PRESENT IMMIGRATION OUTLOOK-SUM 457 circumstances is the name and address of the steamship company and of their offices, the timetable for the respective lines, the signs of the ships, and the terms of transportation. Any attempts to persuade persons to emigrate by praising the conditions in foreign countries, false letters sent by relatives in order to encourage emigration will be prosecuted by law. Representatives of the steamship companies are forbidden to buy or exchange any property belonging to the emigrants, or to give any money on credit to them, either directly or through middlemen. The law excludes certain persons from transportation-for instance, those who are forbidden to emigrate, those who do not possess the required emigration traveling certificate, those who desire to emigrate only because a free passage has been offered to them. A written transportation contract between the emigrant and the steamship company must be signed without delay after the emigrant has fully paid his transportation expenses, and must be handed to the emigrant before he leaves the territory of the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The bill provides for cases in which the steamship company is required to refund all or part of the transportation expenses to the emigrant, and in which the company has to re-transport the emigrant to his domicile, also in cases where the departure has been delayed or canceled, or the journey cannot be continued. The transportation tariff must be communicated to the Ministry of Social Welfare by a steamship company, at least two weeks before it becomes effective, and the ministry may, within another two weeks, order changes to be made in the tariff. It is unlawful to demand higher rates from the emigrants than those given in the tariff. If the steamship company undertakes the transportation of a person who is not allowed to enter by the immigration authorities in the foreign port, the company must transport the said person back to his or her domicile, free of charge, and if the domicile is in a foreign country, as far as the Czecho-Slovak frontier. It is unlawful to sell or use tickets of steamship companies that have no license for the Czecho-Slovak Republic. The sale of railway and other tickets to emigrants before they reach the port of their destination is unlawful, except when the emigrant has made a contract with the company to transport him from the port to his place of destination. Ships carrying emigrants must provide a physician and fulfil the necessary sanitation requirements. Before they board the ship the emigrants must undergo a medical examination. The steamship company must allow the inspectors appointed by the Czecho-Slovak government to travel free of charge second class, in accordance with the emigration laws and regulations for Czecho-Slovak emigrants, and see that these laws are respected ring the journey. In order to facilitate the return of emigrants to the old country, mship companies will transport a certain number of Czecho-Slovak citizens sulates for retransportation for oportion to the total emigra them, are also subject. ng to concentrate the ry and moral stand prosecuted in the white slave traffic, violations will be punished by administrative measures. Security given by the steamship companies may be confiscated, completely or partly, by the Minister of Social Welfare, in case the regulations of the law are not observed by the representative or agent of the steamship company. An important feature in the new law is the concentration of administration of the emigration. Before and after the war, several government departments were handling emigration, for instance, the Ministry of Social Welfare, the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Railways, mostly independent of each other. The intention of the government is not to create a special emigration office, but to concentrate all the control and administration into the hands of the Ministry of Social Welfare, whose decisions would be made with the consent of the other interested ministers. Ninth, the Minister of Social Welfare will nominate emigration inspectors and commissioners and the necessary personnel to supervise and protect the emigrants before they leave Czecho-Slovakia and to help them in their difficulties on the journey and especially in the ports. Some of those inspectors will also be sent to Slovakia and Carpatho-Russia to watch the activity of secret agents, others will be placed in the ports, and others will accompany the emigrants on the ship. Tenth, an advisory emigration council of experts will be appointed to advise the Minister of Social Welfare on all important questions regarding emigration. Eleventh, a special point in the new law is the organization of the departure of the emigrants from their homes to the point of destination. In order to prevent the spreading of epidemics from the near East to CzechoSlovakia and western countries, quarantine stations and concentration camps will be established in Kosice (Slovakia) and a town in East Moravia, which must be passed by all emigrants coming from the East and from Slovakia. Another concentration camp is established in Prague accommodating 660 people. Here the Ministry of Social Welfare together with the Czecho-Slovak Red Cross, the Young Men's Christian Association and Young Women's Christian Association are taking care of all the emigrants passing through Prague. The transportation from Prague will be arranged for only in definite groups and under the supervision, of expert guides. Twelfth, the