40 Henry Gannett — Movements of our Population. 



This flood of immigration has produced other results in our 

 population beyond the mere additions to our numbers and the 

 admixture of blood. It has lowered the average intelligence and 

 morality of the community. The illiterate of the northern states 

 are mainly foreign born, the proportion of illiterates among them 

 being four times as great as among the native born. Again, the 

 criminals of foreign birth in the northern states are double their 

 due proportion as compared with the native born. 



Another result of importance has been produced. It is a well- 

 known law of population that in a broad, general way as the 

 population increases the rate of increase diminishes. It is an 

 illustration of the Malthusian doctrine. Now, it matters not in 

 the least how this density of population is brought about, whether 

 it be by natural increase or by immigration, the < result is the 

 same ; the rate of natural increase is reduced thereby. 



I have made a comparison between the rates of increase of the 

 native white elements of the northern and the southern states to 

 ascertain approximately the effect of immigration upon our rate 

 of increase, and the results are presented in plate 18. The 

 southern states, including in that designation all of the states 

 east of the plains and south of Mason and Dixon's line, the Ohio 

 river and the southern boundary of Missouri and Kansas, have 

 received practically no immigration. The states north of this 

 line and east of the plains contain 86 per cent of the foreign 

 element, the remainder being mainly in the states and territories 

 of the far west. 



The rates of increase found among the whites of the south- 

 ern states, which are not complicated by immigration, are rep- 

 resented by the dotted line of the diagram, and while they ex- 

 hibit some oscillations they show a general but not a great dimi- 

 nution from the beginning of our history to the end. Between 

 1790 and 1840 the white population of these states increased 239 

 per cent. In other words, the population of 1840 was 3.39 times 

 that of 1790. In the succeeding fifty years the population of 

 these states increased 204 per cent — that is, the population of 

 these states in 1890 was 3.04 times as great as in 1840, the rate 

 having thus diminished by only 35 per cent. On the other hand, 

 how is it Avith the northern states ? In the first fifty years, dur- 

 ing which there was practically no immigration, the rate of in- 

 crease in each decade was considerably greater than in the south- 

 ern states, and altogether during this half century the white pop- 



