rations--for instance, family conditions, industrial opportunities,
city attractions, etc.--prevent a number of such immigrants from becoming
farmers. Many come to America only to make money so as to return and buy
land at home. For land ownership is to them the goal in life. What a
change in this transient attitude might be made by a policy of
having land available and usable for such birds of passage.

Certainty and confidence as purely psychological factors in the process
of Americanization can be cultivated in the immigrants by affording
effective public guidance and protection to those who actually attempt
to settle on land.

As the land settlement conditions now are, a large number of the
land-seeking immigrants are disappointed in the acquirement of land;
they have no confidence in the land sellers and dealers, and they have
even become suspicious of the country's laws and public institutions
connected with land transfer by purchase. To illustrate: An old-time
Italian immigrant, a skilled truck gardener, working for another Italian
near a small Eastern town, explained to the writer:

I have saved a small sum of money for the purpose of buying a piece
of land. But after years of search I have not succeeded in
acquiring a piece of land suitable for gardening. All land seems to
have been already "grabbed." The price asked is so high that one
hardly is able to work it out of the soil. Last year a "Yankee"
sold me some land, but he did not give it to me; he wanted only my
money. I had to take a lawyer, but he did not get the land that I
had bought for me. Only my money was returned, half of which the
lawyer kept for himself as a fee for his services. There is no help
from lawyers or courts. I lost my savings of years. The
land-selling business in this country is a big humbug. Too bad!

NEED FOR LAND REGULATION

It is an astonishing, almost unbelievable fact that, although nearly all
industrial and trade pursuits have come under some sort of public
regulation, licensing, or supervision--even such minor trades as
shoeblacking, fruit peddling, and mere popcorn and peanut selling--land
dealing, one of the most basic of all trades, has been practically
overlooked by our lawmakers.

The regulation of a trade requires a definite policy toward the present
and future of the trade in relation to the public safety and welfare,
and especially is this true in regard to