Los Angeles herald., 1907-12-16
INFLUX OF ALIENS
LEADS TO BOYCOTT
Complaint as to Treatment of Imni-
qranto Causes Austria to Put
Mississippi on the
Black List

WASHINGTON, D. c., Dec. 15.-Just at
the present time the state department is
wrestling with an immigration question
which is infinitely more important to this
country than the little difference with
Japan about school facilities in San Fran
CISCO 1t involves the treatment of Euro
pean immigrants who go to the southern
states.
A serious effort has been made by Off
cials of the southern commonwealths to
turn the tide of European immigration in
that direction. For time there was
marked success. Then there was delay
and difficulty owing to some extraor-
dinary constructions of the immigration
laws by Attorney General Bonaparte.
Now the commissioner of immigration
and his associates are confronted by a
new feature which bids fair to put an
end to the entire movement of immigrants
from Europe to southern states.
Warned Against Mississippi
Reports have come from many widely
separated localities regarding the per-
sistent i'll treatment in one way or an
other of these immigrants The storm
center is Mississippi, which under a
unique rule of Governor Vardaman has
invited federal prosecution for peonage
and at the same time has stirred up two
or three European governments so that
ban by official proclamation in one in
stance, and other European nations from
which immigration is heaviest to the
United States are prepared to follow suit.
If the only result was to turn Europe
ans away from Mississippi, no particular
harm would be done, but reports received
here show that this state has given the
whole south black eye from which 1t
may never recover
al 70 no 10
to the state department on behalf of the
government of Austria-Hungary explain
ing that it had been found necessary to
send official notices throughout the en-
pire and kingdom notifying intending i'm
migrants that the state of Mississippi had
treated subjects of the emperor so badly
that he felt constrained to advise them to
seek other fields of labor within the
United States. The Austro-H Hungarian
government has officially boycotted the
state of Mississippi 1t has done this only
after repeated protests regarding the
treatment of its people there.
There has been of late an enormous
movement to the United States from the
southeastern provinces of Europe. Many
prosperous Hungarians and Austrians
have come to this country. The move
ment became so large at one time that
the bureau of immigration sent an Of
uC6T W BUDAPEST elio iAASob " AhNCSli-
gate conditions there.
Within the last two years or so agents
from various immigration boards of the
southern states have penetrated into the
Hungarian provinces and have traversed
Italy from one end to the other. They
have not sought nor encouraged new i'm
migration, but endeavored instead to di-
vert the stream already setting toward
the United States from the cities of the
North Atlantic seaboard to the agricul-
tural and manufacturing sections of the
south. These agents met with a great
deal of success. They painted conditions
/ In the south in the rosiest of colors, and
as they were generally prepared to ad-
| vance passage money decided stream
/ of foreigners soon set in toward the
sunny south.
| Hardly had they landed before COM
plants began to come in regarding their
treatment The government of Austria
Hungary and Italy soon began to hear
from those who were left at home. These
relatives received letters from the pio-
neers in the south and in almost every
case statements made were Of a most
unfavorable character. At first the COM
plant was that foreigners were not treat
ed fairly. Neither Hungarians nor Ital-
ians expected much in the way of social
recognition, but the landed proprietors
persisted in treating them exactly as they
treated negroes.
| Little attention was paid to these early
complaints because it was felt that first
comers to any country always find 1t diff
fcult to adjust themselves to their new
surroundings. The Austro-Hungarian and
Italian, governments, therefore. laid the
complaints aside in the belief that they
would soon die out.
Instead of THAI complaints from new
settlers in the south have steadily grown
In volume and in gravity. First of all
Europeans claimed the southern immigra-
ton commissioners had evidently exceed
| ed their authority. That is to say, they
made promises which the state authori-