=Growth of Negro Population.=--After the census of 1880 it was confidently a.s.serted that the negro population was increasing more rapidly than the white population. But these a.s.sertions, since the census of 1890, have disappeared. It then became apparent that the supposed increase from 1870 to 1880 was based on a defective count in 1870, the first census after emanc.i.p.ation. In reality the negro element, including mulattoes, during the one hundred and ten years of census taking, has steadily declined in proportion to the white element. Although negroes in absolute numbers have increased from 757,000 in 1790 to 4,442,000 in 1860, and 8,834,000 in 1900, yet in 1790 they were one-fifth of the total population; in 1860 they were one-seventh and in 1900 only one-ninth.

It is naturally suggested that this relative decrease in negro population has been owing to the large immigration of whites, but the inference is unwarranted. In the Southern states the foreign element has increased less rapidly than the native white element, yet it is in the Southern states that the negro is most clearly falling behind. In the twenty years from 1880 to 1900 the whites in eighteen Southern states without the aid of foreign immigration increased 57 per cent and the negroes only 33 per cent.[22] In only six Southern states, West Virginia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, have the negroes, during the past ten years, increased more rapidly than the whites, and in only three of these states, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, was the relative increase significant. In but two states, South Carolina and Mississippi, does the negro element predominate, and in another state, Louisiana, a majority were negroes in 1890, but a majority were whites in 1900. "At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Southern negroes were increasing much faster than the Southern whites. At the end of it they were increasing only about three-fifths as fast."[23]

This redistribution of negroes is an interesting and significant fact regarding the race and has a bearing on its future. Two movements are taking place, first to the fertile bottom lands of the Southern states, second to the cities, both North and South. Mr. Carl Kelsey has shown this movement to the lowlands in an interesting way.[24] He has prepared a geological map of Alabama, which with Mississippi has received the largest accession of negroes, and has shown the density of negro population according to the character of the soil. In this map it appears that the prairie and valley regions contain a proportion of 50 per cent to 90 per cent negroes, while the sand hill and pine levels contain only 10 per cent to 50 per cent, and the piedmont or foothill region less than 10 per cent. A similar segregation is found in other Southern states, especially the alluvial districts of Mississippi and Arkansas. In these fertile sections toward which the negroes gravitate, the crops are enormous, and Mr. Kelsey points out a curious misconception in the census summary, wherein the inference is drawn that negroes are better farmers than whites because they raise larger crops.

"No wonder the negroes' crops are larger," when the whites farm the hill country and the negroes till the delta, which "will raise twice as much cotton per acre as the hills." Furthermore the negro, whether tenant or owner, is under the close supervision of a white landlord or creditor, who in self-protection keeps control of him, whereas the white farmer is left to succeed or fail without expert guidance.

The migration of negroes to the cities is extremely significant. In ten Southern states the proportion of the colored population was almost exactly the same in 1890 as it had been in 1860,--namely, 36 per cent,--yet in sixteen cities of those states, as shown by Mr.

Hoffman,[25] the colored proportion increased from 19 per cent in 1860 to 29 per cent in 1890. This relative increase, however, did not continue after 1890, for, according to the census of 1900, the proportion of negroes in those cities was still 29 per cent. During the past decade the negroes have increased relatively faster in Northern cities. The white population of Chicago increased threefold from 1880 to 1900, and the colored population fivefold. The white population of Philadelphia during the same period increased 50 per cent and the colored population 100 per cent. In the thirty-eight largest cities of the country the negro population in ten years increased 38 per cent and the white population, including foreign immigration, increased 33 per cent. In thirty Northern and border cities during the past census decade the negroes gained 167,000, and in twenty Southern cities they gained 80,000.[26]

The Southern whites also are moving from the South, and in larger proportions than the negroes, though the movement of both is small. In 1900, 7 per cent of the whites of Southern birth lived in the North and West and only 4.3 per cent of the negroes of Southern birth. But the negroes who go North go to the cities, and the whites to the country.

Three-fifths (58 per cent) of these northbound negroes moved to the larger cities and only one-fourth (26 per cent) of the northbound whites.[27]

The accompanying map, derived from the census of 1900,[28] shows clearly both of these movements of negro population. The shaded areas indicate the counties where negroes formed a larger proportion of the population in 1900 than they did twenty years earlier, in 1880. Here can be seen the movement to the low and fertile lands of the South and the cities of the North and South. There are but two areas in California and Colorado, not included on the map, where the population of negroes has increased, and one of these contains the city of Los Angeles.

