Barriers of speech, education, and religious faith split the people into unsympathetic, even hostile camps. The worst element in the community makes use of the ignorance and venality of the foreign-born voters to exclude the better citizens from any share in the control of local affairs. In this babel no newspaper becomes strong enough to mold and lead public opinion. On account of the smallness of the English-reading public,--the native born men number slightly over two thousand and those of American parentage less than a thousand--the single English daily has so few subscribers that it cannot afford to offend any of them by exposing municipal rottenness. The chance to prey on the ignorant foreigner tempts the cupidity and corrupts the ethics of local business and professional men. The Slavic thirst, multiplying saloons up to one for every twenty-six families, is communicated to Americans, and results in an increase of liquor crimes among all classes. In like manner familiarity with the immodesties of the foreigners coarsens the native-born. With the basest Americans and the lowest foreigners united by thirst and greed, while the decent Americans and the decent foreigners understand one another too little for team-work, it is not surprising that the municipal government is poor and that the taxpayers are robbed. Only a few of the main streets are paved; the rest are muddy and poorly guttered. Outside the central portion of the city one meets with open sewage, garbage, dung-heaps, and foul odors. Sidewalks are lacking or in bad repair. The police force, composed of four Lithuanians, two Poles, one German, and one Irishman, is so inefficient that "pistol-toting" after nightfall is common among all classes. At times hold-ups have been so frequent that it was not considered safe for a well-dressed person to show himself in the foreign sections after dark. In the words of a prominent local criminal lawyer: We have a police force that can't speak English. Within the last few years there have been six unavenged murders in this town. Why, if there were anybody I wanted to get rid of, I'd entice him here, shoot him down in the street, and then go around and say good-by to the police. Here in a nutshell are presented the social effects that naturally follow the introduction into an advanced people of great numbers of backward immigrants. One need not question the fundamental worth of the immigrants or their possibilities in order to argue that they must act as a drag on the social progress of the nation that incorporates them. ILLITERACY