MIGRATIONS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE 213 



The wave of immigration shows great fluctuations in height. 

 Referring to this the Commissioner General of Immigration 

 (Keefe, 1910, p. 10) says: "This periodical rise and fall well 

 represents the relative prosperity of the country, while the 

 gradual increase from decade to decade may be taken as a 

 fairly accurate index of the country's development and 

 growth and its capacity to employ larger numbers of alien 

 laborers." 



It may be added that, on account of the departure of aliens, 

 the net increase is less than the totals shown on the chart. 

 Thus there were over 200,000 emigrants in the year ending 

 June 30, 1910, leaving a net increase of something over 

 800,000. (Even that is enormous, and no patriotic American 

 can contemplate this vast annual addition to our kinds of 

 germ plasm without inquiring as to the sort of potential traits 

 they carry and the probable eugenic effect on our nation of 

 this constant influx of new blood. ) 



a. The Irish. — The consequences of the immigration of 

 the earlier half of the period of 91 years are already seen. In 

 1846 there was a severe famine in Ireland and during the 

 next five years over a million souls, or one-eighth of her pop- 

 ulation, emigrated thence to the United States, and Ireland 

 has remained one of the most persistent sources of our foreign 

 population. The traits that the great immigration from the 

 south of Ireland brought were, on the one hand, alcoholism, 

 considerable mental defectiveness and a tendency to tubercu- 

 losis; on the other, sympathy, chastity and leadership of 

 men. The Irish tend to aggregate in cities and soon con- 

 trol their governments, frequently exercising favoritism and 

 often graft. The young women were formeriy much em- 

 ployed as household servants, but more recently have be- 

 come shop gbls and factory hands. Many of the Irish, 

 most strikingly those of the northern part of that island, 

 were among the nation's most intrepid frontiersmen and 



