=Social Effects.=—The social effects are chiefly in the way of introducing natural traits or qualities which were not in the American people during the early period. Immigration has resulted in making a cosmopolitan population which is not uniform in temperament or tastes, and can be made uniform only by the long-continued process of assimilation. This lack of uniformity is in some ways an advantage, not a defect. It may give us, in the long run, a more vigorous population than could ever be had from the development of a single strain. Whether the new composite race which ultimately emerges from the melting-pot will be superior or inferior to the original stock is something which only the future can tell. One disappointing feature is to be found in the fact that many of these immigrants are inferior to the average native-born American in physique, in mentality, and in moral fibre. It is sometimes asserted that the immigrant population is responsible for more than its due proportion of crime but no satisfactory evidence has yet been brought forward to prove this statement. It is a fact, however, that poverty and illiteracy are more common among the foreign-born than among the native white population. It is quite likely that the new environment will do much to remedy this condition and that the second generation, through the work of the public schools, may measure up to the native-born. These public schools are the most potent of all forces in the work of Americanization. It is upon them that we must depend to make the ultimate social effects of assimilation beneficial to the country. [Sidenote: Immigration in its relation to industry and labor.] =Economic Effects.=—Immigration has had important economic results. It has kept the labor market well supplied and throughout the last three-quarters of a century has aided the great industrial expansion of the country. American industry and commerce could not have grown to such proportions without the man-power which has been obtained in such enormous quantities from Europe. We have used great numbers of aliens in building the railroads of the country, in mines and steel mills, in workshops and factories. On the other hand the flood of immigration has at times proved too strong. It has on occasions served to produce an over-supply of labor and this, in turn, has caused wages to fall. Labor leaders claim that the steady stream of immigrants has prevented the rise in the American workman’s standard of living which otherwise would have taken place. Organized labor would like to place a protective duty upon immigrants. If the newcomers could be scattered evenly over the whole country instead of being concentrated in the urban areas, this danger of glutting the labor supply would be very small. In any case, as has already been pointed out, the situation tends to adjust itself, because immigration always falls off when business depression causes a slackening in the demand for labor.