the Italian provinces is the poverty produced by
the crushing taxes and agricultural depression. Absentee landlordism has
blighted southern Italy as it has Ireland. Yet with great tracts of
fertile soil thus held away from the people, and with no new territory
to cultivate, the population of Italy has increased within twenty years
from twenty-eight and a half to thirty-two and a half millions, an
average density of 301 per square mile, and the excess of births over
deaths amounts to nearly 350,000 a year. Hence the question with the
people in overcrowded districts is simply emigration or starvation. The
southern Italian is driven from home by necessity to work, and work is
to be found in America, so he comes. His labor is mostly unskilled, and
this is in demand here. The result is that almost eighty per cent. of
the Italian immigrants are males; over eighty per cent. are between
fourteen and forty-five, the working age; over eighty per cent. are from
the southern provinces, and nearly the same percentage are unskilled
laborers, and a large majority of these are illiterates. The eighty per
cent. of "human capital of fresh, strong young men" is Italy's
contribution to America, and is a force winning its way to recognition.

[Sidenote: Figures of Italian Immigration]

Let us note the growth of Italian immigration, its sources, and its
distribution. In the sixty years from 1820 to 1880 only 68,633 Italians
made their way to America, while during this period the total foreign
immigration was over ten millions. The census of 1890 gave the Italian
population of the United States as only 182,580, and at that date not
over a half million in all had come here. The rapid increase during
recent years is shown in the following table:

IMMIGRATION FROM ITALY TO THE UNITED STATES

1890 52,003 1898 58,613
1891 76,055 1899 77,419
1892 61,631 1900 100,135
1893 72,145 1901 135,996
1894 42,977 1902 178,375
1895 35,427 1903 230,622
1896 68,060 1904 193,296
1897 59,431 1905 221,479

[Sidenote: Remarkable Increase]

This shows how steady and remarkable the immigration has been since
1900. In five years 959,768 Italians have come to this country. Surely
it is worth our whil