The Daily Astorian

From Europe to the United States.

A Geneva letter says: For good or for evil, railways, steamboats, and the United States are revolutionizing Europe. By the mere force of attraction, America is acting on the population of the old world as the moon acts on the waters of the earth, agitating them and drawing them thitherward. The human tide is moving westward, and every new railway that is laid down, every new steamboat that is built, facilitates and intensifies the movement. The effects of the enormous emigration which is now in progress, as well on the social as on the political condition of Europe can hardly fail to be both momentous and lasting. Whole districts are losing more than half their population. Last year alone 15,000 persons emigrated from Wurtemberg, equal to nine per thousand or nearly one per cent of the population. Even if the exodus does not increase and it is increasing, Germany will lose one tenth of the flower of its people during the next ten years. But this statement gives only an inadequate idea of the significance of the movement. The emigrants are not drawn in equal measurement from parts of the country. There are local causes that tend to make the movement much more brisk in certain districts than in others. In a speech made a few days ago by Herr Pfluger in the chamber of deputies, he said, that during the last three years two thirds of the population of Baden Oberland had emigrated. At this rate in two more years the Baden Oberland will have lost the whole of its population. The emigration from Switzerland though less in proportion than from South Germany, is still on an extensive scale. The number who left the Confederation last year, reached a total of 10,900 against 7,600 in 1880 and 4,450 in 1879. If the increase should continue at this rate for the next eight years, the emigrants of 1890 will number something like 200,000. But that is hardly possible. Emigration is one of those tides in the affairs of men which ebb and flow, and it is now on the flow. It should be remembered on the other hand, that in the opinion of the most competent observers, the flow is far from having reached its height, and that either war or revolution, contingencies which are always on the cards, would vastly swell its volume. The two last wars in which Germany was engaged were followed by a great increase of emigration. For the present exodus several reasons may be assigned; but the main causes are doubtless a desire on the part of those who emigrate to better their condition and escape from the blood tax, which in Germany especially, is exacted with such merciless severity. On this side of the Atlantic there are hard work, and not too much of it, little pay, scant freedom and the conscription, with the contingent liability of being called out for service in the field and maimed or killed. On the other side of the Atlantic, for all but the idle, there are careers with untold possibilities, good wages, unrestricted freedom, no enforced military service, and a chance of war so remote as to be hardly appreciable. The wonder, after all, is less that so many go to America as that so many remain in Europe. If the United States continue prosperous it is so far from unlikely that emigration should not increase. The destination of nine-tenths of those who cross the ocean in search of fortune is the great Republic of the West.