About the impropriety of emigration to America for the higher and educated classes of Germany. - About emigration to America generally. - How is the German nation regarded there?

All of those who have the desire to emigrate to America by themselves but who understand neither a trade nor farming and who cannot support themselves at all with coarse manual labor, but rather wish to make their fortune solely through talent I hereby somberly warn not to make themselves unfortunate through an emigration to America. All such people go wrong there, inasmuch as they cannot even speak and write English properly and correctly. In this latter case they might perhaps find accommodation and bread after years and days; but it is still uncertain. And even if they find bread, they will nevertheless in ongoing time not be able to live quite happily and contentedly. Often such people, if they are without means, come into the saddest condition. Even young merchants' clerks have little outlook there. Very many talented youths became known to me for whom it was a pity that their talents should slumber there unused for years, among whom were many of respectable descent and whom finally necessity forced to buy small wares in the cities, pack them into a knapsack and walk around with it in the country to sell whereby they scarcely earned enough to get themselves through necessitously. From the farmers with whom they took night quarters in order to save money they often had to hear bitter words as for example: "You are big and strong, you can work! Can't you thresh, plow, make fences? I'll give you enough to work and pay you well," etc. Many of them learn a trade, whereto opportunity is always to be found. Many compromise themselves to learn the farming business. Others become schoolmasters and after some time if they have talent for it also preachers; most preachers in Pennsylvania were previously schoolteachers. Very frequently I had the experience that such people who had received only a little more than ordinary learning and upbringing in their fatherland were not able to forget this and even with all their abundance in the physical respect did not really become rightly happy in their life. I got to know very old people who lived in fortunate well-being and saw a whole line of children and grandchildren around them who were likewise well-to-do and yet these old people had a right hearty and sincere desire for their fatherland. Not far distant from me in Alabama [Albany] township (commune) lived an old, rich 87 year old farmer by the name of Schaper, native to the region around Frankfurt at the Main, whose children were likewise rich and well-to-do and who took care of the old man well; and yet this man had an indescribable drive and an irresistable desire to return to his fatherland. He had heard of my decision to return, sent me an express messenger and asked me to come to him. I went to him and found him at the stove sleeping in an upholstered chair. Then I went out again from his room and spoke with his children who told me that nothing could come of the journey of the old man because he was much too weak; yet his daughter advised me to speak with him to satisfy his desire; she woke him, went out again and then I went to him. He was a man of very big and strong body build with silvery white hair, but whose head was already shaking. "Young German, are you the one who wants to travel to Germany?" he said to me, and when I answered this with a yes, he said: "won't you take me along?" I rather do not believe that you are serious about this, I said, for you appear to me to be too weak already for such a trip. He let his head hang (this is the American's sign if something oppresses him or if he perceives something bad). Then I said: if you are willing to travel with me I have nothing against it. Then he went to the door of the room, opened it quietly and looked to see whether someone stood listening at it. "Look!" he said then, "if you take me to my fatherland then I'll give you a thousand dollars! You couldn't earn them easier anywhere!" The old man said this with a smiling mouth and with that his eyes sparkled and his pale cheeks turned red. - From this one sees how great the love for the fatherland still is there among many old Germans and that it is indeed suppressed for a long time but yet cannot be completely done away with. Still many times the old man said the words: "Look! I'll give you a thousand dollars if you take me along and bring me to my fatherland." He told me that in America he had had much luck, took good care of all his children and just a short time ago had distributed a sum of money among them. For himself, however, he had kept four thousand dollars so that he could be more independent of his children and a short time ago he had made up his mind to travel to his fatherland and to give to the one who would accompany him there and wait on him and take care of him a thousand dollars; but that his children were trying to prevent this with all their might for they thought they would inherit the money He forbade me to repeat anything of what he told me to his children; but from these I heard that all the relatives would not allow that the old man make the trip, whereto he also indeed was much too weak and for this reason I did not go to him again. I could provide more examples of Germans grown old who could not forget their fatherland and wished themselves back again; but this one is already sufficient to show this. But to show that all educated Germans have in common not doing well there at least for a considerable time, I wanted to share here a copy of the first letter written to me by the Heinrich Koch mentioned in the ninth chapter; but since after much searching among my letters I could not find it, instead its place will be taken here by the beginning and a small excerpt from a letter written to me later by the same author who states as follows:

