PERILS. — I M MIG RATIO N . 59 



as unfortunate as it is natural, that foreigners in this 

 country should cherish their own language and peculiar 

 customs, and carry their nationality, as a distinct factor, 

 into our politics. Immigration has created the ' ' Ger- 

 man vote" and the "Irish vote," for which politicians 

 bid, and which have already been decisive of state elec- 

 tions, and might easily determine national. A mass of 

 men but little acquainted with our institutions, who will 

 act in concert and who are controlled largely by their 

 appetites and prejudices, constitute a very paradise for 

 demagogues. 



We have seen that immigration is detrimental to pop- 

 ular morals. It has a like influence upon popular intel- 

 ligence, for the percentage of illiteracy among the 

 foreign-born population is thirty-eight per cent, greater 

 than among the native-born whites. Thus immigration 

 complicates our moral and political problems by swelling 

 our dangerous classes. And as immigration will prob- 

 ably increase more rapidly than the population, we may 

 infer that the dangerous classes will probably increase 

 more rapidly than hitherto. ^ It goes without saying, 

 that there is a dead-line of ignorance and vice in every 

 republic, and when it is touched by the average citizen, 

 free institutions perish; for intelligence and virtue are 

 as essential to the life of a republic as are brain and heart 

 to the life of a man. 



A severe strain upon a bridge may be borne with safety 

 if evenly distributed, which, if concentrated, would ruin 

 the whole structure. There is among our population of 

 alien birth an unhappy tendency toward aggregation, 

 which concentrates the strain upon portions of our so- 

 cial and political fabric. Certain quarters of many of 

 the cities, are, in language, customs and costumes, es- 

 sentially foreign. Many colonies have bought up lands 

 « — — . 



1 From 1870 to 1880 the population increased 30.06 per cent. During- the 

 same period the number of criminals increased 82.33 per cent. In 1850, there 

 were 290 prisoners to every million of the population; in 1860, there were 607 

 to each million; in 1870, there were 853, and in 1880, there were 1169. That 

 is. in thirty years the proportion of criminals increased fourfold. 



