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American History told by Contemporaries ®
Eacu VOLUME INDEXED AND SOLD SEPARATELY.
os
z
Vor. I. Era of Colonization, 1492-1689 Published 1897
Vor. II. Building of the Republic, 1689-1783 Published 1898
Vor. III. National Expansion, 1783-1845 Published 1900
Vor. IV. Welding of the Nation, 1845-1900
WITH GENERAL INDEX Published 1901 Vor. V. Twentieth Century United States, 1900-1929 WITH VOLUME INDEX Published 1929
č
BY THE SAME EDITOR
A Source-Book of American History
The Source-Book is independent of the four volumes of Contem- poraries, and contains no articles which appear in the larger series.
č THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
American History told by Contemporaries aie VOLUME V TWENTIETH CENTURY UNITED STATES
1900—1929
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2024
httos://archive.org/details/americanhistoryt00O05albe_ u0c9
American History told by Contemporaries
VOLUME V
TI ENTTETIT CENTURY ONITED STATES
1900-1929
EDITED BY
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT EMERITUS IN Ee UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF “FORMATION OF THE Union,” “SALMON P. CHASE,” “Monroe DOCTRINE,” “NATIONAL IpEALs HISTORICALLY TRACED,” “AMERICAN Hisrory Maps,” Erc., Erc.
EDITOR OF “AMERICAN Nation,” “AMERICAN YEAR Book,” “COMMONWEALTH History oF MassacHuseETTs,” Erc., Erc. HIsTORIAN OF THE U. S. GEORGE WASHINGTON BICENTENNIAL COMMISSION
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF JOHN GOULD CURTIS
FORMERLY ASSISTANT IN GOVERNMENT IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON COLLIER-MACMILLAN LIMITED
32995
COPYRIGHT, 1929, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo- copying, recording or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Fourteenth Printing, 1968
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, NEW YORK COLLIER-MACMILLAN CANADA, LTD., TORONTO, ONTARIO
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
E 73 H32 v5
Preface
In these modern days the significance of historical souzces, as the only foundation of the study and teaching of history, government and international law, needs no defence or explanation. The funda- mental idea that historical investigation and historical writing must be based on ascertained occurrences and expressions from personal experi- ence, is now deeply rooted in the minds of historical writers, of teach- ers of history, and of publishers of historical books.
This method has been furthered by the World War, which presented tremendously important problems of historical evidence. For ten years a battle of books has raged, almost as full of animosity as the struggles of the armies in the field, upon the question of what actually took place in the cabinets of Europe immediately preceding the out- break of hostilities. The dreadful question of the responsibility for that war has been subjected to the test of contemporary verbal state- ments, despatches, and telegrams; and also to subsequent explana- tions of responsible statesmen of the various countries involved. Never has there been such intensity of search and comparison of all publications, such delving in the intimate archives of the govern- ments concerned, such concern over the exact wording of historical records.
That influence has also affected the attitude of the public mind in the United States of America toward the search for ascertained truth with regard to the connection of the United States with that gigantic struggle. Never in the history of the Republic has there been such an outpouring of intimate personal material and the contents of secret or revealed government archives, as during the last ten years.
It is not the purpose of this fifth volume of the American History Told by Contemporaries to devote disproportionate space to that con- troversy; but it has been found indispensable to print a body of care- fully selected material relating to vital incidents and policies during the war. This volume recognizes the fact that every year of the last
Vv
vi Preface
three decades has furnished absorbing problems; and recorded varying views and recollections of protagonists in American public life.
A glance at the Table of Contents will reveal the editor’s conviction that the history of the United States is not concentrated in Washington nor in the national government. The real history of the United States involves millions of individuals and scores of concrete problems. Hence this volume follows the policy of the four preceding volumes in furnishing evidence that the complete history of our country involves the status of the people of the Nation; their origin; their spread over the land; their division into sections; their races; and the question of immigration. The industry of the American people is part of their history just as much as their politics.
On the other hand, we Americans are deeply interested in our governments—national, state, and local—as well as in the combination of public men in parties, and the antagonisms of party contests. Particular attention is therefore paid in the volume to the great figures who have come forward to represent the various ideas of their country- men. Numerous chapters are devoted to extracts from original dis- cussions of the political questions of the time.
Other portions of the volume are devoted to vital questions of public welfare, including dependents and criminals, urban problems, labor problems, public utilities. Due space is allotted to the intel- lectual life of the American people, as shown in their education and their literature.
The greatest crisis of the United States Government in the field of this volume is the World War, a crisis paralleled as a period of na- tional danger only by the American Revolution and the Civil War Hence the efforts to reach a decision as to the responsible part which the United States took in the World War. This volume gives op- portunity for some of the men who were deepest in those controversies to tell us what went on while the United States was a neutral; what. brought the Nation to the issue of war; and what were the conditions of the struggle in field, camp. transport and hospital. No writer has as yet performed the task of furnishing a complete picture of the relation of the United States to European affairs; but the selections in this volume on the war and the subsequent readjustment will enable the student and reader to realize what those who were closest to the con- troversy believed, sought, proposed, and carried through.
Pretace vii
In the last part of this volume the effort is made to give people who have been in the midst of the crisis the opportunity to make clear the confusion and difficulties of the status of the United States since the peace of rọrọ toward the rest of the world—whether members of the League of Nations or outside of it. By the method of calling upon one writer after another to tell something of what he has seen, and what he believes to have been essential for the welfare of the Nation, con- troversial treatment of those questions is avoided.
A practical difficulty in making up this volume has been that sub- stantially all the material, except extracts from public records, is copy- righted, and can be printed only with the consent of the original writer, his publisher, or other representatives. Some excellent pieces had to be omitted because the legal owner of the copyright could not be ascertained.
Throughout the process of the work Mr. John G. Curtis, of the Harvard Law School, has been an unfailing and sagacious aid. It is a fundamental condition of the work that it shall be as nearly as possible a letter-perfect transcript of the original sources; and in this and other necessary comparison with originals Miss Mabel F. Reed has been very efficient.
To these acknowledgments the editor must add his sense of personal indebtedness to the students and readers and libraries throughout the country whose support of the enterprise of the American History told by Contemporaries, during the thirty years since the publication of the first volume, has encouraged the author and his aids in the labor of unearthing and fitting together these two hundred and two ex- tracts, from the original printed statements of a host of men and women in a variety of callings and experiences. The numerous con- stituency of readers is highly valued, because it is an evidence through- out the country that teachers and writers of history are depending upon actualities as a basis of historical knowledge, alongside the ripened judgments of the numerous investigators and writers, who also must usually base their results upon the records of the experience of other people.
ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
Widener Library Cambridge, Mass. October, 1920
E A Guay Hop | j | Oro ip, Se TA 4 in Pw 7 = SMe dees f | "n ~ ’ i f TN Ma è A 7 hed fi t P p~ a Š a> i Etyj ' Ces the 20-4 i) meray? ing 4h J = ms = TAP * w bg he TEVET y MD AP te eee anaes int boù ah wnt Bin sha orig Ay aot , p CHRT wan vt - q i wat ities
Anh W Ww H
I2.
13.
Contents
PART 1
PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS,
PUPILS, LIBRARIES, AND STUDENTS
CHAPTER I— SIGNIFICANCE AND DERIVATION OF SOURCES
. Educative Value of Sources . How to Find and Use Sources
. Classification of Official Materials in This Volume
. Observers and Critics of American Conditions
. Classification of Economic and Social Selections . ; k . Classification of Selections on the World War . : 5 5
PART II THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
CHAPTER [I— POPULATION AND DISTRIBUTION
. James Fullarton Muirhead:
A Traveler at the Opening of the Century, 1900 .
. Professor Herbert Everett Van Norman:
Rural Conveniences, 1912
. Minister Wu Ting-Fang:
A Chinese View of American Manners, 1914
. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt:
Hyphenated Americanism, 1916
. Samuel Crowther:
The Flapper: A National Institution, 1926.
CHAPTER III—SECTIONS AND NEW STATES
Frederic C. Howe: The Great Empire by the Lakes, 1900 . Professor Albert Bushnell Hart: Remedies for the Southern Problem,1905 . . © «© e a ix
PAGE
14 22 25 29
33
37
41
21.
22.
23:
24.
25. 26.
27.
29.
Contents
PAGE . Charles Moreau Harger: Arizona and New Mexico, TOLE . . . «+. « « o o « 40 . Charles Moreau Harger: The Oil Fields of Oklahoma, 1919 Ii: #: 6 Nee, Merion.» Gt . George Palmer Putnam: Sport in the West, 1922 . . : = foe eer T ae SG . Charles H. Markham: The Strategy of Locating a Railroad, 1925. . . «. «© «© «= 59 CHAPTER IV—IMMIGRATION AND RACE ELEMENTS . James B. Connolly: Tandin e an INGO MOAB ES GH . Jacob A. Riis: Our Italian Laborers, 1901. Sf eo SE Meee ake) een Ol . Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe: A Self-Made Negro, 1910 x. ea Ra > NESS aE E att mare AL Professor Frederic Austin Ogg: The Japanese Problem, 1913. ; 4 5 3 : : D : - 74 Professor Robert de Courcy Ward: Our New Immigration Policy, 1924 ee eo ee 7S PART I GOVERNMENT AND DEPENDENCIES CHAPTER V— PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT Hermann H. Kohlsaat: Roosevelt and Hanna, 1901. ` > 5 : ; ; ; 3 eon Secretary John Hay: A Statesman's View of a President, 1904 7 8 James Ford Rhodes: Roosevelt the Trust Buster, 1904 . : 5 ; : : : : OL Lord Charnwood: An Outsider’s View of Roosevelt as Peacemaker, 1905 wes AOS CHAPTER VI— NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND PROBLEMS Congressman Oscar W. Underwood: The Corrupting Power of Public Patronage, rigor. . : : : 6 Gye . Secretary George B. Cortelyou: The Department of Commerce and Labor, 1903 . . «. = . . IOI Professor Arthur N. Holcombe: Distinctions among Parties, 1900-1908 cb es ‘cole « r06
30.
ZT.
46.
Government and Dependencies
William Dudley Foulke: The Campaign of 1912 . Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt: The Bolter’s Justification, 1912
. Dixon Merritt:
The Task of the Presidency, 1925
CHAPTER ViI — PACIFIC DEPENDENCIES AND POLICIES
. Professor Luella Miner:
Prisoners in Peking, 1900
. Secretary William Howard Taft:
Progress in the Philippines, 1907
. Belmore Browne:
Alaska, 1914
3 Cienie KS Lonla
Patriarchal Hawaii, 1916
. Captain Waldo Evans:
Samoa, 1921
CHAPTER VIII — LATIN-AMERICAN POLICIES
. Wallace Irwin:
Monroe Doctrinings, 1906
. Lieutenant-Colonel George W. Goethals:
The Panama Canal, 1909
. President Woodrow Wilson:
Relations of the United States with Mexico, 1913
. Leopold Grahame:
The Latin View of the Monroe Doctrine, 1914 . . à.
. Charles C. Thach:
The Modern Monroe Doctrine, 1920
. Knowlton Mixer:
American Coéperation in Porto Rico, 1925
. Professor William R. Shepherd:
Uncle Sam, Imperialist, 1927
. Ex-Secretary Charles Evans Hughes:
Pan-American Problems, 1928
PART IV
INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS CHAPTER IX— EUROPEAN FOREIGN RELATIONS
Frederick L. Emory: The Consular Service Aids Trade, 1901
PAGE
174
II
186
xii
59.
6o.
6I
Contents
. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary K a
Warning to the German Emperor, 1902
. Walter E. Weyl:
America and European Competitors, 1916 .
. National Civil Service Reform League:
Appointment of Ministers, 1919
CHAPTER X— PLANS FOR WORLD PEACE
. Wallace Irwin:
Clasp Hands, Ye Nations, 1905
. Secretary Elihu Root:
America’s Peace Policy, 1907
. Denys P. Myers:
Results of the Hague Convention, 1914
. President A. Lawrence Lowell:
A League to Enforce Peace, 1915 .
CHAPTER XI— THE NATIONAL DEFENCE
. near-Admiral A. T. Mahan:
Fortify the Panama Canal, 1911 .
. Lieutenant-Commander D. Pratt Mannix:
The Light Cavalry of the Seas, 1914
. Literary Digest:
Mobilization “ Blunders,” 1916
. Lieutenant-Commander Fitzhugh Green:
“Stand by to Ram!” 1922
. Secretary John W. Weeks:
Peace-Time Work of the Army, 1923
PART V
DOMESTIC PROBLEMS AND ADVANCES
CHAPTER XII — CATASTROPHES
Major-General Adolphus W. Greely: The San Francisco Disaster, 1906
Senate Committee on Commerce: The Sinking of the Titanic, 1912 .
. L. C. Speers:
Saving New Orleans, 1927
PAGE 190 193
198
202 203 209
214
219 223 226 229
234
240
245
251
Domestic Problems and Advances
xiii
CHAPTER XII — TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION
. Mary C. Blossom:
James J. Hill, Builder of a Frontier, 1901
. Max Bennet Thrasher:
Rural Bree Delivery 1903) n a es
. The Outlook:
Parcel Post, 1913. ; : PERIN
. Allen D. Albert:
The Wizardry of the Automobile, 1922 .
66. T. Warren Allen and Others:
72.
73:
74. 75: 76. 77: 78.
79:
Road Improvement, 1924
. William B. Stout:
Flivvers of the Air, 1926
. Captain Charles A. Lindbergh:
An Epochal Flight, 1927
CHAPTER XIV — NATIONAL FINANCE
. Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo:
The Liberty Loan, 1917 .
. Director Charles G. Dawes:
Benefits of the Budget, 1922 .
. The New Republic:
Our War Debtors, 1922 . Nils A. Olsen and Others:
Federal Farm Loans, 1924 Krickel K. Carrick:
The Federal Reserve System, 1926
CHAPTER XV — AGRICULTURE, CONSERVATION, AND RECLAMATION
Harold Howland: Reclamation and Conservation, 1908 Chief Engineer Frederick H. Newell: Water on Arid Lands, 1910 . Dean Eugene Davenport: Scientific Farming, 1912 : President Kenyon L. Butterfield: The Farmer’s Chance, 1919 H. W. Hochbaum: Agricultural Extension Work, 1924 Chief Forester William B. Greeley: Relation of Geography to Timber Supply, 1925 .
PAGE 256 261 265 268 271 275
280
307
323
327
xiv Contents
89. go. gl. 92.
93-
94.
95.
PAGE
. Director George Otis Smith:
Sources of Mechanical Power, 1925. . : 5 6 5 3 a 5 332
. Ex-Governor Frank O. Lowden:
The New Economics of Farming, 1926 s 3 5 ; z 3 335
. Victor H. Schoffelmayer:
SPI GING, even, CC 5 BO
CHAPTER XVI— MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS
. Justice John Marshall Harlan:
The Northern Securities Case, 1904 . z 5 é 9 b : 5 By . William Jennings Bryan:
Government Ownership of Railroads, 1906 . : Phila : z 4 BSA . Justice Horace H. Lurton:
The Coal Monopoly, 1912. r 3 : 5 : 3 È + 856 . Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Shr
A Liberal’s Protest, 1912 o Me tl ne ee Ores OO . President Woodrow Wilson:
Regulation of Trusts, 1914 . : : ‘ 3 : > : ; < 365 . Professor Frederic Austin Ogg:
Railroad IOC Dy NOSSO e
PART VI
ADMINISTRATION METHODS AND EXPEDIENTS
CHAPTER XVII— PARTY AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION Albert Halstead:
The Party Campaign Committee, 1904 . . 3 . «tt 37A Professor Charles A. Beard:
Political Finances, 1910 . ; A ‘ 4 : ; z ; 5 hee Professor James T. Young:
Party Organization in State and County, 1915 . : ; t mesos The New Republic:
Votin efor Erestdent Torone SC X T387 Professor William B. Munro:
The National Conventtons,1924. . . . . . . +. « 301
CHAPTER XVII PUBLIC QUESTIONS IN STATES AND CERES
Mayor Tom Johnson:
A City Reformer, 1901 ee, eee ee : : - 396 Fremont Older:
Purifying San Francisco Politics, 1906 . s > a 406
IOI.
102.
103.
104.
105.
Administration
. Professor Arthur N. Holcombe:
The Recall, 1912 . 3 =) iets Pes aes
EIC Cara.
TOR SURO Of (COPE OVO we aa a
. Delegate Albert Bushnell Hart:
The Initiative and Referendum, 1917
. E. S. Taylor:
Traffic Problem of Chicago, 1924
. Superintendent Lynn G. Adams:
State Police Problems, 1926.
CHAPTER XIX — THE COURTS AND THEIR PLACE IN GOVERNMENT
Elbert F. Baldwin: The Supreme Court Justices, 1911 Professor James T. Young: The Federal Judiciary System, 1923 . Fabian Franklin: Five to Four in the Supreme Court, 1923 . Judge Benjamin Barr Lindsey: The Work of a Juvenile Court, 1925 . . . »« «©
PART VII
THE HUMAN RELATIONS
CHAPTER XX — PROBLEMS OF CRIME AND MORALS
Glenn Frank: Piety and Playfulness, 1922
. President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot:
Prohibition, 1923 .
. Clarence S. Darrow:
Legislating Morals, 1924
. William Seagle:
>
“Criminal Syndicalism,” 1925
_ Professor Raymond Moley:
Politics and Crime, 1926
CHAPTER XXI—LABOR AND INDUSTRY
. Secretary James J. Davis:
A Laborer Meets His First Capitalist, 1900
. President Theodore Roosevelt:
The Courts and Labor, 1908 .
436
439
avl
112. TIS, ITA:
II5.
116. II7. 118. IIQ.
I20.
I2I.
T22:
Contents
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: The Labor Union Boycott, 1915 Burton J. Hendrick: The Age of Big Business, 1919 . Owen R. Lovejoy: Prohibiting Child Labor, 1919 Ezekiel Henry Downey: Workmen’s Compensation, 1923 .
CHAPTER XXII — CONCERNS OF WOMEN
Mary H. Parkman: Education of Jane Addams, 1900 President Henry S. Pritchett: Technical Education for Women, 1906 Florence Lucas Sanville: Night Work for Women, 1910 Max Eastman: Is Woman Suffrage Important? 1911 Jane Addams: Larger Aspects of the Woman’s Movement, 1914
PART VIII NATIONAL LEADERS
CHAPTER XXIII — AMERICAN PUBLIC MEN
Henry McFarland:
John Hay, a Great Secretary of State, 1900 Professor Felix Frankfurter:
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Eminent Jurist, 1916 .
. Ex-Secretary Elihu Root:
Joseph H. Choate, Counsellor and Ambassador, 1917
. Edward G. Lowry:
William S. Sims, Earnest Admiral, 1921 .
5. Andrew Ten Eyck:
Elihu Root, Public Servant, 1921
. Senator James W. Wadsworth, Jr.:
Henry Cabot Lodge, a Massachusetts Institution, 1924
. The Nation:
Eugene Debs, Social Leader, 1926
Ray ie bucker:
William E. Borah, Free Lance, 1926 .
PAGE 470 473 477
482
487 490 493 498
502
506 510
514
530
533
129. 130. Tacs
132.
139. 140. TAES 142.
143.
National Leaders xvii
CHAPTER XXIV — PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
PAGR Ex-Secretary Josephus Daniels: ARbreaker of Erecedenis, 1912 a RST PETS, T S Se ES Sir A. Maurice Low:
“Too Proud to Fight,” 1915 ; ee NES oad Professor Edgar E. Robinson and Professor Victor J. West: Leadership of Woodrow Wilson, 1917 AAEE ar ere Ries RON 5 51S)
Ex-Secretary David F. Houston: An Estimate of Woodrow Wilson, 1918 . . . .« « « « S553
PART IX
THE ARTS AND SCIENCES
CHAPTER XXV — PHILANTHROPY AND CULTURAL
ADVANCE
. Walter Hines Page:
The Pan-American Exposition, 1901 APRS CA ls S62 . Charles Edward Russell:
Theodore Thomas, Orchestral Conductor,1905 . . .« o « ~ 505 . Edward Bok:
IGA BAI OIG Tare 5 6 oh 4 6. 6 Oo. a Gy . Glenn Frank:
INT MARIA Of SPNA MOR a o & 6 oo 6 @ 45 o Gye . Lewis Mumford:
The Architecture of Expediency, 1924 eee EN Khon Gos S70
. Leonard McGee:
ihe New Yorki Legals Ard Socidy a025 T a ss en ee SOA.
CHAPTER XXVI— EDUCATION
Superintendent William Wirt:
Puoro Sekol Tadeu S roro m matte tno eo aes) So ee SOS Frederic W. Keough:
Employment of Disabled Service Men,1918 . «. « «© «© a SOT President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot:
Education Since the World War, 1920. T06 Edwin E. Slosson:
The Unnerst Cha LOGY, TORT we) aes) See eee et ent. OOT John Palmer Gavit:
A Workaday College, 1925 . Se, 0 : i ; 5 A . 605
xviii Contents
144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149.
150.
