CHAP. I only a seventh or an eighth of the population reach age, the masses are ignorant of hygiene and do not kno attain a normal term of life. Comparison of the popu native whites of native parentage in the United States 1910 suggests that in the intervening twenty years gre had been made in overcoming disease and improving hy Males Pre dominate nomic Im Flight from religious, racial, or political persecution in an Eco in due proportion from all the age groups. But a migration prompted by economic motives withdraws those in the e ductive years who are least burdened by dependents. son of the figures of the foreign-born in the U. S. 1880 suggests that in the intervening thirty years immigratio come more economic in motive. The structure of th of Delaware, Mississippi and Nebraska in 1900 exhibits the age ¿stribution of normal, emigrant and immigrant communities. The concave sides of the figure for Mississippi show that she has lost not a few of her young adult negroes, while the small proportion of children in Nebraska shows that the negro element there is largely of recent immigration. In a people losing by an economic migration the ratio of dependents to supporters becomes unfavorable, while a people absorbing such a migration gains in industrial and military potentality. СНАР. І Psyche of a Com munity Re- Age composition may reflect itself very clearly in the collective The position Age of the Colors Communities in which there is a large number of young voters How the are less swayed in their political choices by partisanship and preju- Dominant ce, more critical of party management, less governed by feelings from the past and more hospitable to progressive ideas. A community dominated commercially by men from 20 to 45 years of age will reflect the money-making spirit and will sympathize with very form of legitimate enterprise and individual initiative. If, Element and Busi CHAP. I Money on the other hand, men above 45 constitute the tone-giving element, the money-keeping or business-keeping spirit will get the upper hand of the money-making spirit. The community will sympathize with the demand for stability and security, for safety The Qual ity of Immigrant Streams of investments and freedom from business disturbance, rather than with the demand of the enterprising individual for a free hand and a square deal. A stream of immigrants may be representative, sub-representative or super-representative of the people from which it comes. 2 At the outbreak of the World War a third of the American people were of foreign parentage, while the foreign born numbered between formists Religious or political oppression is likely to start up a current of CHAP. I super-representative migrants because it is chiefly the superior Non-conwho refuse to conform to the will of the powerful. The English are Puritans, Quakers and Catholics, the Scotch Covenanters, the Superior French Huguenots, the German sectaries who settled Pennsylvania and the refugee German liberals of 1848 were among the super-representative elements which came to America. Discrimination against a people or a race generally causes a representa tive outflow, e.g., the Scotch Irish and the Scotch Highlanders of Colonial days as well as the streams of Armenians, Syrians and Russian Hebrews which have come to us latterly. Excel in someness Subduers of the wilderness generally surpass in energy and venturesomeness their kinsmen who stay where they were born. VentureIt is the trout rather than the carp that find their way out of the pool into the swift water. The American pioneering breed had rare courage and initiative and the European immigrants who came to settle in the Great West may well have topped the average of their people in these traits. Those who follow the lure of high wages in a foreign labor market will sub-represent their peo- Job-seekple in ability. The educated, the propertied, the established, the represent well-connected, having prospects at home, have no motive to sub sixteen and seventeen millions- certainly the largest body of strangers any people has ever engulfed. Never before did the old American element constitute so small a proportion of the people. ers Sub CHAP. I mit themselves to the hardships of the steerage. The children of The Heirs the successful abide in their fatherland; only the children of the unsuccessful migrate, and it is very unlikely that such a stream of Success do not will constitute a good sample of the beauty, brains and initiative of the stock. Early comers Su. perior to Later comers Even the difficulties of a distant migration have a selective value. The first-comers from a people probably have more initiative than those who come later, after the channels of immigra |