Were the negroes in the cities to scatter through all the sections, the predominating numbers of the white element might have an elevating influence, but, instead, the negroes congregate in the poorer wards, where both poverty and vice prevail. Hoffman has shown that two-thirds of the negroes in Chicago live in three wards, which contain all the houses of ill-fame in that part of the city. The same is true of Philadelphia, Boston, and Cincinnati.[29] In these sections negro prost.i.tution has become an established inst.i.tution, catering to the Italian and other lower grades of immigrants, and supporting in idleness many negro men as solicitors.

We have seen that the negro population has not kept pace with the native white population. The reason is found in the smaller excess of births over deaths. Statistics of births are almost entirely lacking in the United States. Statistics of deaths are complete for only portions of Northern states and a few Southern cities, containing, in 1900, in all, 27,500,000 whites and 1,180,000 negroes. Of this number, 20,500,000 whites and 1,100,000 negroes lived in cities, so that the showing which the census is able to give is mainly for cities North and South and for rural sections only in the North.[30] It appears that for every 1000 colored persons living in these cities the deaths in 1900 were 31.1, while for every 1000 white persons the deaths were only 17.9. That is to say, the colored death-rate was 73 per cent greater than the white death-rate.

In the rural districts there was much less difference. The colored death-rate was 19.1 and the white death-rate 15.3, a colored excess of 25 per cent.

=Morals and Environment.=--In explaining the excessive colored mortality there are two cla.s.ses of opinions. One explains it by social conditions, the other by race traits. The one points to environment, the other to moral character. The one is socialistic, the other individualistic.

These different views exist among colored people themselves, and one of the encouraging signs is the scientific and candid interest in the subject taken by them under the leadership of Atlanta University. A colored physician who takes the first view states his case forcibly:[31]--

"Is it any wonder that we die faster than our white brother when he gets the first and best attention, while we are neglected on all sides? They have the best wards and treatment at the hospital, while we must take it second hand or not at all; they have all the homes for the poor and friendless, we have none; they have a home for fallen women, we have none; they have the public libraries where they can get and read books on hygiene and other subjects pertaining to health, we have no such privileges; they have the gymnasiums where they can go and develop themselves physically, we have not; they have all the parks where they and their children can go in the hot summer days and breathe the pure, cool air, but for fear we might catch a breath of that air and live, they put up large signs, which read thus, 'For white people only'; they live in the best homes, while we live in humble ones; they live in the cleanest and healthiest parts of the city, while we live in the sickliest and filthiest parts of the city; the streets on which they live are cleaned once and twice a day, the streets on which we live are not cleaned once a month, and some not at all; besides, they have plenty of money with which they can get any physician they wish, any medicine they need, and travel for their health when necessary; all of these blessings we are deprived of. Now, my friends, in the face of all these disadvantages, do you not think we are doing well to stay here as long as we do?"

Another colored writer, less eloquent, but not less accurate, in summarizing the statistics collected under the guidance of Atlanta University concludes:[32]--

"Overcrowding in tenements and houses occupied by colored people does not exist to any great extent, and is less than was supposed.

"In comparison with white women, an excess of colored women support their families, or contribute to the family support, by occupation which takes them much of their time from home, to the neglect of their children.

"Environment and the sanitary condition of houses are not chiefly responsible for the excessive mortality among colored people.

"Ignorance and disregard of the laws of health are responsible for a large proportion of this excessive mortality."

It is pointed out by these colored students and by many others that the excessive mortality of colored people is owing to pulmonary consumption, scrofula, and syphilis, all of which are const.i.tutional; and to infant mortality due also to const.i.tutional and congenital disease. The census of 1900 reports for a portion of the Northern states that for every 1000 white children under five years of age there were 49.7 deaths in one year, and for every 1000 colored children under five years there were 118.5 deaths, an excess of negro infant mortality of 137 per cent.[33]

The census also reports that negro deaths in cities owing to consumption are proportionately 2.8 times as many as white deaths,[34] deaths owing to pneumonia are 89 per cent greater,[35] while deaths owing to contagious causes, such as measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria,[36] are but slightly greater or actually less than the white deaths in proportion to population. In the city of Charleston, where mortality statistics of negroes were compiled before the war, it has been shown that from 1822 to 1848 the colored death-rate from consumption was a trifle less than the white, but since 1865 the white mortality from that cause has decreased 38 per cent, while the negro mortality has increased 70 per cent.[37] The death-rates from consumption in Charleston in 1900 were 189.8 for 100,000 whites and 647.7 for 100,000 negroes, an excess of 241 per cent. The lowest negro death-rate reported from consumption in cities is 378.5 for Memphis, but in that city the white death-rate from the same cause is 169.9, a negro excess of 123 per cent.[38]

