Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 160, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1916 — Labor Will Be Scarcer. [ARTICLE]

Labor Will Be Scarcer.

An investigation made by some of the railroads of the country indicated that 500,000 foreign-born persons would return to Europe immediately after the war, for various reasons. Friends and relatives have been killed. Their homes have been devastated. There has been no communication between millions of families for over a year. Other evidence indicates that some of the warring countries are planning a campaign upon America for the purpose of inducing able-bodied men to return to their native lands to aid in the rebuilding process. They want men, and they want the accumulated capital which these men will bring back with them; and 200,000 men with SSOO each would mean an addition to the capital resources of Europe of $100,000,000. It is probable that great stretches of Europe now divided into great feudal estates will be broken up into small holdings, to be sold to natives and returned foreign-born from America as small farms. For many nobles of central Europe have been killed. Many more have been bankrupted. ’The shortage of labor will make it difficult for them to work their estates. It ia not impossible that the United States may be a country from which the able-bodied will emigrate, rather than a country into which they will immigrate. This, of course, is a matter of speculation. It will depend upon industrial conditions in Europe on the one hand, and industrial conditions in America on the other. Adding to this is the pending legislation at Washington, which may restrict immigration by means of the literacy test and other limitations upon the number" of incoming aliens. —Engineering Magazine.