The Salvation Army and Other Institutions
p. 152-161
July 30, 2010
This is how an immigrant stops tightening his belt and starts eating well.
Mankind at its best should concern itself with this question. Here in this incredible country we can quote Richard Dehmel’s wonderful poem: “No one will cry out for hunger any more . . .” This country, still waiting for 92 million people, will not be populated quickly. We can do nothing better than to let the whole world know about this land’s impatience.
The overpopulation of the world, this terrible overpopulation of poor and miserable creatures who are bred from our so-called civilized modern world, spill over into this waiting country, and you’d think that a wise ruler would encourage this sort of thing, but instead they take this overflow of people and jam it deeper into a dead end, pumping the poor people full of alcohol for the sake of their civilization.
I visited a group of social democrats in Winnipeg. There really isn’t much of a place for them in Canada, where people can create whatever life they want. If a factory worker here struggles for his class, you have to ask him why he bothers to worry about his class. He could just be an individual and struggle for himself. If one class fights the other, at best all that will happen is that they switch places, but how will this fix the failings of mankind? I could walk up to the factory workers in Winnipeg and ask them if they’ve ever met Mr. Bruce Walker. I’d take them to him. They could go to the country and become a farmer. If the city needs factory workers, then they’ll just be better off. I could tell them to go to the country and improve themselves.
But if I talk to one of them like this, there’s a good chance he’ll just laugh in my face and tell me that all my newcomer’s assumptions are completely false. “Could you give me a few details?” he’ll ask. “How will we get these immigrants out of the cities, these industrial centers? How will the cities operate? How will industry force out all these proletariat who are still pouring into the city? Stay here for a few years, then you can talk. Until then, please just keep your mouth shut!”
I listen to them talking behind the podium.
Like I said, many countries of the world have an interest in shipping off their poor to this rich country (excluding those proletariat of the large cities). All you have to do is walk through the hellish suburbs of London, Dublin or Liverpool and the word Canada is on everybody’s lips. Even though the British islands provide the bulk of the immigrants, most of these immigrants are Irish and Scottish. It’s the O’s and the Mac’s who take up all the property in the wheat country and the west. Wales, Cornwall and the east of England don’t have much say in it. When I checked with the consulate in Montreal, I found out that the number of German immigrants were laughably small. That’s easy to explain. For the people overflowing from Germany, German colonies are far more tempting than the English dominions . . . After we take into account the British islands and the United States, the Slavic countries of Europe provide the most immigrants.
In the consulate of Austria-Hungary, I asked for data about immigrants from Hungary and discovered the enigmatic fact that there weren’t any. I’ve read in brochures and heard from various European officials that certain steamship lines, like the Cunard Line, take Hungarians, Croats, Slovaks, Romanians and Magyars from Fiume to the ports of the United States. (Unless they have the approval of the Hungarian government, they’re going to have to be careful.) So why aren’t there any Hungarian immigrants to Canada?
I never got any answers to my various, polite questions, but I at least got the same patronizing response that anybody gets when they commit an indiscretion against the state. It was only in Winnipeg that a friendly Magyar preacher solved this riddle for me in a simple, plausible way.
Those Hungarians who travel to the United States try to get their money as quickly as possible (often by artificially cutting their own wages). Then they take their hard-earned dollars and go back to the homeland, where they were much happier. But in Canada and the English dominions, there’s always the danger that their lives could wind up being better than they’d been back in Hungary. The Hungarians who come to Canada often prefer to stay in Canada, following English custom and opening up bank accounts. And so the government implicitly prohibits emigration to Canada. This is an amusing example.
From 1909-1910, according to the census, 208,000 people came to Canada. Of those, 60,000 were British subjects, 103,000 came from the states and the remaining 45,000 belongs to 62 different nationalities. It’s projected that, from 1910 to 1911, 325,000 will be arriving. As someone said to me in Ottawa, the immigration in the spring of 1911 has been the most remarkable Canada has yet seen.
You can think about the Salvation Army however you want. I won’t contradict you if you find their methods repulsive, and if you say that their exploitation of the homeless has drastically lowered wages in certain industries, I’m not about to call you a liar. However, I have nothing but respect and admiration for an institution that has helped so many emigrants from the British Islands reach the shores of Canada. The organization has long ago sailed past all of the obstacles of a charitable institution, and by now they are a veritable social power which our modern order can no longer ignore.
It’s an even playing field for any poor newcomer who wants to get his own land, and the Salvation Army makes it all the more level for those who have entrusted themselves to its protection. Not only does it give the newcomers a good future, it also provides hardworking servants to the farmers, who are always looking for new replacements. New workers must constantly be obtained, and the fact that they can be obtained is due to the remarkable organization of the Salvation Army.