At a conference held at Atlanta University, Professor Harris, of Fisk University, concluded:[39]--

"I have now covered the ground to which our excessive death-rate is mainly due; namely, pulmonary diseases, especially consumption and pneumonia, scrofula, venereal diseases, and infant mortality. If we eliminate these diseases, our excessive death-rate will be a thing of the past.... While I do not depreciate sanitary regulations and a knowledge of hygienic laws, I am convinced that a _sine qua non_ of a change for the better in the negro's physical condition is a higher social morality.... From the health reports of all our large Southern cities we learn that a considerable amount of our infant mortality is due to inanition, infantile debility, and infantile marasmus. Now what is the case in regard to these diseases? The fact is that they are not diseases at all, but merely the names of symptoms due to enfeebled const.i.tutions and congenital diseases, inherited from parents suffering from the effects of s.e.xual immorality and debauchery.... It is true that much of the moral laxity which exists among us to-day arose out of slavery.... But to explain it is not to excuse it. It is no longer our misfortune as it was before the war; it is our sin, the wages of which is our excessive number of deaths.... The presence of tubercular and scrofulous diseases, consumption, syphilis, and leprosy, has caused the weaker nations of the earth to succ.u.mb before the rising tide of Christian civilization.... The history of nations teaches us that neither war, nor famine, nor pestilence, exterminates them so completely as do s.e.xual vices."

CHAPTER IV

NINETEENTH CENTURY ADDITIONS

It is only since the year 1820 that the government of the United States has kept a record of alien pa.s.sengers arriving in this country. For several years following 1820 the immigration was so slight as to be almost negligible. It was not until 1820 that there were more than 20,000 arrivals. So accustomed have we become to large figures of immigration that nothing less than 100,000 seems worth noting, and this figure was not reached until 1842. Since then there have been only four years of less than 100,000, and two of these were years of the Civil War.

A striking fact which first attracts the attention of one who examines the statistics since 1840 is the close sympathy between immigration and the industrial prosperity and depression of this country. Indeed, so close is the connection that many who comment on the matter have held that immigration during the past century has been strictly an industrial or economic phenomenon, depending on the opportunities in this country, and that the religious and political causes which stimulated earlier immigration no longer hold good.

A curved line on the accompanying chart has been drawn so as to show the relative numbers of immigrants since 1800, and another line shows the movement of imports of merchandise per capita of the population. The latter, except for tariff changes, is a fair index of the cycles of prosperity and depression. By following these two lines on the chart we notice the coincidence is close, except for a few years prior to the Civil War. Both movements reached high points in 1873, and fell to very low points in 1879; then rose in 1882 and fell in 1885; then reached another high point in 1892 and a low point in 1897; and finally, the present period of prosperity and heavy imports brings the largest immigration in the history of the country.

In following the history of immigration by races we shall see to what extent the alleged coincidence between prosperity and immigration may be counted as a social law. Probably in the middle of the century it was not so much the opportunities for employment in this country as it was conditions in Europe that drove people to our sh.o.r.es. When we come to inquire as to the nationalities which const.i.tuted immigration at that period, we shall find what these causes were. In 1846 occurred the unparalleled potato rot in Ireland, when the year's crop of what had become the sole food staple of the peasantry of that island was entirely lost. The peasants had been reduced to subsistence on the cheapest of all staples through the operations of a system of landlordism scarcely ever paralleled on a large scale as a means of exploiting tenants.

It was found that land used for potatoes would support three times the number of people as the same land sown to wheat, and the small tenants or the cotter peasants paid the landlord a higher rent than could be obtained from larger cultivators. Reduced to a diet of potatoes by an economic system imposed by an alien race, the Irish people are one of the many examples which we find throughout our studies of a subject people driven to emigration by the economic injustices of a dominant race. We shall find the same at a later time in Austria-Hungary, whence the conquered Slav peoples are fleeing from the discrimination and impositions of the ruling Magyar. We shall find it in Russia, whence the Jew, the Finn, and the German are escaping from the oppression of the Slav; and we shall find it in Turkey, whence the Armenian and the Syrian flee from the exactions of the Turk. Just so was it in Ireland in the latter half of the decade, 1840 to 1850, and the contention of the apologist for England that the famine which drove the Irish across the seas was an act of G.o.d, is but a weak effort to charge to a higher power the sufferings of a heartless system devised to convert the utmost life and energy of a subject race into gold for their exploiters. Much more nearly true of the part played by the Divine hand in this catastrophe is the report of the Society of Friends in Ireland, saying that the mysterious dispensation with which their country had been visited was "a means permitted by an All-wise Providence to exhibit more strikingly the unsound state of its social condition."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOVEMENT OF IMMIGRANTS, IMPORTS OF MERCHANDISE PER CAPITA, AND IMMIGRANTS PER 10,000 POPULATION--1800 TO 1906.]

