easurably when we pass from the physical to the mental realm. There
are subtle interplays of delicate forces and reactions from
environment which no one can measure. Leadership nevertheless is the
gift of but few races; and in the United States eminence in business,
in statecraft, in letters and learning can with singular directness be
traced in a preponderating proportion to this American stock.

In 1891 Henry Cabot Lodge published an essay on _The Distribution of
Ability in the United States_,[6] based upon the 15,514 names in
Appleton's _Cyclopedia of American Biography_ (1887). He "treated as
immigrants all persons who came to the United States after the
adoption of the Constitution," and on this division he found 14,243
"Americans" and 1271 "immigrants" distributed racially as follows:

AMERICANS IMMIGRANTS

English 10,376 English 345
Scotch-Irish 1439 German 245
German 659 Irish 200
Huguenot 589 Scotch 151
Scotch 436 Scotch-Irish 88
Dutch 336 French 63
Welsh 159 Canadian and
Irish 109 British Colonial 60
French 85 Scandinavian 18
Scandinavian 31 Welsh 16
Spanish 7 Belgian 15
Italian 7 Swiss 15
Swiss 5 Dutch 14
Greek 3 Polish 13
Russian 1 Hungarian 11
Polish 1 Italian 10
Greek 3
Russian 2
Spanish 1
Portuguese 1

Of the total number of individuals selected, a large number were
chosen by the editors as being of enough importance to entitle them to
a small portrait in the text, and fifty-eight persons who had achieved
some unusual distinction were accorded a full-page portrait. These,
however, represented achievement rather than ability, for they
included the Presidents of the Unit