cratic institutions, an educated electorate, equality of opportunity, and the free agency of the individual, is developed rapidly in the landowning Hebrew. The Hebrew on the land is peaceable and lawabiding, but he does not tamely submit to what he believes to be oppression and he has a highly developed sense of personal rights, civil and economic. The rural Hebrew has shown his capacity for selfgovernment, and no colonies were visited whose members voted less as a unit than those where rural Hebrews made up a material part of the electorate.

POLES IN AGRICULTURE.

Statistical studies of Poles are peculiarly liable to error, since almost all official enumerations have been made on a basis of nationality as indicated by country of birth. German Poles are likely to be enumerated as "Germans," Austrian Poles as "Austrians," Russian Poles as "Russians," and so on."

The United States Census of 1900 reports 209,030 male breadwinners whose parents were born in Poland; of these 183,055 were foreign-born and 25,975 were of the second generation. Nearly nine-tenths of the first generation and more than three-fourths of the second generation were engaged in other than agricultural pursuits. Foreign-born Poles report a larger percentage (29.1) of general laborers than any other race group except the Italians. The percentage of general laborers among the second generation is 15.7, which is larger than the percentage of general laborers of the second generation of any other race.

In agricultural pursuits 19,256 males of the first generation, more than one-tenth of all foreign-born Polish breadwinners, were reported. Of the second generation 6,236, or 24 per cent, were in agriculture. The percentage of farm laborers of the second generation is relatively high, doubtless owing to the large number of Polish children between 10 and 21 years of age on farms of their parents who were enumerated as agricultural farm laborers. The number of farmers, overseers, etc., of the second generation is 1,507 (5.8 per cent) as compared with 11,461 (6.3 per cent) of the first generation. "

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE POLE IN AGRICULTURE.

b

The Poles as enumerated by the census are not numerically important in agriculture. The 25,492 males of Polish parentage in agriculture represented but little more than 1 per cent of all the males of foreign parentage engaged in agricultural pursuits and but 12.2 per cent of all male breadwinners of Polish parentage in 1900.

เ

a Waclaw Kruszka estimates that, including both first and second generations, onefifth of all Poles in answer to the question "Where were you born?" answered "Poland," and were enumerated by the census as Poles; two-fifths answered "Prussia, "Germany, 'Russia," "Austria," or "Galicia," and were recorded as Germans, etc.; two-fifths or more belong to the second generation and were recorded as native-born, but with the same degree of error in regard to birthplace of father. According to this authority the census returns of Poles must be multiplied by five to arrive at a reasonable approximation. Whether this method of procedure can be relied on with reference to Poles in the aggregate it is impossible to say. In two rural communities where the method was tested the results were approximately correct. See Historya Polska w Ameryce, Part I, Vol. I, Chapter IV.

b For more detailed information see Reports of the Immigration Commission on Occupations, vol. 28 (S. Doc. No. 282, 61st Cong., 2d sess.) and Agriculture, vols. 21 and 22 (S. Doc. No. 633, pt. 24, 61st Cong., 2d sess.).

Some of the significant facts of the last decade with regard to Polish farmers have been the increasing influx of Poles into the farming sections of the East, both as farmers and as farm laborers, the growth of new settlements of Poles on the western prairies, and the movement to farms, either as owners or tenants, of a large number of Poles of the second generation whose parents have been living in rural districts. That the Poles on farms are much more numerous than would appear from the census returns is very evident when a study of partícular rural settlements is attempted."

SCOPE OF THE COMMISSION'S REPORT.

The investigation planned by the Commission covered a study of the principal Polish rural settlements in a number of States where Poles are a factor in agriculture. Three phases of settlement were to be emphasized-the early, spontaneous settlements made by large groups of immigrant Poles on new, wild, cheap western land; the later settlements, originated and fostered by owners of large tracts of land for the purpose of selling the land and developing it agriculturally; and the recent rural immigration, particularly in the East, to long-settled communities where the Poles are establishing themselves on old, partly improved or semiabandoned farms, and taking the place of American farmers. There is a fourth phase-the Pole in seasonal agricultural occupations-touched upon in the reports on the Poles in Orleans County, N. Y., and the cranberry pickers in Wisconsin.