care of Czecho-Slovak emigrants will not stop at the frontier of the foreign country which they select as their future home. Those who travel to join their families or relatives do not need any special attention, but it will be necessary to make some arrangement for those who have neither relatives nor friends in the new country. Here is an open field for voluntary aid and the assistance of various welfare societies and organizations, which will be most welcome. Conscious as we are of the fact that the influence of emigrants on their home country is sometimes beneficial, we desire to remain in touch with those emigrants who have already settled in foreign countries. The Czecho-Slovak nation is in many ways particularly indebted to its emigrants in the United States and to their American friends for their unselfish help in our great and successful struggle for political independence and for the splendid relief work done in Czecho-Slovakia immediately after the war. It is generally admitted by the Americans that the Czecho-Slovaks are among the best and most loyal citizens of the United States. To quote our compatriot, Miss Sarka Hrbkova: "It is characteristic that the Czecho-Slovak veterans of the world-war, who reside in the United States, at their first meeting discussed the question liest they could complete their naturalization, in order that each might carry share of the responsibilities as well as of the privilege of United States hip." spirit like that argues well for America. The pity is that so many of these rospective citizens have had to cope with difficulties in attaining citizenship. ardships were due to the prohibition which did not permit a native of what merly Austria-Hungary to secure second papers without a "presidential excep›r application for exemption from the classification of "enemy alien." The tion between Czech and German, Slovak and Magyar was not always clear, e fact that the Czecho-Slovaks were consistently and continuously loyal to the of the Entente Allies and at no time the enemies of the United States, was not bered in all cases. The absence from the United States of these men who were g shoulder to shoulder with the American army has meant in some cases that dit was refused them for the period of military service in fulfilling the five-year uous residence requirement of the Naturalization Law. he recent report of the Commissioner General of Immigration indicates that :echs were the only group of Europeans with not a single case of illiteracy among rant aliens admitted in the year ending June 30, 1920. The Czecho-Slovaks and high in the list of immigrants in skilled occupations. 'he Czechs bring to America their training as farmers, glass blowers, gem cutters olishers, pearl-button makers, bead-jewelry, lace and needle workers, watch's, tailors, cigar-makers, and wood-carvers. The introduction into the United of the pearl-button industry is wholly due to the Czechs from the Tabor district hemia. The majority of the western Czechs are on the farms in Iowa, Dakota, iska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The Slovaks are well trained in the leather, tin, and wood industries. As tanners, dyers, glaziers, and wire-workers they no superiors. Business acumen and thrift are also assets of the Czecho-Slovak grants. There are 103 banks in the United States which are controlled by ricans of Czecho-Slovak origin with capital amounting to $77,700,000. The Czecho-Slovaks have 125 periodicals in the United States; about one-fourth e papers maintain English sections. Czecho-Slovak pamphlets and newspapers e United States have a considerable circulation in Czecho-Slovakia and so give by-day pictures of America. Colleges and universities of the United States have 130 men and women of Czecho-Slovak birth or descent on their faculties. There about 5,000 men and women of Czecho-Slovak parentage who are engaged as hers in American public schools. Several men of Czecho-Slovak origin have ed as American foreign diplomats. The future development of emigration from Czecho-Slovakia is dependent not y upon the internal conditions in the country but also upon the economical and itical conditions in the United States and of the policy of the American governnt toward the immigrants. According to the new act of May 19, 1921, limiting igration into the United States, the quota for the fiscal year 1921-22 has been ed at 14,269, and for the month at 2,854. The Czecho-Slovaks are not to be considered as undesirable aliens; a close operation between the United States and the Czecho-Slovak governments cannot ! to bring the best possible results for both countries, who are equally interested the great population problems they will have to face in the years to come. B. THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR IMMIGRATION FROM JUGO-SLAVIA Why did the Jugo-Slavs come to this country? The principal reasons are of economic and political nature. As is well known, the greatest part of the present JugoSlavia formerly belonged to Austria-Hungary. The present Jugo-Slav territory measures about two hundred and fifty thousand square kilometers, but only eighty thousand kilometers measured the territory upon which the only Jugo-Slav commonwealth was located before the great world-war. The rest was under the AustroHungarian Empire. Jugo-Slavia numbers fourteen million inhabitants, but barely five million of them were in the independent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro. The system of colonizing the Germans and Magyars upon the most fertile soil, entirely