THE UNITED STATES We turn now to that unparalleled factor which in relatively recent times has advanced by leaps and bounds the numbers of the English-speakers (multiplied owing to the absorption of masses of other breeds) and has raised them to their present predominance in white civilization. That factor has been the growth, during the i9th century and since, of the United States, where reside to-day nearly two-thirds of the whole aggregate of nearly 20o,000,o00 using the same great language. But for this, the present vogue of that tongue would not have existed. When George Washington died in 1799 the total of English-speakers in North America was about the same, a little over 5,000,000, as in England when Shakespeare died. By 1934 the number had risen in the American Republic alone to over 126,400,000. It is of extreme importance to realize clearly by what variety of racial contributions this enor mous aggregate has been so rapidly created.
America's Thirty-fold Increase.—For convenience, let us take first a statistical view of the American process corresponding to the figures previously given for Great Britain and Ireland. The population of the United States from its federal beginnings mounted up decade by decade until our own time in the follow ing manner :— Nothing like this 3o-f old increase in little more than four genera tions has ever been known. The interacting causes, American and European, political and economic, are so various and complex, that not all of them can be examined here. The chief forces are evident and some of them already have been explained in the preceding sections.
Before Mass-Immigration.—Most evident in the first half century (1790-1840) after the American Union was constituted, was the increase in the native-born stock which seems to have more than trebled itself in the period. The westward movement, from the Atlantic fringe to the Mississippi and beyond to the Pacific coast, was only beginning ; the scope for fresh settlement and enterprise unbounded. But, for reasons beyond the scope of discussion here this rate of reproduction by the American-born did not continue. Immigration became the greatest developing force towards the middle of the i9th century—that is at a time well-recollected by many persons still living when the present century opened.
There we touch on the most extraordinary part of the subject. The United States became a machine for turning f oreign-speakers by millions upon millions into English-speakers. This meant a profound change from the time when the constitution was adopted and the American Union established. Then 90 per cent of Amer ican whites were of British race and 8o per cent of the English race proper. Remember well, that in the period covered by the table above the immigrants into the United States from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—the elements strictly called British—have been less than an eighth of the whole. Those from Catholic Ireland have been somewhat more than an eighth. The whole number from the British islands has been little more than a quarter of the entire mass of arrivals into the American Republic from other countries during the last hundred years.
German and Norse Comers (as in Saxon England) .—The bulk of that mass, nearly three-quarters of it, came from all the regions of Continental Europe and ultimately from the races least akin to the earlier America-making type. But for a long time this latter aspect did not appear. For after the new epoch of mass-immigration was opened by the Irish famine in 1846 the next great reinforcement was the German; distinctive but related ; harmonizing quietly and well with the original north European elements. We have seen that the infiltration of this great race began in the 17th century. It went on through the 18th century. The German strain practically counts as one of the original ele ments in the United States. Already in 1790 it was 6 per cent of the whole. It was reinforced by a slowly enlarging flow until the 19th century was nearly half through. Then German migration to America became a sweeping tributary. First, the potato blight appeared in Germany as in Ireland and was accompanied by bad harvests generally. Next, after the revolutionary idealism of 1848, came crushing political disillusionment, and industrial de pression. Between 1845 and 1875 over 2,000,000 born German speakers went to the United States (including those from Austria) . Over two and a half millions more followed during the next 20 years (1875-1895). In the middle of this period the flow was at its fullest. In the next period of nearly 20 years Teutonic emigration diminished very rapidly. By comparison with its former volume, it became a trickle of no relative impor tance. Nevertheless, it added by degrees another half-million arrivals to their kindred, in the United States. The total German inflow into the English-speaking Republic from 1845 to the out break of the World War, was fully equal to the Irish though it reached its height later and fell off more abruptly. Scandinavian emigration meanwhile was a strong secondary movement always, and in the last two decades of the old pre-war order in Europe became stronger than the German. This was no new kind of thing in the world. Norse immigrants though they came into the old islands blade in hand had been merged with English-speakers of the pre-Conquest sort, a thousand years before.