Thus we have an explanation of the incentives under which, even in a period of industrial depression in this country, the unfortunate Irish flocked hither. It is true that the population of Ireland had increased during the century preceding the famine at a rate more rapid than that of any other country of Europe. It was 3,000,000 in 1790, and over 8,000,000 in the year of the famine. At the present time it is only 5,000,000. The potato, above all other crops, enables the cultivator to live from hand to mouth, and coupled with a landlord system which takes away all above mere subsistence, this "de-moralizing esculent" aided the apparent overpopulation. Certainly the dependence of an entire people on a single crop was a most precarious condition.

During the five years, 1846 to 1850, more than a million and a quarter of Irish emigrants left the ports of the United Kingdom, and during the ten years, 1845 to 1855, more than a million and a quarter came to the United States. So great a number could not have found means of transportation had it not been for the enormous contributions of government and private societies for a.s.sistance. Here began that exportation of paupers on a large scale against which our country has protested and finally legislated. Even this enormous migration was not greatly in excess of the number that actually perished from starvation or from the diseases incident thereto. The Irish migration since that time has never reached so high a point, although it made a second great advance in 1882, succeeding another famine, and it has now fallen far below that of eastern races of Europe. Altogether the total Irish immigration of over four million since 1821 places that race second of the contributors to our foreign-born population, and, compared with its own numbers, it leads the world, for in sixty years it has sent to us half as many people as it contained at the time of its greatest population. Scarcely another country has sent more than one-fifth.

Looking over a period of nearly three centuries, it is probably true that the Germans have crossed the ocean in larger numbers than any other race. We have already noted the large migration during the eighteenth century, and the official records show that since 1820 there have entered our ports more than 5,200,000 Germans, while Ireland was sending 4,000,000 and Great Britain 3,300,000.

The German migration of the nineteenth century was quite distinct in character from that of the preceding century. The colonial migration was largely induced on religious grounds, but that of the past century was political and economic, with at first a notable prominence of materialism respecting religion. From the time of the Napoleonic wars to the revolution of 1848, the governments of Germany were despotic in character, supporting an established church, while at the same time the marvellous growth of the universities produced a cla.s.s of educated liberals. In the revolution of 1848 these took a leading part, and although const.i.tutional governments were then established, yet those who had been prominent in the popular uprisings found their position intolerable under the reactionary governments that followed. The political exiles sought America, bringing their liberalism in politics and religion, and forming with their descendants in American cities an intellectual aristocracy. They sprang from the middle cla.s.ses of Germany, and latterly, when the wars with Austria and France had provoked the spirit of militarism, thousands of peasants looked to emigration for escape from military service. The severe industrial depression of 1873-79 added a powerful contributing cause. Thus there were two periods when German migration culminated; first in 1854, on political grounds, second in 1882, on military and economic grounds.

Since the latter date a significant decline has ensued, and the present migration of 32,000 from Germany is mainly the remnants of families seeking here their relatives. A larger number of German immigrants, 55,000, comes from Austria-Hungary and Russia, those from the latter country being driven from the Baltic provinces and the Volga settlements by the "Russianizing" policy of the Slav.

=The Changing Character of European Immigration.=--Besides the Germans and the Irish, the races which contributed the largest numbers of immigrants during the middle years of the nineteenth century were the English and Scandinavian. After the decline during the depression of 1879 there was an increase of all those races in 1882, a year when nearly 800,000 immigrants arrived. At about that time began a remarkable change in the character of immigration destined to produce profound consequences.