Mill-Hall Post-Office the 7th of February 1825



My dear Countryman,

With great pleasure I received your writing so valuable to me dated Dec. 18, 1824. It awakened in me highly unpleasant feelings too to know once again that a countryman of mine was unfortunate. Every sensitive and educated person is indisputably in Siberian exile here and only death will free us from it, which would be welcome to me anytime, since it becomes more unbearable daily to live among these tasteless people. O, were I only in my condition now raw and stupid as the cattle, I would count myself lucky; but I cannot do it. I promised in my first letter to visit you, dear friend, to get to know you better; just this sweet fortune, to cry out my sorrows on the breast of a friend, fate has denied me. Since I lay sick eleven months and was deprived of all my possessions by bad people and in addition was plunged into debts, duty demanded of me to stay here long enough until everything is paid, although I would rather lose everything, only not my honor. But I beg of you not to get sick over this since I have means in the fatherland to make up for this again. - O my dear fatherland, cradle of us both, our hope and wish! When will I see you again? Oh! Perhaps never. - Strange customs and practices, unfamiliar laws, inclinations against nature surround me and strange earth will sometime cover me. - How gladly I would, as that prodigal son, remorsefully return home; what holds me back? The shame of having left the fatherland to look for a better one which lay only in an untamed idea, but is not to be found. Deception, bitter feeling! You keep my unfortunate heart fettered with cold, heavy chains and I am not able to burst them nor to conquer the monsters; nothing remains to me but cold philosophy and withdrawal from the world in my best years. Nature strengthens my body weakened by sickness; but what shall strengthen the likewise weakened spirit that nowhere here finds sustenance, no scholarly books, no conversation than of religion; and oh! the concepts of that here are really shocking and frightening. - For your efforts to get me a school position there, my best thanks to you; but this news came too late and it was impossible for me to make use of it since I was engaged here already which is encumbered with many difficulties, since I preach every Sunday; and since I cannot preach wrong themes and superstition against my conviction, I have much oppression with it. The greatest ruination is that here people do not want that their children should be educated in the schools into sensible persons through sensible instruction, etc. -Farewell, dear friend, the Lord be with you and with me to the end. I remain with inner high regard

Your friend

H.L. Koch



These are the first impressions of all those there that received here in their German fatherland a more than American upbringing and education, and now have to live by themselves among those people; especially however those individuals who understand neither a trade nor the farming business; but especially those who already here for a considerable time have held an office and received honor and distinction which completely falls away there. There no person is regarded more in the least on account of learning, knowledge and other talents than the least day laborer; indeed, if this latter is industrious, honest and loyal and knows how to get along with the custom and practices there, he is more respected than the former: for the American does not value and gives no recognition to talents and scholarly knowledge at all, even if it be that someone distinguishes himself through the art of war as an outstanding hero or through the invention of useful machines or in another way commands great attention and for his fatherland and his fellow citizens there makes himself remarkably deserving or possesses great riches. In such cases also no regard can be paid to the nation or lineage of such persons and the German then is regarded personally as the others. Also the way to offices and positions of honor stands open to every German as well as others if he distinguishes himself in the above way and has a complete command of the language of the land there. Pennsylvania has for a number of years elected German descendants as governors, for example Schneider, Hiester and the one now is named Schulze.

The German distinguishes himself ahead of others in general also through this, that he is industrious, thrifty, home-loving, honest and of a quieter countenance - primarily, however, as a farmer, for Pennsylvania has the generally acknowledged fame of preference to other states thanks only to the abundant emigration of Germans. The German immigrant is much rather seen there than the Irish and French. With the latter the American cannot befriend himself.

