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^EV. S. B. MCCOKMICK, D.D., ON 



similar history ? The German immigrants of sixty years ago, 

 intelligent, disciplined, courageous, lovers of liberty, became 

 able statesmen — witness Carl Schurz ; distinguished officers in 

 the Civil War — v^^itness General Sigal ; famous editors of 

 influential papers — witness several such ; became servants 

 of the people in bettering social conditions — witness Oscar 

 Straus ; they became merchants and musicians and tillers of the 

 soil, Will Magyars and Slovaks and Euthenians emulate their 

 example ? The Scandinavian immigrants, lovers, too, of personal 

 fieedom, self-controlled and self-dependent, anxious for acres 

 upon which to build homes ibr themselves and tlieir cliildren, 

 went into the west and north-west and became citizens, builders 

 of a nation. Witness Governor Lind and Governor Johnson 

 and Governor Eberliart and a countless multitude scarcely less 

 distinguished. Will Italians and Poles and lioumanians make 

 such contribution to American manhood and citizensliip ? This 

 question presents the problem, and upon the answer will depend 

 the composite which is to be ultimate America. Professor 

 Davenport says that " imless conditions change themselves or 

 are radically chiinged, the populations of the United States will, 

 on account of the great influx of blood from Southern Europe, 

 rapidly become darker in pigmentation, smaller in stature, more 

 mercurial, more attached to music and art, more given to cer- 

 tain kinds of crime and less to others than were the original 

 English settlers." This is doubtless true. But will they 

 become American, and will the composite be better or worse 

 than it is to-day ? Here is to be found the destiny of America. 



We do not feel constrained in this paper to discuss the future 

 of this immigration nor the method by which it may be 

 regulated. Experience will show the way here. The only 

 really essential condition, perhaps, is sound physical health on 

 the part of the immigrant. The economic part of it is self- 

 regulative, for when conditions in America are prosperous and 

 wages high, the flow increases, and when the reverse prevails, it 

 diminishts. E(Uicational and property tests are relatively 

 unimportant, for the cliildren of the immigrant speedily become 

 intelhgent and economically wealth-producing. Every race 

 l)rin,us (dements of genuine worth and contributes to the country 

 of its adoption as much as it receives from it. An^ierica is " God's 

 great stomach." and is, we are confident, just as fully capable 

 now of assimilating the elements entering into it as at any 

 previous time in the nation's history. Such methods as are 

 needed will be adopted to keep out the unfit. Biologists like 

 Dr. Davenport will, from time to time, suggest precautions — 