CHAPTER XXVII— AMERICAN LITERATURE
George Gladden:
Nature and John Burroughs, 1900 Hildegarde Hawthorne:
Our Mark Twain, 1914 Edmund Lester Pearson:
Review of Book Reviews, 1916 Percy H. Boynton:
The Modern Drama, 1919 Carl Van Doren:
Two Eminent Novelists: Cabell and Hergesheimer, 1922 . Vachel Lindsay:
A Poet Questions Progress, 1923 Richard G. de Rochemont:
Tabloid Journalism, 1926
. “Neri” and “Wamp”:
The News in Brief, 1926
CHAPTER XXVIII — SCIENCE AND INVENTION
. Octave Chanute:
Early Flying Experiments, 1909
. John Winthrop Hammond:
Steinmetz: Immigrant, Scientist and Teacher, 1889-1912
. Henry Ford:
Ingenuity in Motor Manufacturing, 1914 .
. New York Times Current History:
War Surgery, 1918 : :
. New York Times Current History:
The First Continuous Trans-Atlantic Flight, 1919 .
. Judson C. Welliver:
The Project at Muscle Shoals, 1922
. Graham McNamee:
A Broadcasting Studio, 1925
. Arthur Pound:
The Telephone Idea, 1926
CHAPTER XXIX— RECREATION AND TRAVEL
. Albert Bigelow Paine:
Complexities of Hotel Operation, 1903
. Doctor J. P. Casey:
Our Great American Game, 1906
. Enos A. Mills:
Racing an Avalanche, 1912
630 644 649 654 658 662 667
672
677 681
684
163.
164.
165. 166. 167. 168.
169.
170.
EJT.
The Arts and Sciences
Ex-President Caroline Hazard:
WOES OPA OSAMA morra A e a ha e Michael Gross and “P. W.”:
Oi WOW EEERICUNES UWS 5 5 Cl
PART X THE WORLD WAR
CHAPTER XXX — THE UNITED STATES AS A NEUTRAL
Professor Charles Chency Hyde:
The United States as a Neutral, 1914 Ambassador Walter Hines Page:
An Ambassador on Duty, 1914 . C. Hartley Grattan:
An Impressionable Diplomat, 1915 President Woodrow Wilson:
The Lusitania Note, 1915 Alan Seeger:
A Message to America, 1916
CHAPTER XXXI— BUCKLING ON THE ARMOR
Robert W. Bruére:
The International Food Problem, 1916 Senator Henry Cabot Lodge:
War with Germany, 1917
. Literary Digest:
Insurance for Soldiers, 1917
. Commissioner Frederic C. Howe:
War-Time Hysteria, 1917
. Fred H. Rindge, Jr.:
Foreigners in the Army, 1918
. Raymond B. Fosdick:
Training Camp Activities, 1918 .
. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt:
Broomstick Preparedness, 1918 .
CHAPTER XXXII — OVER THERE
. Richard Harding Davis:
An Embattled Press Correspondent, 1914 .
. Joyce Kilmer:
The Cathedral of Rheims, 1915
. John Masefield:
American Ambulance Field Service, 1916
xix PAGE 690
692
695
701
187. 188. 189.
Igo.
IQI.
192.
195.
Contents
. Alan Seeger: In Memory of the American Volunteers, 1916 . . Henry Seidel Canby:
A Lesson from the Tanks, 1917 .
. Anonymous: An American in the British Aw Service, 1918 . . Colonel Hiram Bingham: Training American Aviators in France, 1918 . . General John J. Pershing:
The St. Mihiel Operation, 1918 .
. Edwin L. James:
The Doughboys Over the Top, 1918
. Katherine Mayo:
Women with the Y. M. C. A., 1918
CHAPTER XXXIII— WAR ON THE SEAS
Captain Thomas G. Frothingham: The American Transports, 1917 . Albert Kinross: How it Feels to be Torpedoed, 1917 Enos B. Comstock: The Destroyers, 1918 Captain Thomas G. Frothingham: U-Boat Raids off the American Coast, 1918
PART XI
AFTERMATH OF THE WAR
CHAPTER XXXIV — THE ARMISTICE AND PEACE
New York Times Current History: The Armistice, 1918 Professor John Spencer Bassett: Peace Conference at Versailles, 1919 .
. Senator William E. Borah:
Against the Versailles Treaty, 1921
CHAPTER XXXV — POLITICAL AND SOCIAL MATTERS . Professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr.:
Freedom of Speech in War Time, 1919 Judson C. Welliver: President Harding, 1923
790
794
799
802
804
808 814
820
824
831
Aftermath of the War Xxi
196. Louis J. Lang: eas
How Coolidge Got. the News, 1023 ~ w= ae er «4 ts 6. 6836 197. Professor John Spencer Bassett:
ISAO ULI ECT UO MNS 5 6 5 5 9 6G 6 6 5 Eee 198. Gerald W. Johnson:
The Ku-Kluxer, 1924 . fy ate Sac a oe els eis . 846 199. Mather A. Abbott:
Rhe INCISION AOD. a E a a a a a aa 200. The New York Times:
The Republican Landslide of 1928 . a . . «. e ~~. e 855 CHAPTER XXXVI— THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND THE WORLD COURT
201. President Woodrow Wilson:
Wilson on the League of Nations, 1919 . . . . oe we OSO 202. Bishop William Lawrence:
Henry Cabot Lodge and the League of Nations, 1919 ; ar . 862 203. Professor Manley O. Hudson:
World Courting, 1923 . ae cae Mae 28 Rea Ty 204. Ex-President Woodrow Wilson:
Turane AOU? Backs HOP, ae a a a a aaO
CHAPTER XXXVII— THE PLACE OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD
205. William Phillips:
The Diplomatic Service, 1920 . Se ty ce ee Fo a cy es 206. President Emeritus Charles W. Eliot:
American International Problems, 1922 . e ©. e è >e « 876 207. Mark Sullivan:
The Washington Conference, 1922 . $ 5 : ee < 88I 208. Professor Allyn A. Young:
Post-War Reparations, 1923 ae a ea a aa ev os rasos
[NDEX ° ° o ° o ° o ° v 6 ° o e . 89 I
Son n * W = o
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American History told by
Contemporaries
mn,
EARD
PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION FOR TEACHERS, PUPILS, LIBRARIES, AND STUDENTS
CHAPTER I— SIGNIFICANCE AND DERIVATION OF SOURCES
t. Educative Value of Sources
OWN to thirty years ago schools, colleges, and libraries had not yet accepted the idea that source materials could be used to ad- vantage by beginners in systematic reading and study of history. Time and educational experience have gone far to establish those studies from the primary authorities which are the basis of most of our historical knowledge. The continued demand for the first four volumes of the Contemporaries, from the publication of the first vol- ume in 1897, and the preparation of several other collections of source materials are evidences that students in secondary schools and col- leges are more and more gaining practice in basing historical studies on first-hand accounts. They are learning to weigh the conflicting views of honest partisans, and to form their own opinions of the value of human evidence. Thus the inquiring mind acquires an experience of historic judgment. Obviously great differences may develop in the testimony of two utterly honest witnesses to the same event, because no two people can see with the same eyes and hear with the same ears. Infinite are
2 Significance and Derivation of Sources [No. z
the forms and degrees of bias and prejudice which may result in great divergences of viewpoint and conflicts in the reports of results. Users of these sources will realize that the capacity and interest of each writer must be weighed with his words, to handicap or confirm their credibility. Unless the headnotes otherwise indicate, it may be as- sumed that the authors represented are competent and sincere. That they sometimes disagree with one another means simply that we are still spared the dullness of unanimity, that all questions have two sides, and that on both of them much may often justly be said.
Nowadays it is generally accepted that the reading of contemporary accounts imparts to the study of history a flavor of immediacy that makes for deeper interest and better recollection on the part of stu- dents. Naturally, brief extracts such as these will not be sufficient for all purposes, and in many instances it will prove desirable to read at greater length some of the authorities quoted here.
If Volume V lacks the zest of romantic records of pioneer adventure, or stirring tales of the struggle to maintain the Union, it does not necessarily deal with a less interesting time. True, governmental reforms are seldom exciting reading, and the aims even of the World War were perhaps less tangible than those of our earlier conflicts. But the first quarter of the Twentieth Century has been a time of swift social and industrial and political movement, and especially a time of the adaptation of science to the daily life of the people in such ways as to produce profound changes. They have been meaningful years.
2. How to Find and Use Sources
GuipEs. The most thorough-going recent development of sources on current affairs is Milton Conover’s Working Manual of Originai Sources in American Government (rev. ed., 1928). A case system for the study of politics. An invaluable guide for those who wish to reach official and unofficial sources on recent questions of American history, government and politics.
The same method has been followed by Albert Bushnell Hart, editor of The American Nation, a History. The three last volumes,
No. 2] How to Find and Use Sources 3
covering the same period as this fifth volume of the American History Told by Contemporaries, contain each a classified bibliography. These volumes are: J. H. Latané, America as a World Power [1897-1907]; F. A. Ogg, National Progress [1907-1917]; A. M. Schlesinger [1917- 1929] in progress.
Channing, Hart and Turner, Guide to the Reading and Study of American History (rev. ed., 1912) contains many indications and dis- cussions of sources. The sections 265-274 deal with the period from 1898 to Igo.
REcENT Histories. The best histories of the United States con- tain classified and descriptive bibliographies, including sources. Sources are diligently used as a basis in all the recent elaborate his- tories of the United States, and especially in the following:
John S. Bassett, Expansion and Reform, 1889-1926 (Epochs of American History, IV), has prefixed to each chapter an articulated bibliography of secondary works and of sources, brought down to date of publication; taking the captions in se- quence, this is a comprehensive guide to the sources in the last three decades.
Edward Channing, History of the United States (6 vols. published). The volume VIII will include the period covered by Volume V of American History told by Contemporaries.
Charles A. Beard and William C. Bagley, the American People (2 vols., 1920).
Homer C. Hockett and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Political and Soctal History of the United States (second volume comes down to 1925).
James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations (1897-1909).
Lester Burrell Shippee, Recent American History (1924)—Excellent lists of au- thorities.
Mark Sullivan, Our Times, the United States, 1900-1925 (2 vols., 1926, 1927). David P. Muzzey, The American Adventure (2 vols., 1927).
Allen Johnson (editor), Chronicles of America (50 vols.). Original edition completed tg19; “Abraham Lincoln edition” published 1918-1921. The volumes bearing on the United States in the Twentieth Century are: Vol. 46, C. R. Fish, Path of Empire; Vol. 47, H. Howland, Theodore Roosevelt and His Times; Vol. 48, C. Seymour, Woodrow Wilson and the World War.
ANNUALS AND CYCLOPEDIAS. Valuable and continuing sources are found in most of the annual and cyclopedic works published in the United States. The most important of these are the following:
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by E. R. A. Seligman. (In progress.)
4 Significance and Derivation of Sources [No. 2
New International Year Book (annual, 1908-1929).
World Almanac (annual).—Indispensable source of information for current hap- penings and statistics.
Official Congressional Directory for the use uf the United States Congress (revised for each annual session) .—Lists of legislative and some executive officials and judges. Maps of congressional districts.
Records of Political Events (annual).
Encyclopedia Britannica (several editions between 1902 and 1929).—Many Amer- ican articles written by Americans. Also Supplementary Volumes (vols. I-III, 1926).—New Edition of the new Encyclopedia Britannica in progress in 1929.
Encyclopedia Britannica, These Eventful Years (2 vols., 1924). The Americana Annual (connected with Encyclopedia Americana (1923-1926).
Statesman’s Year Book (1864-1928).—An English standard publication with a large section on the United States.
New International Year Book (1898-1927).—General in character. Compiled articles on the United States.
Appleton’s Annual Cyclopedia (New York, 1901-1903).—Series began in 1861. Many extracts from public documents.
American Year Book (annual volumes, 1910-1919; 1925-1928).—Prepared by a Board representing national learned societies. Brief articles by experts on progress of the year in many fields. Financed by the New York Times.
Dictionary of American Biography, edited by Allen Johnson; founded by Adolph S. Ochs (1928).—Will eventually include about 50 volumes.
PERIODICALS. Most of the serious periodicals contain valuable and quotable articles on history, politics, economics, social conditions and international relations. Especially serviceable for materials, such as are used in the Contemporaries, are the following:
New York Times Current History (monthly, 1914-1929).—Includes many monthly summaries of world conditions.
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (quarterly).
Political Science Quarterly, with supplements.—Discussions of pending questions of government.
American Historical Review (quarterly).—Articles in its field, reviews, and current information.
No. 2] How to Find and Use Sources
American Political Science Review (quarterly)—On governmental affairs, in the same lines as the preceding titles.
Foreign Affairs (quarterly).—Many informational articles.
American Journal of International Law (quarterly).—Many narrative articles. Foreign Policy Association issues many publications of current material. Economic Geography (quarterly).
American Review of Reviews (monthly).
Forum (monthly).—Many political articles.
Nation (weekly) —Founded in 1866: ultra liberal
World’s Work (monthly).
New Republic (weekly).—Critical and somewhat destructive.
Atlantic Monthly (founded in 1853).
Outlook and Independent (weekly).—-Many articles on current events.
North American Review (monthly).—Successor to a famous and solid publication founded in 1815.
The Historical Outlook (monthly).—Pays special attention to the use of sources in teaching.
Dretomacy. In the field of government and diplomacy access to the sources is aided by A. C. McLaughlin and Albert Bushnell Hart (editors), Cyclopedia of American Government (3 vols., 1914-1916)— Includes many biographical entries down to 1916.
Detailed bibliography on diplomacy in Channing, Hart and Turner, Guide, §§ 266- 268.
Bibliographical aids in Journal of International Law, many entries. Parker T. Moon, Syllabus on International Relations (1925).—Very full and helpful.
Charles C. Hyde, International Law Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied by the United States (2 vols., 1922).—A work of immense research, abounding in bibliography, including many unusual sources.
Arthur N. Holcombe, The Political Parties of Today (1924).—Standard textbook with references.
P. O. Ray, Political Parties and Practical Politics (1924).—Bibliographies include sources.
NEWSPAPERS. A vast amount of original material finds its way into the columns of the daily press, especially in reports of speeches
6 Significance and Derivation of Sources [No. 2
and documents, and personal narratives and arguments by public men. Among the newspapers are:
United States Daily, published in Washington; prints significant sources from day to day.
New Vork Times. The most powerful daily in the United States. “All the news that’s fit to print” on politics and public questions from day to day.
The principal newspapers in the large cities, including the Springfield Republican.
ROOSEVELT PERIOD. A considerable number of sources are grouped about Theodore Roosevelt and his time.
Hermann Hagedorn, Americanism of Theodore Roosevelt (1923).—Classified extracts. Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography (1913).
Theodore Roosevelt, Works (limited edition, 24 vols.).
Theodore Roosevelt, Works (popular edition, 22 vols.).
Joseph B. Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt and His Times as Shown in His Own Letters (1920).
William D. Lewis, Life of Theodore Roosevelt (1919).
Howard C. Hill, Roosevelt and the Caribbean (1927).
Albert Bushnell Hart (editor), Roosevelt Encyclopedia—An alphabetical register of Theodore Roosevelt’s views upon public and other questions, in progress in 1920.
Robert M. LaFollette, Autobiography (1913).
H. H. Kohlsaat, From McKinley to Harding (1922).
Wooprow WILson. Similarly numerous sources have been pub- lished bearing on Woodrow Wilson and the United States in the World War.
Edgar E. Robinson and Victor J. West, The Foreign Policy of Woodrow Wilson (1913-1917). (Extracts.)
Ray Stannard Baker and William E. Dodd (editors), The Public Papers of Wood- row Wilson (1925-1926).
Albert Shaw (editor), Woodrow Wilson. Messages and Papers (1917-10918). A. B. Hart (editor), Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (10918).
Ray Stanwood Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (3 vols., 1923).—In- cludes a volume of documents.
International Ideals (1919).—Collection from Woodrow Wilson material.
No. 3] Classif -ation of Official Materials 7
WorLD WAR. A. E. McKinley (editor), Collected Materials for the Study of the War (1918). James W. Gerard, My Four Years in Germany (1917).
John B. McMaster, The Untied States and the World War (1918).
Lester B. Shippee, Recent American History (1865-1922).—Very useful bibliog- raphies of source material and narrative histories at the end of each chapter.
Burton J. Hendrick, Life and Letters of Walter H. Page (3 vols., 1921). Many contemporary collections, official and private.
PEACE OF VERSAILLES. Bernard M. Baruch, Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty (1920).
Ray Stanwood Baker, Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement (3 vols., 1922).— Includes a volume of documents.
Robert Lansing, The Peace Negotiations, a Personal Narrative (1921). Joseph B. Tumulty, Woodrow Wilson as I Knew Him (1921).
Charles Shipley, Intimate Papers of Colonel House (4 vols., 1926-1928). Henry Cabot Lodge, The Senate and the League of Nations (1924). William E. Dodd, Woodrow Wilson and his Work.
3. Classification of Official Materials in This Volume
Recorps of various kinds furnish extremely valuable material: first, the Congressional Record from which have been taken speeches by Wadsworth (No. 126), Lodge (No. 171), and Borah (No. 193). Extracts from presidential addresses are represented by Roosevelt (No. 111) and Wilson (Nos. 40, 87).
Diplomatic correspondence will be found in the following: Root (No. sr), Page (No. 166), Wilson (Nos. 168, 201).
Extracts have been made from official publications of the executive departments and separate bureaus of the government: the Depart- ment of Agriculture (Nos. 72, 81), the War Department (No. 59), the Bureau of the Budget (No. 70), the Children’s Bureau (No. 114), the Smithsonian Institution (Nos. 73, 152), and the opinions of the
8 Significance and Derivation of Sources [No. 3
Supreme Court (Nos. 83, 85, 112). Among official utterances of public officials are extracts from the Governor of Samoa (No. 37) and the Director of the Budget (No. 70).
Pusiic PAPERS. Somewhat less use has been made of speeches in Congress and the Senate than in earlier volumes. Addresses in the Senate comprise those of Wadsworth (No. 126), Lodge (No. 171), and Borah (No. 193). A single Senate document is quoted (No. 60). Presidential messages and diplomatic communications are repre- sented by Roosevelt (Nos. 47, 111) and Wilson (Nos. 40, 87, 168, 201). Other officials of the national government speaking in the line of office are Root (No. 51), Taft (No. 34), Hughes (No. 45), Weeks (No. 58), Dawes (No. 70), and McAdoo (No. 69). Military and naval officers making formal reports include Evans (No. 37), Goethals (No. 39), Greely (No. 59), and Pershing (No. 184). Completing the official material are three reports of decisions by the United States Supreme Court (Nos. 83, 85, 112).
STATESMEN. Probably of equal value to the student are the unoffi- cial utterances of public men, such as Bryan (No. 84), Roosevelt (Nos. 10 and 31), Hay (No. 24), Cortelyou (No. 28), Root (No. 123), LaFollette (No. 86), Underwood (No. 27), Wilson (No. 204), Daniels (No. 129), and Houston (No. 132).
PERSONS IN GOVERNMENT SERVICE. Large use has been made of addresses by public officials, as Cortelyou (No. 28), Taft (No. 34), Hughes (No. 45), Weeks (No. 58), McAdoo (No. 69), Wilson (No. 204). Books and magazine articles by public men in or out of office have been drawn upon, as Underwood (No. 27), Goethals (No. 39), Myers (No. 52), Houston (No. 132), besides part of a speech in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1917 (No. 95). See also National Civil Service Reform League (No. 49).
MItitTary AND NAVAL. Official reports by military and naval officers include Captain Waldo Evans (No. 37), Major General Greely (No. 59), General Pershing (No. 184). Unofficial writings of military and naval officers are by Lieutenant Colonel Goethals (No. 39), Rear Admiral Mahan (No. 54), Lieutenant Commander Mannix (No. 55), Lieutenant Commander Green (No. 57), Colonel Bingham (No. 183), Captain Frothingham (Nos. 187, 190).
No. 3] Observers and Critics of American Conditions 9
4. Observers and Critics of American Conditions
PUBLIC AFFAIRS. A variety of leaders in civil affairs are repre- sented in the selections: in business by Markham (No. 17) and Ford (No. 154); in science by Lindbergh (No. 68) and Chanute (No. 152); in agriculture by Lowden (No. 80), Davenport (No. 76), and Butter- field (No. 77); in education by Pritchett (No. 117), Wirt (No. 139), and Eliot (No. 141); and in reforms by Older (No. 94), Johnson (No. 95), Adams (No. 100), Lindsey (No. 104), Eliot (No. 106), Darrow (No. 107), and Sanville (No. 118). Biographers, recording episodes in the lives of eminent men, are Low (No. 130), Bok (No. 135), Russell (No. 134), Hammond (No. 153), Macfarland (No. 121), Parkman (No. 116), Blossom (No. 62), and Davis (No. 110).
OBSERVERS. Numerous extracts are printed from observers and critics of conditions and affairs—in large part either journalists or academic men—during the years before the World War: Lowell (No. 53), Beard (No. go), Young (No. 91), Riis (No. 19), Ogg (Nos. 21 and 88), Kohlsaat (No. 24), Myers (No. 52), Rhodes (No. 25), Hoi- combe (Nos. 29 and 96), Foulke (No. 30), Hart (Nos. 13 and 98), Howe (No. 12), Frankfurter (No. 122), Gardner (No. 97), Pearson (No. 146), and Eastman (No. 119).
Pustic Service. H. H. Kohlsaat (No. 23), A. N. Holcombe (Nos. 29, 96), W. D. Foulke (No. 30), Theodore Roosevelt (No. 31), D. L. Merritt (No. 32), W. J. Bryan (No. 84), F. A. Ogg (No. 88), Albert Halstead (No. 89), C. A. Beard (No. go), J. T. Young (No. 91), W. B. Munro (No. 93), Max Eastman (No. 119), E. G. Robinson (No. 131), V. J. West (No. 131), J. C. Welliver (No. 157), J. S. Bassett (No. 197). State and local political activities are presented by Fremont Older (No. 94), A. B. Hart (No. 98), Raymond Moley (No. 109), G. W. Johnson (No. 198).