This change was the rapid shifting of the sources of immigration from Western to Eastern and Southern Europe. A line drawn across the continent of Europe from northeast to southwest, separating the Scandinavian Peninsula, the British Isles, Germany, and France from Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Turkey, separates countries not only of distinct races but also of distinct civilizations. It separates Protestant Europe from Catholic Europe; it separates countries of representative inst.i.tutions and popular government from absolute monarchies; it separates lands where education is universal from lands where illiteracy predominates; it separates manufacturing countries, progressive agriculture, and skilled labor from primitive hand industries, backward agriculture, and unskilled labor; it separates an educated, thrifty peasantry from a peasantry scarcely a single generation removed from serfdom; it separates Teutonic races from Latin, Slav, Semitic, and Mongolian races. When the sources of American immigration are shifted from the Western countries so nearly allied to our own, to Eastern countries so remote in the main attributes of Western civilization, the change is one that should challenge the attention of every citizen. Such a change has occurred, and it needs only a comparison of the statistics of immigration for the year 1882 with those of 1902 and 1906 to see its extent. While the total number of immigrants from Europe and Asiatic Turkey was approximately equal in 1882 and 1902, as shown in the accompanying table, yet in 1882 Western Europe furnished 87 per cent of the immigrants and in 1902 only 22 per cent, while the share of Southeastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey increased from 13 per cent in 1882 to 78 per cent in 1902. During twenty years the immigration of the Western races most nearly related to those which have fashioned American inst.i.tutions declined more than 75 per cent, while the immigrants of Eastern and Southern races, untrained in self-government, increased nearly sixfold. For the year 1906 the proportions remain the same, although in the four years the total immigration had increased two-thirds.

IMMIGRATION FROM EUROPE AND ASIATIC TURKEY BY COUNTRIES, 1882, 1902, 1906

1882 1902 1905 ------------- ------------- ------------- NUMBER PER NUMBER PER NUMBER PER CENT CENT CENT

Total Europe and Asiatic Turkey 647,082 100 622,987 100 1,024,719 100 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Great Britain and Ireland 179,423 27.7 46,036 7.4 102,241 10.0 Belgium 1,431 .2 2,577 .4 5,099 .5 Denmark 11,618 1.8 5,660 .9 7,741 .8 France 6,003 .9 5,117 .8 9,386 .9 Germany 250,630 38.7 26,304 4.2 37,564 3.7 Netherlands 9,517 1.1 2,284 .4 4,946 .5 Norway 29,101 4.5 17,404 2.8 21,730 2.1 Sweden 64,607 10.0 30,894 5.0 23,310 2.3 Switzerland 10,884 1.7 2,344 .4 3,846 .4

Total Western Europe 563,174 87.0 136,620 22.0 215,863 21.7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Italy 32,159 5.0 178,375 28.6 273,120 26.7 Portugal 42 [41] 5,307 .9 8,517 .8 Spain 378 [41] 975 .1 1,921 .1 Austria-Hungary 29,150 4.5 171,989 27.6 265,138 25.9 Russia 21,590 3.3 107,347 17.2 215,665 21.0 Greece [40]73 [41] 8,104 1.3 19,489 1.9 Roumania [40]77 [41] 7,196 1.2 4,476 .5 Servia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro [41] 851 [41] 4,666 .5 Turkey in Europe [40]86 [41] 187 [41] 9,510 .9 Turkey in Asia 82 [41] 6,223 1.0 6,354 .6

Total Southern and Eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey 83,637 13.0 486,367 78.0 808,856 78.9 ----------------------------------------------------------------------

=Italians.=--It was at this period that Italian immigration first became noticeable. Prior to 1880 this stream had been but the merest trickle, which now has become the greatest of all the foreign tributaries to our population. In 1873 the Italians for the first time reached 8000 in number, but they fell to 3000 in 1876 and so continued in moderate proportions, but suddenly in 1880 jumped to 12,000, and in 1882 to 32,000. Falling off again with the industrial depression to 13,000 in 1885, they reached 76,000 in 1891, and then with another depression to 35,000 in 1895 they have now gone forward by leaps to the high mark of 287,000.[42] The Italians seem destined to rival the Germans and Irish as the leading contributors to our social amalgam. Of course only a small part are as yet women and children, but this is because the immigration is in its early and pioneer stages. The women and children follow rapidly when the men have saved enough money to send for them.

