Celebrating America's International Roots

Hola!  Li-ho!  Jum Reap Sour!  Hej!  Salut!  Ciao!  Labdien!  Hallo!  Moi!  Ohayoou!  Hei!  Zdravstvuyte!  Witaj!    

Hello to all the international followers of my blog!  One of the surprises and great pleasures of my blogging has been the number of international followers that read my blog.  That was something I did not anticipate when I began my weekly posts in October of 2011.  The numbers began small and gradually grew.  The week of July 4th, my international visitors exceeded visitors from the USA.  That may have been an exceptional week, but the numbers of foreign guests remain consistently large.

They come from all parts of the world.  Listed alphabetically, they include:  Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Belgium, Cambodia, Canada, China, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. 

Because the United States is a country of immigrants, perhaps I should not be surprised.  A brief history of our nation's immigration patterns reveals that in the colonial era of 1600 to 1795 the largest number of immigrants were British.  Strictly speaking, these early arrivers were not really immigrants, for in the early years we were still part of the British Empire.  A large number of those arrivals were indentured servants, whose passage was paid in return for their commitment to work as a servant for a certain number of years, typically seven, and of those early settlers, 90% became farmers.  In addition to economic reasons, many came for matters of religion.  My book, Should the Children Pray? includes chapters for each of the original thirteen colonies, describing the religious reasons why many colonists made the dangerous ocean crossing.  Along with the British immigrants, a large number of Dutch settlers located along the Hudson River, with people from Spain settling in Florida, Texas and New Mexico, while the French settled along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast.

During the period of 1790 to 1849 there was relatively little immigration, but beginning about 1850 a new wave of settlers arrived--Germans who settled primarily in the Midwest, and Italians, Greeks, Humgarians, Poles, others whose language was Slavic, and many Jews--all arriving in significant numbers.  These immigrants tended to fill the need for industrial laborers, and the USA expanded beyond its original agrarian roots to become a world leader in steel, coal, and textiles.

Of course, among the population were the Native Americans, who had made their homes here long before the immigrants arrived, and Africans, who arrived against their will.  The Chinese added to the growing population, as did Scandinavians, who settled primarily in the upper Midwest.  In the late 19th century, settlers from Lebanon and Syria came, many remaining in East Coast cities like New York and Boston.  Unavoidably, this brief summary leaves out other groups who arrived before and during Isaac's years on the prairie and made their own important contributions.

Focusing on the migration of populations in Kansas, it must first be remembered that many Indian tribes were relocated from their native homes in the eastern part of North America to land in Kansas.  In 1854 certain Kansas territory was opened to white settlement, but the population shift really began after the Civil War (1861-1865) and increased with the passage of the Homestead Act of 1862.  That settlement era included Black Americans seeking new homes after the Civil War.

Many of the Kansas homesteaders migrated from other states, their parents and other ancestors having immigrated earlier.  The largest international group coming to Kansas were German speaking, some coming from Germany and others from the Volga region in Russia.  There were also many Swedish immigrants, who arrived because of famine in their old country.  Mexican workers came along with the railroads and large agricultural operations, such as sugar beet production.

George & Theresa Hall with Maria & baby Lillian

Most of the homesteaders in Isaac's community relocated from other states, many from Pennsylvania (Isaac's childhood home), as well as a great many from Midwestern states.  However, there were also those who had not been born in the USA.  Among them were two of Isaac's close neighbors--George Henn and Gustave Gereke, both of whom came from Germany.  Surprisingly, the owner-editor of the County Capital newspaper in St. John, John Hilmes, came from Germany in 1872 and had acquired the proficiency with English to publish the weekly newspaper.  Of particular interest to me are my own great grandparents, George & Theresa Hall, who were close friends of Isaac.  They came from England in 1882, settling in Ohio for a few years before arriving in Kansas.  The baby on her mother's lap is my grandmother Lillian.  The picture was taken shortly before they left England for America.

Immigration to America continues.  In 2010 the countries from which the largest numbers of legal permanent residents came were Mexico, China, India, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic.  During the decade of 1990 to 2000, Kansas ranked 14th among all the states in the percentage of change in its foreign-born population, with a 114.4% increase.  The state with the greatest percentage change was North Carolina with a 273.7% increase.  The state with the least change was Maine with 1.1%

So, here is a tip of my hat to all of my international visitors.  I hope you continue to visit my blog and that you invite others to visit as well.  I thank all of you for the rich contributions your countrymen who have immigrated to the United States of America over the years have made to our national culture. 

