The Irish immigration was earliest in the field, and first to profit by the hit-or-miss methods of naturalization which prevailed in the old shiftless days. They occupied socially at the outset very much the same position that the “New Immigration” has occupied during the past twenty years; but the American politician, to whose mill any kind of a biped who might vote was grist, welcomed it, and quickly taught the Irishman the methods of the game. How solidly the Irish were installed before the Germans began to arrive in large numbers appears in Table I, showing the two streams of immigration between 1820 and 1840. Prior to 1840 there was no appreciable inflow from any other countries. It should be added that it was not until 1854, and then only for that one year, that the German immigration overtook the Irish. It did not again equal it until 1867. TABLE I IMMIGRATION FROM IRELAND AND GERMANY EACH YEAR FROM 1820 TO 1840 ============================= YEAR | IRELAND | GERMANY ----------+---------+-------- 1820 | 3,614 | 968 1821 | 1,518 | 383 1822 | 2,267 | 148 1823 | 1,908 | 183 1824 | 2,345 | 230 1825 | 4,888 | 450 1826 | 5,408 | 511 1827 | 9,766 | 432 1828 | 12,488 | 1,851 1829 | 7,415 | 597 1830 | 2,721 | 1,976 1831 | 5,772 | 2,413 1832 | 12,436 | 10,194 1833 | 8,648 | 6,988 1834 | 24,474 | 17,686 1835 | 20,927 | 8,311 1836 | 30,578 | 20,707 1837 | 28,508 | 23,740 1838 | 12,645 | 11,683 1839 | 23,963 | 21,028 1840 | 39,430 | 29,704 ============================= THEY ALWAYS HAVE BEEN DEMOCRATS The traditional fidelity of the Irish to the Democratic party began forthwith. The elements in the population which were Whigs, and afterward became Republicans tended, on the whole, to be the more prosperous folk of the community; also they were largely of the Protestant faith. Very early in our political history, therefore, there came to be, to some extent, a division in which both social standing and religion played a part. Most of the Irish were poor, and nearly all of them were Roman Catholics. The Democratic party was rather the party of the poor and the foreign born, and when the great influx of Roman Catholic Irish injected also the religious issue, it was only natural that a kind of racial allegiance should attach the Irish to the Democratic party. The Know-Nothing and Native American agitations of the middle of the last century deepened the rift, and confirmed the Irish in their political faith. Gustavus Myers says, in his _History of Tammany Hall_:[8]