Omaha daily bee., 1903-05-31
OUR FACTORY OF AMERICANS.
Process of assimilation Progressing
Satisfactorily.
Saturday Evening Post.

satisfactorily.
Saturday Evening Post.
Twenty-one years ago we touched high
water mark in immigration. with 10000
arrivals. It looks as II that tremendous
record would be beaten this year. In one
Cay in April more than 10000 immigrants
landed at New York-the greatest days
work in the history of that port. One
steamer brought 1874 Sca~ndinavians, an
other nearly 1.40o Italians. another almost
1900 Greeks, Italians, Arabs, Turks and
Persians, a fourth over $500 Poles and
other Slavs, a NTH 20 ~Scotchmen, a sixth
525 Greeks, Turks and Arabs, and a seventh
nearly $500 Germans. In the first eleven
days Of April 1920 immigrants of all ma
tionalities invaded Ellis Island.
No wonder some of our kind friends
across the Atlantic. looking at this appal-
ing mixture, believe that we never can
turn its varied ingredients into Americans.
No such gigantic amalgamation OF diverse
races has ever been attempted since Cara
Gala made Roman citizens OF all the in
habitants Of his empire, and we may say
that never in the history of the world has
such an undertaking been successfully con-
summated.
But that does not prove that we shall
fail. Indeed, there is every reason to be-
lieve that we shall succeed. We have been
peculiarly fortunate In our preparation for
the mighty work that is reversing the ca
tastrophe OF Babel, We have been n com
posite people from the beginning. The
thirteen colonies we're settled by English
men. scotchmen, scotch-Irish, Irish, Dutch
men, swedes, Germans. Frenchmen and
negroes. Before the revolution substan-
TALLY all these, except the negroes, had
been welded into one homogeneous people,
with a common language and common po-
UtIcaI ideals. For nifty years after that
this people increased and solidihed with
little admixture from immigration. so that
when new currents began to flow from
Europe Il was prepared Ia absorb them. II
was a quarter OF a century later still be-
fore the first great flood broke upon ne.
That deluge was Irish. In the '5os the
| problem Of immigration was regarded as
an Irish problem. The Know-Nothing pro-
test was an anti-Irish movement. Irishmen
captured our city governments, and our
foreign policies we're swayed by the preju-
dices Of the Irish vote"
But gradually the Irish freshet subsidized
, be succeeded by a German stream. A
| n, rter ~ n million German immigrants
entered the country in a single year. Ger.
man newspapers. theaters and churches
| HDIHlaG up ulu HbAiAAlNhs flhd WIS NDH'
tinued there might have been some reason
20 fear tina the kaiser's dream Of a huge
I alien German colony in the United States
would he realized. But It stopped In good
time. Meanwhile the earlier Irish immi,
grants and their children had become
thorough Americans. and we're helping th'
original Americans to assimilate the Ger
: mans. The work was successfully accom-.
! piished. and now the Irish and Germans
both are parts OF that wonderful solven.
that is Am-eHcanizing the newer arrivals.
We are receiving a good MAN. Italians
Poles. Fungarlans and Russian Jews a
present. but It will be many years befor,
their numbers compare with those OF thu
Irish anc Germans who have been alread,
successfully assimiiated. And by that tim,
no doubt the stream will slacken. as tn,
former streams ave done. Meanwhile IN,
races that have produced Marconi anC
Tesla will stin further enrich a stool
which the mixture OF blood has made al
ready the richest in the world.