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The Real Power Behind the Tea Party — Wed Sep 15 13:15 -------- Original Message --------
(Common sense, politically incorrect newsletter to 14,657
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AMERICAN WORKERS EVOLVE FROM FARMS TO FACTORIES TO SERVICE
-- By Frank Beardsley, Voice of America writer Before 1860, the United States had an agricultural economy. After 1860, the country began to change quickly from an agricultural to an industrial economy. In 1860, American shops and factories produced less than 2,000 million dollars' worth of goods. Thirty years later, in 1890, American factories produced ten thousand million dollars' worth. By then, more than five million persons were working in factories and mines. Another three million had jobs in the building industries and transportation. Year after year, production continued to increase. And the size of the industrial labor force continued to grow. A great many of the new industrial workers came from American farms. Farm work was hard, and the pay was low. Young men left the family farms as soon as they could. They went to towns and cities to look for an easier and better way of life. Many of them found it in the factories A young man who worked hard and learned new skills could rise quickly to better jobs. In the 1850s, America's industrial revolution was just beginning. Factories needed skilled workers -- men who knew how to do all the necessary jobs. Factory owners offered high pay to workers who had these skills. British workers had them. Many had spent years in British factories. Pay was poor in Britain, and these skilled workers could get much more money in America. So, many of them came. Hundreds of thousands. Some factories -- even some industries -- seemed completely British. Cloth factories in Fall River, Massachusetts, were filled with young men from Lancashire, England. Most of the workers in the shipyards of San Francisco were from Scotland. Many of the coal miners in America were men from the British mines in Wales. Many were farmers who came to America because they could get land for nothing. They could build new farms for themselves in the rich land of the American west. To another group of immigrants, America was the last hope. Ireland in the 1840s suffered one crop failure after another. Hungry men had to leave. In 1850 alone, more than one hundred seventeen thousand people came to the United States from Ireland. Most had no money and little education. To those men and women, America was a magic name. Throughout Europe, when times were hard, people talked of going to America. In some countries, organizations were formed to help people emigrate to the United States. The flow of immigration to the United States began to change in the 1880s. Before then, most of the immigrants came from central and northern Europe -- from Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries. The largest number came from Britain. They found it easy to settle in the United States. They shared with the Americans the same language and many of the same traditions. Some of these early immigrants were skilled workers who found good jobs in American industry. Others were farmers who came to America for free land. After 1880, the flood of immigration from northern and central Europe began to fall. Now, most immigrants were coming from eastern and southern Europe -- from Russia, Poland, Romania, Italy, Greece. These new immigrants were different from those who came earlier. Most did not speak English. Most were poor farmers who had few special skills. Most had little or no education. They were, however, good workers. They did not protest working long hours for low pay. They did not demand better working conditions. They usually refused to join labor unions or take part in strikes. American factory owners were pleased with the new immigrants. They gave them jobs formerly held by higher-paid American workers. The owners asked the new workers to write letters to friends still in the old country, urging them to come to America. And they came by the hundreds of thousands to take jobs in steel factories in Pennsylvania and the coal mines of West Virginia. They worked in the lumber camps of Michigan and in the stockyards and the meat-packing plants of Chicago. American workers then began to protest, as their jobs were filled by immigrants who were happy to work for less money. The protests were especially bitter on the Pacific coast where thousands of Chinese immigrants were settling in California. The Chinese arrived there after 1850 to help build western railroads. After the railroads were completed, these Chinese new-comers turned to other jobs. The immigration law of 1882 put other limits on immigration. It closed the country to criminals, the mentally ill, and persons who could not support themselves. Later, others were added to this list. Persons with diseases. Anarchists. Alcoholics. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts urged such a law in a Senate speech: "If we care for the welfare,the wages, or the standard of life of American workingmen, we should take immediate steps to limit foreign immigration. There is no danger to our workingmen from the coming of skilled workers or of trained and educated men. But there is a serious danger from the flood of unskilled, ignorant foreign labor. "This labor not only takes lower wages, but accepts a standard of living so low that the American workingman cannot compete with it." It took a number of years before Congress was able to pass a law demanding a literacy test for immigrants. -------------------------------------------------------------- For free Politically Incorrect news ignored by the American news media, send your friends' email addresses for REAL NEWS from [email protected]. 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