IMMIGRATION
There is an ominous side to immigration, but there are alleviating facts. One of these was thus referred to by Bishop Warren of the Methodist Episcopal Church:
A while ago I was in a small country village in New England. For the first time in my life I looked upon a Methodist Episcopal church, once filled with happy worshipers, but now closed and abandoned. The population of the entire township was declining, and tho a few of the last remaining Methodists had added their help to the older and stronger Congregational church, even this was looking into the future with fear and trembling. Many of the native stock had died or moved away, and “foreigners were creeping in.” I got a boy to guide me to where one of these foreigners—a Finlander—lived. It was a neatly painted home, with a fine garden and an acre of land, all paid for, and occupied by the Finn and his son. All the foreigners in the village were Finns and there were of them just six men and four women. Of the latter, two were wives of two of the men and two were young women serving in American families. And what sort of people were they? One of the six men, I was told, was a lay preacher and, as Sunday services were a long way off and quite irregular, this little homeless community of ten dreaded and shunned immigrants were maintaining a weekly prayer-meeting! (Text.)
(1531)
The total immigration to the United States for 1909 was 751,786. The net gain in foreign population was 718,433. The comparative immigration from the leading countries of the world for three years is shown in the following table:
| RACE OR PEOPLE | 1909 | 1908 | 1907 |
| Italians, North-South | 190,398 | 135,247 | 294,061 |
| Polish | 77,565 | 68,105 | 138,033 |
| German | 58,534 | 73,038 | 92,936 |
| Hebrew | 57,551 | 103,387 | 149,182 |
| English | 39,021 | 49,056 | 51,126 |
| Scandinavian | 34,996 | 32,789 | 53,425 |
| Irish | 31,185 | 36,427 | 38,706 |
| Magyar | 28,704 | 24,378 | 60,071 |
| Slovak | 22,586 | 16,170 | 42,041 |
| Greek | 20,262 | 28,808 | 46,283 |
| Croatian and Slovanian | 20,181 | 20,472 | 47,826 |
| French | 19,423 | 12,881 | 9,392 |
| Scotch | 16,446 | 17,014 | 20,516 |
| Ruthenian | 15,808 | 12,361 | 24,081 |
| Mexican | 15,591 | 5,682 | 91 |
| Lithuanian | 15,254 | 13,720 | 25,884 |
| Finnish | 11,687 | 6,746 | 14,860 |
| Russian | 10,038 | 17,111 | 16,807 |
| Japanese | 3,275 | 16,418 | 30,824 |
The reader sees at once that more immigrants came from Italy than from any other country. In fact, the immigrants from Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Scandinavia numbered altogether 198,630, while those from Italy alone were 190,398. Of these Italian immigrants 25,150 (in 1908, 24,700 and in 1907, 51,564) came from northern Italy and 165,248 (in 1908, 110,547 and in 1907, 242,497) from southern Italy.
Of the total 751,786 immigrants, 220,865 or 29.4 per cent., declared that the State of New York was their intended place of residence (of Hebrews 60.2 per cent., of Italians 39.9 per cent., of Poles 23.8 per cent.).
(1532)