The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-11-27
A PEssIMISTIC OBSERVER.

Professor Edward AlswoTth Ross i;
growing pessimistic with advancing
years. In an article entitled "Ameri
can and Immigrant Blood, Study oi
the Social Effects OF immigration,
he draws a gloomy picture of the de
generacy which he believes will flood
this country as a result of immigration
from the South and East Of Europe. For
the Northern races he has little but
praise. He describes them as sturdy
healthy and intelligent, and he pic.
lures the Southern races as vitiated
and diseased.
To prove his thesis. Professor Ross
marshals an army Of alleged facts and
figures, and in conclu he quotes a
forecast made ten years ago by II. G..
Wells. who said: "lf things go on
as they are going, great mass Of
them (foreigners) will remain a very
low lower class-will remain largely IL.
Iiterate, industrialized peasants. -
Professor Ross draws an especially
dark picture of the second generation
contrary to century Of experience in
this country with immigrants from all
parts Of Europe. He forcsees that the
second and third generations will still
be densely ignorant industrially op-
pressed, and physically unfit. North
ern as well as Southern races and
the races Of Eastern Europe have
proved among our best citizens in the
second and third generations.
Professor Ross gathers most of his
facts and figures from a certain an
thracite town of $4,000 inhabitants, in
which he says are writ large the
moral and social consequence of inject
ing 10000 sixteenth century people into
a twentieth century community This
noted educators observations are too
limited to demonstrate his general
proposition. He has forgotten the de-
generacy and mental backwardness that
have become q widespread evil in some
Of the central States and in New Eng
land among purely native populations,
as result OF inbreediug. The
only valuable investigation that can
be made OF the social effects of
immigration must take in the whole
country and long period. Isolated OBJ
servations among immigrants who have
been crowded into certain mining or
industrial centers may seem TO justify
the melancholy forecasts OF a pessi-
mistic sociologist, but they will not
serve as basis for any intelligent I'm.
derstanding of the immigration ques-
tion.
II has been the experience in this
country that the second generations of
sll races, while not superior in moral
stamina or brain power to the FIRST gen.
Grafton, have been better educated.
more adaptable 20 American ways, com
pletely in sympathy with our ideals and
thoroughly skilled in our methods.
A few years ago a sociologist might
have taken the same view Of the
Italians that Professor Ross now takes
Of the Austrians. the Croatians, the
Russians. the Poles and the Greeks. The
immigrants who came from Italy aud
especially from Sicily twenty-five and
thirty years ago were regarded as
great menace TO our civilization. To-
day in those Eastern ceuters where tbev
have settled in large numbers, we find
them producing captains Of industry.
professional men of high efficiency.
artists. musicians, and, last but not
least, class Of laborers as intelligent
as sober, and as industrious as can be
found IN the country. Have VIC not
good reason 10 hope that the same up-
lifting process which has made the
second generation Of Italians n most de-
sirable eitizenTy will have equally good
effects on the children OF the immi.
grants from the South and East of
Europei
There are 1000 telegraph poles be.