PART XII A BUSINESS AGE: 1876-1916 722. The forty years between Reconstruction and the World War belong to "contemporary history." Leading actors are still living; and causes and motives in many cases are not yet surely known. The two great phases are (1) an enormous economic and industrial growth, and (2) the rising struggle between the people on the one side, and great wealth, fortified by special privilege, on the other. § 723] ADMINISTRATIONS, 1877-1917 601 Wealth is supported by vast numbers of a middle class who feel dependent upon it. The labor unions, small as their enrollment is in comparison with the total number of workers, hold the first trench on the other side, because of their admirable organization. Both sides, on the whole, are honest; but each believes the other dishonest and unpatriotic. Neither can get the other's viewpoint; and each has been guilty of blunders and of sins. Privilege believes that the welfare of the country rests on business prosperity, and that the government ought to be an adjunct of business. Labor regards this attitude as due merely to personal greed, and, on its side, wishes government to concern itself directly with promoting the welfare of men and The student of history may hope that this class war is only a necessary stage in progress toward a broader social unity. women. CHAPTER LXI NATIONAL GROWTH 724. BETWEEN 1860 and 1880, population rose from 31 millions to 50 millions one fourth the gain coming from immigration and wealth multiplied two and a half times. Since 1880, wealth has grown even more rapidly, but population more slowly. In 1890 the United States had 63 millions of people, and in 1920, 106 millions (not counting the eight millions in the new possessions acquired from Spain). Recently, the Middle West, so long the scene of most rapid increase, has become nearly stationary; while the manufacturing East and the far West have had the greatest growth. In 1860 cities contained one sixth the population; in 1880, one fourth; in 1910, 46.3 per cent; in 1920, 51.8 per cent.1 Less than one third the people now live on farms, and the proportion decreases steadily. 725. Immigration was checked by the Civil War. In 1883, however, it brought us more than 700,000 people, and in 1905, than a million. Until 1890, immigration remained. with some increase in mainly like that before the Civil War the Scandinavian settlers in the Northwest. Since that year, more and more, the immigrants have come from Southern and Eastern Europe, - Italians, Russian Jews, Bohemians, Poles, Hungarians. A large part of these Southern European immigrants are illiterate and unskilled, with a "standard of living" lower than that of American workingmen. In 1880 they made only one twentieth of the immigrants; in 1900 they made one fourth; and the proportion is constantly increasing, 1 But the census of 1910 began to class places of 2500 people as urban," instead of requiring 6000 for that class as before. Our earlier immigrants sought homes for the most part on western farms. Those of recent years settle mainly in manufacturing centers. 726. When the Civil War began, the thirty-four States made a solid block from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, with one ELLIS ISLAND, IN NEW YORK HARBOR, where our annual million immigrants are detained for examination. complete tier on the west bank of that river and with Texas and California farther west. Kansas was added in 1861; Nevada, in '64; Nebraska, in '67; and Colorado became the thirty-eighth State in 1876. No new State came in for the next thirteen years — although the increase of population was then still most rapid in the agricultural region of the newest "West." In the Dakotas, districts without a settler in March were sometimes organized counties in November. The two Dakota Territories were long kept knocking for admission, however, because the Democratic Congress was unwilling to add States so sure to reinforce the |