It will be noted that while in 1882, 71.3 per cent of our immigrants
came from the countries of Western Europe, only 10.5 per cent came from
the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe. In 1907 the situation was
very nearly reversed. In 1907 Great Britain and Ireland, and
Scandinavia, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and
Switzerland--the countries which had furnished 71.3 per cent of our
immigrants in 1882--furnished only 17.7 per cent, while Austria-Hungary,
Italy, Russia, Greece, Servia, Roumania, and Turkey in Europe--the
countries which had furnished but 10.5 per cent in 1882--furnished 75.5
per cent. This matter of changed sources from which we receive our
immigrants evidently is one of first importance in any consideration of
the present immigration problem of the United States.

_The Distribution of Immigrants._ If immigrants would distribute
themselves evenly over the United States, the immigration problem would
be quite different from what it is. Instead of this, there is a massing
of immigrants in some states and communities, and very little evidence
to show that these immigrants ever distribute themselves normally over
the whole country. In 1906, for example, the Commissioner of Immigration
reported that 68.3 per cent of the 1,100,000 immigrants who came that
year went to the North Atlantic states; 22.1 per cent to the North
Central states; 4.4 per cent to the Western states; and 4.2 per cent to
the Southern states. If these figures are at all trustworthy, they
indicate a congestion of our recent immigrants in the North Atlantic
states and in certain states of the Central West. So far as the census
is concerned, it tends to confirm these statistics of the Commissioner
of Immigration. Our last census returns, being for 1900, can show
little, of course, of the distribution of the great number of recent