The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-04-03
italian immigration.

Last year one-fourth of the immi-
grants landing in this country were.
italians, most of whom halted where
the transatlantic. steamers discharged
them, and increased the population Of
the tenement houses in Boston, New
York and other northern cities. Italian
immigration, indeed, has averaged
about 100000. persons a year land a
large percentage of them are from the
peasant class of Sicily, Sardinia and the
peninsula, who are accustomed to agri-
cultural labor.
During the last few years some south
ern planters found that the tendency OF
the negro plantation labor to drift into
towns and cities minimizes the supply
Of such labor in the field so much that a
large amount of the. cotton cannot be
gathered, and, as the worlds demand
increases and the cotton manufacturing
European nations are beginning to turn
to Africa and Asia for the cotton they
need, the planters have been testing the
quality of Italian labor to the extent Of
being satisfied that better work can be
obtained from the white Italian on
either cotton or sugar plantations. The
foreign demand for raw cotton pro-
duced in this country, together with the
home consumption, requires a crop Of
over $1,000, 900 bales and the specula-
tive boom in the cotton market during
the last two years, forcing up the price,
and the failure to gather a considerable
portion Of the crop, have led the Ian
cashire cotton manufacturers in Eng
, land, and those in Germany, to redouble
their efforts to become independent of
this country.
In view Of the movement of southern
planters in Texas, Louisiana and other
southern states to employ Italian labor,
the italian ambassador at Washington,
Signor Edmondo DIES Planches, last year
began to investigate the trend Of i'm
migration Of his countrymen, and deter.
mined to seek a new and better outlet
for their activities than the congested
tenement-house districts of northern
cities afforded, and he will. personally
examine southern conditions at an early
date. It is said a Sicil.an laborer can
make 81 clear where a negro makes 81,
and can live IN what a negro would
waste. Some of them now in Louisiana
after four years. work, have acquired
small farms at $40 to $50 an acre an6
are doing we'll. It is probable that, il
there had been an Italian line Of steam
ers from Italian ports to New Orleans
Galveston and other southern ports
there would now be a strong tide of i'm
migration Of the kind into the southern
states. AS it is, the Italians are usual
" dumped upon New York, and ge
what work they find to hand and thos,
who go to the mines generally fail, lik'
the tenement-house jewellers, to ACQUIRE
homes of their own, and, when they la,
up soma money, 60 back to Italy t.
spend it.
AS southern planters have themselve
taken the initiative in the substitution
Of italian for negro agricultural labor
they will have none to blame but them
selves, if the results are not altogethe
to their liking. If italian i%mmigratio.
southwark begins strongly, and is large
" diverted from the northern cities an
states, it will not be long before tn
white element Of the southern state
will ~overshadow the blacks sufficient
to remove the silly p~retense of souther
!. politicians that the whites are distress
ingly menaced by black domination
ever after they have bound and gage