The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-23
FARM COLONIES FOR ITALIANS
Plans Tn Behalf of Returning Emgrants- for Checking Tuberculosis Climate Disagrees
 With Italians
By coNTEssA LIST cIpRIANI

frxc,,sive Service The Survey Press
 Bureau.)
 Senator Villari, in an article published ,acantlv in the Corriere della Sera of Milan. Italy, suggests the formation of a syndicate to buy up land with the pur- nose of selling It again at cost to the returning emgrant This, he thinks, would stop the undue exploitation of those emigrants who after years of hard ships return to Italy with a small capital with which to buy homestead. Now they often have to buy poor land at triple it's value, and finding it impossible to cul- tivate it with sufficient profit, they are compelled to sell it to the man from whom they bought at such a price as to entirely lose their hard earned savings.
 If the welfare of the returning Italian i emigrant demands that they be protected in any attempt to enter upon agricultural pursuits in their own country, where they understand the language, public welfare in the United States demands 1t no less It is imperative that large numbers Of southern emigrants, by no means Italians alone, should be induced to leave the city and take up agricultural pursuits, put It IS also imperative Indl d llltilteu huihpCi of them, particularly Italians. should have every facilitation when returning to agrarian occupations in their own coun- try.
 The congestion of population, the low standard of living due to insufficient wages, and the natural difficulties of ac- climatization in the rigid northern climate, , have resulted in deterioration of the race which demands effective curative and preventive measures. As every em- igrant who has resided in this country more than three years becomes. in case of illness, a burden to this country. the amazing figures furnished by the inyesti- gations of the committees for the preven- tion of tuberculosis suffice to prove the need of concerted and strenuous effort. Dr. Antonio Stella of New York city says: "The proportion of Italian con- sumptives returning to Italy in 1903 was 292 per thousand, in 1904, .75; in 1906, 5.6f per thousand. But this average is far be- low the real condition, because it only takes account of the very advanced bed ridden cases among steerage passengers. isolated in the ship hospital, who consti- ute a small fraction indeed, as compared to the large army of those in the incip- lent or moderately advanced stages, and those travelling second or first cabin. From what I have heard and seen l am ready to venture the statement that funy 50 per cent of the second-cass passengers are suffering from tuberculosis in some form or other, and during certain seasons, and on certain cheap lines, the percent age may be still higher
 To these appalling figures may be added the no less impressive statement that last year the Committee for the Proven tion of Tuberculosis in New York city found 10000 cases which had not been re- ported at any of the various institutions which treat tuberculosis patients. And when we consider that a bed for an adult in a hospital for tuberculosis can cost no less than s4000, while the place of d child in the childrens hospitals treating the various diseases of the bones which tu berculosis causes, costs $S000, the material interest of the more fortunate classes in the United States in bettering conditions is easily brought home even to the least philanthropically inclined. For all im-