VIEWSrnThe Third CompartmentrnImmigration and the American Fitnrernby Chilton Williamson, Jr.rn”Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?rnAll fear, none aid you, and few understand.”rn—Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Man”rnAlthough the raw figures from Census 2000 have l:)eeu inrnthe pubHe domain for nronths aheadv, the Ameriean pubhe’srnresponse to the latest deeennial surve is shll not elear. Forrnpolihcians, the census has been a wakeup eall, alerhng them tornthe 13 million new or potential oters pumped, sucked, orrnsnuek into the Ameriean polit’ since 1990. for plain Americanrncitizens, it is a fire-bell in Hie night, warning them Hiat, for thernpast 20 or 30 vears, their countr has been the object of a foreignrninvasion, and the’ are now in danger of losing it enhreh’. Thernresponse of the political class to the demographic crisis, sincernPresident Bush floated his Mexican amnesh’ proposal last summer,rnhas been plain for all to see. The response of the public atrnlarge, on the other hand, is anything but plain — one reasonrnamong man- \h’ die direehon and ulhmate f;ite of what JessernJackson thinks of as the Old America is hard to foretell.rnOne of the most dramatic moments in one of the mostrnprophetic eents in histor- occurred w ithin minutes after the Titanicrncollided with an iceberg off the Grand Banks of iN’cwfoundland.rnSunnnoncd to the bridge b Captain b.dwardrnSmidi, Mr. Thomas Andrews, managing director of fiarland &rnWolff, the ship’s builder, heard crewmen’s reports on the extentrnof the flooding below decks as he pored oer a blueprint of diernliner. Then, widi impeccable Brihsh composure, he ex]:)lainedrnChilton Williamson, jr., is the senior editor for hooks atrnChronicles, and the author of The hiimigrahon Ahstique:rnAmerican’s False Conscience (Harper Collins).rnto die captain and bridge officers win die unsinkable Titanicrnhad an hour and a half to live, iitanic’s architects had designedrnthe ship to float with two of her watertight compartments flooded.rnNow, it appeared fiiat die damage below waterline extendedrnat least to die third compartment, whose bulkhead rose onlyrnten feet aboe the watedine. i’lie laws of madiematies and ofrnphwsics, z^idrews explained, were inescapable. Water floodingrndie two forward compartments must draw die ship down b diernbow, causing water from die second compartment to overflowrninto die diird, from die diird into die fourth, and so on diroughoutrndie lengdi of die 8