Welsh Journals

bia University. His idea was adopted by several others, notably by Samuel Roberts and Michael D. Jones, and attempts were made in Wisconsin, Ohio, Tennessee and Kansas. But the scheme was doomed to failure. It was contrary to the express policy of the U.S. government in remov- ing the national peculiarities and languages of its immigrants, and moreover, the Welsh already in the U.S. did not desire its success, for they wished to exploit the cheap labour which con- tinued to pour in from Wales. Towards the middle of the century there oc- curred the curious movement to Utah. It is use- less to hide the fact that the Mormon church ob- tained a vast number of converts in Wales, though the President of Utah University (his own father being a native of Tenby) admitted to me that the chief attraction in Utah was its land rather than its religion. Moreover, Brigham Young was second only to Cecil Rhodes as a coloniser. Still our imagination cannot fail to be touched by the journeys of shiploads of Welsh Mormons from Liverpool to New Orleans, and up the Mississippi and the Missouri for a thous- and miles to Omaha, and then across the moun- tains and plains for another eight hundred miles in covered wagons. The third aspect is the industrial one. The growing industries of America attracted crowds of Welshmen. North Walians went to the slate quarries of Pennsylvania and New York State South Walians to the iron works and coal mines. The copper works of Baltimore were for almost a generation in the hands of workmen from Llan- elly and Swansea. The McKinley tariffs caused many tin workers to emigrate. Typical of this aspect is the career of Captain W. R. Jones, who helped to build up the great Carnegie fortune. He refused Carnegie's offer of a partnership, but himself drew a salary equal to that of the Presi- dent of the Republic. The 1890 census shows that there were at that time over a hundred thousand people in the U.S. who had been born in Wales (excluding Mon- mouthshire). It is a vast number, and it reflects O CRUEL, with your saintly face, If go you must and leave me here, What need, ah me! what need to take The whole world with you, dear? some of the suffering in Wales in the last century, but it is small compared with the figure for Ire- land, which is nearly two million. This century has seen a restriction on immigration, and in 1920 the figure for Wales had fallen to sixty- seven thousand. It is estimated that including those with one parent of Welsh blood, there are over a quarter of a million Welsh people in the U.S. at the present time. Of these immigrants, 73 per cent. have become citizens (the highest percentage of any nation), in comparison with the average percentage of 47 per cent. The Minister for Labour, J. J. Davis, in an interview he gave me in his office in Washington, urged that Wales should strive to get its own quota, distinct from that of England. As elsewhere, the second generation loses its national speech and characteristics. In the great cities the Welsh communities are replenished with new immigrants, and most of the cities have a Welsh church. But far away in Oregon, near the Pacific coast, I found a small rural com- munity which has remained Welsh for over fifty years. Many of the present day Welshmen have been eminently successful, and they include among them two Cabinet Ministers, J. J. Davis and Charles Evans Hughes. Almost without ex- ception they are Republican, that is, conservative, in politics. Perhaps it is their conservatism which preserves their loyalty to Wales. But their outlook on Wales is that of the nineteenth century with its uncritical acceptance of the legendary glories of the race. The new Wales is unknown to them. Their Welsh paper, Y Drych," is concerned mainly with the Welsh churches, and closely resembles a denominational paper of the last century. The Druid," on the other hand, being a sectional paper, is almost forced week by week to deal with the wrongs of Wales and with policies for Wales. In it the nationalist party has more attention paid to it and is taken more seriously than anywhere else. In this, indeed, it is ultra-modern. What if America should provide a De Valera for Wales as it did for Ireland? THE DAY AFTER (From the Welsh of Wil Ifan). There was the blue sky over us, The sun that on the hill-top played, The thousand birds that sang so sweet, The flowers that filled the glade. O cruel, with your saintly face, If go you must and leave me here, What need, ah me! what need to take The whole world with you, dear? H. IDRIS BELL.