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS have been treated by Leopold Grahame (No. 41), C. C. Thach (No. 42), W. R. Shepherd (No. 44), A. L. Lowell (No. 53), Henry Macfarland (No. 121), C. C. Hyde (No. 165), Bishop William Lawrence (No. 202), M. O. Hudson (No. 203), William Phillips (No. 205), C. W. Eliot (No. 206), Mark Sullivan (No. 207).
IO Significance and Derivation of Sources [No. 4
A. A. Young (No. 108). The problems of immigration have been analyzed by Theodore Roosevelt (No. 10), J. A. Riis (No. 19), F. C. Ogg (No. 21), J. B. Connolly (No. 18), R. de C. Ward (No. 22). For- eign statesmen and critics have contributed some interesting pieces: Wu Ting-Fang (No. 9), Lord Charnwood (No. 26), Sir A. Maurice Low (No. 130).
LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIARY. Problems of legislation are treated by A. B. Hart (No. 98), Glenn Frank (No. 105), C. W. Eliot (No. 106), C. S. Darrow (No. 107), William Seagle (No. 108).
CRITICS OF THE Courts are E. F. Baldwin (No. tor), J. T. Young (No. 102), Fabian Franklin (No. 103), B. B. Lindsay (No. 104), Felix Frankfurter (No. 122), Raymond Moley (No. 109).
PERSONAL AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIC. Selections from autobiographies and biographies and other writings concern the following eminent persons: Booker T. Washington (No. 20), John Hay (Nos. 24, 47, 121), Theodore Roosevelt (No. 26), T. J. Hill (No. 62), Fremont Older (No. 94), Tom Johnson (No. 9s), J. J. Davis (No. 110), Jane Addams (No. 116), Judge Holmes (No. 122), J. C. Choate (No. 123), Admiral Sims (No. 124), Elihu Root (No. 125), H. C. Lodge (Nos. 126, 202), Eugene Debs (No. 127), W. E. Borah (No. 128), Woodrow Wilson (Nos. 129, 130, 131), D. F. Houston (No. 132), Theodore Thomas (No. 134), Edward Bok (No. 135), C. W. Eliot (No. 141), John Bur- roughs (No. 144), Mark Twain (No. 145), C. P. Steinmetz (No. 153), Henry Ford (No. 154), W. H. Page (Nos. 166, 167), President Warren G. Harding (No. 195), President Calvin Coolidge (No. 196).
SOCIAL AND Economic WRiTINGs on industries and general eco- nomics: Crowther (No. 11), Howe (No. 12), Harger (Nos. 14, 15), Markham (No. 17), Rhodes (No. 25), Emory (No. 46), Weyl (No. 48), Blossom (No. 62), Thrasher (No. 63), Allen (No. 65), Olsen (No. 72), Howland (No. 74), Davenport (No. 76), Butterfield (No. 77), Greeley (No. 78), Smith (No. 79), Lowden (No. 89), Hochbaum (No. 8r). nena (No. 82), Harlan (No. 83), Bryan (No. 84), Lurton No. 85).
SCIENTIFIC MEN. Scientists, engineers, inventors, etc., are Octave
Chanute (No. 152), John Hays Hammond (No. 153), Henry Ford (No. 154), E. A. Mills (No. 162).
No. 5] Classification of Economic and Social Selections 11
THE AMERICAN TRAVELLERS are Belmore Browne (No. 35), C. K. London (No. 36), Knowlton Mixer (No. 43). Foreign travellers are J. T. Muirhead (No. 7), Wu Ting-Fang (No. 9). Another foreign critic is Sir A. M. Low (No. 130).
Critics. The professions are represented by many authoritative writers. The opinions of academic critics of the affairs of this period are represented by Van Norman (No. 8), A. B. Hart (Nos. 13, 98), Ogg (No. 21, 88), Shepherd (No. 44), Miner (No. 33), Lowell (No. 53), Holcombe (Nos. 29, 96), Davenport (No. 76), Butterfield (No. 77), Beard (No. 90), Young (Nos. 91, 102), Munro (No. 93), Eliot (Nos. 106, 141, 206), Pritchett (No. 117), Wirt (No. 139), Hazard (No. 163), Hyde (No. 165), Bassett (Nos. 192, 197), Chafee (No. 194), Abbott (No. 199), Hudson (No. 203).
ee eee
5. Classification of Economic and Social Selections
Economic. The effects of modern inventions on social and economic life are presented by Albert (No. 65), Stout (No. 67), Lindbergh (No. 68), Smith (No. 79), McNamee (No. 158), Pound (No. 159). Writers on financial matters are Carrick (No. 73), Hendrick (No. 113), Frank (No. 136).
SoctaL Conpitions. Competent writers are H. E. Van Norman ‘No. 8), C. W. Eliot (No. 104), Glenn Frank (No. 105), C. S. Darrow (No. 107), Mary H. Parkman (No. 116), Vachel Lindsay (No. 149), M. A. Abbott (No. 199). Racial problems are handled by Hart (No. 13), Riis (No. 19), Scott (No. 20), Stowe (No. 20), Ogg (No. 21). Critics of philanthropic methods are Frank (No. 136), McGee (No. 138). Athletics and amusements are presented by Putnam (No. 16), McNamee (No. 158), Casey (No. 161).
LITERARY ACTIVITIES. The intellectual life of the American people in the period is set forth in a variety of aspects in the following selec- tions on the arts: Russell (No. 134), Bok (No. 135), Mumford (No. 137), Gross (No. 164). Critics of educational efforts are Pritchett (No. 117), C. W. Eliot (No. 141), Slosson (No. 142), Gavit (No. 143), M. A. Abbott (No. 199). Critics of literature are Pearson (No. 146), Bovnton (No. 147), Van Doren (No. 148), De Rochemont (No. 150).
I2 Significance and Derivation of Sources [No. 6
Pieces in verse are numerous, written by Wallace Irwin (Nos. 38, so), Vachel Lindsay (No. 149), “Neri”? (No. 151), “Wamp” (No. 151), Caroline Hazard (No. 163), Michael Gross (No. 164), “P. W.” (No. 164), Alan Seegar (Nos. 169, 180), Joyce Kilmer (No. 178), E. B. Comstock (No. 189).
The following women authors are represented: Luella Miner (No. 33), Charmian K. London (No. 36), Mary C. Blossom (No. 62), Mary R. Parkman (No. 116), Florence L. Sanville (No. 118), Jane Addams (No. 120), Caroline Hazard (No. 163), Katherine Mayo (No. 186).
Newspaper editorials and staff articles have been taken from Liter- ary Digest (Nos. 56, 172), Outlook (No. 64), New Republic (Nos. 71, 92), Nation (No. 127), New York Times (No. 200), New York Times Current History (Nos. 155, 156, 191).
Foreign writers who comment on Americans are Wu Ting-Fang (No. 9), Charnwood (No. 26), Masefield (No. 179), and Low (No. 130).
CORRESPONDENTS AND Critics are Luella Miner (No. 33), anon- ymous correspondent of the Literary Digest (No. 56), C. C. Hyde (No. 165), R. W. Bruére (No. 170), F. C. Howe (No. 173), F. H. Rindge, Jr. (No. 174), R. B. Fosdick (No. 175), Theodore Roosevelt (No. 176), R. H. Davis (No. 177), John Masefield (No. 179), H. S. Canby (No. 181), E. L. James (No. 185), Katherine Mayo (No. 186), Albert Kinross (No. 188), J. S. Bassett (No. 192), Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (No. 194). Critics in particular of art and literature comprise Bok (No. 135), Mumford (No. 137), Page (No. 133), Boynton (No. 147), and Van Doren (No. 148).
OBSERVERS ON ECONOMICS AND FINANCE are Dawes (No. 70), McAdoo (No. 69), Olsen (No. 72), Carrick (No. 73), Young (No. 208), Howland (No. 74), Newell (No. 75), Greeley (No. 76), and Smith (No. 79).
—o
6. Classifcation of Selections on the World War
PARTICIPANTS. Reports and reminiscences of participants have been taken out of F. C. Howe (No. 173), F. H. Rindge, Jr., (No. 174), R. H. Davis (No. 177), Colonel Hiram Bingham (No. 183). Eye- witnesses have given invaluable accounts of important events, par-
No. 6] Classification of Selections on the World War 13
ticularly W. H. Page (No. 166), Katherine Mayo (No. 186), Albert Kinross (No. 188).
Post-BELLUM WRITINGS on similar subjects, as they came up after the War, include Eliot (No. 206), Ward (No. 22), Lowry (No. 124), Shepherd (No. 44), Munro (No. 93), Bassett (No. 197), Abbott (No. 199), Lawrence (No. 202), Hudson (No. 203), and Phillips (No. 205).
OBSERVERS IN THE FIELD. From observers, correspondents, and critics of the World War have been selected: Roosevelt (No. 176), Hyde (No. 165), Bruére (No. 170), Page (No. 166), Grattan (No. 167), Canby (No. 181), Bingham (No. 183), James (No. 185), Fosdick (No. 175), Rindge (No. 174), Chafee (No. 194), Howe (No. 173), Ogg (No. 88), and Keough (No. 140).
PAR TE THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
CHAPTER IIT— POPULATION AND DISTRIBUTION
7. A Traveler at the Opening of the Century (1900) BY JAMES FULLARTON MUIRHEAD
Muirhead, an Englishman, lived some two years in the United States about the time this was written. Engaged in gathering material for the Baedeker Guide to the United States, he traveled widely and had an opportunity to view the en- tire country with the unprejudiced eyes of a stranger.—For similar general ac- counts of the state of the country, see Mark Sullivan, Our Times, the United States [1900-1925]; Frederic Austin Ogg, National Progress, 1907-1917 [American Nation, vol. XXVII]; Charles Austin Beard, Contemporary American History, 1887-1913; E. B. Andrews, The United States in Recent Times; Albert Perry Brigham, United States of America; and such periodicals as World’s Work, Century, Review of Reviews, and Outlook for appropriate years; American Year Book, for years 1910-1920, 1925.
EXT to the interest and beauty of the places to be visited,
perhaps the two things in which a visitor to a new country has most concern are the means of moving from point to point and the accommodation provided for him at his nightly stopping-places— in brief, its conveyances and its inns. During the year or more I spent in almost continuous traveling in the United States I had abundant opportunity of testing both of these. In all I must have slept in over two hundred different beds, ranging from one in a hotel- chamber so gorgeous that it seemed almost as indelicate to go to bed in it as to undress in the drawing-room, down through the berths of Pullman cars and river steamboats, to an open air couch of balsam boughs in the Adirondack forests. My means of locomotion included a safety bicycle, an Adirondack canoe, the back of a horse, the omni-
I4
No.7] A Traveler at the Opening of the Century I5
present buggy, a bob-sleigh, a “cutter,” a “booby,” four-horse “stages,” river, lake and sea-going steamers, horse-cars, cable-cars, electric cars, mountain elevators, narrow-gauge railways, and the Vestibuled Limited Express from New York to Chicago.
Perhaps it is significant of the amount of truth in many of the assertions made about traveling in the United States that I traversed about 35,000 miles in the various ways indicated above without a scratch and almost without serious detention or delay. Once we were nearly swamped in a sudden squall in a mountain lake, and once we had a minute or two’s unpleasant experience of the iron-shod heels of our horse inside the buggy, the unfortunate animal having hitched his hind-legs over the dash-board and nearly kicking out our brains in his frantic efforts to get free. These, however, were acci- dents that might have happened anywhere, and if my experiences by road and rail in America prove anything, they prove that traveling in the United States is just as safe as in Europe. Some varieties of it are rougher than anything of the kind I know in the Old World; but on the other hand much of it is far pleasanter. The European system of small railway compartments, in spite of its advantage of privacy and quiet, would be simply unendurable in the long journeys that have to be made in the western hemisphere. The journey of twenty-four to thirty hours from New York to Chicago, if made by the Vestibuled Limited, is probably less fatiguing than the day- journey of half the time from London to Edinburgh. The comforts of this superb train include those of the drawing-room, the dining- room, the smoking-room, and the library. These apartments are perfectly ventilated by compressed air and lighted by movable electric lights, while in winter they are warmed to an agreeable temperature by steam-pipes. Card-tables and a selection of the daily papers minister to the traveler’s amusement, while bulletin boards give the latest Stock Exchange quotations and the reports of the Government Weather Bureau. Those who desire it may enjoy a bath en route, or avail themselves of the services of a lady’s maid, a barber, a sten- ographer, and a type-writer. There is even a small and carefully selected medicine chest within reach; and the way in which the minor delicacies of life are consulted may be illustrated by the fact that powdered soap is provided in the lavatories, so that no one may have to use the same cake of soap as his neighbor.
16 Population and Distribution [1900
No one who has not tried both can appreciate the immense difference in comfort given by the opportunity to move about in the train. No matter how pleasant one’s companions are in an English first-class compartment, their enforced proximity makes one heartily sick of them before many hours have elapsed; while a conversation with Daisy Miller in the American parlour car is rendered doubly delightful by the consciousness that you may at any moment transfer yourself and your bons mots to Lydia Blood at the other end of the car, or retire with Gilead P. Beck to the snug little smoking-room. The great size and weight of the American cars make them very steady on well-laid tracks like those of the Pennsylvania Railway, and thus letter-writing need not be a lost art on a railway journey. Even when the permanent way is inferior, the same cause often makes the vibration less than on the admirable road-beds of England... .
Travelers who prefer the privacy of the European system may combine it with the liberty of the American system by hiring, at a small extra rate, the so-called “drawing-room” or “state-room,” a small compartment containing four seats or berths, divided by parti- tions from the rest of the parlour car. The ordinary carriage or “day coach” corresponds to the English second-class carriage, or, rather, to the excellent third-class carriages on such railways as the Midland. It does not, I think, excel them in comfort except in the greater size, the greater liberty of motion, and the element of variety afforded by the greater number of fellow-passengers. The seats are disposed on each side of a narrow central aisle, and are so arranged that the oc- cupants can ride forward or backward as they prefer. Each seat holds two persons, but with some difficulty if either has any amplitude of bulk. The space for the legs is also very limited. . . . The windows are another weak point. They move vertically as ours do, but up instead of down; and they are frequently made so that they cannot be opened more than a few inches. The handles by which they are lifted are very small, and afford very little purchase; and the windows are frequently so stiff that it requires a strong man to move them. I have often seen half a dozen passengers struggle in vain with a re- fractory glass, and finally have to call in the help of the brawny brake- man. . . . The windows are all furnished with small slatted blinds, which can be arranged in hot weather so as to exclude the sun and let in the air. . . . At intervals the brakeman carries round a pitcher of
No.7] A Traveler at the Opening of the Century 17
iced water, which he serves gratis to all who want it; and it is a pleas- ant sight on sultry summer days to see how the children welcome his coming. In some cases there is a permanent filter of ice-water with a tap in a corner of the car. At each end of the car is a lavatory, one for men and one for women. In spite, then, of the discomforts noted above, it may be asserted that the poor man is more comfortable on a long journey than in Europe; and that ona short journey the American system affords more entertainment than the European. .. .
A feature connected with the American railway system that should not be overlooked is the mass of literature prepared by the railway companies and distributed gratis to their passengers. The illustrated pamphlets issued by the larger companies are marvels of paper and typography, with really charming illustrations and a text that is often clever and witty enough to suggest that authors of repute are some- times tempted to lend their anonymous pens for this kind of work. But even the tiniest little “one-horse”’ railway distributes neat little “folders,” showing conclusively that its tracks lead through the Elysian Fields and end at the Garden of Eden. A conspicuous feature in all hotel offices is a large rack containing packages of these gaily coloured folders, contributed by perhaps fifty different railways for the use of the hotel guests. . .
The United States is proverbially the paradise of what it is, perhaps, now behind the times to term the gentler sex. The path of woman, old or new, in America is made smooth in all directions, and as a rule she has the best of the accommodation and the lion’s share of the at- tention wherever she goes. But this is emphatically not the case on the parlour car. No attempt is made there to divide the sexes or to respect the privacy of a lady. If there are twelve men and four women on the car, the latter are not grouped by themselves, but are scattered among the men, either in lower or upper berths, as the number of their tickets or the courtesy of the men dictates. The lavatory and dressing-room for men at one end of the car has two or more “set bowls” (fixed in basins), and can be used by several dressers at once. The parallel accommodation for ladies barely holds one, and its door is provided with a lock, which enables a selfish bang-frizzler and rouge-layer to occupy it for an hour while a queue of her unhappy sisters remains outside. It is difficult to see why a small portion at one end of the car should not be reserved for ladies, and sepat-
1d Population and Distribution [1900
ated at night from the rest of the car by a curtain across the central aisles ns-
The speed of American trains is as a rule slower than that of English ones, though there are some brilliant exceptions to this rule. I never remember dawdling along in so slow and apparently purposeless a manner as in crossing the arid deserts of Arizona—unless, indeed, it was in traveling by the Manchester and Milford line in Wales. The train on the branch between Raymond (a starting point for the Yose- mite) and the main line went so cannily that the engine-driver (an excellent marksman) shot rabbits from the engine, while the fireman jumped down, picked them up, and clambered on again at the end of the train. The only time the train had to be stopped for him was when the engineer had a successful right and left, the victims of which expired at some distance from each other. It should be said that there was absolutely no reason to hurry on this trip, as we had “‘lash- ins” of time to spare for our connection at the junction, and the pas- sengers were all much interested in the sport. . . .
Coaching in America is, as a rule, anything but a pleasure. It is true that the chance of being held up by “road agents” is to-day practically non-existent, and that the spectacle of a crowd of yelling Apaches making a stage-coach the pin-cushion for their arrows is now to be seen nowhere but in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. But the roads! . . . Even in the State of New York I have been in a stage that was temporarily checked by a hole two feet deep in the centre of the road, and that had to be emptied and held up while passing another part of the same road. In Virginia I drove over a road, leading to one of the most frequented resorts of the State, which it is simple truth to state offered worse going than any ordinary ploughed field. The wheels were often almost entirely submerged in liquid mud, and it is still a mystery to me how the tackle held together. To be jolted off one’s seat so violently as to strike the top of the carriage was not a unique experience. Nor was the spending of ten hours in making thirty miles with four horses. In the Yellowstone one of the coaches of our party settled down in the midst of a slough of despond on the highway, from which it was finally extricated backwards by the com- bined efforts of twelve horses borrowed from the other coaches. Mis- ery makes strange bedfellows, and the ingredients of a Christmas pudding are not more thoroughly shaken together or more inextric-
No.7] A Traveler at the Opening of the Century 19
ably mingled than stage-coach passengers in America are apt to be. The difficulties of the roads have developed the skill, courage, and readiness of the stage-coach men to an extraordinary degree, and I have never seen bolder or more dexterous driving than when Cali- fornia Bill or Colorado Jack rushed his team of four young horses down the breakneck slopes of these terrible highways. After one particularly hair-raising descent the driver condescended to explain that he was afraid to come down more slowly, lest the hind wheels should skid on the smooth rocky outcrop in the road and swing the vehicle sideways into the abyss. In coming out of the Yosemite, owing to some disturbance of the ordinary traffic arrangements our coach met the incoming stage at a part of the road so narrow that it seemed absolutely impossible for the two to pass each other. On the one side was a yawning precipice, on the other the mountain rose steeply from the roadside. The off-wheels of the incoming coach were ulted up on the hillside as far as they could be without an upset. In vain; our hubs still locked. We were then allowed to dismount. Our coach was backed down for fifty yards or so. Small heaps of stone were piled opposite the hubs of the stationary coach. Our driver whipped his horses to a gallop, ran his near-wheels over these stones so that their hubs were raised above those of the near-wheels of the other coach, and successfully made the dare-devil passage, in which he had not more than a couple of inches’ margin to save him from pre- cipitation into eternity. I hardly knew which to admire most—the ingenuity which thus made good in altitude what it lacked in latitude, or the phlegm with which the occupants of the other coach retained their seats throughout the entire episode. .
The transition from traveling facilities to the telegraphic and postal services is natural. The telegraphs of the United States are not in the hands of the government, but are controlled by private companies, of which the Western Union, with its headquarters in New York, is facile princeps. This company possesses the largest telegraph system in the world, having 21,000 offices and 750,000 miles of wire. It also leases or uses seven Atlantic cables. In this, however, as in many other cases, size does not necessarily connote quality. ...
The postal service also struck me as on the whole less prompt and accurate than that of Great Britain. The comparative infrequency of fully equipped post-offices is certainly an inconvenience. . . .
(20 Population and Distribution [1900
No remarks on the possible inferiority of the American telegrapb and postal systems would be fair if unaccompanied by a tribute to the wonderful development of the use of the telephone. New York has (or had very recently) more than twice as many subscribers to the telephonic exchanges as London, and some American towns possess one telephone for every twenty inhabitants, while the ratio in the British metropolis is 1:3,000. . . .
The generalisations made in travelers’ books about the hotels of America seem to me as fallacious as most of the generalisations about this chameleon among nations. Some of the American hotels I stayed at were about the best of their kind in the world, others about the worst, others again about half-way between these extremes. On the whole, I liked the so-called “American system” of an inclusive price by the day, covering everything except such purely voluntary extras as wine; and it seems to me that an ideal hotel on this system would leave very little to wish for. The large American way of looking at things makes a man prefer to give twenty shillings per day for all he needs and consumes rather than be bothered with a bill for sixteen to seventeen shillings, including such items (not disdained even by the swellest Euro- pean hotels) as one penny for stationery or a shilling for lights. ...