To my international visitors, I invite you to "click" on the middle box below labeled surprising if you see your national flag on the map at the beginning of this week's post.  I had fun finding the flags for all the countries to glue on the map.  To my USA visitors, I hope you will open the comment box to leave a message stating the country of origin of your first ancestor who came to America.





Isaac & the Plutocrats

America has not always been a nation with great disparity between the wealth of its richest and poorest citizens. In his famous book, Democracy in America published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville opened with this observation: "Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions," a statement that obviously ignored American slaves who certainly did not share in such "general equality."

As for the rest of the American population, most were farmers. Writing in 1781, Thomas Jefferson said: "While we have land to labor then, let us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry: but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our work-shops remain in Europe." To assure that America continued to have land for the agrarian republic he regarded as the ideal, Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory in 1803, providing room for further expansion.

By 1850, farmers still represented 64% of the labor force, although Jefferson's idea of leaving "the general operations of manufacture" in Europe had begun to change. At the beginning of the Civil War there were only a few hundred American millionaires.* By 1890 the number had risen to about 4,000, among them such familiar names as J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Jay Gould. The number of farmers, however, had dropped to 42% of the labor force. During the time these incredibly wealthy men were creating their fortunes in railroads, steel, and oil, farmers were confronting higher interest rates and foreclosures, lower prices for their crops, and drought, blizzards, and other hardships caused by Mother Nature. It is no wonder that the great disparity in wealth between farmers and laborers, in comparison to the wealthy and politically powerful men of the Gilded Age, created resentment and distrust.

As Isaac Werner wrote in his journal in 1889, "...disgraceful low ruling prices ruining near everybody but 'skimmers' with money. Things getting daily into worse shape and more discontent among the producing class causing oceans of thinking among the commonest people." In a speech delivered in 1890 by Mary Elizabeth Lease, a leading Populist speaker, she said, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. The West and South are bound and prostrate before the manufacturing East. Money rules..."

It is startling how the language of the Populist activists of Isaac's time and the Occupy Wall Street protesters of today is so similar, and the political cartoons of the late 1800s are almost capable of appearing today without modification. Compare some of the goals expressed by the 99ers today with the concerns of Isaac's time--jobs, more equal distribution of income, and a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics. Both then and now, activists sought economic justice and directed much of their anger toward corporate abuses. In their 1880s newspaper The Nonconformist, the Vincent brothers of Winfield, Kansas blamed "corporate greed, that breeds anarchism and everything else that is hideous, in the proportion that it deepens its grip upon the industrial masses."

In Isaac's time the wealth of the few soared during and after the Civil War. Recent statistics from the Congressional Budget Office show that between 1979 and 2007, the incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew by an average of 275%. As for the country's total wealth, in 2007 the richest 1% of Americans owned 34.6% and the next 19% of Americans owned 50.5%. By combining these numbers, it can be seen that the top 20% of Americans owned 85% of the country's wealth, leaving 15% of the wealth in the hands of the bottom 80% of the population.

In the 1800s there were no federal social programs like those we have today to help the aged and the poor. Therefore, the economic extremes between the needy laborers and the very rich were especially severe. When the steel workers in the Carnegie Homestead Steel Mill attempted to negotiate a wage increase because the price of steel had increased during the three years since their prior union contract had been negotiated, they were told that management would instead reduce their wages in the new contract by 22%. When farmers were losing their farms to foreclosure and feeding their children a mixture of ground wheat and water to keep them from starving, the wealthy were building mansions fit for royalty.

The agrarian society upon which Thomas Jefferson placed his faith, believing that farmers possessed a "peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue...[which] keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth" is a mere sliver of the American population today. In the century and a quarter since Isaac joined with other farmers and laborers to form the People's Party to confront the political power of Wall Street, corporations, and trusts, the American population has changed. Data from the 2010 census shows the total U.S. population as 308,745,538, with only 613,000 farmers, with those farmers representing about 2.5% of the nation's working force and only about 0.5% of all employed Americans. As for the present workers in manufacturing and industry, many of them have seen their jobs given to foreign laborers. Yes, America's work force has changed; yet, the issues of economic inequality are being debated as vigorously today as they were in Isaac's time.

*A million dollars in 1890 would be equivalent to about $24,400,250 in 2011.
Plutocracy is defined as government by the wealthy; also, a controlling class of rich men.