disregarding the interests of our farmers, as well as the system of economic and political oppression practiced by Austria-Hungary in the subject provinces, has forced many Jugo-Slavs to emigrate. They went to North and South America, Australia, Africa, etc. They went there to earn their daily bread under better economic and political conditions. Such emigration from the Jugo-Slav territories, then under Austria-Hungary, was especially large at the end of the last century, and up to the year 1914 it became larger and larger. One million Jugo-Slavs were scattered throughout the world at the commencement of the world-war. The greatest number of them came to this free America, to find more bread and more liberty. The stronger the colonization system which, as said, was practiced by the Austro-Hungarian government against the interests of our people, the greater the number of the Jugo-Slavs in America. This is an established fact. When the historical statistics, dealing with Austria-Hungary and her emigration problem, are studied, it is noted that the numbers were growing rapidly. While the data for the year 1870 show that only 7,800 immigrants came into the United States, the figure for the period of 1871-80 climbs to about 70,000, and after that period it climbs higher and higher till it records 2,200,000 for the period of 1901-10. Included in this number are mostly the Slav peoples of Austria-Hungary: Jugo-Slavs, CzechoSlovaks, Poles, and, finally, Roumanians and other dependent nationalities. At that time, and especially after the year of 1908, when Austria-Hungary annexed the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the number of emigrants from these JugoSlav territories became so great that a real panic prevailed among those Jugo-Slav intellectuals and patriots who happened to be in Austria-Hungary. The hope for liberty and unity with Serbia and Montenegro was lost, and the exodus was such that it looked like a general flight. The Jugo-Slav patriots created a whole literature about this national danger, at that time. One of the greatest Jugo-Slav poets wrote a drama, entitled: "Stay Here!" His intention was to stop the emigration. The cry of the moment, due to the great colonization movement which was instigated Hungarian government, was: "To America!" Such was the cry Great was the number of the people who at that time came to A tion of staying here forever. Whole villages came, and the Germ their places. The Slovenian poet, Ivan Cankar, expressed his į lines: "Hundreds are going day after day. You would think the plague is pursuing them." the Austro le nation. Look sy ca di T fr th th a W t PRESENT IMMIGRATION OUTLOOK-LAZAREVITCH 461 The best proof that the economic reasons (in other words, the Austro-Hungarian system of sending the Germans and Magyars into Slav districts) were the principal causes of our people's emigration to the United States is the following fact: the people did not emigrate from Serbia, which was a free and independent Jugo-Slav state. There are very few immigrants who came from Serbia, a land of economic and political freedom. There were only about 1,200 of them in the United States. Serbia was free; the agrarian question was solved way back in the year 1804, during the uprising against the Turks. It was guaranteed by law that the peasant's five acres of land, two oxen, and a plough could not be sold under any circumstances. These were the reasons why the people did not go away from their homes; they had bread and liberty in their own native land. According to the statistical data at hand, the Jugo-Slavs in this country, as I said before, number about five hundred thousand. These people are mostly common laborers. The mines and factories throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, etc., are full of them. Only a small number of our people settled down on the farms and became American farmers. Such farmers are mostly in Minnesota, California, and Colorado. Some of them, who came from Dalmatia, are engaged in fisheries in California. But about 90 per cent of our people now in America are common laborers. All of them were very loyal Americans. Many of them became naturalized American citizens. When the United States entered into the world-war, in 1917, and called their people to defend the Stars and Stripes, about twenty thousand Jugo-Slavs responded, ready to sacrifice their lives for civilization. Their records are splendid. The second most distinguished recipient of the "Congressional Medal" was a Serbian from old Serbia, for whom the city of Chicago, when he returned from the battlefields in France, prepared a colossal demonstration. The Jugo-Slavs did not hesitate to buy American liberty bonds either. Their subscriptions total, according to one estimate, about $30,000,000. And all Jugo-Slav newspapers in this country, and there are about thirty of them, made a splendid showing during the war. When not helping their "new country," they were always ready to help their motherland. A great number of American Jugo-Slavs joined the colors to fight, as volunteers, for the liberation of all Jugo-Slavs, and for their unity into one dear Jugo-Slavia. They grew in numbers until, during the years 1912-18, there were about fifteen thousand of them. Their contributions to the funds of the "Serbian Red Cross" were very liberal; they contributed huge funds to the "Jugo-Slav Committee," whose propaganda during the war, helped our cause greatly in foreign countries. They contributed and are still contributing funds for the support of our war orphans, etc. |