The immigrant-cartoon since 1910 has been the South-European: Slavic, Jewish, Italian; usually a woman with a shawl over her head, her husband standing beside her, with slavic cheekbones or a graying beard; and eager children around them. This is not a particularly false picture of several million immigrants; among them some of the most valuable this country has had. But it erases from our mind the bare statistical fact that the largest single language group, nearly _one third of all_ the immigrants to the United States, were English-speaking. For several decades, the bulk of all immigration was from Great Britain and Ireland. If one takes the three principal sources of immigration for every decade between 1820 and 1930, one finds that Germany and Ireland were among the leaders for sixty years; Italy for forty; Russia only thirty; the great Scandinavian movement to the middle west lasted a single decade; but Great Britain was one of the chief sources of immigration for seventy years, and probably was the principal source for thirty years more--from 1790 until 1820--during which time no official figures were kept. Out of thirty-eight million arrivals in this country, about twelve spoke the dominant tongue, and most of them were aware of the tradition of Anglo-Saxon self-government; some had suffered from British domination, more had enjoyed the fruits of liberty; but all knew what liberty and respect for law meant. Many of these millions fled from poverty; but most were not refugees from religious or political persecution. Many millions came to relatives and friends already established; and began instantly to add to the wealth of the country; many millions were already educated. The cost of their upbringing had been borne abroad; they came here grown, trained, and willing to work. They fell quickly into the American system, without causing friction; they helped to continue the dominance of the national groups which had fought the Revolution and created the new nation. It is important to remember that they were, none the less, immigrants; they made themselves into Americans and helped to make America; they helped to make us what we are by keeping some of their habits, by abandoning others. For this is essential: the British immigrant, even when he came to a country predominantly Anglo-Saxon, did not remain British and did not make the country Anglo-Saxon. The process of change affected the dominant group as deeply as it affected the minorities. It was a little easier for a Kentish man to become an American than it was for a Serbian; but it was just as hard for the man from Kent to remain a Briton as it was for the Serbian to remain a Serb. Both became Americans. Neither of them tried to remake America in the mold of his old country. _Who Asked Them to Come?_