1912] Immigration. 9 



from personal observation, the attitude towards America of emigrant 

 Irishmen who had returned. To them all, men who had earned their 

 livelihood in New York and Boston and Chicago, the great attraction 

 of the United States lay in "the city, with the lights and the people". 



Be that as it may, for one reason or another the rustic Kelts and 

 Slavs* of Europe flock to the cities of America. The regularity of their 

 movement may well be observed in the following table: 



Development of U. S. A., 1870-1900. 



I 870- I 880 I 880- I 890 I 890- I 900 



A. Increase per cent, in the number of 



all wage-earners employed in 



manufactures 33-1% 55-6% 24.8% 



B. Increase per cent, in the number of 



the foreign-born population (in- 

 cluded in Group iii.) 138.7% 207.9% 129.3% 



Ratio of B : A 4.19 : i 3-74 : i 5-2i : i 



Average ratio 4.38 : i 



Variation from the average — -IQ —.64 +-73 



The close correspondence of these two sets of figures is indeed re- 

 markable; probably this would be closer still if civic employees and 

 retail trades could be grouped with the wage-earners employed in manu- 

 facture. 



We are now almost but not quite able to state definitely that the 

 artificial stimulation of city life by the tariff has discouraged immigra- 

 tion from Northern and Western Europe and encouraged immigration 

 from Italy, Austria and beyond. Here, however, the student of immi- 

 gration may say that the preference for city life among peoples in Group 

 iii. is more apparent than real; that they come to this continent solely 

 in order to escape from conditions of discomfort in Europe, and that they 

 remain in the cities when they disembark, solely because their poverty 

 compels them to do so. The cities are situated mainly near the Atlantic: 

 the immigrant easily reaches them, but finds it difficult to leave them. 



That there is some force in this contention is shown in the following 

 figures, which represent the proportions in which the foreign immi- 

 grants from South-east Europe are distributed geographically among 

 the grand divisions into which the Census Bureau groups the States: 



*It must not be forgotten that all the southern and eastern countries of Europe 

 contain mixed populations. In 1910, of those residents in the United States who had 

 been born in Austria, 14% were Germans; and their influence doubtless makes the per- 

 centage (53.5) in the above table slightly lower than otherwise it would be. Similarly 

 45% of those registered as born in Hungary were not Slavs, but Magyars. Of those 

 born in Russia, more than 50% were Yiddish and Hebrew. 



