An investigation of the nationalities in the city of Chicago has been made by Professor Ripley, of Harvard. The results illustrate the wonderful dimensions of the problem which the cities confront in the assimilation of the foreign element. In the case of Chicago, were the foreigners (those not American beyond the third generation) to be eliminated, the population would dwindle from 2,000,000 to about 100,00. In this city fourteen languages are spoken by groups of not less than 10,000 persons each. Newspapers are regularly published in ten different languages and church services conducted in twenty different tongues. Measured by the size of its foreign colonies, Chicago is the second Bohemian city in the world, the third Swedish, the fourth Polish, and the fifth German. There is one large factory employing over 4,000 people representing twenty-four nationalities. Here the rules of the establishment are printed in eight languages. So it is with the other cities. New York, for example, has a larger Italian population than Rome, and is the greatest Jewish city, for there are in the city some 800,000 Jews. In all eighty per cent of the population of New York are foreigners or the children of foreigners. In Boston the per cent reaches seventy and in Milwaukee about eighty-six. The charge that criminality has increased rapidly with the increased immigration from southern Europe seems to be substantiated by statistics. From 1904 to 1908 the number of aliens charged with committing grave crimes nearly doubled. While this fact will not prove the point, it suggests thought on the question. It has been truthfully said that the fundamental problem in this question of immigration is most frequently overlooked. Back of the statistics of illiteracy, pauperism, criminality, and the economic value of immigrants lies another one of great proportions. What has been the effect upon our native stock? What has been the expense, to our native stock, of this increase of population and wealth through immigration? The decreasing birth rate of our native population some contend is due to the industrial competition caused by the foreign element. If this be true, the foreigners have supplanted not supplemented the American, and the question arises, how long can the assimilation go on before we lose our American characteristics? [Illustration] Swedish immigrant family considered desirable and qualified to enter.