THE INFLUENCE OP EARLY SETTLERS. 20l 



the future of the great commonwealths of the West. 

 Those of foreign birth or extraction ^ were, in 1880, 

 38.2 per cent, of the population of Washington Terri- 

 tory. Of Montana, they constituted 48.8 per cent, of 

 the population; of Wyoming, 50.5 per cent.; of Utah, 

 51.9 per cent. ; of Idaho, 53.2 per cent. ; of Arizona, 

 55.2 per cent.; of Dakota, 66.5 per cent.; of the State 

 of Nebraska, 43.5 per cent.; of California 59.9 per 

 cent. ; of Nevada, 63.3 per cent. ; and of Minnesota, 

 71.6 per cent. Not including Alaska, New Mexico, or 

 the Indian Territory, 53.9 per cent, of the population 

 of the territories was, in 1880, of foreign birth or ex- 

 traction. The population of New Mexico, though al- 

 most wholly native, is essentially foreign — foreign in 

 race, language, education (or rather the lack of it), in 

 religious ideas, habits and character. It is much more 

 difficult to assimilate than any of the European races. 

 The same is true of the population of the Indian Ter- 

 ritory. Counting these peoples, then, as foreign, 66 

 per cent, of the population of the territories is of for- 

 eign birth or extraction; and these territories include 

 nearly 44 per cent, of all the land between the Missis- 

 sippi and Alaska. If we add California, Colorado, Min- 

 nesota, Nebraska, Nevada and Oregon, these states, 

 together with the territories, constitute -nearly two- 

 thirds of all the West, and 58.9 per cent, of their in- 

 habitants are of foreign extraction or birth. 



We have seen that dangerous influences are being 

 brought to bear upon the new settlements of the West 

 with peculiar power. Are the neutralizing and saving 

 influences of the Christian religion equally strong ? 

 According to Dr. Dorchester, the evangelical church 

 membership of the United States in 1880, was one- 

 fifth of the entire population ; but in Oregon, the same 

 year, only one in eleven of the population was in some 

 evangelical church; in Dakota, one in twelve; in 



* By foreign extraction is meant natives, one or both of whose parents 

 were foreign-born. See Compendium of Tenth Census, Part II, pp. 1408 

 and 1409. 



