slowly, if at all. He is not ambitious to improve himself and is slow to grasp new ideas. As an unskilled laborer, he is generally associated with those of his own class who are alike ignorant and unambitious. Even the more intelligent immigrant, if he settle in a community where there are many people of his own nationality has little incentive to learn English; he may settle down and live as a Scandinavian or German and never become Americanized. if there are but few of his own people near him, and he is brought in constant contact with American-born neighbors, the process of assimilation will be greatly accelerated.

But

It has been found by observation that the Americanizing of the immigrant goes on more rapidly in the small town than in the large city or the thinly settled country community. The German or Polander or Bohemian who settles in Milwaukee or Chicago quickly finds his own countrymen, and will probably live in the quarter in which. his own people make up the larger proportion of the inhabitants. Even if he does not do this he is brought into contact with them in church and social life, and naturally prefers their society to that of the American-born. Much the same result follows in the isolated farm life. The foreigner has little opportunity for contact with his fellow Americans, and if his nearest neighbors came from his own country in Europe, he will make little progress in American ideas.

Conditions are most favorable in an old, thickly-settled farming community or in a village where there are many Americans. Social distinctions are not strictly drawn in such a place and if the immigrant shows himself a good neighbor he will be encouraged to make himself one of the community.

In the large cities the immigrant goes to churches in which the priest or minister conducts the services in the native language. In the village, if he attends church, it would of necessity be where the service is carried on in the English language.

The parochial school can only be

established and the work carried on in a foreign language where there is a large number of foreigners. The public school in the village must be conducted in English.

One very important element in the process of assimilation has been the newspaper published in a foreign language. It is through this that the immigrant gets his political ideas and his knowledge of what is taking place in the land of his adoption. While some of these papers stand for the persistence of ideas and customs of a foreign race, many of them are ably edited, and are very influential in developing good citizens. They are published in foreign languages because at first their constituents can read no other.

Assimilation is retarded by social barriers which keep the American and the immigrant separated. There are often striking differences in the social customs which the natives of New England stock never fully understand, customs which have been handed down from time immemorial in Central Europe, which the immigrants bring with them and enjoy. In the same way the native-born Americans of native parents have customs and amusements which the foreigner fails to appreciate. Under ordinary circumstances each people keeps by itself. The foreigner is not invited to share in the social or family life in the native American home. The lack of appreciation and understanding of the real life has been and must continue to be a barrier to complete assimilation.

Yet, in spite of the drawbacks presented by alien races and customs, and notwithstanding the efforts and temporary successes of sectionalists and politicians, the policy has been consistently followed of incorporating the Territories as soon as their people can be trusted, in their own and the nation's interests, with the powers of self-government. The manner in which individual responsibility and interest in State and National affairs resulting therefrom has been accepted and manifested has demonstrated the wisdom of that policy. It is these conditions working with the chief elements of the western population and the rapid growth

of communities which will progressively overcome the obstacles to complete assimilation of the permanent constituents of the population of the west.

Judging from the past and from the work which is going on at present, the conclusion must be reached that the Northwest will become as thoroughly American as any part of the nation; and in the future the typical American may not be the descendant of the English Puritan or Cavalier, but one whose parents came later from Central or Northern Europe.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTHWEST

In the development of the West, too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the transportation problem and its solution. No matter how rich the farm lands might be or how valuable the forests, if the products could not be carried to market there could be no commercial growth. The fields might yield abundant harvests, but if there was no one to feed but the farmer and his household, there would be no inducement for him to extend his labors beyond what would satisfy the needs of his own family. The development of the West depended upon transportation facilities. Washington understood this and therefore made various efforts to open up easy communication between the East and West by means of roads and canals. The early movements for internal improvements, the appropriation of money and lands to be sold for this purpose were only an evidence of the same feeling. The control of the Mississippi, and the trouble with the Spaniards over the right of deposit at New Orleans, the Purchase of Louisiana itself, all centre around the transportation question.

The political development has been closely connected with the transportation problem. People are held together more by commercial interests than by ties of race or by sentiment. This is shown by the tendency of the settlers in the Mississippi valley to unite with the nation controlling the mouth of the river, and the necessity that was generally