Thousands of these migratory beings throng the steerage of transatlantic ships every winter to return to their European homes.  The steamship companies, whose enterprise is largely responsible for this flow of populations, reap their harvest; and many a decaying village buried in the southern hills of Europe, or swept by the winds of the great Slav plains, owes its regeneration ultimately to American dollars.

They pay the price of their success, these flitting beings, links between distant lands and our own.  The great maw of mine and factory devours thousands.  Their lyric tribal songs are soon drowned by the raucous voices of the city; their ancient folk-dances, meant for a village green, not for a reeking dance-hall, lose here their native grace; and the quaint and picturesque costumes of the European peasant give place to American store clothes, the ugly badge of equality.

The outward bound throng holds its head high, talks back at the steward, and swaggers.  It has become “American.”  The restless fever of the great democracy is in its veins.  Most of those who return home will find their way back with others of their kind to the teeming hives and the coveted fleshpots they are leaving.  And again they will tax the ingenuity of labor unions, political and social organizations, schools, libraries, and churches, in the endeavor to transform medieval peasants into democratic peers.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 34:  This lament of Henry James’s is cited by E.A.  Ross in The Old World in the New, p. 101.]

[Footnote 35:  Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, p. 8-9.]

[Footnote 36:  Edward A. Steiner, On the Trail of the Immigrant, p. 228.]

[Footnote 37:  This is an estimate made by the Reverend W.X.  Kruszka of Ripon, Wisconsin, as reported by E.G.  Balch in Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, p. 262.  Of this large number, Chicago claims 350,000; New York City, 250,000; Buffalo, 80,000; Milwaukee, 75,000; Detroit, 75,000; while at least a dozen other cities have substantial Polish settlements.  These numbers include the suburbs of each city.]

[Footnote 38:  This is accounted for by the fact that the Hungarian Government rigorously censored Slovak publications.]

[Footnote 39:  Since the Russo-Japanese War, Siberia has absorbed great numbers of Russian immigrants.  This accounts for the small number that have come to America.]

[Footnote 40:  Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, p. 280.]

[Footnote 41:  On the Trail of the Immigrant, p. 27.]

[Footnote 42:  The census figures show that approximately half the Italian immigrants return to their native land.  American officers in the Great War were surprised to find so many Italian soldiers who spoke English.  In 1910 there remained in the United States only 1,343,000 Italians who were born in Italy, and the total number of persons of Italian stock in the United States was 2,098,000.]