THE FOREIGNER IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 395 



eral of the most distinguished names in the annals of American 

 achievement claim a foreign birthplace. But must we stop here — 

 is this all that the foreign element has done for American civiliza- 

 tion? If so, the debt of the United States to the stranger is not 

 great, and immigration may with good cause have restrictions placed 

 upon it. 



Scarcely were the American colonies founded when the anti- 

 immigration sentiment began to develop. The colonies of New Eng- 

 land and, to a lesser degree, Virginia looked with suspicion upon 

 aliens arriving upon their shores, and for a time almost inhibited the 

 movement. Pennsylvania and New York, on the other hand, en- 

 couraged immigration, and their more rapid progress over the first- 

 mentioned must be generally admitted, although other factors in 

 their advancement entered into the consideration which space will 

 not here admit of being dwelt upon. Again, this anti-immigration 

 sentiment has manifested itself almost continuously since 1790, 

 sometimes actively, sometimes almost dormant, but never entirely 

 disappearing. We have the results in the Chinese exclusion act, in 

 the various laws now in existence imposing restrictions upon it, in 

 the various laws now proposed, creating an educational test. 

 Whether these measures, actual and prospective, are good or baneful 

 I do not purpose to discuss, but shall pass to a cursory review of racial 

 traits. 



We find on comparison that a far greater proportion of the 

 delinquent classes are found among the inhabitants of foreign birth 

 than among those of native ancestry, and even those born in this 

 country of alien parents furnish a larger ratio to these classes than 

 those of purely American parentage. Of the three great elements 

 in the foreign population represented by the Teutonic, the Celtic, 

 and the so-called Anglo-Saxon race, the proportionate numbers 

 furnished to these classes by the Celtic race exhibit a remarkable 

 predominance over either of the others, and this excessive defective- 

 ness, we discover, also extends to the offspring of Celtic parents. The 

 Britons and Germans show little variance from each other in their 

 contributions to these classes, and the Scandinavians exhibit a 

 slightly higher percentage in such contributions over the two last 

 mentioned. The other nationalities represented in the population 

 can scarcely with fairness be drawn into the comparison on account 

 of the recent date at which they have begun to arrive in any consider- 

 able numbers; nevertheless, the records of our criminal courts con- 

 tain the names of many Balians, and already the Hungarians and 

 Poles, the most miserable and degraded representatives of the Cau- 

 casian race who cross our borders, are largely numbered among the de- 

 pendent classes. We have also to notice in these classes a much greater 



