Burlington Hawkeye
Burlington, Des Moines, Iowa
Wednesday, June 22, 1864

The most singular fact of the day is the wonderful increase of immigration.- While we are in the midst of a terrible and exhaustive civil war, while native croakers are complaining of their trials and constantly predicting
overwhelming calamities, men of foreign countries-countries now enjoying peace, are flocking to our shores in numbers almost beyond precedent. If any comment were necessary on the folly of those who predict nothing but evil, evils, too, which can only come as a consequence and result of their predictions, it is supplied by the tide constantly swelling, the best that can be made. A country can hardly be deemed on the verge of ruin, which even in the midst of the greatest of civil wars, attracts the people of others to its borders and furnishes them with a better home than they can find in their native lands while in the enjoyment of peace. A few figures will indicate how enormous this emigration is. At the port of New York, from the 1st of January to the last day of May, 68,078 immigrants were landed. Of these, 41, 238 were from Ireland, 15,346 from Germany, 8,114 from England, 1,186 from Scotland, 214 from Wales, and 1,933 from all other countries. If they should continue to come in the same ratio throughout the year, the total number at that port will be 214,876. This will exceed the number for 1863 nearly sixty thousand, and is more than double the number for any year since 1857. Much the larger portion of the immigrants land at New York. They come in steamers and sail vessels. The trouble on the other side is that both classes prove insufficient. Passages are engaged to the full capacity of all a month in advance.- Those whose passage is secured refuse double the price for it. They are bent upon crossing and nothing can bribe them to lose the speediest chance. Another feature is that fully two-thirds of the Irish emigrants have their fares prepaid by friends and relatives in this country. A much larger proportion than usual of the present immigration is of the more thrifty and industrious classes, and it includes a very large number of skilled mechanics and workmen, who come prepared to become at once useful and self-supporting residents among us. Those whose possessions enable them to form
a pretty exact opinion, estimate the amount of coin in the hands of each immigrant this year at eighty dollars.
In 1856 the number landed from steamers at New York was only about 5,000 and three per cent of the whole. In 1863, the number from steamers was 63,931 and forty per cent of the whole. And all the steamers which brought immigrants last year were foreign. Not one American vessel among them! There is another illustration of the effect of England's professed neutrality! The fare by steamers is about double that charged by sail vessels. But the time occupied is much shorter, sail vessels occupying three or four times as much,
and the risk of disease being multiplied many times over. Such are a few of the facts relating to the existing phase of immigration. They indicate that the people of other lands do not find their condition at home
desirable and that they still believe it will be improved by coming to us. They have faith in our institutions still, though rebels and traitors insist that they are a failure, and seek to destroy them. And we have room for
all who have this faith and who are determined to prove it by their acts. Those who are resolved to make their own way among us, the thrifty and industrious sons of toil, are just what we want. We shall mutually aid each other. So long as this class comes we shall bid them welcome. There is ample room and abundance of employment for all who choose to make this their home and their country. Does not their conduct put us to shame those among us who would consent to the overthrow of the Republic ,and are too faint-hearted to make a single effort to sustain and defend it.!