New Ulm review., 1908-11-25
STUDY OF ALIENS.
College Men Follow Immigrant
Trail to Its Beginning.
SCHEME OF THE Y. M. C. A.
Experience Of Students While Getting
First Hand knowledge of Slovac
Races In Europe-To Become Secre-
taries In Coal Mining Regions.


Races In Europe-To Become Secre-
taries In Coal Mining Regions.
Dr.. e. A. Steiner of Iowa college,
Grinnell, Ia, author of the most inter
esting books in print which give the
intimate story of the European immi-
grant to America, lately landed in
New York from Europe, where he led
a party of recent college graduates
from Texas to Pennsylvania in a
study of the immigrant in his home.
The men were sent out by the Penn
sylvania state committee of Young
Mems Christian associations to spend
a year abroad, on their return to take
positions as general secretaries of
Young Mems Christian associations in
the coal mining regions of that state.
Their trip became missionary jour
ney from the start. With their popu
lar songs and hymns, unbounded good
nature and unobtrusive interest in ev-
erybody, they made their influence
wholesomely felt. When on the streets
of Rotterdam a young man greeted
them with these words: "Boys, you
were godsend to me. l came on
board ship drunk after a terrible spree,
and 1 want to tell you that your life
in the steerage has made such an i'm
preston upon me that when l return
to the States I wish to join the Y M.
C. Al
Their plan was to discard railroads,
so they bought bicycles and wheeled
| up the Rhine and pedaled up the Car
pathian mountains to get into close
touch at the source with the vast
stream of humanity which is pouring
into their native land
Under the lead Of DR.. Steiner, who
| was born in Austria and commands
nearly dozen European languages
and dialects, the college "boys" stud
led the language, customs a1ei coun-
try, worked in the harvest fields and
gathered fruit in the orchards with
| the peasants, learned the villagers
folk songs in the evening and in their
| turn sang the college and church
| hymns. They found a friend in ev-
| cry returned immigrant, and the ma
tives to whom America was the
promised land'' received them with
| open arms. DR.. Steiner said that i'm
mediately when they learned that he
was European born they gave their
attention to the boys, the real Ameri
cans. They had for their schoolmas-
ters in mission school where they
| e,+O ~, -
slams, Lithuanians, Poles, Bohemians
and Jews, the very best type of men
whom they needed to know.
Commissioner Robert Watchorn con
siders this movement of the Y. M. c..
A. the most significant in it's possibili-
ties OF influence among the immi-
grants from Europe of any the or
ganization has undertaken. These
men will know the people with whom
they are to live and serve as secre-
taries of associations in the mining
| field of Pennsylvania. Other such
training expeditions directed by DR..
Steiner will undoubtedly follow. The
students will spend the balance of the
year in Europe with the Bulgarians,
Lithuanians, Austrians and in Italy,
from which countries come the great
er bulk of the immigrants to America.
The international and world commit
tees of the Y. NJ. c. A. are stationing
men at the great ports of debarkation
Of the old world, who are distribut-
ing literature about America and in
Productions Of the Y. NJ G. AS in
seventeen different languages-a part
in chain of influence beginning from
the distant interior towns and continu-
ing from the ports of sailing, possibly
including later trained association secre-
taries who will sail with the immigrants
in the steerage. Immigrants are now
met at the ports of New York, Montreal
Boston and Philadelphia by secreta-
ries and introduced to branch ..asso-