In houses on the American system the price generally varies according to the style of room selected; but most of the inconvenience of a bedchamber near the top of the house is obviated by the universal service of easy-running “elevators” or lifts. (By the way, the per- sistent manner in which the elevators are used on all occasions is often amusing. An American lady who has some twenty shallow steps to descend to the ground floor will rather wait patiently five minutes for the elevator than walk downstairs.)
Traveler’s tales as to the system of “tipping” in American hotels differ widely. The truth is probably as far from the indignant Briton’s assertion, based probably on one flagrant instance in New York, that “it is ten times worse than in England and tantamount to robbery with violence,” as from the patriotic American’s assurance that “The thing, sir, is absolutely unknown in our free and enlight- ened country; no American citizen would demean himself to accept a gratuity.” To judge from my own experience, I should say that the practice was quite as common in such cities as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia as in Europe, and more onerous because the
No.7] A Traveler at the Opening of the Century 2I
amounts expected are larger. A dollar goes no farther than a shilling. Moreover, the gratuity is usually given in the form of “refreshers” from day to day, so that the vengeance of the disappointed is less easily evaded. ...
Wine or beer is much less frequently drunk at meals than in Europe, though the amount of alcoholic liquor seen on the tables of a hotel would be a very misleading measure of the amount consumed. The men have a curious habit of flocking to the bar-room immediately after dinner to imbibe the stimulant that preference, or custom, or the fear of their wives has deprived them of during the meal. Wine is generally poor and dear. The mixed drinks at the bar are fascinating and probably very indigestible. . . .
The real national beverage is, however, ice-water. Of this I have little more to say than to warn the British visitor to suspend his judgment until he has been some time in the country. I certainly was not prejudiced in favour of this chilly draught when I started for the United States, but I soon came to find it natural and even necessary, and as much so from the dry hot air of the stove-heated room in winter as from the natural ambition of the mercury in summer. The habit so easily formed was as uneasily unlearned when I returned to civilisation. On the whole, it may be philosophic to conclude that a universal habit in any country has some solid if cryptic reason for its existence, and to surmise that the drinking of ice-water is not so deadly in the States as it might be elsewhere. It certainly is universal enough. When you ring a bell or look at a waiter, ice-water is immediately brought to you. Each meal is started with a full tumbler of that fluid, and the observant darkey rarely allows the tide to ebb until the meal is concluded. Ice-water is provided gratui- tously and copiously on trains, in waiting-rooms, even sometimes in the public fountains. If, finally, I were asked to name the character- istic sound of the United States, which would tell you of your where- abouts if transported to America in an instant of time, it would be the musical tinkle of the ice in the small white pitchers that the bell-boys in hotels seem perennially carrying along all the corridors, day and night, year in and year out.
James Fullarton Muirhead, America: The Land of Contrasts: A Briton’s View of
his American Kin (London and New York, John Lane, 3rd ed., 1902), 221-272 passim. Reprinted by permission of the author.
22 Population and Distribution [1912
8. Rural Conveniences (1912)
BY PROFESSOR HERBERT EVERETT VAN NORMAN
Van Norman was, at the time of writing, Professor of Dairy Husbandry at Pennsylvania State College. He has held many official positions in agricultural institutions; published First Lesson in Dairying (1908) and many articles, bulletins, etc., on dairying and agricultural subjects.—For material on farm life, see such periodicals as Country Gentleman, Rural New-Yorker, and Successful Farming. For more detailed accounts of particular rural conveniences, see No. 63 below on Rural Free Delivery; No. 65 on Automobiles; and No. 159 on Telephones.
OR many years a serious problem, receiving the consideration
of the student of rural problems was the drift from country to city and the causes which underlay it. Gradually conditions are changing and there is a decided movement toward the country. Careful analysis of the situation suggests that a large factor in the changed condition and increased interest in country life is the develop- ment of rural conveniences which make country living more enjoyable, not to emphasize their importance as commercial factors. The per- fection and wide introduction of the telephone, rural delivery and interurban electric railway are revolutionizing the sentiment in many communities and are making marked changes in every community where they have been introduced. . . .
Business appointments, social appointments, discussions of social and church plans, to say nothing of the mere friendly exchange of greeting over the telephone have probably compensated every owner of a rural telephone many times over for the expense of it if all business advantages were ignored.
In spite of the fact that on some rural lines there are from three to twenty ’phones, many of which are called into play in response to a summons which only demands one answer, the subscriber would not be without its convenience because of its lack of privacy. At some seasons of the year the general summons to the ’phone gives notice that central is ready to report the weather bureau’s prognostication for the follow- ing day. When haying and harvest or late seeding are in progress the notice of a probable change in the weather may mean the saving of part or all of a crop that would otherwise have been lost.
The rural delivery of mail has stimulated correspondence between friends and family. The certainty that the letter if written will reach
No. 8] Rural Conveniences 23
the postoffice at the latest within twenty-four hours and that the answer will be delivered to the door even though every member of the family is too busy to go to the postoffice, makes for a sense of near- ness which can hardly be realized unless one has experienced the sense of isolation when six or seven miles from the postoffice and “too busy to go for the mail.” The business advantage resulting from a quick communication with the merchant and factory is again a factor the value of which statistics do not report. To know that the letter mailed to-day will reach its destination on the morrow in time for necessary repairs to be shipped on the express is an economic advantage which is having a desirable influence. The increase in the circulation of city dailies, agricultural weeklies and innumerable monthly magazines, social, religious and literary, has been very great. In no place is the truth of the saying “that the more one has the more one wants” greater than in the increasing use of reading matter because of rural delivery.
The regularity of market reports with its resulting closer under- standing of market conditions and better judgment as to when to sell are only incidents of the conveniences that rural mail service affords. This usefulness will be added to immeasurably when the nation inaugurates a parcel post that will make possible the quick exchange of moderate sized packages between country and city at a moderate cost and with the promptness now possible in the exchange of written communications.
The interurban car line connecting the country and the town has both a commercial and a social influence in a community. To know that one has only to dress and “be ready for the 7.05 car” in order to attend a social function, a church gathering, an instructive lecture or an evening entertainment or other recreation and finish in time to catch the last car for home is conducive to rural contentment. To be free from the necessity of hitching up the horse by the light of a lantern before one dresses for the evening function; to know that one enters a social circle with the atmosphere of the house rather than of the stable; to know that after the evening pleasure is over horse and rig will not have to be cared for, and to know that a spirited horse is not standing out exposed to weather, even with a blanket on, while his owner listens to the lecture increases very materially the attractive- ness of the evening diversion. This is especially true if in weighing
24 Population and Distribution [ror2
the attractions and disadvantages early rising on the morrow is one of the drawbacks to the evening’s social or educational event... .
Increasingly, the interurban car is becoming a systematic means of marketing products. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of milk, cream and packages of butter are regularly shipped from the farm gate to the city distributor or consumer. Market garden products, live and dressed poultry, eggs, dressed pork and mutton are all handled on many interurban lines. In some fruit sections four and five cars may be seen standing on the siding being loaded with fruit at a station where there is not a farm building in sight. Seven o’clock the following morning will find these products in the great markets of the city, fifty, sixty or even a hundred miles away. When car load shipments justify it the private siding for loading of hay, grain and other bulky crops may be secured at the individual farm.
The delivery of morning and evening papers in a territory not sup- plied by rural mail is often accomplished by means of the interurban car.
The automobile, by some considered a luxury, is in many sections rapidly becoming an economic factor of no small importance. The actual time saved in the delivery of milk and cream to the creamery or shipping station or the delivery of other perishable farm products; the quick securing of repairs; the rapid movement of farm labor from one job to another; the reduced time necessary to be absent from the farm work in order to transact business in town and get back are matters of vital importance, independent of any sentiment. The pleasure and contentment of the family which the automobile makes possible because of the evening automobile ride for diversion or the exchange of social courtesies and the attendance upon meetings of various kinds is not to be overlooked. The great distance that may be covered, at the same time the fact that the evening pleasure with the automobile does not lessen the efficiency of the farm motive power on the following day, as is the case when the farm team must be hitched into the pleasure vehicle, is a factor which the student of farm conditions should not overlook. From a half to an hour’s distance from railroad, church and social activities is the maximum desirable limit for a farm home. With the ordinary team and convey- ances this restricts the distance to not over six or seven miles. With the automobile this may be increased to from nine to twelve miles
No. 9] A Chinese View of American Manners 25
and yet the farmer will feel nearer to town and his neighbors because of his automobile than he did with his horse-drawn vehicle.
The perfection and reliability of the automobile is rapidly introduc- ing into the rural life problem a new factor in the personnel of the city business man who finds that the thirty to fifty minutes trip from home to office daily will, when taken in his automobile, permit him to live in the country where his children may have country air and freedom, and where he can forget city business problems in an effort to develop plant and animal life, whether it takes the form of generous lawns and gardens or a systematic farm business.
The influence of this transplanted city dweller on the social life, the labor problem and the farm practice of his new environment are subjects for study which the automobile and the interurban electric car have largely made possible. Probably no one factor has been a greater stimulus to the development of country roads with their economic importance in the movement of farm products aside from pleasure than has the rural and city-owned automobile.
Aside from questions of relative remuneration, social intercourse and educational opportunities, it is the conveniences made possible by the telephone, rural mail deliveries, interurban car line and automobile that are the greatest factors in the rapidly changing rural and urban sentiment toward farm life, and are hastening the day when the success- ful farmer will be recognized as of the true aristocracy of the nation.
H. E. Van Norman, in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (Philadelphia, March, 1912), XL, 163-167 passim.
n
g. A Chinese View of American Manners (1914)
BY MINISTER WU TING-FANG
Wu Ting-Fang was Chinese Minister to the United States 1897-1902, and 1907- 1909. Notably distinguished for his wit and social grace, he viewed American peculiarities with tolerance and interest.
UCH has been written and more said about American manners, I or, rather, the American lack of manners. Americans have frequently been criticized for their bad breeding, and many sarcastic references to American deportment have been made in my presence.
20 Population and Distribution [1914
I have even been told (I do not know how true it is) that European diplomats dislike being stationed in America, because of their aver- sion to the American way of doing things.
Much, too, has been written and said about Chinese manners, not only by foreigners, but also by Chinese. One of the classics which our youth have to know by heart is devoted almost entirely to man- ners. There has also been much adverse criticism of our manners or our excess of manners, though I have never heard that any diplo- mats have, on this account, objected to being sent to China. We Chinese are, therefore, in the same boat as the Americans. In regard to manners, neither of us finds much favor with foreigners, though for diametrically opposite reasons; the Americans are accused of observ- ing too few formalities, and we of observing too many.
The Americans are direct and straightforward. They will tell you to your face that they like you, and occasionally they also have very little hesitation in telling you that they do not like you. They say frankly just what they think. It is immaterial to them that their remarks are personal, perhaps uncomplimentary.
The directness of Americans is seen not only in what they say, but in the way they say it. They come directly to the point, without much preface or introduction; much less is there any circumlocution or “beating about the bush.” When they come to see you they say their say and then take their departure; moreover, they say it in the most terse, concise, and unambiguous manner. In this respect what a contrast they are to us! We always approach one another with pre- liminary greetings. Then we talk of the weather, of politics or friends —of anything, in fact, which is as far as possible from the object of the visit. Only after this introduction do we broach the subject uppermost in our minds, and throughout the conversation polite courtesies are exchanged whenever the opportunity arises. These elaborate preludes and interludes may, to the strenuous, ever-in-a- hurry American, seem useless and superfluous, but they serve a good purpose. Like the common courtesies and civilities of life, they pave the way for the speakers, especially if they are strangers; they improve their tempers and place them generally on terms of mutual under- standing. It is said that some years ago a foreign consul in China, having a serious complaint to make on behalf of his nation, called on the Taotai, the highest local authority in the port. He found the
No. 9] A Chinese View of American Manners Ai
Chinese official so genial and polite that after half an hour’s conver- sation he advised the complainant to settle the trouble amicably with- out bothering the Chinese officials about the matter. A good deal may be said on behalf of both systems. The American practice has at least the merit of saving time, an all-important object with the American people. When we recall that this remarkable nation will spend millions of dollars to build a tunnel under a river or to shorten a curve in a railroad, merely that they may save two or three minutes, we are not surprised at the abruptness of their speech.
Americans act up to their Declaration of Independence, especially the principle it enunciates concerning the equality of man. They lay so much importance of this that they do not confine its application to social intercourse. In fact, I think this doctrine is the basis of the so- called American manners. All men are deemed socially equal, whether as friend and friend, as President and citizen, as employer and em- ployee, as master and servant, or as parent and child. Their rela- tionship may be such that one is entitled to demand, and the other to render, certain acts of obedience and a certain amount of respect, but outside that they are on the same level... .
The youth of America have not unnaturally caught the spirit of their elders, so that even children consider themselves almost on a par with their parents, while the parents, on the other hand, also treat them as if they were equals, and allow them the utmost freedom. While a Chinese child renders unquestioning obedience to his parents’ orders, such obedience as a soldier yields to his superior officer, the American child must have the whys and the wherefores duly explained to him, and the reason for his obedience made clear. It is not his parent that he obeys, but expediency and the dictates of reason. Here we see the clear-headed, sound, common-sense business man in the making. The early training of the boy has laid the foundation for the future man... ...
Even the domestic servant does not lose this precious American heritage of equality. I have nothing to say against that worthy individual, the American servant (if one can be found). On the contrary, none is more faithful or more efficient. But in some respects he is unique among the servants of the world. He does not see that there is any inequality between him and his master. His master—or should I say his employer?—pays him certain wages to do certain
28 Population and Distribution [r914
work, and he does it, but outside the bounds of this contract they are still man and man, citizen and citizen.
We of the Old World are accustomed to regard domestic service as a profession in which the members work for advancement, without much thought of ever changing their position. A few clever persons may ultimately adopt another profession and, according to our antiquated, conservative ways of thinking, rise higher in the social scale, but for the large majority the dignity of a butler or a house- keeper is the height of their ambition, the crowning-point in their career. Not so the American servant. Strictly speaking, there are no servants in America. The man or the woman, as the case may be, who happens for the moment to be your servant is only servant for the time being. He has no intention of making domestic service his profession, of being a servant for the whole of his life. To be subject to the will of others, even in the small degree to which American servants are subordinate, is offensive to an American’s pride of citizenship; it is contrary to his conception of American equality. He is a servant only for the time and until he finds something better to do. He accepts a menial position only as a stepping-stone to some more independent employment. Isit to be wondered at that American servants have manners different from their brethren in other coun- tries? When foreigners find that American servants are not like servants in their own country, they should not resent their behavior. It does not denote disrespect, it is merely the outcrop of their natural independence and aspirations. .. .
Few people are more warm-hearted, genial, and sociable than the Americans. I do not dwell on this, because it is quite unnecessary. The fact is perfectly familiar to all who have the slightest knowledge of them. Their kindness and warmth to strangers are particularly pleasant, and are appreciated by their visitors. In some other coun- tries the people, though not unsociable, surround themselves with so much reserve that strangers are at first chilled and repulsed, although there are no pleasanter or more hospitable persons anywhere to be found when once you have broken the ice and learned to know them; but it is the stranger who must make the first advances, for they themselves will make no effort to become acquainted, and their manner is such as to discourage any efforts on the part of the visitor. You may travel with them for hours in the same car, sit opposite to
No. 10] Hyphenated Americanism 29
them, and all the while they will shelter themselves behind a news- paper, the broad sheets of which effectively prohibit any attempts at closer acquaintance. ...
How different are the manners of an American! You can hardly take a walk or go for any distance in a train without being addressed by a stranger, and not infrequently making a friend. In some coun- tries the fact that you are a foreigner only thickens the ice; in America it thaws it. This delightful trait in the American character is also traceable to the same cause as that which has helped us to explain the other peculiarities which have been mentioned. To good Ameri- cans not only are the citizens of America born equal, but the citizens of the world are also born equal.
Wu Ting-Fang, American Dinners and American Manners, in Harper’s Magazine, March, 1914 (New York), 526-533 passim.
ro. Hyphenated Americanism (1916)
BY EX-PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT
This is a kind of essay on patriotism and national spirit, in Roosevelt’s charac- teristic style—For Roosevelt see Nos. 23-26 below.
E must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy
to support a man for public office because he belongs to a given creed or to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed. It is just as evil as to draw the line between class and class, between occupation and occupation in political life. No man who tries to draw either line is a good American. True Americanism demands that we judge each man on his conduct, that we so judge him in public life. The line of cleavage drawn on principle and conduct in public affairs is never in any healthy community identical with the line of cleavage between creed and creed or between class and class. On the contrary, where the community life is healthy, these lines of cleavage almost always run nearly at right angles to one another. It is eminently necessary to all of us that we should have able and honest public officials in the nation, in the city, in the state. If we make a serious and resolute effort to
30 Population and Distribution [1916
get such officials of the right kind, men who shall not only be honest but shall be able and shall take the right view of public questions, we will find as a matter of fact that the men we thus choose will be drawn from the professors of every creed and from among men who do not adhere to any creed.
For thirty-five years I have been more or less actively engaged in public life, in the performance of my political duties, now in a public position, now in a private position. I have fought with all the fervor I possessed for the various causes in which with all my heart I be- lieved; and in every fight I thus made I have had with me and against me Catholics, Protestants and Jews. There have been times when I have had to make the fight for or against some man of each creed on grounds of plain public morality, unconnected with questions of pub- lic policy. There were other times when I have made such a fight for or against a given man, not on grounds of public morality, for he may have been morally a good man, but on account of his attitude on ques- tions of public policy, of governmental principle. In both cases, I have always found myself fighting beside, and fighting against, men of every creed. The one sure way to have secured the defeat of every good principle worth fighting for would have been to have permitted the fight to be changed into one along sectarian lines and inspired by the spirit of sectarian bitterness, either for the purpose of putting into public life or of keeping out of public life the believers in any given creed. Such conduct represents an assault upon Americanism. The man guilty of it is not a good American.
I hold that in this country there must be complete severance of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for the pur- pose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore that the public schools shall be non-sectarian and no public moneys appropriated for sectarian schools. Asa necessary corollary to this, not only the pupils but the members of the teaching force and the school officials of all kinds must be treated exactly on a par, no matter what their creed; and there must be no more discrimination against Jew or Catholic or Protestant than discrimination in favor of Jew, Catholic or Protestant. Whoever makes such discrimination is an enemy of the public schools.
What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americans. When I refer to hyphe- nated Americanism, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of
No. 10] Hyphenated Americanism 31
the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Ameri- cans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other alle- giance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one elses 32).
When in 1909 our battle fleet returned from its voyage around the world, Admirals Wainwright and Schroeder represented the best tra- ditions and the most efficient action in our navy; one was of old Ameri- can blood and of English descent; the other was the son of German immigrants. But one was not a native-American and the other a German-American. Each was an American pure and simple. Each bore allegiance only to the flag of the United States. Each would have been incapable of considering the interests of Germany or of England or of any other country except the United States. ...
For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish- American or an English-American is to be a traitor to American insti- tutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize Americar politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic.
Now this is a declaration of principles. How are we in practical fashion to secure the making of these principles part of the very fiber of our national life? First and foremost let us all resolve that in this country hereafter we shall place far less emphasis upon the question of right and much greater emphasis upon the matter of duty. A republic can’t succeed and won’t succeed in the tremendous international stress of the modern world unless its citizens possess that form of high- minded patriotism which consists of individual rights. . . .
We should meet this situation by on the one hand seeing that these immigrants get all their rights as American citizens, and on the other hand insisting that they live up to their duties as American citizens. Any discrimination against aliens is a wrong, for it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage and to cause him to feel bitterness and resentment during the very years when he should be
32 Population and Distribution [1916
preparing himself for American citizenship. If an immigrant is not fit to become a citizen, he should not be allowed to come here. If he is fit, he should be given all the rights to earn his own livelihnod, and to better himself, that any man can have. Take such a matter as the illiteracy test; I entirely agree with those who feel that many very excellent possible citizens would be barred improperly by an illit- eracy test. But why do you not admit aliens under a bond to learn to read and write English within a certain time? It would then be a duty to see that they were given ample opportunity to learn to read and write and that they were deported if they failed to take advantage of the opportunity. No man can be a good citizen if he is not at least in process of learning to speak the language of his fellow-citizens. And an alien who remains here without learning to speak English for more than a certain number of years should at the end of that time be treated as having refused to take the preliminary steps necessary to complete Americanization and should be deported. But there should be no denial or limitation of the alien’s opportunity to work, to own property and to take advantage of civic opportunities. Special legislation should deal with the aliens who do not come here to be made citizens. But the alien who comes here intending to become a citizen should be helped in every way to advance himself, should be removed from every possible disadvantage and in return should be required under penalty of being sent back to the country from which he came, to prove that he is in good faith fitting himself to be an American citizen. We should set a high standard and insist on men reaching it; but if they do reach it we should treat them as on a full equality with ourselves.
From Fear God and Take Your Own Part, by Theodore Roosevelt (copyright 1916, George H. Doran Company), 359-370 passim.
ae
No. 11] The Flapper: A National Institution 33
11. The Flapper: A National Institution (1926)
BY SAMUEL CROWTHER
Crowther is a journalist who has written on a wide variety of subjects, most of them with an economic slant——Bibliography: Harold U. Faulkner, American Economic History; Garet Garrett, The American Omen; and frequent popular articles in Collier’s Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post.
