UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



5950 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



volume from year to year, and with extraordi- 

 nary rapidity. During the first half century 

 after 1840 a large part of the immigration came 

 from Northern and Western Europe; since 

 about 1890, with improvement of economic 

 conditions in those parts of Europe and the 

 opening up of other new countries, notably 

 Australia, Canada, Argentine and South -Africa, 

 the number coming from Northern Europe has 

 greatly decreased. During the same period an 

 enormous flood of immigration has set in from 

 Southern and Eastern Europe. It decreased 

 greatly after the beginning of the War of the 

 Nations in 1914, the number arriving in 1916 

 being only 298,800, against 1,219,000 in 1914. 



The early immigrants largely came in search 

 of free land and became farmers, but the newer, 

 for the most part, have found employment in 

 cities, so there have grown up in each of the 

 large cities districts inhabited almost exclusively 

 by immigrants of one nationality and language. 

 In spite of this fact, the second generation in 

 most cases appears to be interested in the 

 United States rather than in Europe, so the 

 process of making the immigrants over into 

 American citizens still goes on successfully, 

 though the foreign languages and customs are 

 long maintained in such segregated districts. 

 The early Dutch in New York and the Swedes 

 in New Jersey have long since lost their racial 

 characteristics, and few traces of the former set- 

 tlements exist. Family names alone connect 

 the past with the present in these regions of 

 early settlement. 



The Indians in the United States are neither 

 numerous nor during the last decade important. 

 Some of them are still on reservations and are 

 supported by the government; only in Okla- 

 homa, which includes what was formerly the 

 Indian Territory, have many persons of Indian 

 descent become citizens of the United States; 

 and even there the Indians are largely out- 

 numbered by the whites. See INDIANS, AMERI- 

 CAN. 



On the other hand, the negroes who were 

 brought in as slaves and freed as a result of the 

 War of Secession have continued to increase 

 with great rapidity, though somewhat less rap- 

 idly than the whites. Even in the South the 

 whites are multiplying faster than the negroes, 

 except in a few districts. Serious friction has 

 arisen between the blacks and whites in various 

 districts, not only in the South but with in- 

 creasing frequency in the North, and it is not 

 clear how this race question is to be solved. 

 That is one of the problems left for the future. 



Religion and Education. In the United States 

 religion is purely a private matter, while edu- 

 cation is principally a public matter, thus re- 

 versing the situation found in some European 

 countries. Aside from certain Oriental and 

 Mohammedan immigrants, practically the en- 

 tire population is connected with some form of 

 the Christian religion, every branch of it being 

 represented. 



According to statistics carefully compiled by 

 the various sects the number of communicants 

 in each leading Church and the relative 



