Northwest History. Damage Suits, Dams, Dedications, Disasters, D. A. V., Droughts, Earthquake. Droughts.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1936
• Subjects: Droughts; Refugees; Oregon; Nebraska; Iowa; Missouri; Kansas; Oklahoma; North Dakota; South Dakota; Willamette Valley; Ontario; hardship; Rocky mountains; dust bowl; Pacific coast; California; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th Century; United States > Damage Suits; Dams; Dedications; Disasters; D. A. V.; Earthquake > 20th Century; Greenland; Pacific
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/159147

Coming Of The Refugees. Coming of the Refugees. Pouring into Oregon are several thousand homeseeking families from the drouth region. On the highway arteries leading into Oregon the caravan moves westward. License tags identify the newcomers as being from Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and the Dakotas. Mostly these invaders chug in on the route crossing Idaho and entering Oregon at Ontario. They pass through Portland, hundreds of them, but are not observed by the busy people in the city center—they swing south into the Willamette valley by roads to the south. These nomads have been driven from their old home by drouth and dust storms and they are seeking a better land. Most, but not all, have a little money, enough with which to make a start. The family car, with a two-wheel trailer, is the typical unit. Into the trailer is loaded all the worldly possessions of these latter-day homeseekers. Sunburned, weatherbeaten men and women are these strangers, for they have for years struggled to raise crops in an uncertain region. No livestock is carried, unless it be a dog so attached to the family that it could not be abandoned when the old farm was deserted. From washboard to stove; cradles and bedsprings, household articles are lashed to the car and the trailer. What they could take that would be most useful in the new homeland has been piled into the trailer. Occasionally is seen a new truck, which, perhaps, represents the proceeds when the farm was sold, and the truck is to be used for the fresh start. To these farmers who have been forced to retreat from the drouth region the verdure of Oregon is irresistible. Pop-eyed, they gaze at the lush fields along the highway in eastern Oregon, where irrigation is practiced. The truck gardens in the environs of Portland, the green fields of Willamette, Tualatin and other valleys leave these people amazed. Along the road they make inquiries as to prices of land, rainfall, markets and whether there are crop failures. Attendants at the oil stations are sought for this information, but about all the service station attendants have in the way of data is a road map issued by the oil company whose products they sell. In auto camps little knots of these modern immigrants rest at night and discuss what they have seen during the day. Anyone with an inquiring mind can quickly discover with a little effort how the greenland of Oregon impresses these refugees from the burnt acres of the states east of the Rocky mountains. If there is any organized attempt being made to invite these people to remain and settle in Oregon, no trace of such campaign is noticeable along the highways. Once upon a time local chambers of commerce displayed exhibits of local products and resources in glass cases at the railroad depots. Such exhibits would supply the information the new homeseekers desire if the display was arranged on the main highways. As it is, the average farm family in car and trailer rolls along until it is out of gas or oil, unable to decide where to pitch camp and look for a farm. Ultimately approximately 100,000 families will move from the drouth and dust bowl regions, and there is no place for them but to turn west; the east holds nothing. Encouraging them to pull up stakes from their blighted farms and seek more fertile soil is the resettlement administration. It is part of the program, a long-range plan, gradually to restore the buffalo country to a cattle range instead of using it for cultivation of crops. The farmers cannot be ejected nor will the government purchase lands on a vast scale, but little by little the government is and will continue acquiring the submarginal land and assisting the distressed farmers and stockmen to find a land where conditions are more friendly. Check by government agencies shows that the three Pacific coast states are the destination of the drouth refugees and that the trend toward Oregon and Washington is holding its own with California; in fact, more of the home hunters are scouting in the Pacific northwest than in California. There is an opportunity for Oregon to gain several thousand hard-working farm families if effort is made. Many are financially handicapped, but there are as many more able and willing to purchase land at a fair price.