ment ; such countries as Sweden; Denmark, Switz •
erland, France and Germany,• which furnished
the frame work of this Republic, have fallen to
the rear of the great procession; while from Aus
tro-Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Italy, the last
decade has witnessed a peaceful invasion of an ar
my more than twice as large as the armed hordes
of Goths and Vandals that poured down upon
Southern Europe and overwhelmed Rome.
While these millions of aliens have come to us,
in the main, with peaceful intent, and with the
purpose of becoming citizens of this common
wealth, still their presence among us in such vast
and constantly increasing numbers, is becoming
more and more a possible source of danger to us,
to our institutions, and to our civilization.
These heterogeneous ho'sts, streaming in upon our
shores from foreign lands, are possessed of lan
guages, modes of thought, habits of life, and so
cial customs, differing largely from those of the
great mass of Anglo-Americans. Even amidst
the most favorable surroundings, individuals do
not readily divest themselves of ideas, sentiments,
habits, and customs, ingrained upon them from
their earliest years, and which have become a
part of their very life and being. Hence there
is always among all peoples a strong tendency to
cling with the utmost tenacity, to their distinctive
national peculiarities and characteristics. For
merly such tendencies displayed by our immigrant
population, were largely neutralized by the great
majority of Anglo Americans, and the work of
absorption and assimilation went quietly and
steadily on; but with the constantly increasing
influx of foreigners, this work has become a bur . -
den, so that it is now a matter of serious consid
eration as to whether we have not reached the
limit of our- powers of assimilation, and whether
if the tide of immigration continues to increase
in volume, the tendency will not rather be for the
Foreigner to absorb the American than for the
American to assimilate the Foreigner. In former
years, while our great manufacturing centres were
yet rural districts, and agriculture was the chief
THE FREE LANCE.
occupation, those who sought an asylum on Ameri
ca's shores were eager to adopt our customs and
become loyal citizens. But with the birth of a
New York and a
,Chicago came the tendency fur
this portion of our population to congregate in
cities, and to mass itself in certain districts in
these great business centres, and there maintain
its own language, customs, methods of life, relig
ion or irreligion, so that it virtually constitutes a
foreign community on American soil, and hence
becomes almost impervious to all Americanizing
influences.
Thus New York with its 75,000 Italians has its
"Little Italy" which represents some of the worst
features of Italian society in the mother country.
San Francisco with its 50,000 celestials, has its
"China Town," which presents an exact likeness
to the "Flowery Kingdom." Chicago and Cleve
land with their hordes of Poles and Hungarians,
have their "Bohemian Quarters," where thou
sands of immigrants of these nationalities live in
the half civilized condition in which they have
been reared. In almost all our dreat cities the
combined foreign element equals, and in many
instances largely surpasses in numbers, the native
American poriton of our population. Hence our
cities are assuming more and more a foreign type,
so that it is becoming almost impossible to find a
distinctively American city in this great Common
wealth. Realiiing and appreciating the advan
tages which their vast numbers afford them, these
foreigners are becoming arrogant in their strength
and they demand, in an insolent manner, that
our institutions and laws be modified to suit their
foieign ideas and customs. Their influence is ex
erted against all principles and laws for the ele
vation of society, They even threaten to over
throw the great corner-stone of our civilization,
the American Sabbath, and substitute in its stead,
that relic of barbarism, the European Sabbath
with its open saloons, beer gardens and theatres ;
Sunday picnics, baseball games, brutal prize
fights, and everything clse that a demoralized,