New-York tribune., 1921-06-19
phoy dsapprope phat death right
Pioneer and Immigrant
Let Newcomers Prove Their Mettle
as Did the Early Settlers

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: Some months ago some one, I
think it was Congressman said that
all Americans were immigrants, differ
ing from those who are now pouring
across the Atlantic. from Central
Europe only in the matter Of time.
That statement rankles.
The pioneer came to America, like
the immigrant, to better himself, to
make his condition of life higher than
it was in the country of his birth
not necessarily easier, but on plane
above that to which he was bound in
the land he left.
The pioneers were not always fine
gentlemen, as Virgnians and Mary
landers are prone to believe. They
were not all of gentle birth. The vari-
Gus companies which made a business
of exploiting America were hard nut to
it for pioneers at times, and the jails
and slums were raked for material with
the new land. Felons and debtors and
those who saw no hope under condi-
tions which obtained were drafted into
the little army that trickled by twos
and threes to the English seaports to
embark upon cockleshells for the un-
known country that awaited them.
But within the breasts of those that
boarded those cookie shells glowed the
spark which blazed until it lighted the
whole world 1t sent four million
Americans to France and disdained re-
ward which might have tarnished
altruism.
Those pioneers found a wilderness
peopled with savages whose warwhoops
made the night hideous. They fought
in blockhouses against tremendous
odds. They and their women labored
and fought and lived and bred Amer
leans to carry on. They started at
jamestown, Plymouth Rock, New AM
sterdam, Baltimore and hung on with
the tenacity of desperation until they
had gained a foothold in new world
With the facility of new communi-
ties the first settlements overcame
their feeling of being outposts of civil
ization and became the bases of fresh,
adventure. The frontier was carried
to the Blue Ridge, to the Ohio, to the
Mississippi The Lewis and Clarke
expedition blazed the trail through the
Nd
trail became beaten path for prairie
argosies of commerce. The Forty
miners stormed California and the
cattle barons made Texas and the cow
boy synonyms for romance and ad-
venture.
All these were pioneers and they
made America.
To-day Europe is pouring forth q
stream the individual units of which
hope, like the pioneer of red-blooded
days, to better their condition. But
not by labor and hardship and courage.
The immigrant has had enough of labor
and hardship, his courage, perhaps,
has departed. He has heard the
stories of high wages and short hours,
and he wants them for himself His
first idea is to accumulate, to pile up
wealth, either that he may return to
the country from which he came to
continue his life in ease, or to estab-
lish some business in which he may
employ his brethren who follow after
him.
There sno occasion for barring i'm
migrants. Let them come in freely,
but make them come as pioneers.
There are in America to-day millions
of untitled acres waiting for the plow,
there are waste places to be made pro-
ductive, which will provide livings for
millions of immigrants. There are
swamps to be reclaimed and deserts
to be irrigated. There are the CHASTITY
remains OF the forests to be replanted.
There is work in America for millions
and America needs those millions.
Let Congress demand that the i'm
migrant be pioneer and fight for the
better conditions which he desires.
Make it requisite that he 90 to the
farms, the deserts, the swamps and the
waste places, where he may prove his
mettle and wage his battle against the
elements and nature and deserve the
reward which came to the pioneers of
America. N N
Baltimore, Md, June II, 1921.