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23 chapters
A CHRONICLE OF AMERICANS IN THE MAKING BY SAMUEL P. ORTH
A CHRONICLE OF AMERICANS IN THE MAKING BY SAMUEL P. ORTH
ToC...
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CHAPTER I OPENING THE DOOR
CHAPTER I OPENING THE DOOR
Long before men awoke to the vision of America, the Old World was the scene of many stupendous migrations. One after another, the Goths, the Huns, the Saracens, the Turks, and the Tatars, by the sheer tidal force of their numbers threatened to engulf the ancient and medieval civilization of Europe. But neither in the motives prompting them nor in the effect they produced, nor yet in the magnitude of their numbers, will such migrations bear comparison with the great exodus of European peoples whi
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THE AMERICAN STOCK
THE AMERICAN STOCK
In the history of a word we may frequently find a fragment, sometimes a large section, of universal history. This is exemplified in the term American, a name which, in the phrase of George Washington, "must always exalt the pride of patriotism" and which today is proudly borne by a hundred million people. There is no obscurity about the origin of the name America. It was suggested for the New World in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller, a German geographer at the French college of Saint-Dié. In that y
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THE NEGRO
THE NEGRO
Not many years ago a traveler was lured into a London music hall by the sign: Spirited American Singing and Dancing . He saw on the stage a sextette of black-faced comedians, singing darky ragtime to the accompaniment of banjo and bones, dancing the clog and the cakewalk, and reciting negro stories with the familiar accent and smile, all to the evident delight of the audience. The man in the seat next to him remarked, "These Americans are really lively." Not only in England, but on the continent
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UTOPIAS IN AMERICA
UTOPIAS IN AMERICA
America has long been a gigantic Utopia. To every immigrant since the founding of Jamestown this coast has gleamed upon the horizon as a Promised Land. America, too, has provided convenient plots of ground, as laboratories for all sorts of vagaries, where, unhampered by restrictions and unannoyed by inquisitive neighbors, enthusiastic dreamers could attempt to reconstruct society. Whenever an eccentric in Europe conceived a social panacea no matter how absurd, he said, "Let's go to America and t
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THE IRISH INVASION
THE IRISH INVASION
After the Revolution, immigrants began to filter into America from Great Britain and continental Europe. No record was kept of their arrival, and their numbers have been estimated at from 4000 to 10,000 a year, on the average. These people came nearly all from Great Britain and were driven to migrate by financial and political conditions. In 1819 Congress passed a law requiring Collectors of Customs to keep a record of passengers arriving in their districts, together with their age, sex, occupat
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THE TEUTONIC TIDE
THE TEUTONIC TIDE
As the Irish wave of immigration receded the Teutonic wave rose and brought the second great influx of foreigners to American shores. A greater ethnic contrast could scarcely be imagined than that which was now afforded by these two races, the phlegmatic, plodding German and the vibrant Irish, a contrast in American life as a whole which was soon represented in miniature on the vaudeville stage by popular burlesque representations of both types. The one was the opposite of the other in temperame
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THE CALL OF THE LAND
THE CALL OF THE LAND
For over a century after the Revolution the great fact in American life was the unoccupied land, that vast stretch of expectant acreage lying fallow in the West. It kept the American buoyant, for it was an insurance policy against want. When his crops failed or his business grew dull, there was the West. When panic and disaster overtook him, there remained the West. When the family grew too large for the old homestead, the sons went west. And land, unlimited and virtually free, was the magnet th
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THE CITY BUILDERS
THE CITY BUILDERS
"What will happen to immigration when the public domain has vanished?" was a question frequently asked by thoughtful American citizens. The question has been answered: the immigrant has become a job seeker in the city instead of a home seeker in the open country. The last three decades have witnessed "the portentous growth of the cities"—and they are cities of a new type, cities of gigantic factories, towering skyscrapers, electric trolleys, telephones, automobiles, and motor trucks, and of feti
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THE ORIENTAL
THE ORIENTAL
America, midway between Europe and Asia, was destined to be the meeting-ground of Occident and Orient. It was in the exciting days of '49 that gold became the lodestone to draw to California men from the oriental lands across the Pacific. The Chinese for the moment overcame their religious aversion to leaving their native haunts and, lured by the promise of fabulous wages, made their way to the "gold hills." Of the three hundred thousand who came to America during the three decades of free entry
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RACIAL INFILTRATION
RACIAL INFILTRATION
With the free land gone and the cities crowded to overflowing, the door of immigration, though guarded, nevertheless remains open and the pressure of the old-world peoples continues. Where can they go? They are filling in the vacant spots of the older States, the abandoned farms, stagnant half-empty villages, undrained swamps, uninviting rocky hillsides. This infiltration of foreigners possessing themselves of rejected and abandoned land, which has only recently begun, shows that the peasant's i
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THE GUARDED DOOR
THE GUARDED DOOR
"Whosoever will may come" was the generous welcome which America extended to all the world for over a century. Many alarms, indeed, there were and several well-defined movements to save America from the foreigner. The first of these attempts resulted in the ill-fated Alien and Sedition laws of 1798, which extended to fourteen years the period of probation before a foreigner could be naturalized and which attempted to safeguard the Government against defamatory attacks. The Jeffersonians, who cam
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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
ToC General Histories Edward Channing, History of the United States , 4 vols. (1905). Vol. II. Chapter XIV contains a fascinating account of "The Coming of the Foreigner." John Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America , 2 vols. (1899). The story of "The Migration of the Sects" is charmingly told. John B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States , 8 vols. (1883-1913). Scattered throughout the eight volumes are copious accounts of the coming of immigrants, from the year of American
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