During the hundred years from 1820 to 1920 it is estimated that more than thirty million immigrants reached the United States, which is the largest migration in history.[[12]] It is true that considerable numbers of these immigrants eventually drifted back to their native lands but the larger portion of them remained permanently here.
The various factors which have caused Europeans to leave their own countries.
Causes of Immigration.—The causes of immigration to this country are manifold. First in importance among them is the economic attractiveness of the United States. Cheap land, equal opportunities, the ease with which any industrious man or woman can make a living—these are the magnets which drew millions of people across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century. But there were other causes, namely, the existence in various parts of Europe of conditions which encouraged the people to emigrate. Religious persecution was one of the first things that drove men or women to America. It brought the Pilgrims to Massachusetts in the early days, the Quakers to Pennsylvania, and the English Catholics to Maryland. Political oppression in the middle years of the nineteenth century sent several million Germans to the United States, particularly to the Middle West. Oppression, both religious and political, has been instrumental in driving the Jews across the seas. Overcrowding in both the cities and the rural regions of Europe and the consequent inability of the people to obtain lands of their own, has been responsible for much of the drift to America. The exhaustion of the soil in Ireland, the crop failures and consequent famines there, have led to the migrations of the Irish, although dissatisfaction with political conditions has also been a factor in this case. To a considerable extent, moreover, immigration has been assisted by those aliens who were already settled in this country. Immigrants arrived in this country and by hard work soon became prosperous. Then they sent passage-money to their friends and relatives until whole groups of families were enabled to come to America in this way. The steamship companies, too, have advertised the attractions of America in all parts of Europe; they have kept agents at work in many countries, and have been an important factor in promoting immigration.
The economic factors have been the most important.
Nevertheless the underlying causes of immigration are economic. Immigrants come in greater numbers when prosperity reigns in America than in periods of business depression. This indicates that high wages and plenty of employment are the things which have the greatest influence in bringing them here. The democratic institutions of America have played their part, no doubt, and the relative social equality which exists among the people of the United States has been an attraction to those who are denied such equality in their own homelands. But the equality of economic opportunity, the open career, the chance of making a good living and even a fortune—these, after all, have been and still are the impelling forces.
How the immigrant has affected American life.
The Effects of Immigration.—A large immigration is certain to have far-reaching effects, particularly if the newcomers be of a widely different race. It has assuredly had far-reaching effects in the United States. Take the importation of the negroes as the most conspicuous example. The coming of several hundred thousand persons of African blood, during the years preceding 1808, has resulted in placing a colored population of more than ten millions in the heart of a white man’s country, with all the social, economic, and political problems that this situation implies. It influenced the agricultural system of the Southern states, provided the underlying causes of the Civil War, and has profoundly affected the politics of the United States down to the present day. The problem presented by the immigration of the various European races has been altogether different because these races can be assimilated whereas the negroes can not. Even so, the European immigration has presented its own problems and the coming of these many millions has had profound effects upon every branch of American life.
The making of a composite race.
Social Effects.—The social effects are chiefly in the way of introducing natural traits or qualities which were not in the American people during the early period. Immigration has resulted in making a cosmopolitan population which is not uniform in temperament or tastes, and can be made uniform only by the long-continued process of assimilation. This lack of uniformity is in some ways an advantage, not a defect. It may give us, in the long run, a more vigorous population than could ever be had from the development of a single strain. Whether the new composite race which ultimately emerges from the melting-pot will be superior or inferior to the original stock is something which only the future can tell. One disappointing feature is to be found in the fact that many of these immigrants are inferior to the average native-born American in physique, in mentality, and in moral fibre. It is sometimes asserted that the immigrant population is responsible for more than its due proportion of crime but no satisfactory evidence has yet been brought forward to prove this statement. It is a fact, however, that poverty and illiteracy are more common among the foreign-born than among the native white population. It is quite likely that the new environment will do much to remedy this condition and that the second generation, through the work of the public schools, may measure up to the native-born. These public schools are the most potent of all forces in the work of Americanization. It is upon them that we must depend to make the ultimate social effects of assimilation beneficial to the country.
Immigration in its relation to industry and labor.