Show Put Immigrants on the Farms While we Se reJin in Jin In America are complaining about the high cost of living one day and trying to solve the immigration problem the next we seem to be overlooking the most sensible solution of both puzzles By placing the immigrants on n our undeveloped and non- non producing farm lands we would cease worrying about their future in America and the tIle increased supply of food produced by them would naturally help reduce our cost of living Lajos Steiner Steiner- has an illuminating article on this very subject in the American Review of Reviews Most 1 of the immigrants have been tillers of the he soil in the old country declares Mr Steiner The They r have been landless peasants but good farmers and their greatest ambition has been to own their own land and be called independent It is impossible for the European farm peasant to save enough out of his wages in his lis native land to purchase a home but he hears the glowing tales of prosperity across the seas He comes to America not America not to buy a home but to save enough money to buy buya a little tract of land in his native country He has heard nothing of farming conditions in America He has heard only of the high wages paid for labor And an inquiry at any postoffice will show how he and his brothers send back to Europe all their savings The immigrants live frugally in America They are willing to exist most any way in crowded places because they are ever dreaming of better times back home when they have saved enough American money to make a showing H in m the native land Too often the thc immigrants and their families after struggling and denying themselves many mere comforts of life return to toI I Europe pay exorbitant sums for a little land and in the end fail Then they return to America but without t the hope they had before If t there ere was as some some way of helping those farm laborers to find suitable land Jand and homes in the vast undeveloped tracts of the West Vest they would would be made happy they would become good and useful citizens and the entire nation would he be benefited Utah could profit wonderfully by a more extended colonization s system with some provision for farm loans to help the home- home seeker from abroad Now asks Mr 11 Steiner why not go about placing peasant farmers on American land Jand 1 It Ii can be doi dOric done comments the Indianapolis News but it requires private devotion de to public development Here is an opportunity I f for some rich man roan to aid in colonizing work work work-a a scheme of placing immigrant families ies on the farms to which they aspire i and at ai the same time helping to train them in American citizen- citizen ship We rYe could have better people were something like this done 1 instead of letting the immigrant shift for himself or trying to teach him in the settlement schools Mary Iary Antin the g gifted ted writer riter of The Thc Promised Land Land who herself was once a Russian immigrant pointed out the need for sympathy in ou our dealings J I I with the immigrant There could be no kindlier or more substantial sub- sub sympathy than that which helps a man to help himself Pl Place ce suitable immigrants on farms and we as a country not 1 be long in realizing the results |