Some Pioneers and Pilgrims on the Prairies of Dakota Part 7

THE END.

August 10, 1920.

I AM THE IMMIGRANT

I am the immigrant.

I looked towards the United States with eyes kindled by the fire of ambition and heart quickened with new-born hope.

I approached its gates with great expectation.

I have shouldered my burden as the American man-of-all-work.

I contribute eighty-five per cent of all the labor in the slaughtering and meat-packing industries.

I do seven-tenths of the bituminous coal mining.

I do seventy-eight per cent of all the work in the woolen mills.

I contribute nine-tenths of all the labor in the cotton mills.

I make nineteen-twentieths of all the clothing.

I manufacture more than half the shoes.

I build four-fifths of all the furniture.

I make half of the collars, cuffs and s.h.i.+rts.

I turn out four-fifths of all the leather. I make half the gloves.

I refine nearly nineteen-twentieths of the sugar.

And yet, I am the great American problem.

When I pour out my blood on your altar of labor, and lay down my life as a sacrifice to your G.o.d of toil, men make no more comment than at the fall of a sparrow.

But my brawn is woven into the warp and woof of the fabric of your national being.

My children shall be your children and your land shall be my land, because my sweat and my blood will cement the foundations of the America of to-morrow.

If I can be fused into the body politic, the melting pot will have stood the supreme test.

FREDERIC J. HASKIN.