86 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



proper locality it is our moral duty to aid him. This publicity 

 and distribution bureau would find no lack of opportunities for 

 the immigrants. The density of the population of the Southern 

 States to-day is very low compared with that of the Northern : 



Alabama 35 New York 152 



Arkansas 24 Illinois 86 



Louisiana .*.... 30 Ohio 102 



Texas 11 Pennsylvania 140 



Florida 9 Massachusetts 349 



The wonderful resources of those States are almost untouched. 

 The foreigners are very welcome there. It would be unfair 

 to the South to deprive her of these immigrants who would de- 

 velop her agricultural resources merely because the North is more 

 fully developed. In the West there are still 485,000,000 acres of 

 idle land. The East has its abandoned farms. If the results 

 of a policy of internal distribution of the immigrant should prove 

 unsatisfactory then it would be time to pass laws restricting 

 immigration. In the meantime we should not forget America's 

 great debt to the immigrant. 



WHY IMMIGRANTS GO TO CITIES 1 



H. P. FAIRCHILD 



IT is apparent that our foreign-born residents tend irresistibly 

 to congregate in the most densely settled portions of the country, 

 and in the most densely populated states. But this is not all. 

 They also tend to congregate in the largest cities, and in the 

 most congested sections of those cities. In 1890, 61.4 per cent, 

 of the foreign-born population of the United States were living 

 in cities of at least 2500 population. In 1900 the percentage 

 had increased to 66.3, while 38.8 per cent, of the entire foreign- 

 born population were huddled into the few great cities having 

 a population of over 100,000. In the same year only 36.1 per 

 cent of the native-born population were living in cities of over 

 2500. This tendency appears to be increasing in strength, and 



i Adapted from "Immigration," pp. 229-231. Macmillan, New York, 

 1913. 



