Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1907-02-07
AMERICAN MICH COW
SHE is DRAINED FOR THE BENE-
FIT OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
Enormous Sums of Money Sent Each
Year by Foreign-Born Wage Earn
ers in the United States to Needy
Relatives in Old Countries.

Relatives in Old Countries
The extent to which the American
milch cow is drained for the benefit of
foreign countries is made the subject of
an interesting editorial in the New
York Tribune. 1t would certainly seem
that she is furnishing milk for all ere
alton in increasing quantities. The
American Economist has already shown
that in the fiscal year ending June 80,
1906, the huge sum of $63, 041 SGT went
out of the United States in the shape
of postsl money orders payable abroad,
and that the total of such orders issued
in the seven fat protection years, 1900
to 1906, inclusive, was S249, 14S,OS2,
against total of S112, 5S6,5S5 for the
inclusive, years made leaner by free
trade tariff legislation. Attention was
also drawn to the fact that with the
addition OF money mailed in registered
letters, in express money orders and in
ba * drafts of small amounts the total
sent back to Europe by our foreign born
wage earners would probably not fall
far short of S100O0O,o0O in 1906.
From figures published by the Aus
tro-Hungarian Colonial Society. it APP
pears that in 1908 the remittances of
-AuStrians and Hungarians settled in
america amounted to S33 100000 while
The gross value of Hungarian
exports TO America in the same year
amounted to only 100000. 1t thus
falls out that the poorly paid workers
of Continental Europe yield a far great
er profit TO their former home countries
after emigrating to the United States
than If they had never emigrated.
1t is, moreover, true as the Tribune
points out, that considerable percent
age of our immigrants remain in this
country only long enough to accumu-
late savings that will enable them to
go back and spend the remainder OF
their lives in the mother land. All
told, the money RENTED abroad and
the money carried abroad by returning
wage earners must amount to rather
formidable sum each year.
This sum must then be added to the
already great bulk of our foreign fixed
charges, such as payments to foreign
steamship companies for carrying
American passengers and freights, es-
timated at $200,0OO,O00 year, the in
terest and dividends on foreign invest
t. {a@ fhn
sums spent abroad by American tour
lists. When all these items of outgo
are footed up they reach total so
great as to seriously affect the ques-
ton Of national debts and credits.
They demonstrate the absolute neces-
sity of protection trade balances aver
aging $500,0OO00O a year, representing
our excess of exports over IMPORTS
If we bought where we sold, as the
free traders and ''reformers" would
have us do; if we entered upon the
system of increasing our foreign trade
through the acceptance Of larger i'm
ports in payments for our exports If,
for example, our $1,75O, 100000 of sales
abroad were Cancelled by $1,75O,OO0,OOO
of purchases abroad, how would we
then meet our foreign fixed charges of
at least $40O,000,0OO year? We could
not meet them except by running into
debt deeper and deeper through bond
issues to cover annual deficits.
AS the case now stands, our protec
ton trade balance is ample to take care
of our foreign liabilities and leave
something over with which to buy back
American securities held abroad. In
stead of going deeper into debt, as
would inevitably be the case if we did
not restrict competitive imports by a
protective tariff, we are gradually pay
ing our debts owed abroad, while at
the same time enormously increasing
our wealth at home.
The Tribune proposes no remedy for
the heavy outflow of American money
in the form of remittances abroad by
wage earners of foreign birth. Nor do
we know of any way to prevent foreign
ers from coming here and earning big
wages and sending them back to Eu-
rope, unless it be by restricting immi-
grafton or prohibiting it altogether. In
the present condition Of the labor mar
ket, when three jobs are looking for
two men, that remedy does not seem
feasible.
Yes; there is another remedy. Re
wise the tariff downward; approach a
free trade basis; reduce prices Of COM
modities; reduce wages, and the $780,
100000 of annual remittances abroad
by American wage earners will rapidly
dwindle to one-quarter of that sum. or
less. The tide Of immigrants seeking
work will also fall away. But that,
too, is a remedy which all excepting
free traders and 'reformers'' will
shrink from applying. So it would
seem that the American cow must con-
tinue to give milk to all mankind. For
tunately, through protection to Ameri-
can labor and industry, the COW has
enough and to spare.