SLAVS ON SOUTHERN FARMS.

IMMIGRATION AND THE SOUTH'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

Already the native skilled and unskilled labor supply of the South is practically exhausted. In all sections mill, foundry, factory, and mine owners are clamoring for labor. This widespread industrial and commercial expansion which is taking place in the South has tended to depopulate our agricultural regions, and agricultural labor has become a serious problem in many communities.

The erection of iron and steel plants, sugar refineries, tobacco factories, railroad, power, and lighting plants, chemical and woodworking establishments, and the development of coal and iron mining has attracted the native white farmers and mountaineers from the small farms and remote rural districts to the industrial centers. The resulting urban development has also lured the negroes from the country to the cities, where they are annually growing less efficient as a dependable labor supply.

These sources are now no longer adequate to meet the rapidly increasing demands for industrial labor. In addition to this, the migration of the poor whites and negroes from the farms to the industrial communities and cities has, to a large extent, prevented an agricultural development commensurate with the industrial expan

sion.

While the poor whites have been more or less successful in the cotton mills and other industrial establishments and every indication is that they will in time become skilled workers, the negroes have proven a failure as industrial laborers, except in the coal and iron mines and in the roughest kinds of construction work. Realizing this, a few southern manufacturers have begun to encourage and assist an immigration of skilled and unskilled alien laborers.

The effect of the poor whites and negroes moving from the farms has been partly counteracted by the influx of farmers from the Northern and Western States, and by small groups of immigrants who are leaving the industrial centers of the North and Middle West to go on the land. Neither of these movements, however, is sufficient to meet the demand for industrial labor in the South, nor to people our millions of vacant acres. The future economic development of the South is therefore dependent on immigration.

PRESENT-DAY IMMIGRATION.

This being true it concerns us to know something of the present-day immigration.

Instead of the Dutch and Flemish, English, French, German, Irish, Scandinavian, Scotch, and Welsh home seekers of yesterday, the tide of immigration now casts upon our shores Slavs, Magyars, Greeks,

Russian Hebrews, north and south Italians, Syrians, Turks, and other people from southeast Europe who are emigrating to better their economic.condition.

These people are largely unskilled laborers from the industries and small farms of Europe, where the highest wage is small compared with the lowest industrial wage paid in the United States. Nearly 75 per cent are males, while 83 per cent are between the ages of 14 and 45 years, being producers rather than dependents. They bring little money into the country, but send or take a considerable part of their earnings out. Upon entering the United States they turn to the mills, factories, and mines to take advantage of the high wages offered, although the majority of them have been reared as tillers of the soil.

The recent immigrants are primarily agriculturists. They labor and save under the most discouraging conditions and make the utmost sacrifices in order that they may some day return to the land. Among the Slavs this desire for land ownership dominates their daily life and gives them inspiration to stand the fierce competitive struggle in the industrial centers.

The Federal Bureau of Immigration reports that thousands of the recent immigrants return to Europe each year after a residence in this country of from about 5 to 20 years, with, in some cases, large savings to invest in Europe. These people are returning abroad to invest their American-made money in the agricultural lands of Europe, for which they have to pay from $200 to $500 per acre, without any real knowledge of the agricultural opportunities in the South. A proper effort, however, would turn many thousands of these people who are seeking agricultural homes toward the South to be used in our agricultural and industrial development.

SLAVS AS FARMERS.

In doing this we would not be inviting economic ruin and social degradation, as certain chronic pessimists and political demagogues would have us believe, for the success of the immigrant agricultural colonies already established in the South show that under proper conditions and encouragement the recent immigrants, especially the Slavs, make very desirable citizens. The truthfulness of this is evidenced by the Bohemian, Serb, Polish, and Slovak colonists found in Texas, by the Slovaks in Arkansas, by the Bohemian and Slovak farmers in the south-side Virginia counties, and by the Slavish farmers in Oklahoma, Missouri, Maryland, Alabama, Louisiana, and in the other Southern States.