T was not so long ago that going to a bootblack was an extrava-
gance—fool-and-his-money affair, or diversion of improvident traveling salesmen. Then shines were five cents. To-day they are ten, and we take them as a matter of course.
During the past several months I have traveled from coast to coast and from Fargo, N. D., to El Paso, Tex.—through all the states and in all the cities and many of the towns. I did not find a town of over two thousand—and I doubt if there is one—where Jeanette or Lucille or Marie is not running a “beauty parlor” or a “beauty shoppe” and doing fairly well. In Sioux Falls, S. D., I counted three in two blocks—and Sioux Falls is supposed to be broke.
Polishing shoes and polishing hands and faces have become great industries, earning many millions a year. In a small Middle West city I saw, in the wholesale district, a store devoted entirely to selling beauty-parlor aprons. Every fair-sized city has its “beauty school” and also you can learn by mail.
But why bother about such trivialities as shining shoes and steaming faces—does not this just go to show that the males are growing laxer and the females more vain? It means a lot more.
It means more than the figures any statistician might assemble— it means that we to-day are rich enough to go in for luxuries not just in the big cities but everywhere in our land. It means that we are all rich in a way, for there are not enough of the really rich to keep so many places going.
Consider the flapper and how she grows. I was not on a flapper hunt; my primary purpose was to see what was going on in this coun- try. I had heard many doleful tales—we were riding to a fall; our people were not working but demanding extravagant wages for going through the motions of work; money was being spent and not saved; numerous homely virtues of our forefathers had been scrapped; we were all in hock for automobiles, radios, diamond rings, and the thou-
1S et OS
34 Population and Distribution [1926
sand and one knickknacks that you can buy for a dollar down and a dollar when they catch you; and the country had to get back to normalcy or perish. I have not yet been able to discover exactly what normalcy is, but as far as I can make out it is intimately connected with r913 and Canton flannel nighties.
I was told that people were skimping on necessities in order to indulge in luxuries; that retail dealers were nervous and bought only from hand to mouth, because they could not know from one day to the next what their business would be; that the consumption of the country was far below productive capacity, and that we simply had to have a drastic readjustment.
I talked with bankers, business men and farmers, and also I kept my eyes and my ears open, and I reached the conclusion that our only trouble is that we have not yet awakened to what this country really is—what has happened, what is happening or what can happen.
We have been measuring it with old measures. We have been think- ing, “For the poor always ye have with you.” We cannot comprehend that to America has come a new order of things—that dire poverty is as rare as small pox and as obsolete; that we are in the midst of a great experiment the like of which the world has never even dreamed of, and that it lies with us to carry on or to funk.
Our national machine is wondrously strong. It hit many a wicked bump in the three years from 1920 to 1923, and those bumps, which would have smashed any other machine, merely tuned ours up—as one tunes up a new motor car. .
But we have built up our machine by good management which pays high wages. We have an enormous stock of good managers. We have only a few bad ones and they are principally in the textiles and in coal. But over and above all and more powerful than anything is this—our people have the will to be prosperous. That is the great fact which shows out all over the country—and it is nowhere more evident than in the flapper... .
The real flapper is what used to be known as the “poor working girl’’—who, if the accounts are true, dragged herself off day by day to work until someone came along and married her. Sometimes she was a Cinderella, but more often she graduated a household drudge.
The flapper of to-day is a very different person. In dress she is as standardized as a chain hotel—and incidentally hotel bedrooms are
No. rx] The Flapper: A National Institution ge
becoming so alike that you can remember what city you are in only by tacking a local newspaper on the wall. Barring size, flappers at a hundred feet are as standardized as Ford cars. As far as dress goes, they are a simplified national product. ... There is no dis- tinction between the town flapper and the farm flapper—the auto- mobile has wiped them out. There is no distinction in the cut of clothing between the rich flapper and the poor flapper—national advertising has attended to that. The rich flapper has better clothing than the poor one, but a block away they are all flappers.
The outstanding characteristic of the flapper is not her uniform but her independence and her will to be prosperous.
She is no clinging vine. I was in the office of the president of a good- sized bank on the Pacific Coast when his daughter and several of her high-school friends burst in—flappers all. We got to talking and I found that these girls, not one of whom had any need to work, all intended to find jobs during the summer, and they thought that most of the girls in school would do the same. They all wanted to know how to make a living—and to have a good time doing ?t. That seems to be common everywhere.
Girls will no longer marry men who can merely support them— they can support themselves better than can many of the men of their own age. They have awakened to the fact that the “superior sex” stuff is all bunk. They will not meekly bow their heads to the valiant man who roars, “ Where is that dress I bought you three years AGE a al ops
The flapper wants to look well, and she is willing to provide for herseli—employers everywhere told me that the women were doing better work than the men, and they do seem to be mentally more alert. All of which means that the man who marries the modern flapper has got to provide for her—she will not be merely an unpaid servant. And this in turn means that the men have got to work— than which nothing better could happen for the country. The flapper is to-day our most important national institution. .
The will to be prosperous has brought prosperity. We have prac- tically no poverty, and I judge that at least two-thirds of what little we have is voluntary.
The rest is due to accident or disease and must clearly be distin- guished from destitution, for its amount is negligible and can easily
36 Population and Distribution [1926
be cared for by the communities in which it exists. There is work at fair wages for anyone who will go after it—some will not go after it.
For instance, in southern Ohio, near Ironton, I found many squatter shacks—filthy huts thrown together from any old thing and standing in seas of mud. Lounging about were always a big, brutish, dull- eyed man and a slatternly, barefoot, tired-looking woman, with any- where from half a dozen pale, ill-nourished, half-dressed children— not a few of whom had the look of imbeciles. These men were soft- coal miners. They have had almost no work since 1919, yet they persist in being miners.
An engineer told me that on a big excavating job near by he had offered these men six dollars a day, but not one of them would take a job. He actually had to import his labor. The miners shuffled over every day to see how things were coming, but not one of them would work even for a single day. That is what I mean by voluntary poverty.
We have the same sort of thing through the mountains in the South, and we have the white trash and the shiftless Negro, but the tremen- dous industrial expansion of the South—for there are cotton mills going up nearly everywhere—is drawing down the mountaineers and taking the white trash and making human beings of them, while the Negro is leaving the South and scattering far and wide through the industries of the Middle West.
Nearly all our backward people have felt the touch of money. They have increased their wants. They all want automobiles, and the women, and especially the girls, want clothes. They are learning that they can get the things they want only by work... .
Within a generation the regular payment of wages will completely have transformed the South. The daughters and the sons nowhere are content just to live!
The purchasing power of the South Atlantic States, although it is still small as compared with that of the North Atlantic States, is probably fifty times what it was before the World War. And that is the sort of thing which is going on everywhere. This country is not static. It is in flux; it is ridiculous to talk of the country in terms of European economics—for instance, to talk of saturation points. We do not even know what there is to saturate—we are changing so mightily.
Samuel Crowther, ‘‘Aren’t We All Rich Now?” in Collier’s (New York, Nover- Ser 7, 1926), 9-10 passim.
CHAPTER III—SECTIONS AND NEW STATES 12. The Great Empire by the Lakes (1900)
BY FREDERIC C. HOWE
Howe was Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York, 1914-1919; has written many books on political and social subjects.—For material on the general subject of this chapter see such periodicals as World’s Work, Century, and Review of Reviews; also consult Readers’ Guide under names of states, and of sec- tions, such as New England.
ROBABLY the greatest industrial phenomenon of the past ten
years, unless it be the trust development, is the consummation of the dreams of far-sighted business men, by which the iron mines of Lake Superior have been linked with the coal and coke fields of Penn- sylvania. This has led to the tremendous development of the iron and steel industry in the Pittsburg and Cleveland districts. Human labor has been reduced to an insignificant item in all the processes, from the extraction of the crude ore from the earth, to the production of the finished product at the furnace nearly a thousand miles away. Rail- roads have been built from Pittsburg to Lake Erie, as have immense docks and cavernous iron steamships, as large as ocean liners, designed almost exclusively for the transportation of ore, coal, and grain. All the essentials of production, including the mines, steamships, rail- roads, docks, and furnaces, have been combined under one hand. At the present time Carnegie, the American Steel & Wire Company, and the National Steel Company own their own boats and do at least a part of their own carrying business. These companies also own their own mines.
Coincident with this consolidation there has occurred a revolution in industrial methods before which earlier achievements sink into insignificance. A few decades ago the blast furnace was an enlarged blacksmith shop, and the finished product, whether a steel rail or horseshoe nail, was largely the result of manual labor. By present
37
38 Sections and New States [z900
processes, from the moment the steam scoop, handling tons of native ore, touches the soil in Minnesota or Michigan until the raw material issues as a hundred-pound steel rail on the banks of the Monongahela River, the element of human labor is scarce appreciable. Trains in the Superior district are loaded by steam scoops. At the docks the cars are unloaded into bins or pockets. From these pockets, ships of five to seven thousand gross tons’ capacity are loaded in a few hours’ time, through chute attachments running into the holds of the vessels.
In the Mesabi range a half dozen men will mine five thousand tons of ore in a few hours. An ore vessel is loaded almost without the use of pickax or shovel. Gravitation does the work formerly done by man. On the lower lakes the vessels are unloaded in a few hours’ time by hoisting-devices or clam-like scoops which will do the work of sixty men and transport ten tons of ore in a single clasp of the scoop. Steel cars with a capacity of sixty tons are unloaded at the furnaces by im- mense cranes which pick the cars clear from the tracks, transport them to an ore pile, and dump them as simply and easily, and with as much precision, as if they were but buckets of sand. The earth is tapped, and genii-like enginery, with man’s hand on the throttle, turns out the finished product.
And as if by the prevision of nature, the vast coal regions of western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia furnish return cargoes to the upper lakes. These return cargoes greatly reduce freight rates. The coal tonnage of the lakes for the year 1899 amounted to 9,000,000 tons, which was taken from the bituminous coal fields of these states and transported to its destination, by the aid of the same sort of machinery as is used in the handling of ore.
Inferior only in importance to the iron ore and coal industry is that of the copper mines of the upper Peninsula of Michigan. The long, projecting promontory on the southern shore of Lake Superior, known as Keweenaw Point, is dotted with copper mines, of which the Calu- met and Hecla is the chief. From these mines are extracted millions of dollars’ worth of native copper every year. This region supplies a large part of the world’s copper, and the mines yield fabulous returns to those who anticipated the future of this industry. The stock of the Calumet and Hecla mine, of the par value of twenty-five dollars per share, is now quoted at seven hundred and sixty dollars per share. Upon this stock but twelve dollars and fifty cents has ever been paid
No. 12] The Great Empire by the Lakes 39
in. And some of the iron mines in the Lake Superior ranges show a commercial standing only less remarkable.
From the watershed of the Great Lakes, moreover, is taken a large part of the lumber supply for the eastern and central states, while to the south of Lake Erie, in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Vir- ginia, and Indiana, are the great oil fields, which supply not only America, but the world. with petroleum. Salt in immense quantities is secured from the region about Cleveland, while the building-stones of the upper lakes are among the most beautiful that we have.
Nature has been lavish of her riches in this Great Lakes region. She has created here an empire richer than that of the Incas. For while the precious metals are not found, those which furnish the sinews of modern commerce abound in quantities to supply the world.
The dividends of one copper mine in the Lake Superior district, whose capital stock is but $2,500,000, amounted in the year 1899 to $10,000,000. In 1898 the same mine declared dividends of $5,000,000. Some of the iron mines of the same district distribute the total capital value of their mines in dividends each year. And during the past ten years hundreds of persons have been enriched from the iron, coal, copper, oil, and gas fields of this region. Could these bounties have been preserved to the state, the problems of finance would have been easy of solution.
The great power tunnel by which the forces of Niagara are utilized for the generation of power, as well as a similar power canal in con- struction at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, evidence again the way nature is forced to do man’s work while he stands by. And the secret of the phenomenal development of this region lies in this fact. It has been brought about by the harnessing of force and the utiliza- tion of man’s ingenuity and the engineer’s skill. From mine to mill a thousand miles away, with two breakages in carriage, is as simple, if not a simpler process than a like breakage in freight at the Hudson River. The element of labor cost in a ton of ore from mine to furnace has been reduced to insignificance. It amounts to but a few cents. The forces of steam, hydraulics, pneumatics, and electricity have achieved this result.
One of the great, if nci the great, problem of the last generation has been the reduction of transportation charges. By this cheapening of carriage cost space has been annihilated. To us this problem was
40 Sections and New States [1900
basic. Our distances are so great. How well we have succeeded is seen in the low railroad and steamboat freight rates. On the Great Lakes the charges for carrying a ton of freight one mile are less than one-tenth of one cent. Railroad freights in competition are about four times as much. To-day the eyes of European engineers are turned on the transportation systems of America,
But transportation on the lakes includes something more than delivery from port to port. It involves the transfer from railroad to boat and from boat to railroad. And these processes have become as much a part of lake transportation as the carriage. In this respect inventive ingenuity has kept pace with our demands, and transfers at the docks are now accomplished by immense machinery, which seems to operate with almost human intelligence.
It is through the waterways of the Great Lakes that a large portion of the grain of the world is carried. By reason of the low water freight charges, the prairies of the West are able to lay their products down in the European market at a price otherwise impossible. The significance of these great waterways, not only to the states of the West, but to the civilization of the world, cannot be overstated.
And far-seeing men of this region are now casting their eyes toward the markets of the world. Plans have been matured to place the coal fields of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania in immediate touch with European ports. Within a short time a fleet of boats will carry coal between Newport News and Europe. The former point will be connected with the interior by a railroad. This will mean a fuel economy to European cities of from one dollar to two dollars a ton. One may safely say that the next generation will see the coal fields and iron mines of America supplying the European consumer, much as the wheat fields of the West now supply the English artisan. Within the next year and a half it is freely expected that American ore will be landed in the Clyde. To-day America is “carrying coals to Newcastle.”
Frederic C. Howe, in World’s Work, November, 1900 (New York), I, 409-412 passim.
No. 13; Remedies for the Southern Problem 41
13. Remedies for the Southern Problem (1905)
BY PROFESSOR ALBERT BUSHNELL HART
The author, Professor of Government in Harvard University, has written on a great variety of subjects concerned with American History.—For further informa- tion by him on the present subject, see A. B. Hart, The Southern South.
HE frst and most obvious remedy is to remove the sup- posed cause. This idea of deportation of the negroes was suggested more than a century ago by Thomas Jefferson and was later urged by Lincoln. An instant objection is that it is resisted by nearly every one of the nine million negroes, South and North alike. They no more wish to cross the ocean eastward than their ancestors did to come westward. The negroes in general are attached to their homes and would probably fight rather than add to the repeated failures of attempts to build up civilized communities of American negroes in Africa, which is the only region available for such an emigration. An equally strong objection is that the white people absolutely will not permit the negro to leave the country. When in 1889 attempts were made to draw negroes to Kansas the boats that were carrying them were stopped by armed men and the negroes were driven back with the shotgun. On the other hand, in a number of communities, especially in the mountains, the poor whites will not permit the negroes to come in; and, for that matter, there is a town of several thousand people in southern Ohio where no negro has ever been allowed to stop over night. Nevertheless, where the negro is there he stays; and for the very simple reason that without him or her there would be no breakfast in the big house, no wood cut for the fires, no cotton raised, no babies dressed—for the real confidence of the whites in the negro race is shown by their almost universal practice of committing their little children to negro nurses. To deport the negro would mean the social disruption as well as the economic ruin of the greater part of the South, and the fierce and brutal advocacy of that method which one hears occasionally from Southern men is simply a piece of acting. For there is no substitute in sight, since the South has never been able to attract foreign immigrants. The census of 1900 shows that
42 Sections and New States [1905
the eleven States that seceded in 1861 have 11,400,000 native whites, 7,200,000 negroes and only 350,000 people of foreign birth, of whom two-thirds are in Louisiana and Texas, while the rest of the Union shows 45,300,000 native whites, 1,600,000 negroes and 10,000,000 foreigners. The figures explain themselves: most immigrants work with their hands and avoid regions where there is a poor opportunity for their children, and where handwork classes them with a servile race. The only foreign element now seeking the South is the Italian, some thousands of whom are to be found in the Mississippi bottoms; but their influx is likely to be checked when they discover that they, like the negroes, are to be excluded from the suffrage wherever they come to be in the majority or to exercise the balance of power.
A remedy not publicly advocated, yet practiced in some remote parts of the South, is peonage. It is not necessary to go to the length of some State laws which assume to legalize contracts by which the laborer agrees to work or else to accept a whipping and a bull pen; servitude is realized if they are deliberately kept in such a condition of debt and dependence that they cannot acquire land or move about freely. The testimony of people who have visited rural plantations is that in many places great advantage is taken of the ignorance of the negro; that he is cheated in his efforts to buy land, that in some places he is a serf, tied to the land. Inasmuch as probably a majority of the intelligent people of the South insist that the negro was better off in slavery than in freedom, there is in some regions insufficient healthy public sentiment to protect the rural laborer.
Another method widely applied in the South has been put by Senator Tillman in the sententious form: “We shall have to send a few more negroes to hell.” This brute method is a deliberate attempt to keep the race down by occasionally shooting negroes because they are bad, or loose-tongued, or influential, or acquiring property; and by insisting that the murder of a white man, or sometimes even a saucy speech by a negro to a white man, is to be followed by swift, relentless and often tormenting death. In every case of passionate conflict between two races the higher one loses most, because it has most to lose; and lynch law as a remedy for the lawlessness of the negroes has the disadvantage of demoralizing the white race, and eventually of exposing white men to the uncontrollable passions of other white men. The usual, tho not the real, justification for
No. 13] Remedies for the Southern Problem 43
lynching is that nothing else can protect or avenge white women. Rapes and lynchings aggravate but do not cause race hostility. Any Southern State might forthwith reduce both the negro crime and that of his white executioners by following a useful precedent of slavery times—by providing a special tribunal of reputable men, not necessarily lawyers, with summary process, testimony behind closed doors if desirable, and quick but civilized punishment for aggravated crimes of violence, committed by whites or blacks.
Another remedy is education. It would be very unjust to leave the impression that the white people of the South as a community approve of solving the negro question by aggravating it. Indeed, the South has made great sacrifices since the Civil War to educate the negro, tho it somewhat exaggerates its benefactions by dwelling on the fact that the negroes pay two per cent. of the taxes and furnish nearly one-half of the school children. One of the most influential newspapers in the South recently threatened to cut off the funds for negro education if Northern benefactors did not cease giving money to negro schools. In New York and Chicago there is no protest because the people who furnish nineteen-twentieths of the school children pay only one-twentieth of the taxes. The South, however, begins to realize that reducing the present illiteracy in the South among both negroes and whites is not all the battle. Your negro chamber-maid may have been through eight years’ study in the city schools and yet remain incredibly ignorant and brutish. Still the North also has learned that ability to read, write and cipher will not make model citizens out of the morally degraded. In many ways the most hopeful thing for the negro is the work of institutions like Fisk, Atlanta and Talladega, which aim to train future professional men and women and especially teachers.
Hence the great interest now felt by good people in the South in industrial education for negroes, and sometimes even for whites. This is partly due to the success of Hampton, Tuskegee, Caihoun and other like institutions, which have proven the expansion of mind resulting from the more intelligent forms of handiwork combined with a judicious use of books. In these schools a great part of the good is done by the character of the teachers, and nobody can see the fine body of young, alert minds trained by the best universities of the country which make up the faculty, say of Tuskegee, without
44 Sections and New States [1905
hopefulness that they will train as well as instruct. Yet from the Southern point of view their success will raise the same ultimate difficulty as other forms of education for the negroes. Notwithstand- ing the influence of a few notable men, at the head of whom is Booker T. Washington, the whites in general do not wish to see leaders and organizers arise among the negroes; they distrust the negro preachers and have a contempt for negro professors, lawyers and physicians. If industrial education produces good blacksmiths, carpenters and domestic servants the South will be pleased, tho perhaps the trades unions will have something to say; but the South does not wish to see political and social leaders springing up among the negroes, lest they attempt such organization of the negroes as would give them power over the white race... .
Any remedy for the ills that beset the South must recognize that the condition of the negroes is discouraging; that in forty years of freedom they have made less progress than white people expected; that as a race they have little sense of truth and perhaps of sexual morality; that they furnish great numbers of idlers and many criminals. This dark picture must, however, include also about half the poor whites, who, tho far superior to the negroes in intellect, match them in igno- rance and overmatch them in blood-thirstiness. These are the condi- tions from which the community must extricate itself or admit that it cannot civilize its own people.
It is perfectly true, and we of the North must candidly acknowledge and appreciate it, that many Southerners are making genuine and self- sacrificing effort to upraise their colored neighbors, by personal in- terest in their education, by protection of their rights, by example of moderation and respect for law, by appreciation (so far as the color line admits) of their best men. These are the white people who ought to solve the problem if anybody, yet they are precisely the people who see the only solution in a very slow elevation of the colored race, dur- ing which many things may come in to accentuate the race problem.
