16 SLAVS ON SOUTHERN FARMS. 



the Protestants, the Congregational Church has a following of about 

 500 and is the largest Congregational pastorate in the State of Vir- 

 ginia. There is also a large Presbyterian congregation of ab )ut 200, 

 and a Lutheran Church with about half this number. Here and there 

 are also found a few families of Slavs who are Methodists. 



PRIDE OF RACE AMONG SLAVS IN VIRGINIA. 



Recently the people of Petersburg and vicinity were suddenly 

 made aware of the maturity of the south-side Virginia colony by a 

 prompt and publicly expressed resentment of a possibly uninten- 

 tional slur east at the Slavs by a visiting speaker who was understood 

 to class the Slavs as undesirable immigrants for the South. This 

 incident, with almost lightning rapidity, solidified the several Slavish 

 elements in the colony, and their leaders immediately demanded 

 recognition of their fitness as agricultural settlers. The response to 

 this demand was highly flattering to the Slavs and remarkable for 

 the promptness and forcefulness with which.it was made. 



In a public statement issued by one of the prominent members of 

 the Bohemian colony in Prince George County, a member of the 

 county school board, it was asserted that — 



This slur at the Slavs is certainly undeserved as is evidenced by their character, 

 industry, and their acceptableness which are demonstrated beyond contradiction 

 by the local immigrant colony, which is composed, be it known, almost entirely of 

 Bohemians and Slovaks (both Slavish people). 



Continuing, the statement argued: 



These people have been coming to the local counties for the past 25 years; they have 

 taken up farms abandoned by native Virginians and have brought them to a very high 

 degree of cultivation and productiveness; they hold an envied reputation for honesty 

 and good citizenship — there is not a merchant in Petersburg who will not attest to 

 their strict integrity in all business and financial transactions. 



More than this, they have been recognized by the native Virginians. In Prince 

 George County, for example, a Bohemian born in Europe was recently elected a 

 member of the board of county commissioners, while other members of the colony 

 hold important public offices. 



Leading southern economists, among others, are now contending that the problems 

 of immigration, as far as the South is concerned at the present time, are those of an 

 internal redistribution rather than an assisted foreign immigration. The speaker, 

 judging from his statements, apparently does not hold this view; and he utterly fails 

 to take into consideration the primary cause underlying the movement of immigrants 

 to this country, the labor element in the industrial organization of the North and the 

 Middle West, and the life ambition of the Slavish people in America — a people who 

 are lovers of the land, and whose life object is to be landowners. 



What the South needs more than an increased railroad traffic is the redevelopment 

 in the breasts of her people of loyalty to the high ideals of right, individual liberty, 

 and the honorableness of unselfish, constructive public service. The new citizens 

 who come to live in the South must respond to these ideals. They must come io be 

 southerners, and in being southerners, to be truly Americans; they must come, 

 accepting established institutions; and must join in the national life of the South as 

 home makers and as guardians of the integrity of the white race. 



By actual demonstration the Bohemians and their Slavish brothers have proved 

 that with proper treatment, and when accepted as men at a man's worth, they can 

 measure up to these requirements. 



The Index-Appeal, the hading daily newspaper at Petersburg, 

 promptly replied editorially to this strongly worded and highly 

 idealistic statement under date of January 25, 1914, in part as 

 follows: 



What a pity it is that the speaker at the meeting held here yesterday had not talked 

 with one or two of the business men of Petersburg regarding the Slavs. He would 



