CHAPTER CHAPTER XXXVII NATIONAL GROWTH BETWEEN 1860 and 1880, population rose from 31 millions to 50 millions -one fourth the gain coming from immigraGrowth of tion and wealth multiplied two and a half population 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 ten millions in the new possessions acquired from Spain). Recently, the Middle West, so long the scene of most rapid increase, has become stationary; while the manufacturing East and the far West have shared between them the greatest growth. In 1860 cities contained one sixth the population; in 1880, one fourth; and in 1920, more than one half.1 Less than one third the people now live on farms. Immigration, The rate of increase then is very much smaller than in our earlier periods, and such increase as we have has come very largely from without-and from recent comers. Immigration was checked by the Civil 1860-1920 War. In 1883, however, it brought us more than 700,000 people, and in 1905, more than a million. Until 1890, immigration remained mainly like that before the Civil War - with some increase in 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 1 Fifty-two per cent. All places of more than 2500 people rank as “urban." one fourth; and the proportion constantly increased up to the World War. From 1914 to 1919 immigration brought us only some 200,000 a year. At the close of the war, indeed, the tide turned for a while the other way, and, for a year or so, more European-born residents left us than came to us; but by the middle of 1920 every indication pointed to a new rise to the annual million mark. Our earlier immigrants sought homes for the most part on ELLIS ISLAND IN NEW YORK HARBOR, where our annual million are detained for examination. The war vessel in the foreground is the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, which was visiting in American waters in 1913, when this photograph was taken. western farms. Those of recent years have settled mainly in manufacturing centers. When the Civil War began, the thirty-four States made a solid block from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, with one The Forty- 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 eight States NATIONAL GROWTH 581 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 Republican party. FUTURE AMERICANS. A photograph of a band of Armenians landed at Ellis Island, March 9, 1916, the advance guard of a body of 4200 who were rescued at one time from Turkish massacre during the World War, by a French cruiser off the coast of Syria. Montana and Washington, on the other hand, were expected to strengthen the Democrats; and in 1889 an "omnibus bill" admitted all four States. The next year, the admission of Idaho and Wyoming gave the first continuous band of States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Utah, though prosperous and populous, was kept out for years because of its polygamy; but in 1890, when the Mormon Church renounced that doctrine, the State was admitted. Oklahoma, the old "Indian Territory," came in in 1907, and Arizona and New Mexico in 1912. This completed the solid block of forty-eight States in the vast region bounded by the two oceans, east and west, and by Canada and Mexico north and south. Before long, no doubt, the nation will be confronted with demands for statehood from distant possessions, Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico. After 1880, the "New South" began to reap its share of industrial growth. First it seized upon its long-neglected The "New advantages for cotton manufacture. Northern South' capital built mills along the "Fall Line" (page 134), and cheap labor was found by inducing the "Poor Whites" of the neighboring mountain-folk to gather in factory villages, where oftentimes indolent parents lived on the earnings of little children. The awakened South began also to make use of its mines and forests, especially of the rich coal and iron region stretching from West Virginia through Tennessee into Northern Alabama. By 1880, Alabama was sending pig iron to Northern mills, and soon she became herself a great center of steel manufacturing. Thus the old agricultural South was transformed into a new South of varied industries. After 1902, this tendency was hastened by the falling off in profits of cotton farming due to the increasing ravages of the boll weevil. And even agriculture has been transformed. Just after the war, attempts were made to cultivate huge plantations of the old type with gangs of hired Negroes. This proved a losing venture; and soon the great plantations began to break up into smaller holdings, rented on shares to Negroes or to Poor Whites. These renters have been growing rapidly into owners. The Negro's wholesome ambition to own a farm promises to be a chief source of industrial and social salvation to his race and to the whole South. Railway extension had been checked during the four years of war, but the last five years of the sixties almost doubled the mileage of the country. The new lines were located mainly in the Northwestern States and Territories; and they were busied at first only Railway growth |