B. THE PRESENT OUTLOOK FOR IMMIGRATION FROM JUGO-SLAVIA Branko Lazarevitch, Consul General, Chicago 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 Ar tion of staying here forever. Whole villages came, and the Germ their places. The Slovenian poet, Ivan Cankar, expressed his lines: "Hundreds are going day after day. You would think the plague is pursuing them." the Austro- inten- " 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. Our nation is united today. One of the principal causes of our people's emigration Hungary is gone. But all the evils did not go with which are located in certain parts of Jugoarian reform movement. We have a Reforme do duwhich is to generous eye for some reason or other. This is the origin of the present great land holdings in Jugo-Slavia. Our new country has a new policy: "The land should belong to those who are the cultivators of the land." The principle of small farms which predominated in the Serbia of pre-war times, and which guaranteed liberty as well as the land to the peasant, is getting a foothold now throughout the whole of Jugo-Slavia. The great landed estates are either taken away from their holders or bought from them and divided, in the first place, among the poor warriors and volunteers. After they have received their shares, a general distribution of land among all of those who are in need of it will follow. Our country, which is today exclusively an agricultural country, has a government which is of the opinion that all the reasons which our people had for going to Asia Minor, South and North America, during the reign of Austria-Hungary and Turkey, will cease to exist if the above ideas are put into practice. Success has been evident from the beginning. Although the solution of the agrarian problem is just started in our country, the people have started to go back to their motherland in great numbers. From the beginning of the liberation till the present time, about seventy thousand JugoSlav immigrants have returned to Jugo-Slavia. These returning immigrants, and especially those coming from the United States are a real blessing to our commonwealth. They are taking the places vacated by those heroes who sacrificed their lives in the wars, and such places are very, very numerous. They are bringing in new methods of work and new experiences. Due to the fact that these people worked in mines and factories, that they were farmers and merchants in America, they will be the pillars of our industry, especially the mining industry. Our country is full of coal, iron, copper, gold, and other metals, and with the help of these experienced workers, as well as with the help of domestic and foreign capital, our industry will progress, and we will be then, in both agriculture and industry, what we are only in agriculture at the present time. America has changed our men. They are able to do many things which they did not know how to do before. And charitable America, which was very generous to our orphans, will, in the above described manner, help to reconstruct our country, which suffered more from the ruinous war than any other country in Europe. But even the Jugo-Slav who has settled down and become an American citizen represents a gain for both countries. He will know how to make Americans interested in our industry and commerce. The third group of Jugo-Slavs, namely, those who will come to this country in the future, will be a strong bridge between the United States and Jugo-Slavia, and our men will cross that bridge to learn and to earn, and will either go back or stay here, doing just as much for the mutual understanding and friendship as the two above-mentioned groups. The first and real pioneers of this kind will be the seventy or eighty Jugo-Slav students who are now here at the American universities. When they come back to Jugo-Slavia, the so-called "American spirit" will be represented by them. The JugoSlav culture and civilization has passed, during the nineteenth century, under the influence of the "German spirit," the "Italian spirit," and, during the seventies, it passed through the so-called cult of the "Russian soul," and, finally, during the last twenty years, the so-called "esprit gaulois" (the "French spirit") has been strongest; but, of course, having for its basis its own Jugo-Slav and Slav spirit. Today we are under the influence of the American spirit. The American authors are much translated in our country today; such translating includes works of economic, social, and literary nature. Anglo-Saxonism and Americanism are much discussed and written about. Our hope is to extend and to cement the friendship which we have established with America during the war, mostly through the helping hand of the Jugo-Slav immigrants. We are not against the emigration from Jugo-Slavia which will bring such relations between the two nations. Welcome are both the spirit and experience which, during a period of 130 years, have made this country the first country in the world! C. THE OUTLOOK WITH REFERENCE TO JEWISH IMMIGRATION Hon. Hugo Pam, Judge of the Superior Court, Chicago What I am about to say is based on information secured during a trip to Eastern Europe as member of a commission sent by the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society to investigate and report on immigration problems among the Jewish people. I returned in May after visiting Poland, Roumania, Lithuania, Latvia, Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary, as well as Germany and other countries of Western Europe. Although there is still great suffering in Eastern Europe, I believe that slowly and steadily a settling process is going on. My investigations led me to believe that Poland, confronted with tremendous problems, will become a strong country united by a vibrant nationalism; that Czecho-Slovakia has already made much