Slavs are now engaged in agriculture in each of the 16 Southern States. Only a very few are found in some, it is true, but wherever they are found they enjoy the confidence and the good will of their neighbors. Not only is this true, but it is also shown by the recent census of the United States that there is not a State in the Union that does not include among its people some Slavish farmers.

Considering the United States as a whole, they are found chiefly in the States of North Dakota, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota, Michigan, Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Washington, Colorado, Ohio, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Illinois. In the South the largest

numbers are located in the States of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Virginia. Possibly the total number of Slavish farm operators in the United States, composed chiefly of Poles, Bohemians, and Slovaks, will largely exceed 100,000.

RACE AND ORIGIN OF THE SLAVS.

Before we proceed further, who are the Slavs?

Prof. Oscar Peschel, of Leipzig, says they are out of the great IndoEuropean family of the Letto-Slavonic stem of the north European Aryan group. He places their origin in the "region of the Danube." Prof. Lubor Niederle, of the Bohemian University at Prague, substantiates this in his statement that the Slavs are of "central European origin." Prof. S. Zaborowski-Moindron, of the Ecolé d'Anthropologie, at Paris, cites their origin as "north of the Carpathians, where, through ancient usage, they were called Veneti, which people penetrated as far north as the Baltic littoral at a very remote period and were the propogators of the rite of cremation."

In describing the physical appearance of the Slavs, Prof. Niederle, who is the author of Slovanský Svet, says:

Anthropologically, the Slavs are characterized by a most rounded head, good cranial capacity, medium stature, and good physical development. In complexion they range from brunette to blonde, the former predominating among the southern Slavs, while blondes are more numerous among the northern parts of the stock.

He divides the Slavs of to-day into the seven following groups: (1) Russian stem.

(2) Polish stem.

(3) Luzice-Serbian (Serbs) stem.

(4) Bohemian (Čechs) and Slovak stem.

(5) Slovenian stem.

(6) Serbo-Chorvat (Servians and Croatians) stem.

(7) Bulgarian (including the so-called Macedonians)

stem.

Grouping all of these peoples together, Prof. Niederle estimates that in 1910 there were in the world more than 150,000,000 Slavs. Of this number he says 70 per cent are of the Russian stem, 13 per cent Poles, 7 per cent Bohemians and Slovaks, 4 per cent Bulgarians, and comparatively few Slovenians, Croatians, Servians and other Slavish people. He estimates that in the United States we have about 1,500,000 Poles, about 500,000 Slovaks, possibly 300,000. Bohemians, about 300,000 Croatians and Servians, 100,000 Slovenians, and only comparatively few Bulgarians. Although not so stated by Prof. Niederle, there are also at least 300,000 Slavs of the Russian stem in the United States.

Turning to closer consideration of these several races, the large number of Poles found in the United States makes it interesting to consider them rather closely, especially with regard to such tendencies as they may exhibit toward leaving the industrial centers and settling on the land. This, together with a brief account of the Slovak farmers in Arkansas, the Bohemian farmers in Texas, and the Bohemian and Slovak farmers in the southside Virginia counties will be helpful in understanding possibly a little better our Slavish farmers, and will show us one method by which the idle acres of the South can be turned into highly productive and valuable agricultural

areas.

S. Doc. 595, 63-2-2

POLES AS FARMERS.

Texas, the largest of the Southern States, has the distinction of containing the first permanent Polish settlement in the United States. This colony was established at Panna Marya, Karnes County, in the year 1855 by about 300 persons from Austrian Poland. There are records of a few Polish families, chiefly political refugees from Europe, settling in different parts of the United States prior to 1850, but no evidence of a sufficient number in any one locality to constitute a colony. Poles settled in Wisconsin shortly after 1850, and the records of several Roman Catholic Churches show that as many as 16 Polish rural colonies were established in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Texas between the years 1854 and 1870.

Previous to 1860 the immigration of Poles to the United States was irregular and was seriously affected by the American Civil War. After 1865 the movement assumed the character of a popular exodus of the peasantry of Polish Europe, as a direct result of the AustroPrussian war and the resulting political and economic conditions in Germany.