Economic Interactions between America and Europe.— The economic and psychological interactions between Europe and the new continents would deserve a volume. We have seen how Raleigh's potatoes twice changed, and changed out of recognition each time, the social state of a whole nation, Ireland. When Eli Whitney invents the cotton-gin there is a potent stimulus to American supply of raw material ; equally this develops Lanca shire manufacture on the other side; textile progress in Britain further stimulates in the southern States, production and slave labour. But British invention itself acts with revolutionary effect in every field of industry and transport. James Watt and George Stephenson introduce into the world steam-power and the railway. These two things in the end do more than anything else to open up the United States interior, to knit the Republic together from ocean to ocean, to unlock its resources, to multiply its people and transform its aspect. Is wheat-growing extended by railway con struction financed by British loans? Then, an inundation of Ameri can wheat-imports soon has a swamping effect on the old conditions of insular agriculture. The effect of this is to send British emi grants in far larger numbers overseas. When the United States is unusually prosperous European emigration generally is stimulated; but it is also increased when Europe suffers from economic de pression. In that continent the effects of these economic inter actions added to the political and religious factors went deeper and deeper. They first influenced western Europe; then Ger many and the centre; and then reached the south and the east.
"The New Immigration" from South and East Europe.— From this furthest effect a complete transformation of the racial influx into the United States was to come. And its volume was swollen while its character was totally altered. This movement in its heavy proportions began towards the end of the 19th century and went on with cumulative effect until the World War. It pumped into the arteries of the American people a full infusion of blood from southern and eastern Europe. The eventual results upon the temperament and mentality of the whole nation cannot yet be measured ; but what more immediately concerns the present subject is that this novel kind of absorption meant another stage in the creation of still more millions and millions of English speakers out of the most dissimilar varieties of foreign elements.
For nearly 20 years after the close of the Civil the per centage of south Latin and Slav blood in the total of annual immi gration was relatively small though increasing. In the '9os it became strongly predominant ; and in the loth century became three-fourths of the whole. Take first the new Latin arrivals. In 1871-80 only 5o,000 Italians entered the United States; in 1881-90 there were 300.000; in 1891-1900 over 650,000; in 1901 19 nearly 3,000,000. The aggregate of the arrivals from the Slav speaking countries, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Galicia, Yugoslavia, showed a parallel rise but was still greater. Add the other racial elements from south-eastern Europe —Greeks, Magyars, Rumanians and the rest. Altogether in one quarter of a century, the "new immigration" poured in more millions than British, Irish and Germans together had brought over in the previous generation. And the latest elements were for various reasons—during some considerable period at least, bound to increase faster on American soil than any of the rest.
A GENERAL VIEW OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING LIFE We must now indicate in broad figures the whole sweep of ex pansion which has created this English-speaking "world." But first it will be convenient here to show the growth of the British self-governing dominions overseas, adding the smaller elements in the West Indies and other scattered possessions. The estimate is complicated by the need to make allowance for the French in Canada, and the Dutch in South Africa—Australia and New Zea land being as much British, and as mainly English, by descent as were the people of the United States up to the middle of the 19th century.
White Population. Canada, Australasia, South Africa, etc.
180o (less than) 500,000 1825 (nearly) l,000,000 185o . . . . . . 2,500,000 1875 7,000,000 I q00 . . . . . . I I ,000,000 (nearly) 22,000,000 Of this latter number there are about three millions whose native or preferred speech is French or Dutch. Many of these also use English familiarly. It may be remarked in passing that there are still 200,000 people even in the British islands who know no English but speak only Gaelic, Erse or Welsh.
To appreciate this table we must recollect the comparison not only with French (necessarily drawn into reference in former passages) but with other races. Even a hundred years ago English, so far from being as now the foremost, in extent of use amongst the languages of white peoples was only fourth in that list. Rus sian-speakers probably came first (counting subdivisions but disre garding the subject races of the Tsardom) rising towards 40, 000,00o. French-speakers (including those in Belgium, Switzer land, Canada) were second with nearly 35,000,000. Germans were a close third with some 34,000,000 (adding those in Austria and Switzerland). While below the latter figure was the number in the world (excluding those speaking Gaelic or Welsh only in the British Isles) to whom English was a mother-tongue. Now, the latter is easily first with its 198,000,000 of native and newly incorporated speakers ; Russian second with over 140,000,000; German third with nearly 85,000,000; Spanish fourth with some 65,000,000; and French fifth with about 5o,000,000 counting its coloured speakers in the colonies of the Republic as well as its speakers by race in Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.
In addition, there are some millions of civilized persons in other nations to whom English is almost as familiar as their own tongue; and it is used by more millions amongst the native populations under the British flag. Thus it is safe to say that this leading world-language which grew so slowly that even up to the beginning of the last century it was fourth on a list of comparative numbers of persons speaking European languages, has multiplied itself ten fold since then and is now well-known to more than 200,000,000 persons altogether.