San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1886-05-25
TUESDAY, MAY rs, 1885.
EXCESSIVE IMMIGRATION.

1t is not to be expected Of the average
legislator that he will be wiser than
his generation. II he be wise in his own
generation it will be readily forgiven
him that he was not wise before his gen.
GRAFTON. 1t is the province of legislation
to DEVISE remedial measures for the evils
that are seen rather than to speculate
concerning the evils that are not seen,
only vaguely apprehended as possible.
When the necessity arises, however,
when the progress and issue of events
have clearly demonstrated the need Of
certain changes in the laws governing
states and nations, or regulating their
relations and intercourse with other
states and nations, then it were well, in
these changes and legislate accordingly.
That the time has fully come to revise
our emigration laws and close some what
the doors that have been SO freely
opened, world wide, to all who desired
to come to these shores, is now gener-
ally conceded by those who have at all
considered the present industrial con-
dition of this country. The immense
tide of immigration that has flooded
our great northwest since the close Of
the late war has been toe much for
the land to bear. The Increase of our
breadstuffs, as the result of the opening
up Of millions of new acres of crop area
every year, has steadily decreased the
market value of our great grain staple I'M
til prices are below the cost Of profitable
production. This immense area of new
wheat ground has been pushed to the
very verge of possible production; each
new season has opened up new fields
still more remote from the markets of
the country until the cost OF trsnspOr-
tstion has swallowed up all reasonable
hope of fair profits at the average mar
ket quotations. But this unwonted pro-
duction has Overstocked the markets
and forced them down; the old world is
receiving less grain from us than for
merly, having opened up herself new
grain fields in the farther east; the COM
petition is becoming sharper, the sources
of supply continually increasing, and
yet year by year this country adds hun
dreds of thousands Of acres to her wheat
area.
The appropriateness of grain grow
ing being seen, the new arrivals upon
our shores seek homes in our over
crowded cities and villages, add to the
hundreds Of thousands who are unable
to procure work, swell the number of
the unproftably idle and force wages
below living prices, by competition with
those who are at work. These two
evils have come upon us by throwing
our gates wide open and singing, who
soever will may come" The coming,
however, has been largely due TO the
personal and interested efforts Of rail-
road land agents, who have their Offices
in every considerable commercial town
in Europe and Great Britain, and who
leave no efforts untried or falsehoods
unuttered to induce immigration to the
new lands which are opened up by the
railway land offices. The giving of vast
tracts of land to railway syndicstes
during the past twenty years has
operated as a double curse-it has de-
prived the people Of so much reserve
territory on which to settle the popu-
latiOn Of the future, multiplied through
natural increase; and, it has put into the
power Of selfish corporations to food
America with an oyerplus Of immigra.
ton. The evils Of this excessive emf.
grafton from Europe we have already
noted. 1t has overst0oked our markets
with grain and glutted the demand for
labor, until wages are at starvation
prices.
The character Of much Of this emigra-
ton there can be no just cause Of COM
plant against. An element Of it, Of q
most destructive and disorganizing
character, we were far better rid.
Dismis5ing this phase Of the immigra-
ton problem for the present, we point
edly present the general issue Of ex-
cesslve immigration to these shores as