On one side the remedy is the slow uplifting of the negro race, the practice of those homely virtues of industry, steadiness, thrift and habits of saving which have made the Northern communities what they are. The Southern people are right in demanding that the negroes themselves shall discourage and discountenance the criminals of their race, and make it their business to help to bring to legal, orderly
No. 13] Remedies for the Southern Problem AS
punishment the desperate criminals who arouse the most fearful re- sentment of the whites. The negroes must be taught to respect and honor the best members of their own race and to bring up their chil- dren to follow such models. That is the way, and the only way, in which a race can rise.
But how can the negroes be expected to respect and admire what the whites despise? Can the poor white call the thriftlessness of the negro hopeless? Is the negro to set the example of lawabiding to the white man? Are the Southern whites to abjure the duty of the highest in the community to make the standard of coolness, patience and observance of law? Why does not the white man, who boasts of his interest in and aid to the negro during slavery, do more to educate him now? The other day a South Carolina storekeeper who stepped into a negro school and made a speech of encouragement found himself in danger of mobbing and made an abject recantation. Why not every- where put cultivated white teachers into the negro schools, such as are employed in Charleston? Why should not negroes of high character be honored by degrees from institutions of learning? Why do not the white people with good will open the door of opportunity to a few places in the public service to negroes whom they recognize as qualified?
The reason is simple; the Southern whites have an unfounded and unformulated fear that somehow white supremacy is endangered; and they see no halting place between acknowledging that some negroes are men of character and “permitting your daughter to marry a nigger.” The true remedy for the Southerner is to do with the negro exactly what his brethren are doing up North with the Pole, the Slo- vak and the Hungarian. Why does he not make the best of a bad job and not the worst? Why not set before the negro every possible in- ducement to rise, by facilitating the purchase of land, by opening new industries, by granting to the best negroes such scanty rewards as the white man’s color line permits? The Southern white community may well ponder the meaning of one of Booker Washington’s noblest utterances: “I will never allow any man to drag me down by making me hate him!”
Albert Bushnell Hart, in Independent (New York, 1905), LVIII, 993-996 passim.
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14. Arizona and New Mexico (1911)
BY CHARLES MOREAU HARGER
Harger is a journalist and a frequent contributor to periodicals. Has been di- rector and lecturer in the Department of Journalism, University of Kansas. Editor of the Abilene (Kansas) Daily Reflector —Bibliography as in No. 12 above.
OR centuries 235,000 square miles of gray desert, blue hills,
mesas, and valleys dozed under almost cloudless skies. The awakening has come in two distinct periods. Said an old ranchman of New Mexico: “Eighteen years ago I moved here from Illinois. Practically all the Americans in New Mexcio were from Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Missouri. They drifted in after the war, just as Northerners went to Kansas and Nebraska. They were stockmen; so are their descendants to-day. Ten years ago, when irrigation became a feature of agriculture, families from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio arrived on homeseekers’ excursions. Later, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas furnished settlers, until now we have folks from all over the East.”
In Arizona the mines brought the first American residents. They came seeking copper, gold, silver. Later came the farmer and the home-builder. To-day on the streets of Phoenix or Bisbee is a cosmo- politan assembly representing every section of the Nation.
So on its 122,000 square miles New Mexico has 327,000 population; Arizona on its 113,000 square miles has 200,000. While historically and physically having much in common, the Territories are tempera- mentally far apart. “It comes from their varied settlement,” ex- plained ex-Governor J. H. Kibbey, of Arizona. “New Mexico’s valleys run north and south, and the early Mexican sheep-herders pastured their flocks far northward. When given grants for more or less valuable services to ruler or conqueror, they chose lands with which they were familiar. The American settlers, westward bound, found a start made toward civilization, and stopped there in large numbers. In Arizona the valleys extend east and west, and the herders were less likely to cross deserts to reach them. The discovery of mines brought the Americans, and not until a later era came the farmer.”
So one State is pastoral, the other devoted more largely to mines, and each harbors a grievance against the East. “We have not re-
No. 14] Arizona and New Mexico Ay
ceived a square deal,” said Governor R. E. Sloan, of Arizona. “The East has looked upon the Southwest as yet existing in the wild and woolly frontier period, with cowboys ‘shooting up ’ the towns, with terrorism frequently rampant. On the contrary, no Eastern State community is better behaved or has a higher average of citizenship than these new States.” ...
In one direction do both States look for industrial progress—irriga- tion. Their mines produce great wealth, likely to increase as the hills are more thoroughly tested; their lumber camps are important. But mines and lumber camps do not bring homes; they attract migratory laborers whose interest is ephemeral. The farm makes for develop- ment of a social life. Only by irrigation can either State hope to build up such a feature. Month after month of cloudless skies and pulsat- ing sunlight will not, even on good soil, raise crops. “Dry farm- ing ” is a delusion when the season is too dry. ‘‘Thousands of settlers have tried it and failed,” said a Territorial officer. “No amount of cultivation can bring moisture from dry skies, and in most years it is a doubtful venture.” Unless combined with ranching, the settler is unwise to seek a competency by that route. Better twenty acres under ditch than two hundred on the unwatered prairie. The expense of intensive culture necessary to raise crops with a minimum of rainfall is not repaid by the production. This hundreds of disappointed families have discovered.
Each State has its special pride in irrigation enterprise. New Mexico. has approximately 500,000 acres under ditch, with 3,000,000 more amenable to artificial watering. It will take decades to utilize it all, but some day the waters of the Rio Grande and its tributaries, with the flow of smaller streams and surface moisture, will be conserved. The Pecos Valley is already practically all under the plow; the Mesilla Valley is rapidly being improved as settlers realize its possibilities. The Government Reclamation Service is expending millions in proj- ects that will fertilize vast areas. Of these, that of the Rio Grande is largest. On that river, seventy-five miles north of Las Cruces, is located one of the greatest natural reservoir sites in the world. Below this site is the Mesilla Valley; then for twenty miles north of El Paso, and for a like distance below that city, in Texas, is another large area of extremely fertile land. Immediately across the river, in the Repub- lic of Mexico, and in the vicinity of the city of Juarez, are found,
48 Sections and New States [zorr
approximately, 25,000 acres of equally valuable soil. Here the Elephant Butte project, to cost $9,000,000, one of the most important in the Reclamation Service undertakings, is to be constructed. For Mexico’s share Congress appropriated $1,000,000. The total area watered will be 180,000 acres—110,o0o in New Mexico, 45,000 in Texas, and 25,000 in Mexico. In three or four years some storage will be provided.
Nearer completion is Arizona’s portion in the Service’s notable work—the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River, to be dedicated by Mr. Roosevelt next March. Here the Salt River Valley lies like an out- stretched hand reaching westward, with a rock-bound gateway at the wrist. The great bulwark of masonry, built at a cost of $6,000,000, rears its 240 feet, a massive retainer of a lake covering 17,000 acres. Behind it flood waters will be held to be spread out over 200,000 acres, with an additional 40,000 acres to be irrigated by pumping. Here will be demonstrated, as in other similar projects, the possibil- ities of an acre. Where a man can take $705.65 in asparagus from 134 acres and $980 from one acre of blackberries, or where 7% acres of mixed berries and melons yield net $3,200, or ten acres of oranges produce 1,800 boxes which return an average of $4 per box, it is clear that only a few will care to own more than they can well cultivate.
“Agriculture,” said Governor W. J. Mills, of New Mexico, ‘‘is the hope of the Southwest, winning to us men who are worthy as citizens and successful as managers.” . .
The Southwest has peculiar problems, such as face no other part of our Nation. Chief among them is that of the Mexican population— the politician does not say “Mexican,” he refers to “our Spanish- American friends.” There are plenty of them. In New Mexico 135,000, 41 per cent of the population, according to the Census super- visor, are Spanish-Americans. Many more have some Spanish blood. There are towns and counties wholly dominated by them in politics and business. Once the Territory was theirs, but American immigra- tion has changed that, and to-day the “native” occupies a secondary place. But he must be reckoned in every accounting.
When the Constitutional Convention met, October 3, of the one hundred delegates, thirty were Mexican. All were Republicans, and added their votes to that of forty-one Americans, making seventy- one Republicans to twenty-nine Democrats. In some of the precincts
No. 14] Arizona and New Mexico 49
the ballots for the election of delegates were printed in Spanish. This was the excuse expressed by a Territorial officer: “The precincts where this was done have an almost wholly Mexican population. The voters are men who cannot read or write English, though they can speak and understand it. It was simpler to print the ballots so they could read them than to take each voter into the booth and ex- plain the wording of the ballot. With the next generation there will be no such problem. Every school in the Territory teaches English to every pupil. Spanish is taught only as an additional language in the high schools. All must know English; but the earlier genera- tion will never learn it.”
This Mexican population is of two classes: a large portion the laborers, the sheepmen; a smaller part men of means, shrewd business managers. Curiously, in view of the usual conception of the Mexican, he is given a good reputation by those who know him best. “I have had twenty years’ experience with him,” said the manager of a one- hundred-thousand-acre ranch. “I have never found better laborers or men who would keep a contract more faithfully. They do not strike, and, treated well, they remain with you. I have bought tens of thousands of sheep of Mexican shepherds without a written con- tract, and never had one fail to do as he agreed—which is more than I can say for some American stock-owners. We must have laborers, and this class furnishes them. Without them it would be difficult to develop a definite place in the Southwest.” .. .
In Arizona there is the Mormon question. Two members of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints were elected members of the Arizona Convention. Said Governor Sloan: “It has been repeatedly charged that the Mormon vote in Arizona is thirty per cent of the total; it is not more than ten per cent. The people of this sect are farmers and good citizens. They are prohibitionists and not polygamists. There is no indication that they will ever be a large factor in the State’s politics. The Mexican population is not more than fifteen per cent, mostly itinerants, and likewise no important factor in politics, for the American population is increasing, while the Spanish-American stands still. We have had clean Legislatures, no scandals, and have an am- bition to make this a good State for the farmer and business man alike. With our 400,000 acres now in cultivation we can support twice the present population. Eventually there will be 1,250,000 acres
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tilled, and every acre extraordinarily productive. We want settlers and capital, and propose to give both square treatment.”
This last sentence is the key to the sentiment of the dweller in the Southwest. Men and money are needed. Irrigation enterprises cannot pay unless settlers come to till the lands. Here and there a plunger has equipped a great ranch house, making a mansion in the desert. He has lived like a king, impressing every titled visitor— and then departed. Such investors are not wanted. The future will depend on the worker, the man who comes to stay. Owing to the vast distances and the waste desert lands, there can never be a network of railways such as has covered Oklahoma and other parts of the Middle West. Two trunk lines with some branches constitute practically all the railway facilities likely to be had for many years. The new States will be disposed to consider this in their statutes, as they will the work of capital that has developed the mines and stored the waters; but there is a strong undercurrent of disposition to regulate corporations and secure for the citizen his full rights.
In New Mexico, where the Republican majority is overwhelming, primaries, initiative and referendum, and similar progressive ideas have not been indorsed. The Constitution is to be, as Governor Mills expressed it, “safe and sane,” with the idea of submitting additional propositions to the votors separately. The Mexican voters, being largely sheepmen, are generally high-tariff advocates, and this ac- counts for much of their allegiance to Republicanism. In Arizona the Democrats are in large majority, the Constitutional Convention having forty-four Democrats to eight Republicans, no Spanish- American delegate being elected. The Constitution will contain many “Progressive” sections. In neither State is equal suffrage or pro- hibition likely to carry. The initiative and referendum will probably be a part of Arizona’s organic law. These differences indicate the vari- ation in settlement and business interests in the two new States. . .
A clear-headed, energetic people is developing the new States, eager to make them, in Western parlance, “a good place to live in.” That success will come is inevitable. The era of the “bad man” has passed—it is punishable by heavy fine to carry concealed weapons in either State. The era of the home-builder is at hand.
Set amid twenty miles of brown-gray prairie was a tiny adobe dwell- ing, an adobe-walled corral, and a bit of plowed ground. Thought-
No. 15] The Oil Fields of Oklahoma 51
fully, from the observation platform of the California Limited, a pas- senger watched it. ‘‘My father,” he commented, “once started West by ox-team. In mid-Iowa he became discouraged, squatted on a claim, farmed for three years, then sold out for two hundred dollars and went back East. To-day, part of the business section of Des Moines is built on that farm. It may be—”
The suggestion lent keener interests to that dull-brown group fast blending into the hazy distance.
Into every beginning in the new States enters some vision of the future. In a half-century more, it may be—Who knows?
Charles Moreau Harger, Our Two New States, in Outlook, January 28, torr (New York), XCVII, 165-176 passim.
= MMMM
15. The Oil Fields of Oklahoma (1919)
BY CHARLES MOREAU HARGER
For Harger, see No. 14 above.—Bibliography as in No. 12 above; see also Walter S. Tower, The Story of Oil.
OR the past decade oil booms have centered in the mid-continent
field—Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas—which has succeeded the eastern territory as the great source of petroleum supply, produc- ing nearly half the output of the United States. From the first well in southeast Kansas in the middle nineties, it has spread until in scarcely a county west of the Mississippi has there not been search for the wealth millions of years old, settled in pools formed by the chang- ing structure of earth. These pools may be large or small; they may be under such compression that when tapped the black flood will rise to the surface or may require pumping—but always fortune beckons if once the underground store of oil can be found.
Location and development are systematized to the limit of ingenu- ity, the outgrowth of years of experience. At the beginning is the spying out of the land. Three men in a Ford car, carrying spades, pickaxes, tripods, and levels, come quietly into town, putting up at the second best hotel. For days and weeks they travel over the country measuring, digging, taking notes of slopes, valleys, hills, and the out- cropping ledges of rocks. Then as quietly they depart.
52 Sections and New States [r919
A little later come three other men—alert, well-dressed—who put up at the best hotel. They hire motor-cars and drive over a portion of the country, stopping at every farm in a selected portion.
“We want to lease your farm for oil,” is their introduction. ‘Tf we can get, say 10,000 to 25,000 acres leased, we will put down a well inside of a year, and you will know whether or not there is oil there.”
“What are you paying for leases?” comes back the question.
It is explained that one dollar will be paid for a lease on the farm for one year, the farmer to get one-eighth of all the oil produced on his land, delivered free to the pipe-line. If no well is drilled in a year in that territory, the leases may be renewed by paying a dollar an acre from year to year. No leases, no well. The farmer signs; so do his neighbors, and suddenly the county wakes to the first ebullition of an oil boom.
This is ‘‘wildcatting,” or exploring new territory. The first men were geologists or locators, and they reported that the surface con- ditions were good. They do not pretend to say where oil certainly is, but claim to be able to determine with fair exactness where conditions are favorable.
“Of course,” explained an oilman with long experience, “no one can tell with certainty what is hundreds of feet underground, but study and experiments of the past few years have given a great volume of facts on which to base opinions. Oil is found only where geologic strata have been bent by upheavals in the past. There may be structures where there is no oil, but there is no oil where the structure is not favorable. Chance of success is increased by surface indications, but, after all, it is a gamble. Geology plays a more important part in the location of every oil country removed from proved fields than a few years ago, because conditions are better understood. Hence, the developers fall into two classes: companies that pay high prices for leases in proved territory, and the wildcatters. The first play a comparatively safe game, with high expense and smaller profits. The wildcatters pay little or nothing for leases in unknown country. Their geologists choose the likely places for drilling. If a few good wells are brought in, their profits are large. Theirs is really the gamble end of the oil business, for the chances are in favor of the operator in country already producing oil.”
From their study the locators, or geologists, report indications of
2
No. 15} The Oil Fields of Oklahoma 53
oil at 2,000 to 3,000 feet, the usual depth at which wells are drilled in the interior. Leases secured, the financial operations begin. The interest in the leases may be sold outright to one of the great producing and distributing companies or their subsidiaries. These constantly explore new territory, setting aside a few hundred thousand dollars each year to maintain production—for every pool has its limit of content. One company last year drilled forty wells, only three of which were good producers.
A large leased acreage in a field that has been passed on by experts is a tangible asset. The promoters may decide to finance it them- selves. A derrick is erected; drill, engine, workmen appear, and down goes a test hole Chinaward. Up to this time the only activity has been that of the geologists and the lease writers; now is reared the pyramid of speculation which has attracted millions from capi- talists large and small.
With leases on 25,000 acres and a well being drilled, the promoter makes a trip east. To brokers he presents his plans, tells of the favorable reports, and day by day receives telegrams telling how many hundred feet the drill has penetrated. “It is a good wildcat prospect,” he declares, and sells two-thirds of his leases for, say, $3 an acre, taking home $50,000. He can finish the well, costing these days $30,000 to $40,000, and if it is a dry hole his profit is still sure. The eastern broker sells the leases, either outright or in undivided interest, on a basis of $5 or more an acre, and the buyers are “‘in the oil game.” Each proudly announces that he has “oil interests” and confidently awaits the outcome.
Or the promoters may organize the Bounding Billow Oil & Gas Company, retaining 51 per cent of the stock and the management, and take pages in such newspapers as will accept their advertising announcing the sale of 10,000,000 shares at five cents a share, “well now drilling and prices to advance next week.” On an even less basis than this two Oklahoma sharps, recently arrested, took in over $500,000 from trusting investors... .
But out in Fragrant Hill township the drill is pounding away, sinking deeper each day into the earth. At 1,800 feet it strikes ‘‘oil-sand,” a layer of sand sprinkled with particles of oil. Excitement rises locally. Every farmer has retained the statutory one-eighth royalty in the oil to be produced on his place, and those nearest the
54 Sections and New States [r919
well commence to figure in millions. No company can lease the entire product of the farm. Those living nearest the well plan on moving to the city and buying a flock of limousines. Here enters the next step in the high finance of the oil game.
To the farm adjoining the well rolls a big blue racing car carrying another kind of promoter.
“What will you take for one-fourth of your royalty? ”’ he asks.
The farm owner is torn by conflicting interests. If oil were sure, he should keep his entire property, if no oil is under his property, now is the time to possess some real money. In the end he sells one-fourth of his one-eighth for, say, $10,000, and the promoter is to receive one thirty-second of the production, if any.
This fraction is capitalized for $100,000, divided into 1,000 “units ” of $100 each; or into 5,000 units of $20 each; or, if the prometer has soaring imagination, into 5,000,000 units of two cents each. This procedure has for a long time evaded the blue sky law, as it was held technically to be selling an actual interest in the outcome, and not stock in a company. .. .
Who buys? Every class, from the banker to the laborer; from the widow to the sales-girl and school-teacher. One grade teacher bor- rowed on her salary contract to invest $400 in units last year—that she sold out eventuaily for $1,000 did not alter the fact that she took long chances. Of 4,059 wells completed in the established fields of Oklahoma the first six months of 1919, 1,124 were dry holes. In unproved territory it is a gambling chance, and production may in the successful instances be so small as to return no profit. It is stated that the average production of all wells in the United States now producing oil is four and one-half barrels a day.
Supposing the men with the tripods and levels did guess right. The well when it is down 2,600 feet suddenly becones a fountain of oil, sending forth 3,000 barrels a day worth $2.25 to $2.70 a barrel! Then is the thrill of a Jifetime The value of the leases held by a single company, or by smaller investors down east, soars; units of royalties near by, marketed at $20 each, go up to $100 and more; royalties on all the surrounding farms jump to tens of thousands cash; other wells are started as rapidly as machinery can be secukedsts i
If the well be a “duster,” a dry hole, the entire pyramid collapses,
No. 16] Sport in the West 55
except for the promoters, who move on to other financial hunting- grounds, having so planned that they win, no matter who loses.
Charles Moreau Harger, Romance of the Oil Fields, in Scribner’s Magazine, No- vember, 1919 (New York), 616-623 passim.
poh BP eat 16. Sport in the West (1922)
BY GEORGE PALMER PUTNAM
Putnam is the present active head of the publishing firm of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Author of The Southland of North America (1913); In the Oregon Country; The Smiting of the Rock (1918).—Bibliography as in No. 12 above; see also such heads as Rodeos and Wild West, in the Readers’ Guide.
ACH year there are a number of these rodeos, or round-ups, throughout the West, perhaps the most notable of them being held at Pendleton, Oregon. .
The Round-up is a great deal more than a merely “Wild West show.” It is wild and Western enough and reminiscent of the pictur- esque past. But it is much more than an exhibition. It is a competi- tion. It is a pennant race in which America’s best horsemen and most competent cowboys compete.
Pendleton itself is a prosperous town in the heart of the wheat and cattle country of eastern Oregon. Normally, I suppose, its population is some fifteen thousand. But during the three days of the Round-Up, when it is the focus of interest for most of the Pacific Northwest and an increasing number of Eastern seeing-America-first-ers, it expands miraculously to thrice that size. Well over thirty thousand enthusiasts paid admission on the last day of this year’s show. Which at that compares pretty well with a Polo Grounds attendance, especially considering that Pendleton is some three thousand miles from Eastern population centers and that the whole State of Oregon hasn’t as many people as Brooklyn.
Consider, then, a frontier town—albeit a modern one with paved streets, porcelain tubs, elevators, and all the metropolitan trimmings— entirely turned over for three hectic days to the show, which the town itself owns and conducts, not for profit but for the downright
56 Sections and New States [1932
glamour of it and the glory of the West that was and is. Cowboy clothes are the order of the day—woolly “chaps,” swashbuckling spurs clinking from leather boots, broad-rimmed Stetsons, gay-colored silk shirts and scarfs, and, above all, gaudy vests hued like unto the aurora borealis.
“ Assuredly,” as Charles Hanson Towne punned it, “here is where the vest begins.”