progress toward the great future that is before it; that the smaller nations of Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are striving to realize a permanent national life; and that of these, Lithuania appeared to me to be the most successful. Everywhere in these nations one meets gratitude for American assistance, for the remarkable work of the relief agency which Mr. Hoover has established throughout Europe, of the Friends' Service Committee, of various Protestant organizations, of the American Hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church, as well as the work of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee with which I was especially concerned. While I believe that permanent recovery is being slowly made, too much emphasis cannot be given to the suffering which is still unrelieved and to the obligation of Americans in the name of humanity and civilization to meet this need. I have been asked, however, to speak on the special problems of the Jews in this district and the consequences for their emigration. So far as the Polish and Roumanian Jewry is concerned conditions are better in some ways than I had been led to expect. There is, to be sure, great misery and suffering among both the Jews and the non-Jews. In both countries the Jew still suffers because he is a Jew, but conditions in this respect are improving. The most pressing difficulty, so far as the Jews are concerned, and the one which makes emigration for many of them imperative, is that there are hundreds of thousands of Jews in Poland and Roumania and other countries near them who are not citizens of the country in which they find themselves. They are refugees from White Russia and the Ukraine, driven from their homes by intolerable conditions. The condition on which they were allowed to enter these countries was that their stay should be temporary. This condition was imposed because the lack of housing, the lack of food, the lack of work and all means to work made it impossible for Poland, Roumania, and Jugo-Slavia to offer them more than a temporary refuge. During our travels we found hundreds of thousands of these Jewish refugees housed in miserable hovels and temporary shelters, 1 enduring indescribable suffering. Absolute destitution exists among them; women, poorly clothed or practically naked, are struggling to keep alive children who have lived only under the shadow of war. When you mingle among them you find that the one burning desire that keeps life in many of them is to take advantage of the invitations of American relatives to join them here, where they are prepared to make it possible for them to establish permanent, secure homes. New complications were created by the action of Hungary. The thousands of Jews who were driven to Budapest and other parts of Hungary by the exigencies of war have within the last year been subjected to expulsion by police regulation. Under police orders thousands have been interned while arrangements were made for their repatriation in Poland, Roumania, and a few in Czecho-Slovakia. At the time of my visit there were only a few thousand left of the many who had come during the war, but I am fearful that, with these expelled, Hungary will undertake to repatriate Jews who have lived in Hungary for ten or twenty years. Many of these Jews who are being expelled have married Hungarian women, and have children born in Hungary; others who brought with them their families will be compelled to leave homes they established with every expectation of permanency. They are being exiled to countries in which economic need and general suffering are greater than that in Hungary. These Jews who have found temporary refuge in Poland and Roumania find themselves in a trap. Their homes in the country from which they were driven have been broken up; their property has often been confiscated. Without homes, and often not citizens of the country in which they find themselves, they are told they must leave. Where are they to go? Testimony has been given before Congressional committees and reports have been published in newspapers to the effect that 95 per cent of these people are undesirable. I yield to no one in my desire to preserve both our country and our institutions from vicious, dangerous, unhealthy, or undesirable aliens. It is because I am an American by birth and by affection that I so much desire that Americans shall know who these people are who are asking for admission, and what is involved in our refusing them. Under the rags, behind the faces which bear evidence of their struggles, they are Godfearing, hard-working people, eager to perform their part in the country which will shelter them. Some of these unfortunate people are going to the Argentine, some to Canada, some to Mexico, some to far-away Australia and Africa, and some to Palestine. Of those who have turned toward the United States practically all have relatives here. They know through letters that here there is, for people of every creed, security of life, real liberty, and an opportunity to secure a modicum of happiness. The action of Congress in passing the so-called "Dillingham 3 per cent bill" was based upon misinformation as to the conditions and people of Eastern Europe. That law will prove impossible of fair and successful administration. The question of what shall be done will soon again be before Congress and the American people. In view of the undeserved suffering which I have described, and in view of their close relation to many of our citizens who can know no peace of mind until these conditions are changed, what are we to do? As the industrial depression from which we are now suffering was in no sense caused by immigration, so the movement to restrict it in new ways has brought no relief. Will America at this moment of almost unprecedented obligation reverse its |