Speech #680070837

The Senator from North Carolina is right. that is why I said ." British " and not " English." I meant by the term " British " to Include English. Scotch. and Welsh. all of whom were represented in that group. The Census Bureau estimates that the descendants of that native white stock which appeared in the census of 1790 are repreIr sented today by 47.330.000 persons. and that the remainder of our white population in 1920. that Is. 47.490.000 persons. are descended from the immigrants who have come In since 1.790 or are themselves immigrants who have recently come in. I realize that it is a practical Impossibility to take a census of the present population of America and to determine by questioning the individuals who are here today the origin of their ancestors who first immigrated to this country. Very few of us know our pedigree so well that we can say from what country our ancestors came a century or more ago. It is not practicable to make a division of the present population by questioning the individual who is here today. but it Is practicable to do it within a very small margin of error by basing the computation on the original 1790 census. the composition of which we know. and on the statistics which we have of the immigration since that time. for we know the composition of that immigration. Our records are quite informal up to 1820. There was no official governmental record of immigration commenced until the year 1820. but since then we know with complete accuracy the country of origin of every immigrant. We know that our population In 1790. by the excess of births over deaths. was doubling every 22 years. We have that factor of certainty on which we may work. We know that some of the late comers among our immigrants have increased more rapidly than that. but all that has been worked out by the Census Bureau. That bureau has made a very complete study of the question. and the figures which I have given. showing 47.000.000 of our present white population as being the descendants of that original native stock. are accurate within 1 or 2 per cent. anyway. Of course. as the Senator from Rhode Island said yesterday. many individuals have to be counted as half native whites. and that method of calculation takes them into account. If a descendant of ond of our colonial settlers marries a recent immigrant. their children. of course. have to be counted as half on one side and half on the other In this separation. That. however. all washes itself out by the law of average. The Census Bureau itself feels a confidence in these figures.