There is a saying, epitomizing generosity, that one “would give you his shirt.” Just that happened in Pendleton, for our hosts at once insisted that we exchange our becollared drab affairs for their own giddy silk creations. In celebration of which hospitable transfer Wallace Irwin perpetrated a song that forthwith became the popular Round-Up hit and doubtless by now echoes merrily throughout cowland, to the tune of “Tourela”:
When I was in Oregon scratching the dirt,
I met a young cowboy who gave me his shirt.
The shirt it was silk, and the shirt it was red,
So I held out my hand and these fine words I said: “Cowboy, O Cowboy, I hope you do well,
You’re a good-natured, bulldogging son of a swell.” So I put on the shirt, and I tucked in the tail,
And beat it back East on the Oregon Trail.
The show itself is staged on a quarter-mile track and in an arena at its center, the whole surrounded by bleachers and grand stands. There is, of course, racing of all kinds—bareback, pony express (where the riders shift the saddle from one horse to another at each change), Indian squaw, and most picturesque of all, the wild-horse race, which last is an unexampled epic of concentrated excitement. A score of absolutely unbroken horses—animals who have felt neither bridle nor saddle—snorting, raging, are turned into the track. At a signal a group of mounted cowboys go after them, each ultimately roping one. Then, in a welter of wild-eyed, fighting, biting, rolling, bucking creatures, the rider and his assistant somehow contrive to get a bandage over the horse’s eyes, which, after frantic struggles, quiets him enough to make saddling possible. Then off with the eye bandages and on with the race—and often enough, off with the rider! Remem- ber, no horse ever has been ridden. Their one interest is to get rid of saddle and rider. They have no intention whatever of going
No. 16] Sport in the West 57
around the track. Instead they buck and “sunfish,” actually roll over on the ground, and generaliy mill around like four-footed demons gone mad.
A wonderfully unforgettabie sight is that concentrated inferno of insane horse-flesh and roistering fearless man-flesh. This year, just to see a lean buckaroo named Punch Guyette ride the bereft cayuse which luck wished on him—ride him right side up and upside down, horse and rider somehow somersaulting quite completely, with Punch remaining in the saddle, all with a whoop and a laugh, was in itself quite worth the trip from New York.
And that wild-horse race is, of course, only a detail, a sort of curtain- raiser, a tasty appetizer for the big events. The contests for bucking, bull-dogging, and roping are the top-line attractions. And working up to the championship decisions of the last day are a welter of hair- raising elimination trials, so that the fifty or so riders are put through their paces, under all sorts of circumstances, and the crowd is fairly saturated with a veritable saturnalia of exciting sights.
Those Round-Up names mean little to us back here. Suffice to say that Yakima Canutt (who this year rode third in the bucking) is a Babe Ruth of cowland. Howard Tegland, world champion, and Ray Bell—who wears a neat white collar even when astride twelve hundred pounds of horse-hided insanity—are every bit as well known out there as Dempsey and, say, Harold Bell Wright; while the Western reputations of marvelous woman riders like Mable Strickland and Bonnie McCarroll rank right up with Mary Pickford and Elsie Fergu- son.
The bucking horses which supply the motive power, so to speak, for the riding contests are the pick of the untamable “bad ” animals of all the West. Their names become historic. There are “Lena ” (no lady she!), “U-tell-Em,” “Bill McAdoo,” “Wiggles,” “Angel,” and others. This year two especially bad-mannered beasts were christened “Doc Traprock ” and “George Putnam.” Neither, we regret to state, succeeded in unseating his rider!
The matter of getting the saddle on a “‘bad horse”’ is a problem in itself, solved by the “wranglers.” Ultimately the rider gets aboard, but not necessarily for long, for horses know every trick imaginable likely to encourage an immediate divorce between themselves and the unwelcome stranger perched upon their hurricane deck. Be the
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horse a trained bucker or an outlaw, he can be counted upon for all sorts of gymnastics, ranging from the “side wind ” and “sunfish ” and “weave” to the straight buck and the high dive, not to mention the pleasant trick of rearing and falling back on the rider.
They ride with only a halter, no reins or bridle being used. And they must ride with style—ride “slick” —that is, straight up, with a close seat, and “no daylight showing.” And really to impress the judges the rider must “rake” the shoulders and rump of his horse with his blunted spurs, and “fan” the animal at every jump, swinging his hat with a full arm sweep. And, above all, he must not “pull leather” or touch the saddle with either hand.
And then the roping. That means to ride after a wild Texas long- horn steer, get a lasso around his horns, throw him, and “hogtie”’ him by fastening his four feet together while the cow-pony at the other end of the rope holds the steer helpless on the ground. And it must all be done under two minutes.
But, from the standpoint of individual muscular prowess and sheer human grit, ‘“bulldogging” is the showiest event of all. The steer is driven out of a chute, and he emerges much as a limited mail train comes out of atunnel. They give him about thirty feet start, and then the man starts after him on a horse running like a scared jack-rabbit. The horse draws alongside and the man leans over, hooks an arm around the steer’s horn, and slides from the saddle. The horse goes on, so does the steer for a few jumps, the man dragging through the dust and acting as a brake. Finally the two come to rest. Then the man reaches for the steer’s nose and, clasping his hands around it with the horn between his arms, leans backward and tries to throw the animal. Sometimes the steer shakes him loose, sometimes it whirls and tosses him, but we have seen a man bring down an animal in seventeen seconds from the time he started after him. They call it bulldogging, but it’s the greatest wrestling in the world.
And let this be clear: there is no cruelty to animals. The broken bones—and necks too—are the lot of two-legged contestants. Not an animal this year was injured. It is the men and the women who take the big risks and get the real hurts.
“Let ’er buck!”
“Ride ’em, cowboy! ”’
Those cries of the Round-Up echo still in our ears, and the memory
No. 17] The Strategy of Locating a Railroad 59
of all that goes with them is a magnet that inevitably will draw us again westward to this courageous competition—an epic of sports- manship so essentially American.
George Palmer Putnam, The Pendleton Round-Up, in Outlook, October 25, 1922 (New York), CXXXII, 330-331 passim.
—o
17. The Strategy of Locating a Railroad (1925)
BY CHARLES H. MARKHAM
Markham, who died in 1927, began his railway career as a section laborer; at his death he was President of the Illinois Central Railroad.—For bibliography on Railroads, see No. 84 below.
EOGRAPHICALLY, the Illinois Central System is located almost in the heart of the North American continent. The fourteen states oï the Mississippi Valley in which it operates embrace one-third of the total population of the United States. It connects many of the great industrial and commercial centers of the Mississippi Valley, including Chicago, the second largest city on the continent, and in many respects the leading commercial city of the world; St. Louis, the great manufacturing and distributing center; New Orleans, the second largest port in the country; Birmingham, the “Pittsburgh of the South”; Memphis, the world’s leading hardwood lumber market; Omaha, the manufacturing and commercial metrop- olis of Nebraska, and such other important cities as Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Fort Dodge, Waterloo, Dubuque, Rockford, Madison, Peoria, Bloomington, Springfield, Indianapolis, Decatur, Evansville, East St. Louis, Louisville, Paducah, Jackson, Tenn., Jackson, Miss., Vicks- burg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, Hattiesburg and Gulfport.
Unlike many railroads which have to depend on single crops or industries for most of their tonnage and therefore suffer seriously when those crops or industries meet with reverses, the Illinois Central System traverses a region the agricultural, mineral, lumbering and manufacturing production of which is highly diversified. It is conse- quently little affected by the failure of any one harvest or the slowing down of any one industry. The fourteen states in which the Illinois Central System operates embrace only 26 per cent of the total land
60 Sections and New States [1925
area of the United States, but they produce 34 per cent of the nation’s bituminous coal, 34 per cent of its lumber, 38 per cent of its cotton, 4g per cent of its tobacco, 69 per cent of its corn, 33 per cent of its wheat, 64 per cent of its oats, 66 per cent of its rice and 46 per cent of its livestock. They contain 37 per cent of the country’s railway mile- age, or one-eighth of the total railway mileage of the world.
The wide range of climate traversed by the Illinois Central System has an important bearing on the traffic which flows over its lines. The northernmost extremity of the system is at Albert Lea, Minn., north of the 43d parallel, with a mean temperature in January of about 14° and in July of about 82°, and an annual precipitation of about 27 inches. So wide is the climatic variation that while the northern part of the railroad is blanketed in snow and ice and experiencing sub-zero weather, fields of strawberries and vegetables are ripening under the warm Louisiana sun at the southern end of the line, and peach trees are in bloom along the balmy Gulf Coast of Southern Mississippi. Many of the agricultural and forest products of the South are native to that region and cannot be grown successfully in the North, and many of the hardier agricultural products of the North do not thrive in the sub-tropical climate of the Southern states. Hence the interchange of Southern products, such as Southern pine lumber, cotton and cotton- seed products, winter vegetables, fruits, tobacco, berries, sugar, rice and pecans, for the grains, packing house products and hardier fruits and vegetables of the North furnishes the railroad with a large and important part of its tonnage.
The advantages of being a pioneer railroad probably more than offset the disadvantages. The Illinois Central System reached most of what now are the populous centers of its territory when they were scarcely more than settlements. It was the forerunner of hun- dreds of towns and cities along its lines. Naturally, therefore, it acquired the advantage of exceedingly favorable locations in many of these centers which it would be difficult if not impossible to ac- quire today.
At Chicago, for example, the Illinois Central terminal occupies a location along the Lake front immediately adjacent to the “Loop” business district, a property that could not be obtained by a railroad today at any price. When this right-of-way was acquired, Chicago had a population of 30,000. . . .
No. 17] The Strategy of Locating a Railroad 6I
Another pronounced geographical advantage which the Illinois Central has is that of traversing the comparatively level country of the Mississippi Valley. Not only did the level topography and light timber growth through this territory render construction easier and less expensive than would have been the case through a more rugged country, but it enabled the construction of a straighter and smoother roadway. Ninety per cent of the original road in Illinois was straight, and the few curves were of such wide radius as to render them an almost negligible factor in the operation of trains. The long and steep grades that have to be overcome on nearly all the Eastern and Western railroads are not so great a factor on the Illinois Central System. The advantages of its comparatively straight and level track enable the operation of long, heavy trains at a much lower tractive effort than is required on the majority of railroads.
Seventy-one per cent of all land in the fourteen states in which the Illinois Central System operates is in farms compared with 43 per cent in the thirty-four other states of the Union. In 1923 these fourteen states furnished more than 40 per cent of the total agricultural pro- duction of the United States. It is therefore manifest that the Illinois Central System, traversing this rich agricultural region, carries a vast traffic of agricultural products. Although the Illinois Central System embraces only about one-thirty-eighth of the railway mileage of the country, one in every twenty-four carloads of agricultural products handled by the Class 1 railroads of the United States in 1924 originated on the Illinois Central System.
When the Illinois Central Railroad was projected, except for the lead and zinc mines of northwestern Illinois and southwestern Wis- consin, the mineral resources of the Mississippi Valley were entirely undeveloped. Coal had not come into extensive use as fuel. In 1855 the mining of 20,000 tons of coal in the vicinity of LaSalle and Du- Quoin, Ill., for domestic consumption in those and neighboring towns led the president of the Illinois Central in his annual report to make the prophetic statement that he was “fully persuaded that coal traffic would eventually become one of the most important elements of profit to the road.” By means of railway transportation the coal mines of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky found markets at Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis and other populous industrial centers. As the territory developed and the railroads helped
62 Sections and New States [1925
to create markets, such commodities as sand, gravel, stone, clay and fluorspar came to contribute substantially to the system’s freight tonnage. In rọrọ there were 3,868 producing mines and quarries, employing 254,234 workmen in the fourteen states of the Mississippi Valley in which the Illinois Central System operates, and their total production that year was valued at $660,000,000, or 21 per cent of the total value of all mine and quarry products in the United States. In 1924 the Ilinois Central System transported 25,703,590 tons of mineral products, approximately two-thirds of which was coal.
The strategic position of the Illinois Central System in relation to the lumber industry is at once apparent. The United States uses about two-fifths of the total world consumption of wood and wood products. Not many years ago the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin produced a surplus of forest products, and because of the short haul they were the principal sources of supply for the consuming states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Missouri. Today, however, with the exception of Maine and New Hampshire, every state north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers and east of the Rocky Mountains, as well as Kentucky, consumes more lumber than it produces, while Louisiana, Mississippi, eastern Texas, Arkansas and Alabama form the principal lumber-producing region and the main source of surplus lumber supply east of the Rocky Mountains.
During 1922 the fourteen states in which the Illinois Central System operates produced 10,853,000,000 feet of lumber, or 34.5 per cent of the total lumber production of the United States. The four states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama milled 8,494,000,000 feet, or 26.9 per cent of the total production in the country. There- fore, the Illinois Central System, with its network of lines traversing the principal lumber-producing regions of Mississippi, affording direct connections with lumber-producing points in Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas and serving directly the great markets of the Central West, is most advantageously located as a lumber eatfie® is! . N
The vast agricultural, mineral and lumber resources of the states of the Mississippi Valley, their excellent transportation facilities, their central location with respect to population and accessibility of fuel and raw materials, have given the territory traversed by the lines of the Illinois Central System every advantage in manufacturing.
No. 17] The Strategy of Locating a Railroad 63
and the phenomenal industrial growth of the Mississippi Valley region has contributed greatly to the economic strength of the rail- Tondano
At New Orleans, the second largest port in the United States in total tonnage of exports and imports and total net tonnage of shipping engaged in foreign trade, the Illinois Central System owns extensive docks, elevators and warehouses, equipped with modern loading and unloading machinery.
The recent acquisition of the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad has added a second Gulf port to the Illinois Central System. At Gulfport, the only deep-water harbor on the Mississippi Coast, the system now owns a pier more than a mile in length and a wharf several hundred feet in length, where cargoes are loaded and unloaded directly between cars and ships. Gulfport is one of the leading lumber and naval stores ports on the Gulf Coast.
The Ocean Steamship Company, a subsidiary of the Central of Georgia Railway Company (which is, as noted, a part of the greater Illinois Central System), owns commodious marine terminals at Savannah, Ga., the largest naval stores port of the country and the third largest cotton port in the world.
A fourth deep-water port on the Illinois Central System is at Baton Rouge, on the lower Mississippi River. Baton Rouge is now a port of entry under United States customs regulations. . .
In common with other latitudinal railroads engaged in the trans- portation of transcontinental tonnage, the Illinois Central System’s line between Chicago and Omaha suffers from canal competition, but new traffic has developed to and from the Panama Canal over the longitudinal lines of the system. The Panama Canal may therefore well be considered an asset to the Illinois Central System, because of its geographical location, although a liability to the latitudinal trans- continental lines. As the trade of the United States continues to grow with the increasing industrialization of its people, the growth of its population, and the development of its interest in foreign markets, the Panama Canal will become of increasing importance as a factor in the business of the Illinois Central; an importance that even today is significant, and of consideration in the policies of the system. . .
Charles H. Markham, The Illinois Central System, in Economic Geography (Wor- cester, Clark University, 1926), II, 4-15 passim.
CHAPTER IV—IMMIGRATION AND RACE ELEMENTS
18. Landing in New York (1901)
BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY
Connolly served in the infantry in the Spanish War, later in U. S. Navy. Corre- spondent of Collier’s in Mexico in 1914 and in European waters in 1918. He is the author of some exceptionally good books and articles about the sea.
T ten o’clock in the evening the big French liner from Havre came to anchor in the harbor of New York, and six hundred immigrants, Armenian, Greek, Turk, Italian, French, what not, craned over her rail to look on the fascinating lights of the immense city of their new land. They were told that the ship would move no further that night, and that it would be well to go below and get some sleep; but they paid no attention, and dawn found them still there, wakefully gazing.
Not until the last night-light died out did these watchers go below, and then it was to hurry bags and bundles on deck. At five o’clock every one of them was up on his toes ready to step ashore at the word, but it was seven o’clock before they were allowed to move, and then it was to make ready for the doctors, who had just climbed aboard.
Down one long gangway and up the other we were marched—cit- izens and foreigners alike; nationality made no difference where all were mere “steerage.” At the rate of forty to the minute we went by the doctor and his staff, who stood in the waist and reviewed us. As some of us in approaching failed to uncover, the ship’s man ad- dressed us; “Your chapeaux, messieurs, your chapeaux.” We did not understand, ‘‘For the hair diseases,” he said.
So we doffed our chapeaux, although it looked ridiculously like a salute to the doctors. And they must have had miraculous eyes
64
No. 18] Landing in New York 65
if they detected any but the most rampant disease by the brief looks they gave to the immigrants’ heads.
After this inspection the steerage dragged up its very last bags and bundles and chests. Six hundred of them there were, and with all their belongings they camped on deck. They made a pretty tight fit for one deck, and on one deck they had to stay. Later, it was like prying the first block out of a square of paving to get them started.
It was a blistering morning in July, and for two hours we sizzled in the blaze, until at last some blessed body up ahead said we might move. We moved, at first with glacial slowness, but in a little while more rapidly. By the time one little bunch reached the head of the gangplank, we were moving beyond all question. The people half a dozen numbers ahead of us were bumping down the runway like cakes of ice down a chute, and yet a man said, “Hurry! hurry!”
Cakes of ice may be skidded with speed when the runs are well greased, but they do not always stop gracefully. A band of Armenians, with bundles behind and before them, went clattering before us down the cleated runway like men thrown down-stairs.
Two men at the foot “kept tab.” One had to use a baseball um- pire’s indicator for his count, but the other, a greater brain, thought that he needed no mechanical aid to keep his reckoning. He counted us by a system of fours; but presently the struggling throng confused him and he grew wrathy. His system broke down when his companion counted one of us as number three hundred and sixty-eight, and he had only reached number three hundred and sixty-four.
On the dock it was a noisy assemblage. Here was where Volapiik or any other universal language would have been worth everybody’s knowing. These friendless people stood helplessly about, waiting for somebody to come and tell them what to do. Officials who might have made things a bit easier for them seemed to prefer to add to their bewilderment. Some that sought aid were waved away with arrogant indifference. “We’ll get around to you,” was a reply that bore not the slightest relation to the timorous question. All the Jacks in office scorned these poor people, and they were made to feelit. To the com- mand of any loud-voiced truckman they jumped aside like rabbits, and beneath the mere look of anything in uniform they shrank like mice.
A lifeless-looking man behind a small stand-up desk was registering
66 Immigration and Race Elements [z901
the lucky ones with “‘papers”—the naturalized Americans who had been home for a visit. He might have been registering ordinary cattle of no pedigree. His ambition, seemingly, was to be regarded as a man who could be flustered by nothing on top of this earth. He only moved his fingers to fill in blank lines on one big sheet and a lot of little slips. His jaws seemed made to chew tobacco—he did not move them to speak.
Some citizens, native born, American by every word and action, approached this impassive creature, saying: “‘ We are American citizens who have come third class. Can we be passed out?”
“ Passport? ”
“No; but if ú
“ Any sworn statements that you are American citizens?”
“No. We did not anticipate anything like this. If you will look atthese
“Don’t want to leok. If you have no regular papers stand aside.”
An Italian who could just say “Yes,” “No,” and “Feeladelfy” then presented his stamped credentials, and was passed out. Another, who had no credentials, stood ready to make affidavit that he was born in America sixty years ago. He had to get an interpreter to tell his story. His dismissal was as abrupt as ours.
The great body had no papers, had no hope of any shorter cut to liberty than by way of Ellis Island, and so waited patiently with their packs beside them. They never wandered far away from their packs. By and by they were told the inspector wished them to get in line and be ready for him. They hurried to arrange themselves in a row with their bundles opened up. In about an hour the inspector walked along the line, chalking his initials about as fast as he could step from one to the other. There was little suspicion of valuable stuffs concealed there.
After a time we learned that to get out we had only to swear that we were born in America and were citizens. Then we “went for” the man behind the desk, who could have attended to us before, and he took our abuse as, doubtless, he would have taken our praise— without changing a muscle. Given our slips, we hurried out of that darkened dock, out into the free sunshine of West Street. There we took a good long look at the United States. Travelling in immigrant fashion was all right after one had done with it.
No. 19] Our Italian Laborers 67
When we left, the first batch of our fellow voyagers were being marched on the Ellis Island barge. We saw a bunch of them later— after they were clear of the Immigration Bureau. It was in the shadow of Castle Garden. They were being driven away by a boisterous man of their own kind, who was talking to them like a jolly father. Per- haps he was making clear to them that now they were recognized fixtures in this land of promise, and that all their troubles were past.
James B. Connolly, in Youth’s Companion, March 14, 1901 (Boston), iii after 136.
tg. Our Italian Laborers (1901)
BY JACOB A. RIIS
Riis, a native of Denmark, came to the United States as a young man, worked as a police-court reporter in New York City, and interested himself in the problems of the tenement district. He was responsible for many reforms, as he has already told in his books, A Ten Years’ War; An Account of the Battle with the Slum in New York (Boston, 1900), and his autobiography, The Making of an American (New York, 1902).—Bibliography: Jacob A. Riis; A Sketch of His Life and Work; Theo- dore Roosevelt, “Reformed through Social Work” in Fortnightly Review (1901), 730-747-
VER in the hollow by the railroad-track, a little way from my home, stand two huts, if the term can be applied to structures having almost no sides, but consisting mainly of roofs oddly made of old boards, shingles and broken branches thrown down by a great storm that swept the country in the early fall. From the roof of one hut a crazy stovepipe sticks out; the fireplace of the other is just outside, where a door should have been, and there the occupants were busy cooking something in a pan.
