The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915: What Americans Say to EuropeVarious
Philosophy
The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915: What Americans Say to Europe
Various
World War, 1914-1918
One other effect of the war has already begun to reveal itself in the
emigration from America of thousands of Servians, Austrians, Russians,
Germans, Frenchmen, going home to take their places in the ranks. While
many of these men are brave and honorable citizens, the fact that they
respond to such a call proves them not yet Americans. The war will tend
to remove a goodly part of the distinctly foreign element in the
country, the part not yet amalgamated, and therefore the part most alien
to our institutions and the most difficult to place in our social
structure. If the war continues, Europe will draw every able-bodied man
who can be influenced to go. Far more important, immigration will
probably become negligible not only during the war, but for some time
after it. Usually the reason for leaving home lies in the crowded
population of European States and the lack of opportunity for
advancement, plus the glib tongue of some agent of a contractor or of a
steamship company. In recent years those who have come have not been
desirable additions to our population because they came from nations
alien in blood, language, religion and institutions, and were not
therefore easily knit into our national structure and absorbed. There
will be little, if any, further immigration. The men are wanted for the
army and will not be allowed to leave during the war. After peace is
restored, they will be imperatively needed in the fields and factories
and every effort will be made to retain them. In fact, it does not take
any wild stretch of the imagination for one acquainted with the results
of the Thirty Years' War and of the Napoleonic wars to conceive that,
from the view of economic opportunity and rewards, Europe might become a
more favorable scene for the truly capable and ambitious than America is
today. The tendency of a war is to absorb the best of a nation and to
leave the dregs. For the power of organization and the fire of
initiative Europe will at no distant date be ready to pay well.
The Effect of Economic Readjustment.
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