IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES 87 



proportion of this immigration is Catholic. In the past, dur- 

 ing the time when the bulk of the immigration was Irish or 

 German, it was said that no helping hand, or at least no ade- 

 quate helping hand, was held out to them in the way of retain- 

 ing them in their ancestral faith, and so, great leakages oc- 

 curred, whereby many souls were lost to the Catholicity of 

 America. Perhaps a sufficient answer to the complaint of 

 leakage may be in the fact that in those earlier days there was 

 a fierce, determined hostility — both among the high and the 

 lowly — to Catholicism, and that, at the same time, the Church 

 was desperately poor, with meagre resources to provide for 

 the great tide of newcomers. The conditions are changed to- 

 day. Great as has been the mission field about us in these 

 United States, we have progressed so far that we have built 

 splendid churches, schools, hospitals and charitable institu- 

 tions, and have provided the material equipment for Christian 

 training throughout the entire country. At the same time the 

 fierce hostility of old towards the Catholic Church has abated. 

 The field of endeavor in regard to the immigrant is greater 

 than ever before, and more urgent in many senses than in the 

 earlier immigration to these shores. We ought to make the 

 most of our opportunity and avoid any omission of our duty 

 towards the immigrant, and above all toward the immigrant 

 of Catholic faith. 



II. — The Present Immigration 



THERE are now pouring into the United States every 

 year over one million of immigrants, of whom up- 

 wards of 600,000 are from the east and south of Eu- 

 rope and from Asia and Africa bordering on the Mediter- 

 ranean. These may be roughly classified as follows by race 

 or nationality (leaving out some 90,000 Jewish immigrants) : 



Armenians 4,000 



Bohemians 10,000 



Bulgarians and Servians 16,000 



Croatians, Slavonians and Dalmatians 40,000 



Greeks 40,000 



Italians (from north) 50,000 



Italians (from south) 180,000 



Lithuanians 20,000 



Magyars (Hungarians) 25,000 



Poles 120,000 



