St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-05
IMMIGRATION INCREASING.

The ebb and flow of immigration
follow unfailingly the movement of
general business. Among the proofs
that the times are not only better
Ing, but have already made immense
Improvement, is the quickening i'm
pulse that has been given to the
movement of population to this
country from abroad; and in this
country, from the thickly settled por-
lions to the open spaces that are
Still awaiting settlement All the
railroad companies that have lands
TO dispose Of in Minnesota report an
active demand, and thousands of
people are now pushing into the
Northwest. This is largely the final
swell Of the movement of population
back from the cities to the farm,
that has come as a consequence of
long continued hard times. Every
great panic and business depression
that this country has seen has been
followed by just such change 1t
is natures ineXorable corrective for
the tendency of people to congregate
nnduly in urban centers.
When times are good and every
body is prosperous and money is
made freely, the question of spend
ing it is uppermost in the Individual
mind. 1t is then that the delights
and attractions of the city are at
their strongest. The man with ready
money in his pocket finds plenty of
use for it there, and he is able to
delude himself into the belief that
he may at the same time multiply it
by fortunate investment. Men spurn
the slow operations of the farm,
and rush to the large centers, until
business there is overdone, the sup
ply of labor far exceeds the demand.
and the interests of the country suf-
fer through a comparative scarcity
of population. Then necessity COM
pels a change in the opposite direc-
ton. Men who have failed in small
businesses of their own, clerks who
have been thrown out of employment
by the cutting down of office forces,
and laborers who have been dis
charged and are unable to get an
other job all conclude, after months
of idleness and perhaps of suffering,
that the best resource for them is
that which nature itself has provid-
ed. Not by reason of the advice of
those who have studied this prob
lem, so much as under the stress of
strong necessity, they become culti-
gators of the soil, and the balance Of
population between city and coun-
try is again restored.
This movement has for the last two
years been going on quietly and
steadily. The statistics of population
will show that in the Northwest, as
rule, the cities have gained but lit
tie over their record of five years
ago. That gain, such as it is, was
made during the earlier part of the
fve-year period; while during the
latter part, the surplus population
has been emptied upon the waiting
country. The number of farmers
has undoubtedly largely increased
and a new demand for uncultivate6
lands has arisen. To this natural
movement is now added another
which is just beginning to streng then
and whose full force will be felt later
On. This is the increase once more
Of immigration from abroad. The
people of European countries are
able to gauge better than they could
formerly the promise held out t.
them by removal to the United
States. When a great wave of de.
preston strikes this country, mer
and women who are thrown out OF
work write to friends and relatives
eft behind them of their distress
quickly the information spreads, an6
migrants who would otherwise come