Empire before the war had reached by far the smallest stage of that of any of the leading nations, save France, where the birthrate has been stationary for many years. The figures for 1914 were only 35,734. while the immigration from Greece was 35,832; Italian immigration in that year reached a total of 283,738 and from Russia 255,660, while England sent us 35,864, Scotland 10,682 and Wales 2,183. In 1915 only 7,799 Germans arrived, while England sent us 21,562. The money brought by the Germans totaled $1,786,130, or $221.50 a head, while money brought by the English totaled $3,467,458, a little over $160 a head.
German immigration was never a pauper immigration and of itself refutes the assertion that German immigration was due to fear of military service or political oppression.
The first great German immigration from the Palatinate, 233 years ago, was mainly due to the criminal ravages of the French under Louis XIV; that of 1848 was incident mainly to the revolution in Baden, based upon a longing of all thinking Germans for a united Germany, and that of the subsequent period was the spontaneous outpouring of an overpop- ulated country not yet adjusted to commercial and industrial expansion and the great spread of German enterprise in shipbuilding and manufacture. As soon as this development had reached a decisive stage, immigration practically ceased. Those who came here obeyed a great economic law by which every man seeks to supply an existing vacancy for his industry ; they did not come as beggars, but were welcomed because they were needed. There was no religious oppression in Germany, and in Prusia Fredrick the Great proclaimed in the middle of the eighteenth century the doctrine, "In my country, every man can serve God in his own way." If imigration is an infallible sign of the dissatisfaction of the immigrant with conditions at home which drives him to go to another country, the fact that less than 36,000 German immigrants arrived in America in 1914 against a total of 73,417 from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, proves that? conditions were vastly better in Germany than in the United Kingdom. (The figures are from the "New York World Almanac" for 1916)
FRIENDS OF IRISH FREEDOM—Organized at a mass meeting during the winter of 1915-16 to promote the freedom of Ireland from English oppression. The society has held numerous mass meetings and protested against the pro-British attitude of the Wilson administration. President, Victor Herbert.
Vice-presidents, Thos. Addis Emmet, Hon. John W. Goff, N. Y., Hon. O'Neill Ryan, St. Louis, Monsignor Henry A. Brann, N. Y., Joseph McLaughlin, Philadelphia, James O'Sullivan, Lowell, Mass.
Secretary, John D. Moore, N. Y.
Chairman Executive Committee, James K. McGuire, N. Y. Treasurer, Thomas Hughes Kelly, N. Y. Offices, 26 Cortland St., New York City.
IRISH RELIEF FUND COMMITTEE — Honorary President, His Eminence John Cardinal Farley; President, Thos. Addis Emmet; Secretary, John D. Moore; Treasurer, Thos. Hughes Kelly; Chairman Executive Committee, George J. Gillespie.
"J'ACCUSE — Tittle of an anonymous book attacking Germany's motives and policies in the war from the point of view of a German, published in
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