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Show icon ed Shortage of Unskilled Workers Work-ers Alarms Some Speakers at New York Conference GROUP WANTS MORE FOREIGNERS TO COME j Secretary Meredith Wants i Aliens to Move from City to Nation's Farms NEW YORK, April 7. The first national immigrationionference ever , held in America began here today to discuss naturalization and immigration immigra-tion laws, shortage of labor, the exodus exo-dus of immigrants from America and the cause of unrest among tho foreign-horn, foreign-horn, with a view to formulating recommendations rec-ommendations to congress. The meet- ; ing was under the auspices of tho in- ter-racia) council of New York, and ' , delegates included representatives of 5 thirty racial groups and spokesmen . I for industry, agriculture, capital and 1 labor. :' William U. Barr, president of the inter-raoia council and spokesman tor Industry"' 'aid General -Coleman Du-j( Du-j( jw n t .v chp.li;maiv .tgfthQerLlpajnd.o f-Oi' 't Vectors of- the Inter-racial" council, I opened the meeting. A statement prepared pre-pared by E. T. Meredith, secretary of agriculture, was read. "America is -1,000,000 men short as as a result of the dwindling of immigration immi-gration since the war," General Du-pont Du-pont said. "Thousands of immigrants are going back. Other countries are making organized efforts ef-forts to attract immigration. The L'ni-. L'ni-. led States is not. "The indiscriminate denunciation I of the foreign-born, which has been i taking place in America, is resulting i in many of them leaving this country, j It Is resulting also in growing misun-l misun-l derstandlngs between -native and for-;eign-born residents and in a general J demoralization of industrial and so- oial llfo." j' The immigrant no longer will come I to America to enjoy freedom of wor-, wor-, ship or right of free speech, but the "impelling reason will bo economic," Mrs. Burr said. Prosperity In Balance. "Our permanent national prosperity depends upon sound production, and one of its essential features is a suffi-, suffi-, eient supply of unskilled workers. . For years It is the labor-of i the immigrant that has supplied this need." Secretary Meredith's statement outlined out-lined tho work of the department of agriculture and with reference to immigration im-migration and the farm labor problem . said: ; "Many thousands of immigrants I who came from farms in their homo I country and are real lovers of the soil, j have been sidetracked in our great 1 1 cities. Large numbers or j our discontented elements can .be 1 1 transformed into contented agricultural agricul-tural workers if ibpy are told how to" Psmako the right move." |