This system of providing farmers with workers from the British Islands is really quite remarkable. The headquarters of the Salvation Army is in Toronto, and that’s where Brigadier Morris showed me the guest houses and women’s homes. He also showed me the books laid out with all the quotes, numbers, supplies and statistics.
In the last seven years, the Army has brought over fifteen thousand people. Much of the time, it has even loaned out money for the trip over. There happens to be a desperate need for maids all across Canada. It’s a man’s world out here, and it’s hard for a farmer to start out on his own without anyone to take care of the little details and the finances. The Army makes sure that when it brings people over it can guarantee them a year of solid labor so that those willing to work can be full Canadians. Every spring, a cargo full of people arrive, personally escorted by members of the Army in the most secure manner imaginable. (From June 1 to October 31, 1911, the Army’s Emigration Gazette was read on 97 ships of the Canadian Pacific, Allan, White Star and other emigration lines.)
There aren’t many who worry about the Salvation Army’s colonization of Canada. They are some of the poorest people around, who show up with only five dollars (or maybe none at all) in their pockets and immediately begin work as farmhands. Often the Salvation Army has a Class II immigrant, whom I’ve taken an interest in, and I’ve received information about them from a very eager brigadier.
The vast majority of Salvation Army recruits travel Class III, arriving in Quebec and immediately filling up the districts where they’re needed and where they can make their living. Class II, on the other hand, arrives in Montreal and goes its own way.
Class II consists mostly of petty clerks, petty tradesmen and petty capitalists, in addition clergymen and army pensioners. But quite a few of them have family with money or have made a deal with the devil. They are the younger sons of Life. Brigadier Morris doesn’t know what I mean by that, but I know all about the younger sons and explain to the Brigadier everything I’m writing about Class II. He prefers Class III; so do I. These people come to Canada and belong to the Army for two or three months, and then, because they were well provided for, they don’t need any more help and have paid off the loan they took out for the trip over.
The Class IIs, however, and generally the entire second class of immigrants, are people of all walks of life. Among the herds of office slaves, you’ll find artists and teachers, Oxford and Cambridge types, actors and the overflow of the intellectual world.
There are legends of entire colonies consisting exclusively of certain colleges of Cambridge, who grow their wheat in western Alberta, in the area of Lloydminster. I’ll talk about the legends of ranchers, sheriffs and cowboys later.
For these and similar colonists, the Canadian Pacific Railway provides der vorbereiteten Farms, ready-made farms.
It seems like a thoroughly practical idea, for which Canada has Sir Thomas O’Shaugnessy to thank, the president of the C.P.R.
In the area of Irricana, the artificially irrigated territory between Edmonton and Calgary, the C.P.R. has prepared these ready-made farms. How many thousands of cultivated, sensitive people would sooner let their lives dwindle to nothing than dare to set out under their own power to a new life in a foreign land? They don’t lack the money to begin, only the courage. On the ready-made farms, they find pretty houses, a barn with machines, a stall with animals and the best untouched soil in the world. A farm out of a fairy table, with tables overflowing with food for the civilized city folk who want to return to the earth.
If you want to talk about the Salvation Army, you also have to talk about the similar institutions in the surrounding area. For example, the famous charity of Dr. Barnardo in London, a home and school for the neglected children of the East End of London. I found a Barnardo Home in all the large cities of Canada. Large multitudes of children are brought over. Childless farmers take the poorest, and now many of the Barnardo children have become good men. The central administration of the charity is always looking out for the children, knows where they are and how they are doing.
The philanthropy named for Annie MacPherson in Stratford, Ontario has a similar mission as the Barnardo Homes. It provides orphans to the farmers of Ontario around Stratford and always has a direct connection with these children.
All these institutions, like the famous settlements in the quarters of London and New York, belong to the category of benevolent institutions, an invention of the middle class, who believe they can find a way to make up for the sins they’ve committed on the underclass. With their right hands, they suppress the people, while with the left they wipe the sweat of guilt from their foreheads. It’s like throwing snowballs into hell to keep it from getting too hot!
However, in a way, the welfare institutions lose some of their odious aftertaste because of the inclusion of farmland. The Salvation Army exquisitely carries out their mission by promoting everyone equally, without asking for names. There are some out there who do not share the mission of the Salvation Army and do not approve the benefits. But when I see a Salvation Army girl playing her tambourine, I have no choice but to throw in my silver coins. Her work deserves it!