of the United States, more than that of any other 

 nation, is a history, not of wars and dynasties, but of the prog- 

 ress of a people. In the early days of British dependency the 

 population of the thirteen original colonies comprised representatives 

 of several diverse races, many of whom had sought the inhospitable 

 shores of a new land to gain religious liberty, others to better their 

 worldly condition, some under compulsion, yet all these heterogene- 

 ous elements became for a time amalgamated, animated with one 

 desire and purpose — liberty, freedom from what they considered 

 the unjust exactions of the English Government. This country 

 occupies a remarkable position among the nations of the world; 

 although its early citizens were principally of the so-called Anglo- 

 Saxon race, yet there was among them a plentiful sprinkling of 

 representatives from the Teutonic, Latin, and Celtic nations. Even 

 in the days of its genesis it probably possessed a more heterogeneous 

 population than any other country of the earth, and during the cen- 

 tury and more of its development the foreign element has been an 

 ever-increasing quantity among the inhabitants, until now we find 

 that 14.77 per cent of the entire white population is foreign born, 

 and 22.74 per cent more of foreign parentage. It is for these rer sons 

 a matter of some wonder that its historians have not paid more atten- 

 tion to the ethnic and racial composition of the population, and en- 

 deavored to ascertain what modifications these factors have produced. 

 Never have I found a finer appreciation of the true importance 

 of the ethnic factor than in a recent article by Raoul de la Grasserie, 

 in which occur passages translated as follows: 



