The conversion of New Jersey barrens into berry farms, vineyards, and pepper fields, the reclamation of muck soil in western New York, which Americans were not willing to touch, the transmutation of wild Ozark lands into apples and peaches, are Italian exploits which constitute clear gain for the country. But there are other immigrant farmers whose labors count on the wrong side of the national ledger. Not a few Slav colonies are clearing and tilling land so poor or so steep that it ought never to have been brought under the plow. The soil they have deforested will presently wash into the rivers, leaving stripped rocky slopes to grin, like a Death's-head, in the landscape. The nation will have to pay for it, just as France paid for the reckless ax work that went on under the First Republic.
HELPING THE IMMIGRANT TO GET UPON THE SOIL
When confronted with the undeniable evils resulting from the crowding of old-world peasants into American slums and factories, the opponents of restriction urge that the trouble is with the distribution of the immigrants, there are not really too many of them, but they are congested in certain centers and industries. Then let the state or the nation take the immigrant in hand and settle him upon the soil, where there is room for him and where he yearns to be. Supply him with the best of information, guidance and supervision and lend him a little money until he has gotten upon his feet. Successful state colonization would, no doubt, restore the balance between agriculture and manufactures and prevent the heartbreaking waste and misery resulting from the present hap-hazard, catch-as-catch-can distribution of immigrants among American opportunities.
Two other consequences ought, however, to be evident; First, the policy would tend to use up the agricultural opportunities Americans may prefer to hold open for their children and grandchildren. Second, State help to the immigrant would furnish splendid advertising matter to the steamship companies endeavoring to fill more steerages and might soon swell the number of arrivals to a million and a half or two millions a year. If we wish to have more immigrants and to fill up this country in the briefest possible time, state colonization is just the way to go about it. On the other hand, once the volume of immigration has been brought under effective control, the policy of aiding the immigrant to get upon the land is heartily to be commended.
Photograph by Hine Courtesy of The Survey
The Unemployed—Middle of the Morning, Chicago