The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-03-27
MATERIAL OF OUR CITIES.


The Cleveland Plaind,o1e, =, farr davs
$500 ieierrlng to the tendency to an &C
summation OF population in cities, notes as
singular That 1.-THE largest proportion of
urDan residents to the total should be
showed py the newest nation of aIlp--Aus-
traila. Thus in a population of 9.215. 900.
grown practically in half century. Mel
bourne has 4S5,0D0 out of !. l40. 600 in the
wnoie province Of Victoria. which is as
iarse as New York and Kentucky COM
oineo' New South Wales has /, 1874. 600 in
hanitants, of whom $50, 900 live in Sidney
ana SO on through all the provinces.
IL is an interesting fact in sociology that
large cities cannot maintain themselves
without constant accessions from the out
SIDE. Their populations are not self-per-
petuating. The losses by death and
removal exceed the gain nv natural
increase and if there were not con-
tinual gains from the outside all the large
cities of the world would become what so
many capitals OF ancient empires have be-
come-desolations. Favorably located
cities not only draw additions from the sur
founding country, but attract them from
the larger the population of city is the
greater number Of nationalities it repre-
sents.
But whilst this property of attraction is
source OF power and wealth, it may in
VolVe grave difficulties, for it may bring in
new clements of population faster than
lhey can be assimilated. 1t is best for the
cause OF public order and good government
that every large city should possess a
large, robust and patriotic native element
TO do the assimilating work-to swallow
the new accessions, as it were, digest them,
transform them and convert them into re-
liable national material This is the
case with all large cities in old
counties which population moves from
but IN the nature of things it cannot be the
case with cities in attractive and prosper
GUS new countries which population moves
INTO. London Is always Overwhelmingly
English, though persons from every nation
and cline forever swarm in its streets
Paris is overwhelmingly French, Berlin
German, and Naples Italian. But the great
cities OF This country are not overwhelm-
ingly American. What may be called the
American element does not even predomi-
nate in New York, nor in Chicago, nor in
Boston.
In the large seaboard cities the foreign
element has been changing in the last seven
years, and not for the better Down to
1855 our accessions of foreigners were
almost exclusively Irish, German and
British, and the experience of more than
half century had accustomed us to
them, and them to US. We had learned to
treat them with decided favor as the very
best physical and moral material the old
world could send US. But of late years the
immigration from Great Britain, Germany
and Ireland has fallen off, and America is
now receiving accessions from Italy, Hun
gary, Poland and Russia. The new
strangers coming to our shores are not as
desirable as could be wished. But, luckily
for the young cities of the west they stop
chiefly in the great seaboaro marts, while
the more eligible come west. Our soil,
climate and institutions have developed
and demonstrated enormous absorbing
capacities, and it is now probable the swal-
lowing Of several scores of thousands of
Latins and Sclavs will seriously disturb
our repose