The new era. (Walden, Colo.) 1906-19??, 1907-10-03
Great PROBLEM
OF IMMIGRATION
THE WEST is LOSING THOU
SANDS OF DESIRABLE cITI.
zENs EACH YEAR.
SETTLEMENT BUREAU
GENERAL PLAN HERE OUTLINED
WHEREBY THE WEST MAY
BE SPEEDILY SETTLED.

I 30 paramount has become the prob
lem of immigration in the Great West
that we believe the suggestion OF Will
liam X. McAllister, general agent Of
the Southern Pacific railroad, made be-
fore the recent Irrigation Congress will
be of vast interest at this time. Mr..
McAllister is a Colorado man, with
headquarters in Denver. In part he
said:
Mr.. President and Gentlemen of the
Fifteenth National Irrigation Con-
gress: l am to address you as intelli-
gently and comprehensively as may.
utes, on the important question Of the
Settlement of Irrigated Lands and
because of the short time allowed me
/ must of necessity proceed to the heat
OF the argument at the very beginning
and without the formally Of a few in
troductOry remarks
On immigration.
"Over 100000 immigrants arrived
from Europe during the fiscal year
ending June 80, 1906, and there seems
TO be no indication of a decrease. This
immigration is harmful only when the
immigrants are allowed to remain in
the congested cities of the East. We
can not look upon the proposed arbi-
trary restriction of immigration to a
fixed number for years with favor,
says Frank P. Sargent, United States
commissioner of immigration" as re-
ported in Jewish Outlook. Continuing,
Mr.. Sargent says: Such measure
would be decidedly injurious in pros
porous times when an unlimited
amount of labor is required At pres
ent the demand for labor is unprece-
denied and no employer would thank
the government for shutting down the
supply.
Shortage Of Labor.
"It is estimated that the United
States is short 100000 common labor
ers, and this shortage Is menace to
the prosperity of our manufacturing
Industries, who depend upon the COM
mon labor of the country for their raw
material.
But some pretend to see great
danger threatening the government in
the fact of almost unrestricted immi-
grafton which allow the criminal class
to come into our country and settle in
the larger cities. They believe 1t is Il
menace which we can not overcome
unless a corresponding class of home
makers and home-owners shall be
brought into the country to Offset and
counteract the influence of the Grim
inal class.
at has been said that immigration
from southern Europe is fast making
this country hotbed and focus OF
criminal activity and that the bulk
of immigration from southern Europe
is strongly impregnated with those
who belong to such societies as the
Mafia,' the 'Hunchkist,' and the Black
Hand
This idea has prevailed to such an
extent and the alarm become so wide
spread that over a year ago the De
partment of Labor sent ten special
agents abroad to find out what other
governments are doing to induce emf
grafton to this country of their unde-
sirables.
II Emigration to Canada.
II Another feature of this problem is
the loss to the Middle West by emigra-
ton to Canada. 1t is stated that emf
grafton from the United States to Can
ada in 1896 was 40; in 1897, 712; in
1898, 919, and in 1906, 100000. Thirty
thousand have gone from Iowa in the
last year or two, and two carloads OF
emigrants from Colorado alone left
\ Denver in August and September,
1906, for western Canada. The situa-
ton has become so alarming that SEN
ators from Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas,
| California, and from other western
states have begun an attack upon our
homestead laws, hoping to stop the
exodus from those states to Canada.
! But it is not the homestead laws that
are responsible for this remarkable
trekking to the Canadian Northwest.
1t is their superior system of colonial
ton that is drawing from the United
i States, and not because their lands are
\ more productive or their laws more
+, liberal and just.
We should study the plans in oper-
alton by the Canadian government
very carefully, for the fact that 1907
900 Americans have left the Middle
West to settle in the Canadian North
west during the last ten years proves
beyond a doubt that our own system
| of colonization is far inferior to the
I Canadian system. However. the de-
populating of the states Of the Middle
West in order to settle the farm lands
of Canada is but little more deplor-
able than the depopulating of those
same states in order to settle our own
lands in the inter-mountain and Pacific
Coast regions, for 1t is not fair to the
state Of Iowa, for example. that we
draw from her prosperous agricultural
class in order to populate the states
|; further west. BY so doing we are
simply transferring in large measure
the wealth of the nation from one sec
ton to another and are not adding to
| the wealth of the West In the same de-
gree that we would add to its wealth
by the bringing into this country set
tiers from the better classes of north
| ern Europe.