The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1907-10-30
A Pueely Social Problem.

ana now the distribution Shall be ac-
complished are questions now to the
fore. Recently cabin passenger on a
steamer from Europe made a speech to
several hundred immigrants on board,
essaying to give them advice as to
where to go after they landed Twen-
ty years ago he was steerage pas
senger himself, as ignorant and be-
wildered in the face of the new world
as any of his hearers. He told them
to shun cities and head for tire farm
lands of the middle vest
For those who were ready for it the
advice of the man who had ''been there
himself" was good. But one can inn
agine thai few scores or hundreds of
his hearers would have been glad for
heart to heart talk and IL little more
detail. He spoke just as Il capitalist
interested in cheap labor in his section.
might speak, and a politician wishing
to boom the voting population of his
state would have said amen to that.
tion the capitalists and politicians have
their own ends to serve, and these ends
are not always for the good of the inn
migrant or for the community which is
to receive him. The capitalist will not
care what the immigrant does with his
money after he gets it or what manner
of life he takes up. The same with the
politician With one boom in immi-
grafton means little more muscle,
with the other few more votes.
But the society to be affected by the
influx of foreign element is vitality
interested in what the newcomers do
with their money and how they de-
means themselves. Thus the question
becomes one in which the agents of a
clean civilization and healthy civic
progress are vitality interested. The
minister. the teacher, the editor and ev-
cry father and mother of growing fam
lilies has Il duty to perform before an
Ignorant and miSinformed contingent
swoops down upon the community. A
writer in the. current Atlantic under
takes to sketch roughly three classes
of immigrants now seeking America.
The most common class is those who
do not intend to work. Next largest
is the class who look for high wages
and easy work." and the smallest class
comprises those who have been driven
to this haven by poverty or oppression
and will do any work. that comes to
hand. In the first class this writer
cites the case of two girls who came
over expecting to find gold in the
streets. They positively refused to
work, although they We're nearly starv-
ing.
No community not smitten with the
census making, craze would want to re-
cruit it's numbers from the first two
classes named above. Their kind are
too numerous in America already. And
the only way by which a community
can recruit from the third class is for
the lovers of good order and decent
citizenship to intercept them some
where on their blind pilgrimage and
guide them where they are wanted and
where they will find helping hands.
In the London Academy, a journal
which is noted for it's lack of love of
things American, a writer speaks of
the horrible body of death, decay and
wickedness which is called the United
States of America Dear me! We
knew we We're getting to be pretty
bad, but, as Artemus Ward used to
say, "this is 2, mutch' Perhaps if the
writer, who says many other hard things
about America, We're to come over and
take another good, square look ut us
he might find that things are not so
bad after all. He ought to remember
that despite our recent enormous i'm
migration most of our institutions as
we'll as our language are based on
those of "Mother England
Along with their other troubles our