398 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and Slavonic races. At the late presidential election the socialist 

 vote in New York city was 7,326, an increase of about fourteen 

 hundred over that polled in 1892. Doubtless, as the socialists 

 claim, the increase would have been much more considerable had 

 not the silver question for the time taken precedence of all other 

 issues, although the socialist propaganda publicly declared against 

 free silver. In 1895 the party polled 10,993 votes. The significant 

 feature of the situation, however, is the marked increase in the party's 

 vote in the ninth congressional district, situated on the east side of 

 the city, south of Stanton Street. Here more than half the socialist 

 vote was polled. It is here that the socialists expect to elect, within 

 a few years, an assemblyman to represent them at Albany; it is from 

 this district that they hope ultimately to send a congressman to Wash- 

 ington. In the twelfth assembly district, constituting a part of 

 this congressional district, the result of the recent election was tabu- 

 lated as follows : Tammany (Democrat), 2,590; Kepublican, 2,257; 

 Socialist, 1,284. It is in this section of the city that the socialists 

 are centralizing, that the most active party leaders are colonizing. 

 Such imperfect statistics as are available reveal the fact that the 

 Hungarian, Polish, and Kussian population stands in the ratio of 

 5 : 1 to that of all other nationalities. Many of the first three named 

 peoples are not yet voters, but each year the naturalization mill turns 

 them out by thousands as free electors, after they have solemnly 

 sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Yet the 

 socialist ideals are entirely at variance with the true theory of Ameri- 

 can government as conceived by the early makers of the American 

 state. The question, then, confronting us is whether the process of 

 assimilation or the growth of socialism will be the most rapid. 



I had thought to find every advance made in civilization distinct- 

 ively associated with a certain race or races, and while the charac- 

 teristics of many races have become implanted in and integral parts 

 of the national civilization, yet I am obliged to admit after deep 

 reflection that such advances are due in greatest part not to the in- 

 dividual or the race, but to the entire foreign element. When the 

 number of immigrants was comparatively small they became quickly 

 amalgamated with the native population, but as the numbers in- 

 creased, progress in this direction was naturally slower, yet in no 

 other country has the process been carried on so quickly and thor- 

 oughly in proportion to the amount of material to be acted upon as 

 in the United States. As the national spirit acts upon the foreign 

 element, so the foreign element reacts upon American civilization: 

 there results one heterogeneous whole, and this increased hetero- 

 geneity arising from an admixture of nationalities is, as already 

 intimated, the primal cause of American progress. It is a little re- 



