Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1913-12-25
Old TFORLU IN THE NEW.

"Whon capital plays lord of the uun.or, the Old World
furnishes the -rrr~, writes Prof. E. Rows in the Century.
just as the homestead policy oVerstinuuaoel the growth Of
farms, the new Immigration has over, mated the growth
Of the factories. The system which allows the manufac-
turr to buy at a semi European wagc much Of the labor
that he converts into goods to sell at "u American price
has been maintained as the protection oi American labor.
In certain contrrs, immigration laboror~ form, as it were,
visible living pools from which the employer can dip as he
needs. Why should he smooth out hi work evenly thru
the year in order to keep IA labor force composed Of family
men with local roots when he can alwa\ take on 'ginnincs'
and drop them without conjunction The price Of farm
produce has risen much faster and further than the price
of other commodities. This is the IiyIl cost of livine,'
and it is immigration that has mad this imp shoot ~,
faster in the United States than anywhere else. With the
lnswcep Of the unintellige1lt b%unk-hou~" foreigner, there
grows up a driving and a cursing Of labor that no self
respecting American will endure. Nor can he bear to be
despised as the foreigner is. 1t is not tn" work or the pay
that he minds, but the stigma. But for the endless stream
Of transicnts, with their pigsty mod of life, their brawls
and their animal pleasures, the stigma ON the work would
vanish, and the son of the immigrant would be willing to
inherit his fathers job. 1t is nearly a generation since
the stress, registered in the labor market, caused the Brit
ish workingmen to fight shy Of America. 1t is twenty years
since it reached the point at which the German workingman
ceased to hope to better himself much by migrating to
America. AS the saturation Of or labor market by cheap
Ell human beings raises the pressure gauge, we ceased to
attract as OF yore such peoples as the north Italians and
the Magyars. In 1898 few came to US from east of Hun
gary. Now we are receiving them from Asiatic Turkey,
Circassia, Syria and Arabia. An immigration has started
up from Persia, and conditions are ripe for a heavy influx
from western Asia. Nevertheless, certain of the South
Europeans who are upon the soil have something to show
American farmers facing the problems Of intensive farm
ing. Italians are teaching their neighbors how to extract
three crops a year from a soil already nourishing orchard
or vineyard. The Portuguese raise vegetables in their wal
nut groves, grow currants between the rows of trees in the
orchard and beans between the currant rows. They know
how to prevent the splitting of their laden fruit trees by in
ducing a living brace to grow between opposite branches.
The black beetle problem they solve by planting tomato
slips inclosed in paper. From the slopes looking out on
the Adriatic the Delmatian brings a horticultural cunning
which the American fruit grower should be eager to ac-
quire. The conversion of New Jersey barrens into berry
farms, vineyards and pepper fields, the reclamation of muck
soil in western New York, which Americans were not will
ing to touch, the transmutation of wild OZARK lands into
apples and peaches, are Italian exploits which constitute
grant farmers whose labors count on the wrong side of the
national ledger. Not a few Slav colonies are clearing and
tilling land so poor or SO steep that it ought never to have
been brought under the pillow. The soil they have defor-
ested will presently wash into the rivers, leaving stripped
rocky slopes to grin, like a Death head, in the landscape.
The nation will have to pay for it, just as France paid for
the reckless ak work that went on under the First Republic.
COMMENTS ON THE MESSAGE.
For the past two weeks, comments have been made in