ty to the man whom the slum has
robbed of all resources. They sum themselves up in the social life of
which the tenement has such unsuspected stores in the closest of touch
with one's fellows. The colonies need business opportunities to boom
them, facilities for marketing produce in the cities, canning-factories,
store cellars for the product of the vineyards--all of which time must
supply. Though they have given to hundreds the chance of life, it
cannot be said for them that they have demonstrated yet the Jews'
ability to stand alone upon the land, backed as they are by the Hirsch
Fund millions. In fact, I have heard no such claim advanced. But it
can at least be said that for these they have solved the problem of
life and of the slum. And that is something!

Nor is it all. Because of its being a concerted movement, this of
south Jersey, it has been, so to speak, easier to make out. But
already, upon the experience gained there, 700 families, with some
previous training and fitness for farming, have been settled upon New
England farms and are generally doing well. More than $2,000,000 worth
of property in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and their sister states is
owned by Jewish husbandmen. They are mostly dairy-farmers, poultrymen,
sheep breeders. The Russian Jew will not in this generation be fit for
what might be called long-range farming. He needs crops that turn his
money over quickly. With that in sight, he works hard and faithfully.
The Yankee, as a rule, welcomes him. He has the sagacity to see that
his coming will improve economic conditions, now none too good. As
shrewd traders, the two are well matched. The public school brings the
children together on equal terms, levelling out any roughness that
might remain.

If the showing that the Jewish population of New England has increased
in 17 years from 9000 to 74,000 gives anybody pause, it is not at
least without its compensation. The very need of the immigrant to
which objection is made, plus the energy that will not let him sit
still and starve, make a way for him that opens it at the same time
for others. In New York he _made_ the needle industry, which he
monopolized. He brought its product up from $30,000,000 to
$300,000,000 a year, that he might live, and founded many a great
fortune by his midnight toil. In New England, while peopling its
abandoned farms, in self-defence he takes up on occasion abandoned
manufacturing plants to make the work he wants. At C