find the great majority of them to be children of foreign parents. I have heard worthy German and Scandinavian fathers, honest and hard-working men, complain bitterly that they found it impossible to govern their children in this country, or maintain any discipline whatever in their homes. Their sons took to the street, no matter what they did or said to them; and if they were punished, they left their homes altogether. There is a spirit of irresponsible independence in the air, and it is unduly stimulated by boyish associates, by the text-books used in the schools, and by the political life, which also fosters an excessive sense of dignity, irrespective of intellectual and moral worth.

The alarming increase of this class of half foreign youthful roughs with criminal tendencies, who in our large cities constitute the patronage of the saloons and all dens of vice, and the voting strength of the different halls to which they are attached, has always appeared to me one of the most dangerous results of immigration. To imagine that this class of people is an element of strength to the State and the country is certainly a most baneful delusion. A man is valuable to the State only in so far as he fulfills a useful function and has a definite place in the social organism. People of nomadic habits, without permanent employment, weaken the social structure, and by their mere existence indicate the presence of some grave disorder. Just as a body cannot with safety accept nourishment any faster than it is capable of assimilating it, so a State cannot accept an excessive influx of people without serious injury. The process of national assimilation is necessarily gradual; and an unassimilated mass in a State as in a body will give rise to more or less violent disturbance, which must weaken the cohesive strength, and retard rather than hasten the organic growth of society.

We have, in my opinion, arrived at this point, when a continuation of our former policy of indiscriminate absorption would be dangerous, if not fatal. It is a question, not of sentiment, but of selfpreservation. It is the problem of problems with which every individual, as well as every society, is confronted, in one shape or another, viz., What degree of altruism is compatible with selfpreservation? If we continue to bear the effects of foreign abuses and misgovernment; if we extend our responsibilities beyond the boundaries which reason and self-interest prescribe-we shall sooner or later imperil our national existence. If others sow the wind, is

it fair that we shall reap the whirlwind? There is a point, beyond which optimism and even sympathy cease to be virtues. There is already now an unnatural ferment in our society, resulting from race-antagonism, class-antagonism, and lack of organic cohesion. We have permitted our hospitality to be abused and we are now beginning to reap the consequences. What does the appearance among us of such phenomena as anarchism and socialism mean, if not this? What do the perpetual convulsions in economic centres -the strikes, boycotts and riots-mean, if not this? They are a fiery writing upon the wall, which he who runs may read. They mean that we have been too hospitable for our own good; they mean that we have absorbed in excessive quantities an indiscriminate diet-some of it of an extremely indigestible kind—which we are unable to assimilate, and which therefore produces disease and disorder. A nation can perish, as an individual can-it can pass through crises so serious that, if it survives, it is no longer the same that it was. Its health, its strength, its faith, may be broken. The new order which sooner or later follows the chaotic upheavals is sure to be a different, though not necessarily a better, social condition. If you will have patience with me, I should like to give you some of my own observations, tending to show that we shall soon be on the eve of a social crisis, unless we take heroic measures to avert it.

In 1869 I traveled through all the Western States east of the Mississippi—and took particular pains to study the condition of the German and Scandinavian immigrants. Everywhere contentment and hopefulness were the rule. Nearly all the people I talked with told me that this was a good country, and that they had bettered their condition by leaving the countries of their birth. They found many things to criticise, in an intelligent, good-natured way;. but they were loyal to the United States and their institutions, and anxious that their children should become good American citizens. Two years ago, I again visited the great West, though my opportunities for observation were less extensive than on the former occasion. But they were at all events sufficient to prove to me that a change had come over the spirit of immigrants. The buoyant hopefulness and contentment which had impressed me so, eighteen years ago, were scarcely anywhere to be found. The old settlers, who had grown rich, were fairly well satisfied yet, but they prophesied disaster, and were far less confident that this country

had solved the problem of securing a maximum of happiness with a minimum of restraint. The sanguine trust in the future of the Republic and the excellence of its institutions were to a great extent destroyed. The new-comers, who had expected to find prosperity here, had found the struggle for existence as hard as in the old countries, if not harder.

me.

"America is all humbug!" said an old Norwegian farmer to "The poor man has no better chance here than he has in the old country. The Government is for the benefit of the rich man. Everything is for sale here. You can become a governor, a congressman, a senator-anything you like-if you have money enough to buy a nomination. What is the good of calling that sort of thing a democracy, and pretending that it is for the good of the poor man? I tell you, everything here is humbug."

