Only one state in the Union--North Carolina--has less than one per
cent of the white foreign stock. New York, New Jersey, Delaware,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Michigan, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana and Utah have more than
fifty per cent foreign stock. Eleven states, including those on the
Pacific Coast, have from 35 to 50 per cent. Maine, Ohio and Kansas
have from 25 to 35 per cent. Maryland, Indiana, Missouri and Texas
have from 15 to 25 per cent. These proportions are increasing rather
than decreasing, owing to the extraordinarily high birth rate of the
foreign strains.
A special analysis of 1915 vital statistics for certain states, in the
World Almanac for 1918, shows that foreign-born mothers gave birth to
nearly 62 per cent of the children born in Connecticut, nearly 58 per
cent in Massachusetts, nearly 33 per cent in Michigan, nearly 58 per
cent in Rhode Island, more than 43 per cent in New Hampshire, more
than 54 per cent in New York and more than 38 per cent in
Pennsylvania.
All these figures, be it remembered, fail to include foreign stock of
the second generation after landing. If the statistics for children
who have native parents but foreign-born grandparents, or who have one
foreign-born parent, were given, they would doubtless leave but a
small percentage of births from stocks native to the soil for several
generations.
Immigrants or their children constitute the majority of workers
employed in many of our industries. "Seven out of ten of those who
work in our iron and steel industries are drawn from this class," says
the National Geographic Magazine (February, 1917), "seven out of ten
of our bituminous coal miners belong to it. Three out of four who work
in packing towns were born abroad or are children of those who were
born abroad; four out of five of those who make our silk goods, seven
out of eight of those employed in woolen mills, nine out of ten of
those who refine our petroleum, and nineteen out of twenty of those
who manufacture our sugar are immigrants or the children of
immigrants." And it might have shown a similarly high percentage of
those in the ready-made clothing industries, railway and public works
construction of the less skilled sort, and a number of others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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