THE FOREIGNER IN AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. 399 



markable, however, that the application of this principle should have 

 almost escaped the attention of every writer upon this subject, or 

 been lightly passed over by them. Mr. Giddings, whose work on 

 sociology is the only one based upon American inductions, scarcely 

 notices it; and his associate, Mr. Mayo-Smith, while he has examined 

 the subject of immigration extensively, appears to have entirely 

 overlooked the real value of the foreign element. 



It is in the purely American commonwealths that civilization is 

 to-day the lowest; the coast States, from Virginia to Louisiana, have 

 a foreign population of only 1.61 per cent,* yet it is here that the 

 illiteracy is greatest, and that there is least commercial and industrial 

 progress. It is this section, too, which produces the clay-eater and 

 "cracker," native-born white American citizens, yet so degraded that 

 continental Europe can scarcely show a lower type of man. It was the 

 solid American vote of the South which at the late election was cast 

 for Bryanism, repudiation, social upheaval, and all else that that name 

 implies. North Carolina, which does not contain within its borders 

 a single town having a population in excess of twenty-five thousand 

 persons, has the highest degree of illiteracy among its white in- 

 habitants, and the smallest proportion of foreign population of any 

 State in the Union. Lest it should be imagined, however, that it 

 is the alien which has the effect of reducing the aggregate illiteracy 

 in the Northern and Western States, it may be remarked that the per- 

 centage of illiteracy is almost invariably higher among the foreign 

 than among the native element. 



It has already been pointed out that it was the civil war and 

 slavery which in part caused a regression in Southern civilization 

 of at least a quarter of a century, but it will be found that this mis- 

 fortune was closely associated with the homogeneousness of the peo- 

 ple and the absence of a foreign element. In 1884 the Southern 

 Immigration Society met at Nashville. In the report of its proceed- 

 ings appeared this significant statement : " The immigration move- 

 ment is to be the great revolutionary movement in the political 

 economy of the South. 77 The society has probably ceased to exist, 

 but these words have lived and borne fruit. There is to-day a move- 

 ment toward the South, partially from abroad, more from the North, 

 but introducing at least a new element not very great, perhaps, 

 yet still perceptible, not only in a changing population, but also in 

 results, in a revival of industry, in a decrease of illiteracy. 



Louisiana stands alone; already a well-established colony pos- 

 sessed of a high degree of civilization borrowed from France when 

 acquired by the United States, there exist so many different factors 



* United States census, 1890. 



