The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in EuropeWashington, Booker T.
History
The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe
Washington, Booker T.
Poor -- Europe; Working class -- Europe
In the emergency created by these strikes the Government came to the
rescue of the landowner by establishing recruiting stations for farm
labourers in different parts of the country. Collecting labourers in
those parts of the country where labour was abundant, they shipped it
to other parts of the country where, because of strikes, labourers were
scarce and crops were in danger. Thus, the Government had at one time
a reserve force of not less than 10,000 strike-breakers with which it
was at any moment able to come to the rescue of a landowner who was
threatened.
In many cases the Government undertook to regulate wages between
landowners and their hands. In some cases they even sent troops into
the fields, and in the course of the struggle there were frequent
bloody collisions between the labourers and the troops.
One effect of these disturbances was to greatly increase the amount of
immigration to America. In 1904, when the struggle was at its height,
no less than 100,000 persons, mostly from the country districts,
emigrated from Hungary. Thousands of others left the country and moved
into the cities.
Hungary is about half the size of Texas, and it has nearly five times
its population. Those who remember the "Negro exodus" of thirty years
ago, and the apprehension that was created when some 40,000 Negroes
left the plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana, will be able to
understand the effect if for a number of years the South should lose
annually by emigration to the cities or to other parts of the country
100,000 of its labourers in the cotton fields.
The exodus of the farm labourer from Hungary threatened, in spite of
the rapid increase of the population, to permanently check the rising
prosperity of the country. It was soon found that the great landowners
could not rely upon repressive measures alone to solve their labour
problems. Something must be done to redress the grievances and to
improve the condition of the agricultural population. As a matter
of fact, a very great deal was done by the state for agriculture,
and something was done for the agricultural labourers. For example,
relief funds were organized in sixty-four counties and boroughs to aid
temporarily disabled workmen. Public prizes and diplomas were offered
to labourers who were faithful to their masters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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