I am not of those who consider humanity and forget the nation, who pity the living but not the unborn. To me, those who are to come after us stretch forth beseeching hands as well as the masses on the other side of the globe. Nor do I regard America as something to be spent quickly and cheerfully for the benefit of pent-up millions in the backward lands. What if we become crowded without their ceasing to be so? I regard it as a nation whose future may be of unspeakable value to the rest of mankind, provided that the easier conditions of life here be made permanent by high standards of living, institutions and ideals, which finally may be appropriated by all men. We could have helped the Chinese a little by letting their surplus millions swarm in upon us a generation ago; but we have helped them infinitely more by protecting our standards and having something worth their copying when the time came. EDWARD ALSWORTH ROSS. The University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, September, 1914. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE ORIGINAL MAKE-UP OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 3 Traits of the Puritan stock--Elements in the peopling of Virginia--The indentured servants and convicts--Purification by free land--The Huguenots--The Germans--The Scotch-Irish-- Ruling motives in the peopling of the New World--Selective agencies--The toll of the sea--The sifting by the wilderness-- The impress of the frontier--How an American Breed arose--Its traits. CHAPTER II THE CELTIC IRISH 24 The great lull--The Hibernian tide--Why it has run low--Effects on Ireland--Irish-Americans in the struggle for existence--Their improvidence and unthrift--Why they lacked the economic virtues-- Drink their worst foe--Their small criminality--Loyalty to wife and child--Their occupational preferences--Their rapid rise--Their rank in intellectual contribution--Celtic traits--Place of the Irish in American society. CHAPTER III THE GERMANS 46 Volume and causes of the German freshet--Why it has ceased--Distribution of the Germans in America--_Deutschtum_ vs. assimilation--The "Forty-eighters"--Influence of the Germans on our farming, on our drinking, on our attitude toward recreation--Political tendencies of German voters--The Germans as pathbreakers for intellectual liberty--Their success in the struggle for existence--Moderation in alcoholism and in crime--Preferred occupations--Teutonic traits--Effect of the German infusion on the temper of the American people. CHAPTER IV THE SCANDINAVIANS 7