In the execution of this plan the principal Polish rural communities in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Texas, and a few scattered settlements in the Southwest, were visited. The investigation did not include any of the large settlements in the North Central States west of the Mississippi. In Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Nebraska are some of the largest Polish rural parishes in the United States."

Community reports based on family schedules, on statistics gathered in the field and on a first-hand investigation of conditions, are submitted. They cover eight different settlements in the northern States, and represent 4,856 families of first and second generation Poles. The investigation of the Polish colonies in Texas was not made in any detail, and the report is very general, covering merely a few facts concerning the numbers, the founding and the present condition, of several of the more important settlements.

The total Polish population reached in the North was comprehended in 9 settlements or groups of settlements in the northern States, including 34 parishes and 4,856 families. The figures are, in the main, compiled from church records or from official tax lists or poll lists. Where town tax lists were used the town officials were relied on to determine the race when the name did not give evidence of the descent. Both first and second generation Poles are included.

a In 1901 the estimate made by Kruszka is 900 colonies of Poles, of which 700 are village or agricultural communities, averaging 100 families each. This would mean at least 70,000 persons in agricultural pursuits, reckoning one breadwinner to a farm. This estimate of farm families is probably too large. -See Historya Polska w Ameryce, Vol. VIII, p. 111, etc.

b Kruszka, Historya Polska w Ameryce, Vol. I, p. 90, etc.

The Commission has data gathered from one settlement not written up in this report.

In Texas and the Southwest 13 parishes with about 1,363 families, numbering at least 7,225 persons, were visited.

There are numerous other Polish farm settlements in the States visited, but the reports cover only the largest and the most impor

tant.

TABLE 7.-List of Polish rural settlements visited in the investigation.

a Estimate (1901-1903) by Kruszka, Historya Polska w Ameryce, Vol. II.
Including Stevens Point.

c Including entire parish. Kruszka, op. cit.

HISTORICAL.

Polish colonies have been known in rural United States since the settlement of Panna Marya, Texas, by 300 Silesian peasants in 1855. A few Polish immigrants had settled in rural districts previous to 1850, chiefly for political reasons, but what may be called the colonization of Poles in America did not begin until the Panna Marya colony. The first settlers on Wisconsin soil came by way of Canada and Chicago to Portage County shortly after 1850 and in larger numbers after 1859. The records of the Roman Catholic Church show that from 1854 to 1870, 16 Polish parishes, most of them rural colonies, were established in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Texas. Previous to 1860 the movement of Poles had been spontaneous, but more or less sporadic. From 1860 to 1870, though checked somewhat by the civil war, immigration was still spontaneous, but began to assume the character of a steady, ever-increasing influx. The census records 7,298 natives of Poland in the United States in 1860; this number (including Polish Hebrew) had increased to 14,436 in

1870. The immigration from 1850 to 1870 originated in hard economic conditions in Europe. Polish peasants and skilled laborers from the villages came as permanent settlers to rural America in the hope of improving their material welfare. From 1866 to 1870 the Austro-Prussian war and resulting conditions in Germany caused the exodus of a comparatively large number of Poles from all ranks of society, but for the most part the early arrivals were without means and came to make homes here.

It was after 1870, however, that the real immigration of Poles began. During the decade from 1870 to 1880 the "natives of Poland” in the United States increased by more than 34,000, the total number of foreign-born Poles being 48,557 in 1880. While much of this immigration found its way to the cities, there was also an important movement westward to the free wild land, mostly in timbered regions, where building materials, water, and fuel were easily obtained and where it was possible to earn a good living by working in the lumber camps and sawmills. The movement to the farms of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois assumed large proportions during the decade. The Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars and later the famous "May laws" occasioned the departure of great numbers of peasant Poles and others, who came in unorganized but rather close groups and entered both agriculture and industry. In 1880 there were 16 Polish churches in Wisconsin, 17 in Texas, and 6 each in Michigan and Missouri.

