ABSTRACT
By the mid-century the population statistics showed an impressive drift westward—especially to California and the Pacific Northwest. They showed also a steadily continuing movement from the farms and the smaller towns toward the centers of population. However much devotees of the character-building value of homespun living might lament the urbanization of American life, there seemed to be no stopping it. Not only were Americans, by and large, much healthier; they were also physically bigger. Since immigration had been sharply limited in the early nineteen-twenties, the number of foreign-born Americans had been steadily shrinking as one by one men and women who had come across the seas by steerage during the flood tide from Europe came to the end of their lives. Less and less often did one hear foreign languages spoken in American cities and industrial towns.