One-fourth of the emigration is on tickets and money furnished by friends and relatives in the United States.[43]

The immigrants from Italy differ from those from Austria, Russia, Hungary, and Ireland, in that they are not driven forth by the oppressions of a dominant race, but as a result of the economic and political conditions of a united people. This does not indeed exclude oppression as a cause of expatriation, but it transfers the oppression from that of one race to that of one cla.s.s upon another. By far the larger portion of Italian immigration comes from the southern provinces and from Sicily, where the power of the landlords is greatest. In these provinces of large estates held by the n.o.bility, the rents have been forced to the highest notch, an orange garden paying as high as $160 per year per acre, and the leases are short, so that the tenant has little to encourage improvement.[44] In many cases the land is rented by large capitalist farmers, who raise therefrom cattle, wheat, and olives, and are prosperous men. But their prosperity is extracted from the miserable wages of their laborers. The agricultural laborer gets from 8 cents to 32 cents a day through the year and 10 cents to 38 cents through the summer. Unskilled laborers get 25 cents to 50 cents a day, and such skilled trades as masons and carpenters get only 27 cents to $1.40 a day. This wide range of wages corresponds generally with the South and North, the lowest rates being in the South and the highest toward the North. In France and England wages are two and one-half times higher than in Italy, while in Germany they are about 30 per cent to 50 per cent higher.

Nor must it be supposed that the cost of living is low to correspond with the low wages. This is largely owing to the exaggerated system of indirect taxes. Although wheat is a staple crop, yet the peasants eat corn in preference, because, for a given expenditure, it gives a stronger sense of repletion. Of wheat and corn meal together the Italian peasant eats in a year only three-fourths as much as the inmate of an English poorhouse. Of meat the peasant in Apulia gets no more than ten pounds a year, while the English workhouse pauper gets fifty-seven pounds. The local taxes on flour, bread, and macaroni are as high as 10 or 15 per cent of the value, and the state tax on imported wheat is nearly 50 per cent of its value. The consumption of sugar has decreased one-fourth since heavy duties were imposed to protect native beet sugar, and it averages barely over five pounds per head. The consumption in the United States is sixty-five pounds per head. The iniquitous salt tax raises the price of salt from eleven pounds for two cents to one pound for two cents, and the peasants sometimes cook their corn meal in sea water, although this is smuggling. What the peasants lack in grain and meat they strive to supply by vegetables, and the proportion of vegetables, peas, and beans consumed is greater than that for any other country of Europe. The peasants drink no beer, spirits, tea, nor coffee, but the average annual consumption of wine is twenty gallons a head.

Food alone costs the peasants 85 per cent of their wages, whereas it costs the German peasant 62 per cent and the American workman 41 per cent. The poor and working cla.s.ses pay over one-half the taxes, amounting, even without wine, to 10 or 20 per cent of their wages. There are in the south and Sardinia some 13,000 sales of land a year on distress for non-payment of taxes, and the expropriated owners become tenants. Several villages in Southern Italy have been almost wholly abandoned and one village has recently announced its intention of removing itself entire to one of the South American republics.[45] The rich escape taxation, which is laid largely on consumption. Besides the state tax on imports, each city and town has its _octroi_, or import tax, on everything brought into the city. These "protective duties rob the poor to fill the pockets of the rich landlord and manufacturer."

Since 1870 wealth has increased 17 per cent and taxes 30 per cent. Taxes are nearly one-fifth of the nation's income, against one-twelfth in Germany, one-sixteenth in England, and one-fifteenth in the United States. Wages rose from 1860 to 1885, but since 1890 they have fallen.

The army and navy are the greatest drain on the resources of the people.

They cost one-fourth more of the national income than do the armies and navies of France and Germany. Eighty million dollars a year for military expenditures in Italy is over 5 per cent of the income of the people, whereas $194,000,000 for the same purpose in the United States is less than 2 per cent of our incomes. In the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, the latter country crushes its peasants in order to make a showing by the side of its wealthier partners. The army takes every able-bodied peasant from industry into barracks and drills for two years of his best vigor. But the long line of exposed coast and the general military situation in Europe make it unlikely that Italy for many years can shake off this incubus.

In addition to all these economic and political causes of pressure, there is another cause of a more profound nature, the rapid growth of population. Strange as it may seem, the very poverty of Italy increases the tendency to a high birth-rate, and the rate is highest in the very districts where illiteracy and poverty are greatest. Only the great number of deaths produced by poverty and lack of sanitation prevents the increase of population from exceeding that of the more rapidly growing countries of Germany, Great Britain, and Scandinavia. It is not among those cla.s.ses and nations, like the middle cla.s.ses and the thrifty people of France, that the largest number of children are born, but it is among those ignorant and low-standard peoples to whom the future offers no better prospect for their children than for themselves. Early marriages and large families are both a result and a cause of poverty.