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.]