The Donaldsonville chief., 1914-04-04
RIGHT ATTITUDE TOWARD Immigration.
Welcome, Stranger" Spirit Must be Developed, il
Louisiana is to Secure Her Share of New Citizens
and Outside Capital--State's Resources Marvel
GUS and Possibilities Unlimited.
By E. P GUEYMARD immigration Department T. P Raroa

By E. P. GUEYMARD, Immigrs
The time is opportune for a good,
healthy immigration into the state
of Louisiana. The advisability, even
the necessity of At, is being recog-
nized more and more every day. We
need it to develop the vast natural
resources of the state. Particularly
is this SO in the agricultural dis
tricts. Our thousands of acres of IN.
titled land, composed of the most
productive soil on earth, are clamor-
ing for willing and Intelligent hands
to work them. Our present semi-de-
pressed agricultural conditions, due,
in some parts, to the presence Of the
boil weevil, in others to the effect
of tariff legislation on one of the
principal industries, all coupled with
the scarcity of Intelligent and eff
cient farm labor and the ever in
creasing actual cost of negro gang
labor over large aereages, points to
return to the small farm privately
owned and privately titled.
The small farm means greater
number of land owners, and the num-
ber OF land owners can be increased
only by a good, healthy immigration
movement. The people now resid-
ing in the state will, it is true, en-
ter successfully this field of farm
enterprise and will adjust themsel-
yes to these new conditions, but
there are other reasons why a con-
certed movement should be made to
induce other people to come into the
state. The principal reason is that
our white agricultural population and
our more thrifty negro population is
not sufficient to occupy our vacant
lands. We have 28,o00,0O0 acres of
cultivable land and our rural popula-
ton is not more than 100000. Par
ticuiarly is this so on our soils that
are SO rich that small acreages are
sufficient to maintain rather large
families.
immigration is furthermore desir-
able, because on general principles
the mingling and mixing of popula-
tions from different. countries and eli
mates has in the history Of the world
been the beginning of new eras of
progress and prosperity, while the
nations that have been isolated have
been inclined to be dormant and stag
nant.
This is due, not only to the new
blood that changes the physical quail
tiles of people, but also because
with new people come new ideas, new
methods, new customs, which bring
on new changes that mean new pro-
gress. Furthermore, the importation
of new farmers, desirable and suit
able, would mean fresh inflow of
new capital.
All these things seem self-evident.
Then, why repeat them? Because
the idea is not generally understood
and even when understood is
not welcomed. There is often an
unreasoned sensitiveness in popula-
tions that live in long ablished COM
munities. They are inclined to cul-
tivate a spirit of exclusion, and
whether they individually own prop
erty or not get a fixed idea of fam
lily possession. They imagine that to
argue the necessity of new blood is
to accuse them of natural helpless
ness and incapaeity. They sometimes
have an unreasoned fear Of a strang-
er's prosperity which might contrast
too flagrantly with their own want
of success and might expose their
own defective methods. They fear
that if his progress is too consistent
that he might, by the right of the
strongest, dispossess them and their
posterity of what by some change of
fortune has fallen into their own
hands.
They place themselves accordingly
in an attitude of silent hostility. They
discourage the newcomer by underrat-
ing the prospects of success, by min
imizing the good points and exag
gerating the disadvantages of the
country in which he wishes to locate.
II they cannot discourage the new
conner because of his greater courage
and his closer perception of favor
able prospects, they sometimes resort
to silent ostracism in various and
sometimes devious ways.
They never figure on the new
conner as an added factor in produc-
ing his share Of prosperity or in
furthering a general well being that
must affect all the other members
of the community. They do not real
ize that no man benefiting others,
since no man or no one group of
men can monopolize all activities in
a community and that the success
full man must essentially, to live
and enjoy, share with his neighbors
his time, his talents and his money.
Such people blind themselves to their
own interests by selfishness and by
childish prejudice. Everything be-
comes suddenly consecrated, customs,
manners, local institutions put on a
halo that might be brushed away by
a foreign hand.
Now this is all prejudice, narrow
mindedness and these are not the
of a Wide-aWake and
people. It is the duty Of
the more intelligent members of a
community to disabuse such minds,
to broaden their views, to educate
them and to encourage and to foster
a more progressive and a more en-
lightened citizenship.
In what manner and to what ex-
At II Again.
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