It

In this strain spoke the majority of those with whom I conversed. A feeling of disappointment, and a more or less pronounced hostility to the country which they held responsible for their misfortunes, were very prevalent. To men in this frame of mind the vaporings of socialists and anarchists do not seem so preposterous as they do to you and me, who are fairly content with our lot, and suffer no exceptional hardships. In the case of the Germans, this bitter feeling toward the natives is chiefly due to the Prohibition movement, which they regard as being directly aimed at them. is, in their opinion, an unwarrantable interference with their personal liberty, dictated by a Puritanical fanaticism, which they hate and despise. But there is also another reason for their unfriendly sentiments, which lies considerably deeper. This country was until recently a fair realization of the aspirations of the German revolutionists of 1848. It was a democratic bourgeoisie-industrialism dominant and triumphant. It raised the third estate, the industrial class, the middle class (in Old World parlance), to be the directing power in the State. It was the business man, and business interests, which decided national elections and foreign policies. But during the last ten years a new class the fourth estate the manual laborer, who had hitherto framed no political demands has raised its head, and threatened to remodel the State in its interest. These attempts, which we all know create discontent among the class against whose power they are aimed, and the natural resistance and self-protection of the latter, create bitterness and disaffection among the fourth estate, who find their plans

balked and frustrated. The great historical question at the present time is, accordingly, whether the fourth estate is or is not to take the place of the third, as the governing and directing power Much as I should regret such a revolution, it is difficult to see how, with unrestricted immigration and universal suffrage, it is to be averted. We have been accustomed to say that no man need starve in the United States, if he is able and willing to work. This was true ten years ago, but it is true no longer. I have seen in New York City many families miserably destitute, through no fault of their own, and unable to obtain work of any kind. Skilled mechanics, who formerly supported themselves and their families comfortably, have through boycotts and strikes and the exactions of the Knights of Labor lost their employment, and have been reduced to starvation. I could fill a book with the stories such men have told me. They were mostly Germans and Scandinavians, men of frugal habits and accustomed to industry. That their lot is deplorable, there is no denying. And as long as immigration remains unrestricted, as long as five men enter for every one that is needed, confusion must occur, and suffering must be the result.

The Knights are determined to enforce an artificial equality in the rewards of labor, irrespective of merit. Industry and skill are to command no higher wages than idleness and incompetence; nay, the latter are to be allowed to fatten on the proceeds of the former. There is no stimulus to ambition, where a man is not master of his own actions, and sure of the profits of his own labor. Perpetual interruption, agitation and outside interference are apt to make a workman careless and improvident. If, on the other hand, the immigrant mechanic refuses to join the Knights, he has the choice between starving and "scabbing," and in the latter case having his life daily imperiled by the assaults and persecutions of the Knights. Everyone will admit that the alternative is not an agreeable one; nor need anyone wonder that men so perpetually harassed lend a ready ear to teachings of the socialist, who, assures him that the whole present order of society is wrong; that he has been defrauded by the rich of his proper share of the comforts and pleasures of life, and that his only remedy is to join the forces of the coming revolution. The parson, says the socialist, promises you heavenly rewards if you only will keep quiet here, and leave your plunderers in secure possession of their boodle. That is a very cunning arrangement; and it has worked admirably

for many centuries. But now the people are getting too intelligent to be hoodwinked any longer. Religion is all a fraud, invented by the ruling classes to keep down the poor. The king and the priest have always been allies. Now let us turn the tables on them. Tell them we are willing to renounce all the heavenly uncertainties, in return for the earthly joys of which they have hitherto had exclusive possession. We will let the hereafter take care of itself; for there is no hereafter. But there is an earth, and it is ours, if we

choose to take it.

This is the text of all socialistic sermons. Go down into the Bowery, in New York, any Sunday evening, and you will hear this gospel preached in scores of stuffy, ill-smelling club-rooms, with varying degrees of eloquence and vehemence, by frowsy-looking Germans and Bohemians and Hungarians, while hundreds of foreign workmen frantically applaud their daring blasphemies. I have listened to many of these discourses; and I have studied the temper of the men among whom this diabolical gospel of hate makes its converts. It may seem insignificant to you, that some thousand foreigners meet in all our large cities in their assembly rooms, and discuss, over their beer, the overthrow of the existing social order, nor would it perhaps seem very significant to me, if the social conditions were not such as to make the minds of the lower classes peculiarly receptive to this sort of teaching. Read the excellent study of "Modern Cities," by Rev. Samuel Lane Loomis, and you will find a startling corroboration of my words. There is at present a universal hunger among those who have been debarred from the enjoyment. of life's pleasures; and a malevolent envy of those who have beaten them in the struggle for existence-snatched the prizes away from their eager hands. There is a vast field here for the Christian missionary; for our social order rests upon Christianity as its basis, and can only be maintained by faith in revealed religion. If Christianity cease to be a power in the land, if the fear and the love of God cease to be restraining influences in the minds of men, our present social order is surely doomed. What would follow, it is difficult to predict. Some kind of socialism probably, which through untold suffering and frequent convulsions would. lead to some new rearrangement of social and economic forces. The wild and predatory instincts of men, which are now held in check, would then have sway for a season, until the soberer second thought would reassert itself; and the impossibility of fashioning a