After 1885, when the stream of Slavic immigration had set in very strongly and Polish rural colonies began to dot the prairies of Minnesota and the Dakotas as well as the Lake States, many of the newer farm colonies presented a different economic aspect. A smaller percentage of the immigrants were Polish peasants directly from Europe, seeking homes for themselves, and more of them were day laborers who had been engaged in mines, steel mills, quarries, or other industrial pursuits in cities of the United States and had been attracted to farms by advertisements in Polish newspapers published here or by the solicitation of Polish land agents in the employ of some real-estate firm or large landowner. They came in small groups; their location was directed; they brought more money usually than did the first arrivals, since they had savings from their earnings in industrial pursuits. Most of them had been farmers or farmers' sons abroad; hence a very large percentage of them were promising pioneers, and there were few desertions. In Wisconsin they purchased cut-over timber land in the northern part of the State, previously owned by speculators or lumbermen. In the Dakotas frequently they settled on prairie land of the poorer sort, for the same reason that they bought unproductive land in Illinois and Indiana-because it was cheap.

The settlement of Poles on eastern abandoned farms is a more recent movement, which has not yet assumed large proportions, but one that in favored sections seems sure to increase. The significant fact is that this movement to eastern farms originated with Poles direct from their native land, who began as farm laborers, and that the immigration is kept up by direct immigration rather than by recruits from the ranks of New England's industrial laborers. Advertising by real-estate men is drawing some factory workers to the poorer hill

farms of New England, but only a few, and those very recently. The number of Poles who leave industrial establishments and engage in agriculture, either in the immediate vicinity of the industry or at a distance, is small. The scattered colony at Berea, Ohio, represents the comparatively small percentage of Poles who engage in farming to supplement their earnings in industry.

THE CHARACTER OF POLISH AGRICULTURE.

The first Poles became farmers because they wished to be landowners rather than laborers. They migrated westward because land was free or very cheap. Of necessity they engaged in a self-sufficing, diversified, extensive form of agriculture. Those who came early have changed the form of agriculture in response to changing economic conditions, but somewhat more slowly than the Americans and, perhaps, the Germans. In certain sections dairying has taken the place of grain raising. In Portage County, Wis., the potato industry has developed to large proportions where the soil is peculiarly adapted to the crop, but the Poles have in few instances proved more skillful or resourceful than the native growers. The later Polish settlers and settlements have followed along the lines of agriculture previously introduced. In the western States wheat, flax, barley, peas, hay, dairy products, live stock, or some other special commercial crop is emphasized according to the market conditions of the locality. It can not be said that the Poles excel in any one line because of racial adaptability. That there are very few vegetable or fruit growers of any race in the regions where the colonies. visited are located is perhaps the best explanation of the fact that few Poles are truckers or orchardists. In Texas the distinctive feature of a Polish cotton farm is that it is self-sustaining to a large degree. In New England the Poles have engaged in highly specialized forms of agriculture-onion and tobacco growing, crops requiring special soils, intensive culture, and a high degree of technical skill and business ability. They are succeeding remarkably well, but they are learning by observing their neighbors, by working as farm hands on tobacco and onion farms, and by questioning their countrymen who have succeeded.

The Pole has been called a lover of land; usually the Polish peasant hungers to possess landed property. He falls a little in his own estimation when he leaves peasant life in Europe for day labor in America. But the ability to acquire land for little or nothing has been the prime factor in making the Pole an owner rather than a tenant, so far as one may generalize from the colonies investigated. In Texas, where tenancy or "cropping" predominates, there are many Polish tenants. In Illinois and Indiana many were tenants before they became owners. In the Connecticut Valley there are a number who rent land on shares or at a high cash rental because the land is too valuable for them to purchase. In Illinois and Indiana an increasing number are renting high-priced land either for cash or on shares, because purchase of a farm and equipment requires more capital than the foreigner possesses. Not only is land more valuable, but the capital equipment required on more valuable land is much greater than that required on cheap land, where the culture is crude and extensive.

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