THE PROGRESS OF WESTERN AMERICA 





A MONSTER COLONY FOR NEW 

 MEXICO, 



BY HORATIO. 



PVERY cily and town in the United 

 JL-^ States today has idle people. Chi- 

 cago has 30,000 men who cannot get 

 steady employment, for the simple reason 

 that every place is filled. These people 

 are not drunkards or loafers, and many of 

 them are skilled in the trades. The type- 

 setting machines alone have thrown half a 

 million printers in the United States out 

 of all chance of further employment at 

 their trade, and before the machines came 

 the electric lights had rendered many of 

 them half blind. The condition of the 

 printers today, most of them with fami- 

 lies, is indeed pitiable. The Western 

 State or Territory that wants population, 

 and wants to advertise itself at the same 

 time, can secure a monster colony by 

 giving each ex-printer a small tract of 

 land, with the privilege, in the future, of 

 buying additional acres. 



The men who are in the sorest need are 

 newspaper compositors, and THE IRRIGA- 

 TION AGE feels sure that once the suggestion 

 is made the newspapers of the West will 

 take it up. We ask the press to aid us in 

 founding a printers' colony, and thus 

 succor half a million as good men as tread 

 God' s green earth. 



That such a colony would rapidly till 

 up goes without the saying, for printers 

 all over Europe and all over the world are 

 in the same sad predicament as those in 

 this country. From long service and night 

 work, hundreds of these men are worn 

 down and weak, but they will rapidly re- 

 cuperate. If a companion is necessary, 

 the American printers today are in much 

 worse condition than the Armenians, and 

 these men and their families are Ameri- 

 cans, and are the wards of, and made, the 

 newspapers which now do without them. 



Will New Mexico do itself honor and at 

 the same time perform a national charity 



by offering homes to these suffering peo- 

 ple ? 



Communications on this subject from 

 Territorial and State officers, or Territo- 

 rial, State or County immigration bureaus 

 can be addressed to THE IRRIGATION AGE, 

 Chicago. Leading men in printers' socie- 

 ties in Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, 

 New York, Memphis and New Orleans, 

 agree that such a colony as is suggested, 

 would prove a blessing, and they are en- 

 thusiastic to push the suggestion to an 

 established fact. If our friends of the 

 western press desire to know the feeling 

 among the fraternity all through the West, 

 let them step into the composing room 

 and "sound" the "subs" that are stand- 

 ing around, or send reporters to the 

 headquarters of the Union or other prin- 

 ters' societies. 



If a favorable offer is made by New 

 Mexico, or some other Territory or State, 

 THE IRRIGATION AGE has arranged to im- 

 mediately place it before meetings of the 

 printers in every city and town in the 

 United States, and such a noise will be 

 made that it will be heard all over 

 Christendom. 



But the terms must be awfully easy. 

 It must be remembered that most of these 

 men have been without employment for 

 a long time; that close application to 

 type-setting for most of their lives from 

 boyhood up almost unfits them for other 

 city employment. These men are poor 

 now, through no fault of their own, but if 

 given a chance they will quickly become 

 much more than self-sustaining. 



And, without reflecting at all on gen- 

 tlemen who make a business of colonizing, 

 we wish to have it understood that in no 

 way can there be any money in the project 

 for THE IRRIGATION AGE. If offers are 

 received of homes for these deserving and 

 desirable people, those offers will be im- 

 mediately turned over to the printers' so- 

 cieties. Our services are free, gratis, for 

 nothing. 



(Kj 



