EUROPEANS IN UNITED STATES—RIPLEY. 603 
Birth rate (approximate). 
EIN aly eee Sere eae ee ee ee hee 40 | Australia, Sweden___--__________-_ 27 
ANTE i ore ee aoe eee 37 | Massachusetts, Michigan__________ 25 
German Vas 2 ee See 36 | Connecticut, Rhode Island_--_____~ 24 
eG elliy eater ees 8) ee Se St Perelan Ge 2 st ees See ERs 23 
TO Mlany dete esl va De Dee Som EAT C Oia ee ike cece 2 Sel ee 22 
England, Scotland, Norway, Den- News Hampshire 2222222 see ias (G2) 20 
MIs a ht ge eS PS 30 
This crude birth rate, of course, is subject to several technical cor- 
rections, and should not be taken at its full face value. Moreover, 
it may be unfair to generalize for the entire rural West and South 
from the data for densely populated communities. And yet, as has 
been observed, it is in our thickly-settled Eastern States that the 
newer type of immigrant tends to settle. Consequently, it is the 
birth rate in these States, as compared with that of the newcomer, 
upon which racial survival will ultimately depend. 
The birth rate in the United States in the days of its Anglo-Saxon 
youth was one of the highest in the world. The best of authority 
traces the beginning of its decline to the first appearance, about 1850, 
of immigration on a large scale. Our great philosopher, Benjamin 
Franklin, estimated six children to a normal American family in his 
day. The average at the present time is slightly-above two. For 
1900, it is calculated that there are only three-fourths as many chil- 
dren to potential mothers in America as there were forty years ago. 
For Massachusetts, were the old rate of the middle of the century sus- 
tained, there would be 15,000 more births yearly than now occur. 
In the course of a century the proportion of our entire population, 
consisting of children under the age of 10, has fallen from one-third 
to one-quarter. This, for the whole United States, is equivalent to 
the loss of about 7,000,000 children. So alarming has this phenom- 
enon of the falling birth rate become in the Australian colonies that 
in New South Wales a special governmental commission has volumi- 
nously reported upon the subject. It is estimated that there has been 
a decline of about one-third in the fruitfulness of the people in fifteen 
years. New Zealand even complains of the lack of children to fill her 
schools. The facts concerning the stagnation, nay even the retro- 
gression, of the population of France are too well known to need de- 
scription. But in these other countries the problem is relatively sim- 
ple, as compared with our own. Their populations are homogeneous, 
and, ethnically at least, are all subject to these social tendencies to the 
same degree. With us the danger lies in the fact that this low and 
declining birth rate is primarily confined to the Anglo-Saxon con- 
tingent. The immigrant European horde, until recently at least, has 
continued to reproduce upon our soil with well-sustained energy. 
