Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1887 — THE TIDE OF IMMIGRATION. [ARTICLE]

THE TIDE OF IMMIGRATION.

A Tabulated Statement Correcting Some Erroneous Impressions. Pittsburg Commercial Gaaette. Considerable has been written of late concerning immigration to this country, and the notion has in somewise been inculcated that a very large percentage has been from Ireland, owing to the unhappy state of affairs in that distressed island. The official statistics do not verify this assumption. The total immigration to the United States for the fiscal year ended June 30;1887, was 483,111, against 328,895 in the preceding fiscal year, an increase of 47 per cent. The increase from Ireland was only 30.2 per cent, while from the whole United Kingdom the increase was 44.3 per cent. Whatever else may be said of the Irish question, it has not led to immigration to America so rapidly from that country as has been the case from other parts of the United Kingdom. Neither has it been so great as from some European countries. In order to put the exact status of immigration before our readers at a ; glance weJhave added to the tables of the Bureau of Statistics a computation of increase or decrease of percentage from each country for 1887 compared with the preceding year, which is as follows: ?

1887 1886 Increase, per cent. Great Britain and Ireland- 71,020 50, iq 47.5 England and Wales 68,13 49,196 38.2 Ireland 18,6:3 12,114 53.1 Scotland - 44.3 Germany 106,559 8.4,775 26.1 France...... <,034 3,30' 55.3 Austria 20,328 11,888 70.9 Bohemia and Hungary 19,807 16,734 18.3 Russia, Finland,and Po land 36,887 21,706 70.0 Sweden and Norway.. 56,741 39,683 4'.9 Den mark.' 8,800 6,1.2 - 87.5 Netherlands... 4,506 2,314 99.2 Italy 47,524 21/03 131.0 Switzerland.......... 5,213 4,80 > 8.5 All other countries 9,234 5,636 67.2 Total 483.116 328,89? 46.9 If counted by numbers simply, more people came form England and Wales and far more from Germany than from Ireland. If estimated by percentage, the rush of our immigration is evidently from Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, and “all other countries.” The movement hither is world-wide. It becomes an important social, as well as political problem whether the people of this Nation have provided adequate safeguards to their institutions to render them secure against the influences which must necessarily be brought to be«ir upon them under our popular form of Government—in, other .words, whether we are constitutionally strong enough to assimilate these increasing foreign elements without radical changes in our body politic.