The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1907-02-17
MENACE OF ALIEN TOILERS
Thousands of Europeans Return
After Making Small Fortune.
international Tramp Product of
Cheap Ocean TraHsPortatlOn-LOw
Standard of Living.
From the Philadelphia Press.

From the Philadelphia Press
Cheap ocean passage. high wages on
one side Of the Atlantic. and a low cost
Of living on the other have created the
international tramp. Nearly SJ0001 men
and women. much the larger share being
men. return from this country yearly 70
Europe They have come over 10 the
United States, and they have worked for
"a longer or shorter time. sometimes only
for a single season. They have made
enough To- live for a few months In idle
ness under the cheap conditions Of South
italy Of Hungary, OF GaIIicia, or some
other of the lands in Eastern and South
ern Europe from which our present i'm
migration is drawn. They straightway
n urn 10 live in idleness until they can
z gain come 20 this country TO begin work
4 high wages. but on a scale of life in
some contractors shack below even that
which would be accepted and permitted
ia their own land II they have been
longer in this country. sometimes only
six or eight years. they have often ac-
cumUlatcd enough by living with peuuri-
ous Indifference To their own health. the
standard Of life. or the good Of the COM
munity SO as 10 return 10 their original
home. They set up there as usurers in a
small way, as owners OF realty. or with
a small income from investments, with
which they exc out the little labor they
do.
These men. intending TO return. fiji con
tractors camps They throug the mines
In this and other States. They are pres
ent in cities. living in dire conditions.
which our health boards ia vain endeavor
10 improve. because they are dealing with
a floating population. They constitute
"a serious peril u every public interest.
In general. men unmarried. they often
sink 10 "a low personal life. Having
neither family nor children with them.
possessing no property here. and accu-
mulating none. as far as this country is
concerned, they are not taxed They
share the burdens Of neither land. they
pay no taxes here, though the Turkish
Greek. Italian. Hungarian, or Gallician
tax gatherer is prompt % get at them
as soon as they appear.
They are without interest I'm any real
progress in either country They eddy
back and forth, vast tide Of human
beings They dem0raIize life I'm every
region in Europe where they settle by
their idieuess and their excess. In Spain
committees are being organized to deal
with the floating migration. In parts Of
Hungary the Austrian papers report that
whole villages are rife with drunkenness
in consequence OF the idle returned Amer
lean Immigrant.
In Southern Italy, between the able
bodied man who does all his work in this
country and the man who has made a
little trifing sum on which he can live
who Will no longer work. Prof Nillari.
an Italian economist, reports that the
farming and simple manufacturing indus
tries of the region are in hopeless arrears
for labor.
Yearly this problem grows more seri-
Gus. 1t renders the detection OF crime
difficult in boti countries because these
men come and go without Identification.
Il gives contractors great masses of
labor which they use as il they were
machines, with complete absence Of re-
sponsihility II furnishes in this country
a body of at least 2,0C0C00 men, or actual
ly one-twelfth of our working male pop
ulatiOn, who have no roots in the soil IN
this country and no sense Of response
bility for their native land. TO which they
expect to return TO live in comparative
idleuCSS.