The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1888-02-16
immigration.
DUvAL, TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas,
February IA, 1888.

DUvAL, TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS,
February IA, 1888.
To the Editor of the Statesman.
Sir-I read with great appreciation
your leader on Foreign immigration in
The STATESMAN of February IL. Your re-
marks are opportune and worthy of con-
sideration by those engaged in devising
schemes for inducing immigration to
Texas.
What you say about the dangers of IN
limited and indiscrimiuate national i'm
migration will equally apply to individual
states. The Dallas convention set in
motion a machine that will work great
good or incalculable harm, according to
the discretion of the engineers in charge.
Great care should be taken that the boom
now being planned and worked up does
not attract the wrong classes. In all old
countries and over crowded communities
there are large numbers of poor, lazy,
thriftless and denorslized people who live
from hand to mouth, and often on the
charity of their friends and relations,
They have persuaded themselves that they
are the victims of circumstances,
that they have never hsd a
square chance in the battle Of
life, and that, with fair
showing they would distinguish them
selves. The usual immigration literature
is invariably attractive to this huge GLASS;
The "boomed" country is painted in such
bright and attractive colors, and seems 10
offer just the opportunity they think they
never had before. There, in fancy, they
see land literally Glowing with milk and
honey" where all the ills of life are alb
sent, and where the maximum of life's
pleasures may be enjoyed, with mini
mum of labor. How sadly and effectually
disenchanted are they when, after long,
wearisome and costly journey they arrive
in the promised land" While the new
country may be all, and more than all, its
''boomers" described it, it falls far short
of what the disappointed immigrant
pictured ii. He finds that in his new
home the "sweat of his brow" must be
shed before he can earn his daily bread,
and is fortunate if he can procure enough
of it in that way.
While everything should be done to at
tract the right sort of immigrant, nothing
should be left undone to warn off those
have described. Already Texas has too
many of them, and they do the state great
harm.
They are idle and unproductive, some
from choice, but mainly from inability
to procure work they are capable of per-
forming. large population is desirable
when productive and self supporting, but
population without occupation means
poverty and pauperism.
Large, naturally rich and thlnly settled
as our state is, we have only room at
present and until occupation is created
for the laboriDg classes, for three classes
of immigrants, viz: capitalists and
manufacturers and farmers with capital.
To such Texas offers inducements not
equalled by any other spot on the surface
of the globe Let these come, and soon
we will want labor, skilled aud unskilled.
The capitalist will here ind thousand
safe and profitable ways of investing.
The manufacturer of every kind will
find wide opening for his business and
the people waiting to welcome and assist
him, while the practical farmer, now wear
ing out his life for the benefit of land
lord or wrestling with an exhausted soil
in some of the old and cold regions of the
north, will find in the glorious climate and
rich soil of Texas a combination OF
conditions that he may have dreamt of
but has never known. write as farmer
and do so understandingly.
The immigration bureau cannot say
too much about Texas when directed to
attract these three classes, but every pam
phlet issued, setting forth the advantages
of our state as field for immigration
should contain warning in large type to
all not included in this list, so that none
may form unwsrranted expectations, and
come to curse instead of bless.
: JOHN @. EDGAR.