Mr. J.F. Vosatka, Bohemian Immigration Agents, on his way to New York after a trip through the west, was a visitor at our office. He took advantage of the opportunity to inform us that immigrants from Europe, especially the Czecho, are well provided with protection against all sorts of knavery. He has many letters from settlers now living in the western part of our country praising the service provided for their benefit through out the entire journey with the exception of Chicago. It is said that there are more thieves and swindlers waiting to entice the unwary immigrant from the railroad stations in Chicago than anywhere else on the entire American journey.

We are not surprised by this for we know that at all railroad depots, where immigrants unfamiliar with our domestic language arrive, there are many agents of crooked hotels waiting for them and striving with all their power to direct these quite often penniless immigrants to these strange hostelries, where they are lodged over night or longer, fed miserable food and charged from $2.00 to 2:50 per day. At last they are sent on to some railroad depot to continue on their journey. They hold out the immigrant's 2baggage checks if they do not have the money with which to pay the exorbitant charges accrued, and send them on without the baggage, holding it back until they receive the money owed them.

Immigration is at a very high peak this year, especially of Bohemians, so that there are two or three times each week, large groups of Bohemians arriving in Chicago. Many of these fall into the hands of these swindlers.

The German people have provided for the protection of their immigrants through an Immigration Society which looks after the welfare of new arrivals, but our nationals do not have even a single representative to look after the welfare of our newcomers. As a matter of fact there are some Bohemians, who have sold out to these greedy sharks, who, as a rule, board the immigration trains at some distance from Chicago in order to be able to line up the victims who are then turned over to the various hotels on a commission basis. We do not know the names of any of these wretches, but we have letters from some of their victims in which it is stated that they were often spoken to in Bohemian and that therefore they were sold-out and robbed by Bohemians.

What can be done about this? Of course it often happens that there are many Bohemians at the depots who, while waiting for the arrival of friends, do not hesitate to give a helping hand to some other newcomer, as we saw last Sunday, but it is not always so and even with the greatest care it is not possible to protect every Bohemian against loss, for if one is not protected by some kind of organization, he is very often pushed around if not actually beaten by the runners of these privileged hotels.

In order that all Bohemian immigrants might be protected and properly taken care of it is necessary to organize some kind of agency which would have the Bohemian immigrants welfare to look after, take hold of them and their baggage as far as needs indicate and to deliver them to their friends here or to the next depot as the case may be.

In this manner there would be hundreds, yes, thousands of families protected against great loss, and this achievement would be much more appreciated than ten times the achievements of missionaries somewhere in Africa or Australia.

The question remains as to how we can provide such a responsible agency? We have any number of honorable and able countrymen among us who also know the English language, but they are mostly poor people and we do not have any who could take this service, with all of its duties and necessary expenses, and carry on throughout the year without some remuneration. It is necessary that we provide enough money to at least cover unavoidable expenses.

This week there is to be a meeting of all Bohemian Steamship Agents here, who could discuss this matter and make some recommendation as to how to meet the situation. Let them not delay, but step right in and work this problem out.

From the relative standing of our Chicago Lodges we can hardly expect to get enough countrymen to organize a protective society, such as the wealthy Germans have, but we can at least accomplish the most necessary. If all our national lodges and societies, both benevolent and church, without exception, accepted the resolution, that every quarter year they would appropriate from their treasuries $1.50 for the protection of immigrants, there would be collected every quarter from at least fifty lodges 5the sum of $75.00 for which we could obtain the services of a reliable Bohemian who would take upon himself the obligation of looking after our We immigrants. We believe that this could be accomplished in Chicago.

Each of the lodges could appoint one of its members to represent it in the ranks of a protective society which would meet from time to time, and make public reports as to their progress, of what benefit their work is and what further steps should be taken. These members could take turns in accompanying the paid representative, to the various depots to meet the arrival of immigrants and assist him in his duty of looking after the welfare of the immigrants.

This is our opinion in the matter, which surely will come to the attention of all our countrymen in Chicago and we hope that the Steamship Agents, who derive a profit from this immigration, will take the first step to secure the co-operation of all lodges in this matter of aid and protection of immigrants to Chicago.

Success for this undertaking.