New-York tribune., 1918-05-25
Imported Strife
TO the Editor of The Tribune.


To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: Mrs. Rose Pastor Stokes says, "For
twelve years / was half-naked, ill-nour-
ished and poorly clad. / worked by night as
well as by day to help piece out my fam
ily's existence. / never had anything +
wanted" Allowing for customary rhetori-
cal exaggeration, we may suppose the state
ment to be true of the class of people to
which Mrs. Stokes belongs 1t would not
be true Of an American young girl. The
conditions she complains Of were imported
conditions. They are no longer existent
Hundreds of thousands like Mrs Stokes
arrived in this country in droves, steeped
in ignorance and superstition and pro-
foundly distrustful of actual Americans.
They segregated themselves and were ex-
plotted cunningly and unscrupulously by
their own people
New and unAmerican conditions were
thus created by people who were un-Ameri-
can. Sweatshops and tenement house con-
tract labor had eventually to be suppressed
by American legislation. AS the younger
immigrants Of this class grew up and found
liberty of expression they had better memo
ries of the sweatshop iniquities, but made
the mistake Of blaming America and Amer-
cans for the evil conditions.
They had suffered from disease they
brought with them, and yet Mrs Stokes
and agtators of her people, not vet fully
developed in Americanism, are so unntell-
gent as to blame America and Americans
for the results of the disease. They seek to
wreck the Americanism which made it pos
slbie IN due time to prohibit sweatshop
lnlquities Most of US remember the fearful
howls with which Mrs. Stokes's own people
greeted the reform laws which destroyed
the sweatshop. They protested against the
salutary application of Americanism to the
very thing that ensaved them In the
sweatshop era they invaded certain indus
tries. and in every instance they degraded
them. The policy of the cxploiters of
Mrs. Stokes's people included shoddy pro-
ductlon and price cutting. Those who in
such industries were conforming to Ameri-
can principles of industrial Justice were
many of them driven out of the popular
markets.
Other races of immigrants went through
the same experience, but not so acutely
or extensively did the Russian Jews. We
remember the segregations of the Irish and
Germans before the coming of Italians.
Hebrews and Greeks. Within twenty years
l have visited factories in the Eastern Dis
trict of Brooklyn, owned by Germans, in.
which the majority of the mechanics could
not speak English. There were then, and
there may be now, districts in Williams
burg IN which very few persons could sneak
English. This condition was encouraged
by exploiters, whose aim was to secure
labor, skilled and unskilled, below the price
of real American labor. These districts
were dangerous to America solely because
they were un-Amercan.
Is 1t not necessary to keep these facts in
mind and to vigorously object to the SLAM
ders of America, which halfway Americans
such as Mrs. Stokes, continue to utter.
despite the fact that the American spirit
has made it very difficult in this last decade
II not for longer period for employers to
exploit employees?
was myself an immigrant. I came to
New York forty years ago a youth alone
with less than $50 in my pocket No one
ever attempted to oppress me. Everywhere
l had a square deal, but no mollycoddling.
At times l was hard up and twice l went
real hungry-"busted," and nothing to eat in
|. sight. But always worked for Americans.
and Americans are not oppressors Ameri-
cans helped me to become an American. as
they have helped Mrs. Stokes and folks of
that llk to emerge from slavery imposed
upon them by their own people, not vet
american. And now, is. it not disgraceful
that, because of race-made bad conditions
now abolished, SO many of these people. led
by Mrs. Stokes, giving aid and comfort
to our enemy and weakening our defence of
the liberty which existed here before thew
came here, exists now if one has the spirit
to recognize and accept it, and will con-
tlnue to exist when the not Improbable
occupation of disloyal agitation has ceased
10 De prohtable! H. L. B.
Jersey City, N. j., May %, 1913.