Not considering that, however, one becomes aware generally of a great low estimation of the German nation and its name. Although the Americans are actually still too new to deserve the name nation, they still have a national pride as no other nation on the whole earth. They look with great disdain on all those from whom the first shoots came to their education. Of no nation, however, do they have less opinion than of the German. They judge Germany from their very meager knowledge according to the level of education and the externals of those individuals whom they saw landing at their shores and who for the most part were not inclined to give them a favorable opinion of the Germans, for the number of educated Germans that landed there was always very small. These unfavorable impressions are very much strengthened especially by the miserable condition in which the German emigrants appear there in these later years and even worse by the moral character of the same. The German American is among others the most inclined to mock the German people and to make the German name disdainful there; it was unbearable for me to hear that the farmer so often made fun of the stupidity of the emigrated Germans and then called the Germans in general straw heads, and yet these people cannot get along even today without the emigrated Germans, but rather often go through much trouble to get German day laborers, servants and maids and assure that they cannot use any from other nations whereby they themselves even acknowledge and attest to the virtues of the Germans, In cunning and slyness the German Americans may surpass the greatest part of the new German immigrants, but not in industry, diligence and honesty. The really educated German, however, surpasses the American German in any case. This latter feels it too, for he almost never gets into an extended conversation with such a one because he knows that every time he will get the short end.

It would be heartily, right heartily desirous that, because emigration to America will continue, Germans stick together better and emigrate to there in large colonies and make communal undertakings more common than heretofore.

But as long as this is not the case, I wish just as heartily that all German governments would forbid them or at least not tolerate any further that people emigrate there who understand neither farming nor a trade, for through their activities there the name of the German nation is made dishonorable and disdainful, which I have seen and heard for myself. In addition to the unfortunates mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, there is still a great number of the same persons who take their refuge in ignoble means, namely in quack medicine. They give themselves the title doctor, gather all kinds of herbs and other things, make powders and pills, cook the herbs and make up various medications which they put in large and small glasses, make up salves and plasters and go around with them in the country to deceive the people. These persons rightly understand the art of getting into the good graces of the American country people, of flattering their childish vanity, of praising them to their face, of elevating America up to the heavens and by contrast of describing their German fatherland as a hell, of cursing their governments and constitutions and of presenting the American by contrast as divine. Such persons I often ran into in inns where a group of American gathered around them, listened to their long sermon of lies with great attention and set it up for the German doctor; no matter how much he allowed himself of food and drink, it was gladly paid.

Many times I challenged such doctors and the answer was then given to me: "One has to act just like this if one wants to make a go of it in this land, for one wants to live, wife and children want to live too, clothes and upkeep are expensive here, I cannot go back again to the fatherland because I have no means for that. Thus I take advantage of the stupidity of these people, the only means available to us here to get along. For selling the people here a line of goods one has not only a good life among them, but also one gets more and more customers and as a result gets rid of more of his wares, the people pay more for them," etc. Thus many of this kind of person told me.

To this one might answer me: that this is no special reason to think the German nation is dishonored there because such persons could well deceive the rabble but not the educated Americans.

To that I have to reply: that I found there no particular difference among the Americans so that one could divide them into two big piles, namely into the educated and the rabble; also I found no essential difference at all in regard to the intellectual life among the city and country people. The number of educated people in the cities is very small and contrasted to the big pile of uneducated people need not be taken into account, and just the educated and rich in the cities are those who are most adverse to the Germans. For among these there are scholarly people who are in correspondence with scholars in large cities of Germany, draw all kinds of political news from them and are either duped by it or suck poison out of such news, twist it and spread all kinds of news in the newspapers about the German princes and governments whereby the public is led astray and a bad opinion of the German nation is spread. May the time not be far away anymore when such bitter slanderers no longer find adherents!

Source: Edited by Bryan Wright