Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| foreigners. Much of this feeling was wholly unjustifiable, while much of it was warranted by the fact that the new-comers contributed far more than their share to the vice, crime, misery, and pauperism of the community. They were popularly held responsible for various epidemics of disease,—notably a terrible visitation of cholera in 1832. |
| New York having been peopled by relays of immigrants of different nationality, each relay in turn, as it became Americanized, looked down upon the next, as has already been said. So it is at the present day. The grandchildren of the Germans and Irish, to whom such strenuous objection was made sixty years ago, now in turn protest against the shoals of latter-day Sclavonic and Italian incomers. Race and religious antipathy have caused not a few riots during the present century, in New York; and this was especially the case during the period covered by the forty years preceding the Civil War. |
| However, riots of various kinds were common all through this period; for the city mob was far more disorderly and less under control than at present. Nor were the foreigners by any means the only ones to be found in its ranks, for it contained a large and very dangerous element of native American roughs. One specially frequent form of riot was connected with the theaters. The mob was |