The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-11-20
Special Contributors
ONE ASPECT OF THE LABOR CUES
TI0N.
BY K. T. TAYLOR,
bay City, Mich.)

We note the rapidly increasing per
centage of our population, which is be-
coming massed in our already over
crowded cities; the census returns for
each decade of the last half century
showing constantly increasing per-
centage of population crowding into
cities; and this in new country, where,
as yet, scarcely moiety of its arabic
lands have been settled upon, and a
much smaller portion has, as yet, by
actual cultivation been made to minis
ter unto mans needs.
The causes that have led to this, and
the evils that have already commenced
to flow therefr0m, merit attention. Let
us briefly consider some of them. A
generation ago this nation possessed a
vast public domain, which, had it been
preserved, to supply homes to be given
to actual settlers thereon, would not
only have furnished a healthy and prac-
ticable means of educating new corners
to our shores in the duties and respon-
sibilities of American citizenship, but
would, for long period yet, have served
as a safety valve, and furnished well
come outlet for the surplus population
of our over-croWded cities and manu-
featuring centers. Indeed, for reasons
that will be shown, it would, to con-
siderable degree, have prevented or de-
layed that over-crowding. But this out
let has been, or rapidly is being, sub
stantially closed, and its educating and
civilizing effect lost by the granting of
the public domain to railroad and other
corporations, in quantities sufficiently
vast for the establishment of kingdoms;
and here we note the commencement
of the evil, aud the budding manifesto
tiOns of the danger to which we have
alluded. The companies receiving such
grants, having built their line of road,
were naturally desirous of securing as
large an immigration to this country as
possible, and this for a tbreefold pur-
pose.
/. To cheaper the price of labor and
so reduce the running expenses of their
roads. 3 To secure purchasers for the
land granted to them, and 3, to increase
their traffic and the resulting revenue
by transporting the persons and pro-
ducti0ns of those who should settle on
their lands. To secure this result, vari-
Gus agencies were established, and large
sums were contributed by the compa-
MES. Steamship lines were subsidized,
and steerage passage from Europe to
America reduced to a nominal sum,
and no import duty exaeted. jay Gould
is reported as having lately stated that
the companies in which he is interested
contributed 500 600 annually for this
purpose. AS result, about 1000 per
day, or some 700, 900 annually Of immi-
grants-in late years, consisting largely
Of the poor, the ignorant and the Vi
cious, taken from the lower strata and
classes of the people of Europe-the
dwarfed and unripe fruit of another and
less kindly civilization than ours are
landed on our shores, duty free, to
mix with our people-strangers to our
institutions and knowing government
only as an instrument of oppression,
and whose chief idea of liberty Is license
Knowing little Of the comforts of
nome, the d'os.rgnts of knowledge, OF the
cohsn n|,.ari0nsef telisidn, they flock tOour
mIn5s; cities and manufacturing cen
ters, adding to the dangerous classes,
and oyer-s6bplying the labor market.
These pay rttle or nothing for church
or school, OF for that which refi1es and
eleyates the home, and knowing not the
duties and responsibilities of Amer
lean citizenship-liying close to the
plane of the animal-cheaply living a
dwarfed and common life, they at once
enter into competition with the more
intelligent American laborer, who, as a
good American citizen, must needs, if
he is to remain a good citizen, receive
sufficient wages to decently house, feed,
clothe and educate himself and his fam
lily, and lay by a trihe against the day
of accident, sickness and old age.
There can be but one result to this
competition. The more intelligent Ia
borer and better citizen must give place
to his cheaper competitor, whe feels the