The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1911-12-28
EYES THAT SEE NOT.

10 you ever Use your eyes
Do you take note of little things
things that seem. unimportant and
inconsequential?
Probably you don't aas much as
the seeming inconsequential things
that make the newspaper game a
fascinating one.
The other morning about seven
| -four corners" in Hammond waiting
for southbound street car. He was
queerly attired. He looked SO funny
to a little crowd of factory girls that
they were rude enough to laugh at
him He wore hobnailed brogans,
tight trousers. fiaring vest. which
looked as if it was made out of the
covering on the old lounge that stood
in the sitting room % years ago and
he had scarlet feather sticking out
of dinky little velvet hat. BY his
side in his gloveless hand he held a
| leather-hinged wooden trunk with a
rope handle and plastered with steer
age labels of transatlantic liner.
He was foreigner. Sfav was stamp
ed all over h4m. He was stranger
in Hammond. He was type.
| To the giggling factory girls he
meant nothing, but poor lost
Hunky' To the trained eye how
ever he meant a wonderful lot more.
The same sight may be seen in any
of the cities of the Calumet region
these days.
What does it mean2
| 1t means that the foreigner Is one
lof the great mobile labor vanguard
that will soon be hurrying to this
country from the Carpathians to
work in the mills and become swal-
lowed up in the great American
melting pot.
1t means that when he energies
from that maelstrom in a year or
two he won't be wearing a feather in
his cap, but he will be a dandified
American. naturalized. speaking the
argot of the street going to the saw
ings bank to draw out his money to
send for the lonely wife In far of
Austria and his chubby babe.
i But in all its significance his APP
pearance means far more than this.
He is a unit in the great economic
movement of industrial resumption
He means, that the tide has ebbed
I, = &c
shore. How many such dressed
foreigners as these with their odd
luggage have you seen coming into
1.-THE Calumet region cities during the
They have been emigrants not i'm.
migrants. Between January l, 1911
and November /, 1911 three hun
dred thousand of this mobile labor
D army. fitted back to Europe because
i there wasn't work for them The
merchants were hard hit by thi:
q human ebb. Hundreds left the Calu
T met region. Were they missed? ASH
your merchants.
This industrial hegira has started
from Italy, Austria, Hungary, Polant
and all of south eastern Europe
. These foreigners are coming becaus,
Y the demand for their brawny muscle
= is coming
+ With these strangers, are ais,
looming the semi Americans VIII,
) went back to the old country witt
: the wonderful tales CT America 70
e which they are again homesick
II Labor is becoming very mobile
a The ease and low cost of transporta
: ton. familiarity with the way an,
r the close touch of nations which
makes industrial conditions a sort o
. lpulsation, caused labor to come an,
n go. to flow like the tides, respondin
q to demand.
= So the fux of the thrifty who hav
J., savings for their passage and sur
F. plus for their lean days is begun. W
! should rejoice
And that lonely. puzzled feather
y hated foreigner with his cold re
h fists and his shabby queer trunk de
ID served to have reception committe
Sc and a brass band at the depot to mec
"a him because OF his economic i'm
lie portance. His presence at that stree
= corner was fraught with amazin
a. significance, even if the titterin
al factory girls didn't recognize it.