The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1899-03-03
IMMIGRATION FOR MARY
LAND.

Read by Dr. r. s. Hill at the Farmers
Institute held at Beltsvillc, Prince Georges
county Md, February 22nd, 1899.
This subject has been uppermost in my
mind for several years and it is certainly
one which should now more than eyer at
tract the attention of citizens of Maryland
The Legislature of Maryland of 1896
established a State Bureau of Immigration,
with a Superintendent at salary of 1000
per annum, and gave him Secretary at Il
salary of 81 200, and the last Legislature
has appropriated $500 in addition to cover
the deficit of the past two or three years.
The Act which established the Bureau
makes it mandatory upon the State Super
intendent of immigration to spend four
| months of each year in Europe i'll the
prosecution of his work. To this feature
of the Act | object, and in expressing my
| unqualified disapproval | feel sure that |
am voicing the sentiments of ninc-tenths
of the farmers of Maryland, or at least
nne-tenths Of those who have given the
matter any consideration. As to the quail
ity and general characteristics of the i'm
migration which the Act would force upon
us l respectfully call your attention to a
letter of Mr. Van der Hoogt, Secretary of
the Bureau, which appeared in the PRINCE
GEORGES ENQUIRER of February 3rd.
H is writing from Holland and describes
things there rs greatly changed" and
n For hp n
old wealthy farmers he says, 'have be-
come poor The markets are down, the
necessaries of life are greater, taxes and
expenses are exceedingly high, and profits
proportionately small. The condition of
the farm laborcr-that particular individ
ual which Mr.. Van der Hoogt evidently
wishes to foist upon us-is almost pathetic.
"Hundreds Of men" he says, care idle
during the Winter and these poor fellows
arc willing to work all day for Il sum equal
to ten cents in American money. They
never get meat and do not know the taste
of it, He does not state what the poor
Hollander pays for a suit of clothes, but
we can infer, as he has kindly quoted the
price of adult shoes-wooden-a Is to 90
cents per pair l submit that this type of
man is Just shade too tenacious to come
into direct unrestricted economic compe
tition with our more highly organized type
of American laborcr, unless, indeed, we
are determined to throw everything to the
winds, and 90 in on the principle that
money alone is king, that the cheap man
is the desideratum and may the devil take
the dcarer
An Act passed by the Legislature some
years prior to this seems to warrant the
belief that just this principle was upper
most in the minds of our law makers. |
refer to certain company incorporated
and granted great powers, viz, the pur-
chase of large tracts of land, the settling
of foreign immigrants theron, including
the privilege of erecting dwellings, cor
poration stores, constructing and putting
into operation any and all methods of
transportation. 1t does not require
vivid imagination to picture the change
necessarily disastrous-which would take
place in the condition of the farming pop
ulation of Maryland with such type of
man, as that portrayed by Mr.. Van der
Hoogt, settled in great numbers upon the
lands of this corporation. That they
would either drive native laborcrs out of
the market or reduce their wages to the
ten cent per day corporation standard
goes without saying. The wages of the
imported laborers would be spent at the
corporation stores, and their savings, if
any, would very probably go to the old
country to assist needy relatives. But
feature more repulsive than all these to
our American sense of freedom would be
the power of the corporation over the acts
of those settling upon the lands. Let us
picture what would happen should this
corporation be ruled by set of scheming,
INSCRIPTIONS politicians, who cared not
for State nor people but only to reach
their own end. 1t cannot be doubted but
that the settlers would soon be naturaiized
and given the ballot, and it is equally GER
tain that through this means the corpora
ton would attain in the county, and
eventually in the State, a power so auto
cratic as to make the conditions of life,
already burdensome enough, absolutely
intolerabe. Aside from rauperizing the
free labor of the State, and dragging down
into the depths all those depending upon
it, it would completely change the old re-
lation of employer and employee, and re-
store that of master and scrf-a condition
intolerabe to the American citizen and
which required the shedding of the worlds
best blood to eliminate
The granting of such powers to a cor
poration is monstrous and therefore I'M
American, and l predict that if such
methods receive the sanction of law it will
prove for Us the sowing of the dragons
teeth, the harvest from which will be the |
destruction of our liberties and our pros
perity.
Since | have criticized what others are
doing and have done, it is but Just that |
should suggest some means of overcoming
this difficulty and bringing in the class of
citizens SO much wanted
First, strike out that clause of the Act
of the Legislature which requires the |
sending to Europe for emigrants, and sub
stitute therefor requirement to visit diff !
ferent sections of our country Visit the
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