CITY LIFE, CRIHE AND POVERTY. 



BY JOHN R. COMMONS. 



[John Rogers Commons, economist; bom Darke county, O., October 13, 1862; gradu- 

 ated from Oberlin, 1888; A. M., 1890; student Johns Hopkins, 1888-90; professor 

 sociology Oberlin college, 1892; Indiana university, 1893-95; Syracuse university, 

 1895-99; expert agent Industrial commission, 1902; assistant secretary National Civic 

 Federation, 1 903 ; prof essor of sociology, University of Wisconsin. Author: The 

 Distribution of Wealth; Social Reform and the Church; Proportional Representa- 

 tion, etc.] 



Statistics are considered by many people as dry and un- 

 interesting, and the fact that a book or article is statistical is a 

 warning that it should not be read, or that the statistical para- 

 graphs should be passed over for the narrative and historical 

 parts. This is a dilettante and lazy attitude to take, and es- 

 pecially so in the study of social subjects, for in these subjects 

 it is only statistics that tell us the true proportions and relative 

 importance of our facts. The study of statistics leads us to a 

 study of social causes and forces ; and when we see that in the 

 year 1790 three per cent of our population lived in cities, and in 

 the year 1900 thirty three per cent lived in cities of 8,000 pop- 

 ulation and over, we are aroused to the importance of making 

 a serious inquiry into the reasons for this growth of cities and 

 the effects of city life on the future of democracy and the wel- 

 fare of the nation. More impressive to the student of race 

 problems becomes the inquiry when we realize that while one 

 fifth of our entire population lives in the thirty eight cities of 

 100,000 population and over, two fifths of our foreign bom 

 population, one third of our native offspring of foreign parents, 

 and only one tenth of our people of native parentage live in 

 such cities. That is to say, the tendency of the foreign bom 

 towards great cities is four times as great, and the tendency of 

 the children of foreign parents is three and one third times as 

 great, as that of the colonial and older native stock. 



If we present the matter in another form in order to show 

 the full extent of foreign influence in our great cities, we find 

 that 59 per cent of the population outside, and only 30 per 

 cent of the population within, these cities is of native paren- 

 tage, while 27 per cent of the population outside, and 65 per 



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