Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-19
BY JAMES w. ATKINS.

7 migrations. Many movements
of men, such as the flight OF a
Tartar tribe which left its trail
of bleaching bones in an unbroken
white line from the steppes Of Russia
to the gates of China. have been chron-
icled. Others have been of small mag
nitude and might have escaped the eye
of the historian.
Until the door was closed to them,
when the World War came on in 1914,
there had been for many years steady
migration of peoples from European
countries to America, the one country
in the world where, the foreigner
thought, money grew on trees. That,
however, was steady stream and
lacked the elements Of romance which
lowered over the covered wagon trains
to the West in the golden days OF 40
and following the Civil War.
Thousands in New Setting.
A modern migration. one that has
escaped the notice of present-day writ
ers, but which has exerted tremen-
dous influence upon modern industrial
life of the South, now so much in the
public eye, Is OF no small significance
in its bearing upon one phase OF Amer
lean life Though 1t has been a migra-
it has in some ways been such transit
ton that the people involved, removed
but few miles, have found themselves
in an entirely new world.
The result has been that thousands
of people of pure Anglo-Saxon lineage
living for 200 years or more in noun
tain Businesses, have been thrown into
a perplexing and complex industrial
life. The result is labor troubles, strikes
lockouts, murders and the injection OF
strange new doctrine of communism
which leaves the Immigrant in a stupor
That he will eventually work his way
out of this vortex of conflicting emo
tions and ideas and find himself seems
probable. How long the process OF
emergence will require cannot be fore
told. The background-good blood-is
there for foundation, though vitiated
by two centuries of poverty and strug-
gle with the elements for a bare exist
cnce in land that gave up its bounties
grudgingly.
Back of this migration lies the story
OF hydroelectric power, developed
on a large scale within the past few
years. Harvesting of the vast watel
power Of the southern Appalachian.
and the consequent growth of indus.
| trial communities, which was not pos.
| sible as long as power had to be gen
Grated from heat derived from Goa
shipped from distant mines, lies at TIT
bottom Of this migration.
Problems Far-Reaching.
Many complex, and as yet unsolved
| problems have grown out of this mi.
grafton. These range from crime Il
education, and with many in between
such as the rapid spread of that devas
tating disease, pellagra, and it's twir
destroyer, tuberculosis. Then there Il
the problem of enforced paternalism
with its attendant evils Of compan,
housing in company villages, the com
| munity physician, the communit,
: house, the community nurse, the com
| munity church and the community
everything; to say nothing of the ma
| jor problems Of long hours, low wages
night work and the employment o
women and children.
Attempts to remedy some Of these b
hastily enacted legislation have got tn
reformerS but short way on tn
| journey toward the goal.
Then there is the ever-present prob
lem of prohibition The Southern
| mountatneer is q moonShiner by in
stinct, If not always by practice. Fo
generations his ancestors have mad
and sold whisky. They believed the,
had right to do so. For generation
| no one dared dispute that right The,
raised the apples, peaches, corn ant
rye. But that is only incidental to tn,
present topic.
In the early days Of the eighteenth
| century, when all Of America excep
portions Of the Atlantic seaboard, wa!
| virtually wilderness, thousands o.
| immigrants came to the southern Ap
palachians. They blazed their way int
the mountains. They were pioneers
| had gazed upon the glories of the hun.
| dreds of towering peaks of the Great
Smokes.
Emigrated From Britain.
They came mostly from England
Scotland and Ireland. They were q
sturdy folk, people of the middle elias:
in so far as there was a middle class
In the British Isles of that day. Mostly
they had been tenant farmers, garden
ers and laborers, who had managed
to free themselves from English land
lords.
To Jamestown and Tidewater, Va.
Maryland and the Carolina coastal
plains had come the cavalier, the DASH
ing English adventurer, in search OF
great landed estates, of manorial homes
ease and luxury. He brought with him
indentured white men who had been
imprisoned In England for debt or who
had criminal records. These were to
work his landed estates and minister to
his domestic wants. They were vir-
tually slaves.
To the Blue Ridge Mountains of the
Southern Appalacians came this other
class of immigrants-men of little
means, but with desire to penetrate a
new-found country and to find elbow
room and freedom from the restraints
that had hedged them about in the old
country.
They found q country Of vast
stretches, though a great portion of it
was perpendicular. or almost so. They
found virgin forests of almost unlim-
tied extent, where roamed the mountain
bear and lion, deer, wild turkey. fox
and all Of the smaller wild life in in
exhaustible abundance.
The Indian had probably roamed
these mountain regions for hundreds
of years. living of the game which his