At first sight I thought the huts harbored tramps who had halted on their annual migration southward, but before I caught sight of the men I knew by their chatter that they were Italian laborers employed in repairing the road-bed near by. The thicket was their kitchen, parlor and living-room. They might have found quarters much worse on a sunny day.
Soon after the men camped there thieves made a raid on our village. First our hen-coops suffered, then our silver drawers. There was
68 Immigration and Race Elements [901
great excitement for a season, and public indignation, in its search for a victim, hovered for a while about the settlement in the hollow. That was a mistake, as the event proved, and I am glad to say I had no share init. I knew the Italian too well for that.
He is not a thief. His boy may, does often enough, become cor- rupted by the city slum and its idleness, but with his immigrant father the police have rarely any concern. Even the bandit from across the sea works peacefully enough with pick and shovel here. It is only when the slum swallows him up from the moment of his coming and claims him for its own, or when his angry passions are excited by his Sunday game of cards that he falls back into his old evil ways.
The Mulberry Bend in New York is the great market where the padrone finds his countrymen just come over the sea, waiting to be hired and shipped in squads to the jobs that are waiting. The padrone is the middleman who knows what every big contractor is doing, even what he is thinking of doing, and is ever ready to enlist from a dozen to a thousand men with shovels, and ship them by the next train to wherever they may be needed. The “banker” in the Bend is the padrone’s backer, who furnishes the capital to run the “business,” which begins as soon as the men are shipped.
The contractor houses them sometimes, in barracks of rough boards put up for the occasion; sometimes, if the job is on the railroad and is not to last long, in a couple of old freight-cars side-tracked as near the job as may be. A few cars can hold a great many Italian navvies, for they pack well.
It may happen that they are quartered in old barns or farmhouses, the owners of which are willing to let them for ready money. Into them swarm the swarthy Italians by scores, stowing themselves in every nook and cranny from vellar to attic, and away up in the cockloft.
As near to the men as may be, the padrone opens his store, and stocks it with macaroni and such other simple viands as his customers require. Once or twice a week he lays in a supply of stale bread, their chief food. It is cheap and it is healthy, if not exactly palatable. Thus he makes a double profit on his men, for each of them pays him a regular percentage on his pay for getting him the job. These items together, small for the individual but large in the aggregate,
No. 19] Our Italian Laborers 69
are enough to make the padrone and his banker rich in a few busy years.
Their client, the navvy, is not envious. He is willing that they shall make a good thing of him for themselves, so long as he has his share. His thrift insures his own prosperity. It is a common observa- tion on works where Italians are employed in numbers that with their dollar and quarter a day they draw more cash at the end of the month than the highly paid engineers. The reason is simple; they save rigidly.
Stale bread and flour are cheap; they make their macaroni as often as they buy it readymade; the woods for a mile around furnish their fuel; field, meadow and swamp contribute to their larder in a way truly amazing to one used only to civilized city life.
The camp-fire is lighted against the bluff when the evening shades begin to fall. A hole dug in the bank horizontally serves as the fireplace; another scooped out over it, straight up, makes the chimney. When the kitchen is ready, the pot is boiling in no time.
To it the men foraging after their day’s work bring what they find; some carry fagots for the fire from the thicket, others bring by the armful greens that no one of that neighborhood thought of as good to eat. Young dandelions, young milkweed, sour sorrel and the weed called “lamb’s quarters” are delicacies. A slice of bacon or anything else that comes handy gives a flavor to the mess—a dead bird, a land-turtle, or even a mud-turtle. It all goes into the pot. Italian navvies are “death on turtles.” The result of it all is a broth not unpalatable to one who has the courage to taste it, and which they swallow with great gusto.
The meal over and their few chores done, the men squat by the fires for a game of cards and a smoke. Generally some one among them has a guitar, perhaps a harp, at least an accordion, and the echoes of the summer night are awakened by the sweetly seductive strains of “Santa Lucia” or some Sicilian love-song.
The fierce-looking men in their red flannel shirts, wide open at the sunburned throat, with the firelight playing upon their dark faces, make a striking figure suggestive enough of savage mountaineers fresh from a raid on weakling lowlanders and their wealth; but what- ever was their trade abroad, here it is honest. Even the farmer’s hen-coops are safe, if the turtles in his swamp-lot are not.
70 Immigration and Race Elements [190r
Midnight finds them bundled in their barracks, on straw or on the solid planks, usually packed close together. Rude bunks are nailed up two tiers high if there is room, and twenty or thirty sleep where Americans would see space for two. In the space left by the bunks, lines are strung and their clothes hung up to dry.
Once a week the camp takes a wash. On Saturday evening all go to the near-by stream, where the men soak their shirts while they sit smoking on the bank. The most venturesome jump in with clothes on, and wash them in that way, but bathing is not popular among them as a sport. As a sanitary measure it is not even dreamed of.
The soaked clothes, wrung out on the bank, are spread on the roof of their barracks over night, or hung out to dry on the next tree, and are fit for Sunday wear in the morning, there being no church to demand an extra polishing-up.
If it were not for his manner of spending Sunday or Sunday after- noon, the Italian would be an ideal navvy. He does not go off carous- ing, is hardy and not afraid of work. Sunday morning he manages to put in mending his clothes or cobbling in camp, if he has not a wife in the Bend whom he goes to see. But as the afternoon wears on in idleness, the gaming that is his besetting vice tempts him, and then, with the darkness, the padrone’s profits are likely to be curtailed by a general fight in which knives are trumps.
The history of the building of the aqueduct dams, the ship-canal and other great works of like character near New York City records many such bloody fights, often over a few wretched pennies. The police are usually in time to carry out the dead, rarely to prevent murder. In spite of this, the Italian navvy is, as a rule, a man of peace as he is one of hard work, and a most important person in the accomplishment of the great enterprises that mark the progress of our country.
Although he works for less than the imperious Irishman, he manages to make his wage go vastly farther. At the end of his job, when camp is broken in the late fall, he goes away with his pockets lined with gold, perhaps to the city to watch for another job, perhaps over the ocean to buy a farm or a hillside vineyard at home. His shovel, his loaf of stale bread and the umbrella that were his inseparable companions here are left behind.
He sets sail in a brand-new corduroy suit, with a heavy silver chain
No. 20] A Self-Made Negro ga
to his watch, to return, if he does not settle among his own, with his wife and little ones to make his home with us for good; showing thus in the best of all ways that he appreciates the advantages of his new- found freedom, and is going to try the best of it according to his light.
Jacob A. Riis, in Youth’s Companion, January 17, 1901 (Boston), 111.
20. A Self-Made Negro (1910)
BY EMMETT J. SCOTT AND LYMAN BEECHER STOWE (1016)
Scott was at one time Booker T. Washington’s private secretary; he was secre- tary of Tuskegee Institute and later of Howard University, both schools for negroes. Stowe, grandson of Harriet Beecher Stowe, is the author (with his father) of Harriet Beecher Stowe—The Story of Her Life (1911); (with W. R. George) of Made and Remade (1912); (with Dr. J. Goricar) of The Inside Story of Austro-German Intrigue (1919). Booker Washington wrote on negro problems. Some of his more im- portant works are: Sowing and Reaping (Boston, 1900); The Story of my Life and Work (1900); Up from Slavery (1901); The Future of the American Negro (1902); Character Building (1903); Working with the Hands (1904); Tuskegee and Its People (1905); Putting the Most into Life (1906); Life of Frederick Douglass (1907); The Negro in Business (1907); The Story of the Negro (1909).—Bibliography: See B. F. Riley, The Life and Times of Booker T. Washington (New York, 1916).
OOKER WASHINGTON was always emphasizing the necessity of better conditions right here and now instead of in a distant future or in heaven. He was constantly combating the tendency in his people—a tendency common to all people but naturally particu- larly strong in those having a heritage of slavery—to substitute the anticipated bliss of a future life for effective efforts to improve the conditions of this present life. He was always telling them to put their energies into societies for the preservation of health and improve- ment of living conditions, instead of into the too numerous and popu- lar sick benefit and death benefit organizations.
At the next stop of the party Mr. Washington was introduced to the assembled townspeople by a graduate of Tuskegee Institute, who was one of their leading citizens and most successful farmers. In this talk he urged the people to get more land and keep it and to grow something besides cotton. He said they should not lean upon others and should not go to town on Saturdays to “draw upon” the mer-
72 Immigration and Race Elements [r910
chants, but should stay at home and “draw every day from their own soil corn, peas, beans, and hogs.” He urged the men to give their wives more time to work around the house and to raise vegetables. (This, of course, instead of requiring them to work in the fields with the men as is so common.) He urged especially that they take their wives into their confidence and make them their partners as well as their companions. He assured them that if they took their wives into partnership they would accumulate more and get along better in every way.
There was no advice given by him more constantly or insistently in speaking to the plain people of his race, whether in country or city, than this injunction to the men to take their wives into tneir confidence and make them their partners. He recognized that the home was the basis of all progress and civilization for his race, as well as all other races, and that the wife and mother is primarily the conservator of the home.
One of the stops of the trip was at a little hamlet called Damascus. Here, in characteristic fashion, he told the people how much richer they were in soil and all natural advantages than were the inhabitants of the original Damascus in the Holy Land. He then argued that hav- ing these great natural advantages, much was to be expected of them, etc. Like all great preachers, teachers, and leaders of men he seized upon the names, incidents, and conditions immediately about him and from them drew lessons of fundamental import and universal applica- tion.
The efforts of the Negro farmers on these trips to get a word of approval from their great leader were often pathetic. One old man had a good breed of pigs of which he was particularly proud. He con- trived to be found feeding them beside the road just as the great man and his party were passing. The simple ruse succeeded. Mr. Wash- ington and his companions stopped and every one admired the proud and excited old man’s pigs. And then after the pigs had been duly admired, he led them to a rough plank table upon which he had dis- played in tremulous anticipation of this dramatic moment a huge pumpkin, some perfectly developed ears of corn, and a lusty cabbage. After these objects had also been admired the old man decoyed the party into the little whitewashed cottage where his wife had her hour of triumph in displaying her jars of preserves, pickles, cans of vege-
No. 20] A Self-Made Negro 73
tables, dried fruits, and syrup together with quilts and other needle- work all carefully arranged for this hoped-for inspection.
The basic teaching of all these tours was: “Make your own little heaven right here and now. Do it by putting business methods into your farming, by growing things in your garden the year around, by building and keeping attractive and comfortable homes for your children so they will stay at home and not go to the cities, by keeping your bodies and your surroundings clean, by staying in one place, by getting a good teacher and a good preacher, by building a good school aud church, by letting your wife be your partner in all you do, by keeping out of debt, by cultivating friendly relations with your neigh- bors both white and black.”
Mr. Washington was constantly bringing up in the Tuskegee faculty meetings cases of distress among the colored people of the county, which he had personally discovered while off hunting or riding, and planning ways and means to relieve them. Apparently it never occurred to him that technically, at least, the fate of these poor per- sons was not his affair nor that of his school. At one such meeting he told of having come upon while hunting a tumbledown cabin in the woods, within it a half-paralyzed old Negro obviously unable to care for his simple wants. Mr. Washington had stopped, built a fire in his stove, and otherwise made him comfortable temporarily, but some provision for the old man’s care must be made at once. One of the teachers knew about the old man and stated that he had such an ugly temper that he had driven off his wife, son, and daughter who had until recently lived with him and taken care of him. The young teacher seemed to feel that the old man had brought his troubles upon his own head and so deserved little sympathy. Mr. Washington would not for a moment agree to this. He replied that if the old fellow was so unfortunate as to have a bad temper as well as his physical in- firmities that was no reason why he should be allowed to suffer priva- tion. He delegated one of the teachers to look up the old man’s family at once and see if they could be prevailed upon to support him and to report at the next meeting what had been arranged. In the meantime he would send some one out to the cabin daily to take him food and attend to his wants.
At another faculty meeting he brought up the plight of an old woman who was about to be evicted from her little shack on the out-
74 Immigration and Race Elements [1913
skirts of the town because of her inability to pay the nominal rent which she was charged. He arranged to have her rent paid out of a sum of money which he always had included in the school budget for the relief of such cases. In such ways he was constantly impress- ing upon his associates the idea that was ever a mainspring of his own life—namely, that it was always and everywhere the duty of the more fortunate to help the less fortunate.
Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, Booker T. Washington, Builder of a Civilization (New York, Doubleday Page, 1916), 139-143.
—o
21. The Japanese Problem (1913)
BY PROFESSOR FREDERIC AUSTIN OGG (1918)
Ogg is Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin.—Bibliog- raphy: George H. Blakeslee, Japan and Japanese-American Relations; K. K. Kawakami, The Real Japanese Question; H. A. Millis, The Japanese Problem in the United States; P. J. Treat, Japan and the United States.
ie HE people of the far West had long believed that their section of the country was in danger of being flooded with Asiatics, and that unless repressive steps were taken they would be saddled with a permanent race problem like the negro question in the South. Exclusion acts wrung from Congress in 1880-1884 were a sufficient safeguard against the Chinese. By 1895, however, high wages began to attract Japanese and Korean laborers, many of whom reached the mainland after a sojourn in Hawaii. In ro00 there were in the coast states only 18,269 Japanese; but after 1903 the influx rose, and native laborers and shopkeepers seemed likely to be displaced on a large scale by orientals. Japanese capitalists, too, were seeking a footing in important industries. In this new form, the “yellow peril” stirred the coast communities profoundly. Organized labor set up a cry for exclusion; and the political leaders, the press, and a large part of the public gave hearty support. Race prejudice played its part, but the mainspring of the protest was the fear of economic competi- tion. On October 11, 1906, the board of education of San Francisco cast a brand into the tinder by passing a resolution that thereafter all Chi-
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nese, Japanese, and Korean pupils should be given instruction in an “oriental” school, and not, as previously, in the ordinary schools. Coming at a time when Japanese pride was more than usually exalted, this action was keenly resented. The Tokio authorities made inquiries, and then demanded that Japanese residents in California be protected in the full enjoyment of the rights guaranteed them by the treaty of 1894. In 1907 a tentative settlement was reached in a “gentleman’s agreement” to the effect that San Francisco should admit to the ordi- nary schools oriental children not over sixteen years of age, while the Japanese authorities should withhold passports from laborers bound for the United States, except returning residents and members of their families. An order of President Roosevelt, March 14, 1907, issued under authority of a new immigration act, further restrained the immi- gration of oriental laborers; and within two years the number of Japanese annually entering the country was reduced to a tenth of its former proportions. February 24, 1911, the United States Senate ratified a new treaty of commerce and navigation with Japan, which was accompanied by a Japanese note to the effect that the Mikado’s government was “fully prepared to maintain with equal effectiveness the limitation and control which they have for the past three years exercised in regulation of emigration of laborers to the United States.”
The real issue in 1906-1907 was not school attendance, but the right of the Japanese to migrate to the Pacific coast states and to enjoy there the same privileges as other aliens. Agitation therefore continued, and in 1913 it bore fruit in a bill introduced in the Cali- fornia legislature prohibiting the holding of land, through either purchase or lease, by aliens ineligible to citizenship under United States law. Several states, including New York and Texas, had laws unconditionally prohibiting ownership of real property by aliens. The Tokio authorities objected to the California proposal, however, on the ground that it was aimed solely at the Japanese (who under the naturalization laws were ineligible to citizenship), and that it was a discrimination in violation of the treaty of 1911. After asking in vain that the measure be modified, President Wilson sent Secretary Bryan to Sacramento to explain to the governor and legislature the views of the officials at Washington. Nevertheless, the legislature passed a substitute measure, known as the Webb alien landholding bill, which received the governor’s signature May 10, 1913.
76 Immigration and Race Elements [1913
On its face, the bill passed was less offensive than its original, for it did not contain the phrase ‘‘ineligible to citizenship,” which had been the basis of the Japanese protest. The real object was attained, how- ever, by the provision that, whereas aliens eligible to citizenship should be allowed to acquire and hold land on the same terms as citizens, all other aliens should have only such landholding rights as should be guaranteed to them by treaty. No treaty with Japan con- ferred the right of land ownership; so that Japanese residents of the state, while continuing to be capable of owning real property used for residence or commercial purposes, and while permitted to lease land for a term not exceeding three years, were henceforth disqualified to become land-owners. Existing holdings were not affected.
The law was drawn to minimize legal objections. Its effect, how- ever, was to deny to Japanese residents rights which they, in common with other aliens, had hitherto possessed; and on this ground the Tokio government renewed its protest. The State Department urged that no rights were denied, and that, in any event, the courts were open for the adjudication of the question. But the Japanese authorities preferred to consider the situation on the plane of international and inter-racial honor and fair play; for the real source of their dissatis- faction was the stigma which was felt to have been placed upon the Japanese as a people by the refusal of the United States to admit Japanese settlers to citizenship.
The suggestion of a new treaty was eventually dropped; and after a fruitless exchange of notes, the controversy (overshadowed, from 1914, by the European war) languished. That in the course of time it would be revived, nobody doubted. Indeed, in the early months of 1917 the legislatures of Oregon, Idaho, and one or two other Pacific states debated land-holding measures resembling that which brought the difficulty to a head in California.
Certain facts lent the situation an ominous aspect. Japan and the United States must always confront each other across the Pacific. Economic competition between them was certain to increase. An outlet for surplus population was for Japan a growing necessity. The Japanese are a proud people, quick to resent any hint that they are an inferior race. They are extraordinarily polite, and they expect unfailing courtesy from those who undertake to deal with them as equals. The events of 1906-1907 and 1913 revealed in both countries
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a jingo press, as well as a tendency to indiscreet and violent acts. Not a few sober-minded Americans were convinced that Japan, having triumphed first over China, then over Russia, had chosen the United States as her third great antagonist; and that through conquests in Latin America, or in some way, she would bring on a conflict whenever the time seemed ripe. Nervous persons recalled that never since the modernization of her armies had the empire suffered defeat.
Fortunately, there were offsets to these causes of alarm. The official attitude of each government toward the other was always correct; diplomatic language was careful and courteous. For a decade the ‘“gentleman’s agreement” was faithfully carried out, and it yielded every immediate result that could have been attained by statutes or by treaty. The situation was saved by the fact that the Japanese plans for national development admitted of no heavy emigration to the United States; the end in view was rather coloniza- tion in Korea and elsewhere, under the Japanese flag. Furthermore, the United States was not alone in seeking to prevent the entrance of orientals; Australia and other British dominions had gone even further. If the country could discover some means of attaining its purpose without branding the Japanese as an inferior people, there was no reason—so far, at all events, as the immigration question was concerned—why earlier friendliness should not be restored. The old relation of mentor and pupil, however, could never be revived; for Japan had outgrown the need of tutelage.
Frederic Austin Ogg, National Progress [American Nation, XX VII] (New York, Harper’s, 1918), 307-312.
78 Immigration and Race Elements [1924
22. Our New Immigration Policy (1924)
BY PROFESSOR ROBERT DE COURCY WARD
Ward, an eminent American meteorologist and professor of that science at Harvard University, has long taken a deep interest in immigration problems.— Bibliography: J. W. Jenks and W. J. Lauck, The Immigration Problem (N. Y., 1922); Gino Speranza, Race or Nation: the Conflict of Divided Loyalties (Indianapolis, 1925); H. P. Fairchild, The Melting Pot Mistake (Boston, 1926); R. L. Garis, Im- migration Restriction (N. Y., 1927); Madison Grant and C. S. Davison, editors, The Founders of the Republic on Immigration, Naturalization and Aliens (N. Y., 1928); E. R. Lewis, America: Nation or Confusion (N. Y., 1928).
OR a round hundred years it was a national ideal that the
United States should be the asylum for the poor and the oppressed of every land. This very early came to be known as the “traditional”’ American attitude towards immigration. Curiously enough, there has always been a fundamental error in the popular conception of this tradition. This noble ideal of a refuge, open to all, had its roots in economic conditions far more than in any altruistic spirit or world philanthropy. For many decades the country was very sparsely settled. There was abundant free land. Labor was scarce. The number of immigrants was still very small, and nearly all of them were sturdy pioneers, essentially homogeneous and readily assimilated. There was, therefore, little need to worry about any immigration “problems,” and it was comforting to the consciences of our ancestors to keep the doors wide open. .
During the last decade of the nineteenth century a distinct change in public opinion began to manifest itself. Of slow growth at first, the new views soon spread more and more rapidly until they have finally been embodied in the new immigration law. . . . The reason for the gradual reversal of the earlier American policy of free immigra- tion to one of steadily increasing restriction was the very marked change in the general character of immigration which began in the decade 1880-1890. It is significant that in the period 1871-1880 the “old” immigration from northern and western Europe amounted to slightly over 2,000,000 persons while the “new” immigration, from southern and eastern Europe and near Asia, numbered only 180,000. In the years 1897-1914, the period immediately preceding the war, the “old” contributed about 3,000,000 while the “new”
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contributed over 10,000,000. The number of arriving aliens was increasing with enormous rapidity. Their racial origins and their characteristics were changing. It was at this point that a real and very serious immigration “problem” arose. The newer immigrants generally had different and lower standards of living. They often retained their loyalty to their native countries. They read their own foreign language newspapers. Barriers of every kind separated them from the native population and from earlier immigrants from northern and western Europe. . .
Americans began to realize that the ideal of furnishing an asylum for all the world’s oppressed was coming into conflict with changed economic and social conditions. The cold facts were that the supply of public land was practically exhausted; that acute labor problems, aggravated by the influx of ignorant and unskilled aliens, had arisen; that the large cities were becoming congested with foreigners; that there were too many immigrants for