The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1878-01-05
IMMIGRATION TO MARYLAND.

To the Editors of the Union:
l ask room for few words touching the mate
rial interests of my first adopted State, in which
the editors of the UNION had their birth,# and still
have their homes most worthiy.
As you doubtless get the Martinsburg Iadepen-
dent in exchange, you may have noticed an editO-
rial item therein of which propose to make use
as text. / allude to one announcing that a
number Of 0hioans and an still greater number of
Pennsylvanians had recently purchased farms in
the county wherein Martinsburg is located (Berke-
ley with the purpose of settlement in that portion
of West Virginia, and that twenty more seekers OF
new homes were expected within the next thirty
days.
The question has arisen in my mind, why have
not seen similar announcements in the UNION or
other Maryland newspapers. Throwing out the
immense tracts of mountain lands on the extreme
western border of West Virginia, there are more
naturally productive lands in Maryland sadly
needing new owners than in that State. Many OF
these display their broad acres almost within sight
of this national centre. They are offered at very
low figures-far lower than those at which the
sales reported in the Independent were made, and
yet nobody is coming TO till them. Why is this
so? Having asked The question | will answer it.
In the section of West Virginia referred to the old
citizens have pursued since the different
policy than the corresponding class in Maryland.
They have held out inducements to newcomers
from what were once discriminatory classed as
free States-not merely in the low price of their
lands, but in other ways. And when a immigrant
has come and exchanged his money for their lands
they have not suffered their interest in him and
his to disappear, much less given him the "cold
shoulder" which plainly says: 'Now that have
your money care nothing about you and wish
you were back where you came from" but they
have continued to show an interest in him. Hence,
instead of abandoning his purchase and returning
to his old home in search ofthat neghbOrly sympa-
thy without which no man can long remain con-
tented, as has been the case of immgrating from
the North to portions of Maryland and Virginia,
he becomes a cOntented and thrifty citizen and in
duces his old neighbors to join him and enjoy the
advantages which he has found in cheaper lands
and more accessible markets.
Precisely this is what must come to pass in
Maryland, if the waste places are ever to be occu
pied by newcomers and utilized for the benefit of
new owners, and the communities as well which
they now so dismally disigure. As one born in
the section where the wiser course is being pur-
sued and familiar with the state of feeling in Ma
ryland and there alike, write this in the hope
that it may do some good Never until the preu-
dice, which constantly crops out in the old
slave-holding counties of Maryland against the
yankees" as class, is stamped out by some such
means as are adopted in stamping out epidemics,
can immigration to any considerable degree be ex-
pected The Yankee, in scriptural phraseOlogy,
'lveth not by bread alone" any more than the
SOutherner. If his presence and his money, and
his better WAYS in money making and money
saving, are desired by the owners of untitled or
surplus lands in Maryland, or elsewhere in our
Southland, the bearing toward him must conform
to the rules Of common sense and common human
ity, to say nothing of common decency, ard imi-
tate that which is infusing fresh capital and new
blood in the Shenandoah Valley, whose more con-
siderate old settlers are now reapng the advanta-
ges of their wisdom, while the same class else
where in the South reaping the bitter fruits of
their folly. j. L. SNoDGRAss.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
The editors of the Union were not born in