With 1867 came a fresh impulse to emigration. Besides the newly granted right to emigrate freely, the disastrous war with Prussia in 1866 gave added reasons for going, while in the United States the Civil War was over and everything invited the settler.
The earliest colony of Bohemians was in St. Louis, where in 1854 they had already established a Catholic church, and this city has always remained an influential Bohemian centre.
More important, however, was the movement to the states further West--the largest numbers settling in Wisconsin, later Iowa, later Nebraska and the two Dakotas, though a considerable settlement also grew up in Cleveland. In general, however, in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois land was already too dear for the newcomers, and they continually settled further west as the years went on. In the early days they either went overland from the Eastern ports or up the Mississippi River. One of the reasons for so many Bohemians as well as Germans, Scandinavians, Poles, and Belgians being attracted to Wisconsin was undoubtedly the attitude of that state toward immigration. A fact that is easily forgotten in the present state of feeling in regard to immigration is the eager and official solicitation of immigrants that was carried on for years by various states. Wisconsin, like many other states, appointed a Commissioner of Immigration to stimulate the inflow. In 1852 the first man to fill this office reported to the Governor that he had been in New York distributing pamphlets in English, German, Norwegian, and Dutch, describing the resources of the state.
After four years this state canvass for immigrants was suspended for a time, but in 1864 the Wisconsin Legislature memorialized Congress for the passage of national laws to encourage foreign immigration on the ground that labor was scarce, owing to the war, and that wages had more than doubled. Whether or not as a consequence of this request, Congress did in the same year pass an act to encourage immigration, which, however, was repealed in March, 1868.
Again, in 1879, Wisconsin established a State Board of Immigration to increase and stimulate immigration, with authority to disseminate information. The official circulars mentioned as inducements the following points: climate, rich lands at a nominal price, free schools and a free university, equality before the law, religious liberty, no imprisonment for debt, and liberal exemption from seizure by a creditor, suffrage and the right to be elected to any office but that of governor or lieutenant-governor on one year's residence, whether a citizen or not (intention to become one having been declared); and full eligibility to office for all actual citizens. "There is never an election in the state," one circular continues, "that does not put some, and often very many, foreign-born citizens into office. Indeed, there is no such thing as a foreigner in Wisconsin, save in the mere accident of birthplace; for men coming here and entering into the active duties of life identify themselves with the state and her interests, and are to all intents and purposes American." We are told "The language above used is, except in rhetoric, identical" with that in an edition of 1884.