Furthermore, the significance of the foreign born element in the population of the United States can be gathered from the fact that, in 1910, of the 91,972,266 inhabitants of the United States, no less than 13,515,836 or 14.6 per cent were born in some other country.
[26] An Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania.
[27] J.G. Häcker, a well-informed and prosperous German who took the journey by steerage in a sailing vessel in 1849, wrote an instructive description of his experiences. Of his fellow passengers he said: "Our company was very mixed. There were many young people: clerks, artists, musicians, architects, miners, mechanics, men of various professions, peasants, one man seventy-eight years old, another very aged Bavarian farmer, several families of Jews, etc., and a fair collection of children."
[28] There were three potent reasons for this migration: financial stringency, overpopulation, and the growing rigor of the military service. Over ten thousand processes a year were issued by the German Government in 1872 and 1873 for evasion of military duty. Germans who had become naturalized American citizens were arrested when they returned to the Fatherland for a visit on the charge of having evaded military service. A treaty between the two countries finally adjusted this difficulty.
CHAPTER VII
THE CALL OF THE LAND
For over a century after the Revolution the great fact in American life was the unoccupied land, that vast stretch of expectant acreage lying fallow in the West. It kept the American buoyant, for it was an insurance policy against want. When his crops failed or his business grew dull, there was the West. When panic and disaster overtook him, there remained the West. When the family grew too large for the old homestead, the sons went west. And land, unlimited and virtually free, was the magnet that drew the foreign home seeker to the American shores.