The real immigration of Poles to the United States, however, began after the year 1870. Between 1870 and 1880 nearly 40,000 entered the country. The majority of the Poles entering the United States during this period went to the larger industrial communities and cities to engage in industrial pursuits. Some migrated to the Northwestern States, where they found employment in lumber camps and sawmills, while a comparatively large number settled on the farms of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas. In 1880, 17 Polish churches were reported in Texas, 16 in Wisconsin, and 6 in Missouri. By 1887 there were more than 50 Polish agricultural settlements in the United States.

About 1885 the tide of Slavish immigration began to sweep through our ports of entry in an annually swelling stream, and Polish agricultural colonies were rapidly established in the Great Lake States, Minnesota, and in the Dakotas. A distinct change in the character of the colonists began about this time. Instead of the Polish peasants who had emigrated from Europe direct to the agricultural regions of this country seeking permanent homes, the movement became an immigration of Poles to the agricultural regions from the cities and industrial communities of the United States, where they had been engaged in the coal and ore mines, quarries, steel mills, and other industrial establishments.

This change was largely due to the efforts of land agents and their advertisements in the Polish newspapers. Having been farmers or farmers' sons abroad, and with savings from their earnings in the industrial pursuits, these groups made good pioneers and were soon firmly established on the cut-over and prairie lands of the Northwest, the poorer farms of the Middle West, and on the fertile acres of Texas. Poles are often spoken of as "lovers of the land," and many among even the lower classes consider it a degradation to work as industrial laborers. In the United States they have proven themselves excellent pioneers, and after acquiring property, become exclusively farmers. They are independent, self-reliant, self-supporting, though possibly inclined to be clannish, and are efficient husbandmen.

With hardly an exception, the Polish colonies in the United States exhibit indications of progress. There is a noticeable improvement in the general appearance of the farms owned by Poles of second and third generations when contrasted with those of their parents. The tillage on the former places is more careful, the dwellings are often well constructed, comfortable homes, while the barns are big, substantial structures. Fine herds of cattle are common, and evidence of thrift and prosperity are to be seen on all sides.

It is claimed by some authorities that the Polish agricultural communities in the United States are progressing as rapidly as the colonies of any of the other distinctly foreign groups and can be favorably compared with Bohemian, German, Swedish, and Swiss settlements.

POLES ON FARMS IN TEXAS.

Polish farmers have settled in all parts of Texas, although the principal and better-known colonies are located in Falls, Fayette. Grimes, Karnes, Robertson, Washington, and Wilson Counties. Karnes County includes Panna Marya, the oldest permanent Polish colony in the United States. Here they are chiefly cotton farmers. About one half own their farms, while the other half rent the land they till under the "cropper" system.

They usually produce a much larger yield of cotton per acre than the average native Texan. This is possible, first, because the Poles work in the fields themselves, while the native Americans generally employ negroes to do their work; and, second, because the Polish women and children work with the men in the fields, thereby more than doubling the labor force without an increased labor expense.

Homes of the Poles in Texas are neat and are often comfortably furnished. They mingle with other races very little and seldom intermarry, but maintain a rather high moral standard, and local merchants testify to their honesty. They are fairly temperate and, as a rule, adhere to the Roman Catholic Church. In nearly every town where there are sufficient number of Poles to support a church will be found a resident priest and a parochial school and a well-organized congregation. Few Polish children are found in the public schools, although the majority of them usually remain on the farm.

Wherever Poles have located on farms in Texas it is reported that they have benefited the community by their thrift and integrity and that they are desirable settlers.

SLOVAK FARMERS IN ARKANSAS.

Another interesting Slavish colony in the South is found at Slovaktown, Ark. This colony is the product of a land company organized in Pittsburgh about 1894, which undertook to influence the migration westward of Slovak coal miners in Pennsylvania.

Located 12 miles from the nearest railroad on the open prairies, the place has no natural advantages for settlers. On the whole, however, this colony has done remarkably well. In some instances, during the early years of the colony, the men were forced to return east and work a part of the year in the mines in order to support their families and to secure the necessary funds for the improvement of their farms.