conditions of his dwelling, he would more easily be able to utilize the
splendid advantages of that city. As it is, he rises very slowly but
perceptibly; although he lives in the worst possible houses, he is
growing more and more cleanly; he is gaining in self-respect and when
he has had the opportunity and the experience of the Irish people, he
will probably not only duplicate their splendid record in New England
and elsewhere, but excel it. Slowly but surely he is rising from a
tenement dweller to a tenement owner and soon he “will do others as he
was done,” and charge exorbitant rent for uninhabitable quarters.
The Italian is regarded as a good asset in the real estate business, for
he can be crowded more than any other human being. He is fairly prompt
with his rent and he does not make heavy demands in the way of
improvements. This he himself appreciates, for he has business sense,
and buys real estate as soon as he can invest his small earnings.
Usually he acquires a small house with a large mortgage. He moves into
the house at once, proceeds to draw revenue from every available corner,
and in a few years lifts the mortgage and is on his way to buy more real
estate.
The value of the business is proved by the fact that in the Italian
quarters in New York 800 Italians are owners of houses, a large
proportion of course being tenements of the worst character, which
nevertheless, represent the respectable value of $15,000,000. A like
large sum lies in the savings banks of that city, deposited by Italian
immigrants; while the total value of all the property owned by them in
the city of New York alone, is not far from $70,000,000. These figures,
I must confess, do not impress me, for the sufferings endured and meted
out for the sake of these earnings are terrible, and in the “tit for
tat” of our economic order the Italian gives as good as he gets. The
narrow quarters he rents are invariably sublet, and he imposes upon the
newcomer conditions as hard as, or harder than, those under which he
began life in the land of the free. The hardest conditions are those he
imposes upon his wife and children; yet he is not a cruel husband or
father, and shares their hard labour, often making the children part
owners of what they earn. Of course the western and southern cities
where the Italians have settled make a better showing, for they are not
the men who came but yesterday; they have had a larger opportunity and
have made full use of it. Italian clubs, opera houses, and Chambers of
Commerce, are being organized in the western and southern cities; and
one can judge of the quality of our Italian immigrant best, where the
struggle for life is not too keen, the surroundings not so terribly
depressing, and where the American spirit has had a chance to be grafted
upon the Latin stock. More and more he is leaving the city and in the
Southwest especially, colonies of Italians are springing up and are
conducted with such eminent success, that with some encouragement, the
Italian may be made helpful in reclaiming our arid deserts, even as he
is now making the rocky hill farms of Connecticut and Massachusetts to
“blossom as the rose.”
Among these settlements, that at Bryan, Texas, is the most notable. It
is composed of what we usually call the least desirable Italian element,
the Sicilian. Nearly twenty-five hundred people have settled there as
renters, although not a few of them are owners of the land they work.
Some eighteen miles separate the various families, all of whom come from
near Palermo, and have lived together in reasonable harmony, making
rapid financial progress. They are as peaceful a community as is found
in so turbulent a state as Texas. In Utah and California the progress
made is still more marked; and proves that the Italian like the rest of
us needs only a fair chance.
I have had good opportunity also to observe him in his migratory state,
attached to a construction crew on the railroad, and tenting by a cut in
the rock, or by the western fields.
Usually the farmer fears his coming. The word “Dago” has in it an
element of dread; it carries the sound of the dagger, and the dynamite
bomb. The far away villager who sees the camp approaching fears its
proximity. I have watched the Italians coming and going and although
there was a heated brawl at times, they quarrelled among themselves,
disturbed nobody, left the hen coops of the farmers untouched, did
not burn down the village, and paid decently for their food. When they
went away a fairly good source of revenue had disappeared and with it a
good share of unreasoning prejudice.
[Illustration: THE BOSS
Where a shovel of earth is to be turned, or a bed of rock is to be
blasted, there the Italian, unattached, migratory, contributes his share
to the public welfare.]
As competitors in certain fields of activity they are justly feared by
those who have regarded those fields as their own peculiar province; and
they are pushing the Russian Jew very hard in his monopoly of the
manufacture of clothing. The nimble fingers of the Italian woman, her
lesser demands upon life, and the ease with which she carries the
burdens of wifehood and motherhood, have enabled her to outdistance the
workers of the Ghetto, although the strife is still on and the issue not
decided. Yet I believe that the future clothing worker in America will
be the Italian and not the Jew; for the Jew loves life and its good
things, and moreover he has educational ambitions for his children,
which the Italian does not yet feel, he being a sinner above all others
in the use of his children’s labour. The Chicago truant officers have
had the privilege of arresting nearly all the parents of one “Little
Italy” at least once; for almost every child of school age was kept at
home and “sweated” for all the strength it possessed.
The Italian is very fertile in inventing excuses for the purpose of
evading the law, and his ethical standard in that direction is still
extremely low. This comes from his inherited hatred of all governmental
restrictions; he still thinks that the state seeks only its own good and
his hurt, in its insistence upon the education of his children.
Substantially this is the Italian’s attitude towards law in general; and
to that in a large measure is due the fact that he rates relatively high
in the statistics of crime.
I have thus far refrained from using statistics, largely because they
may be juggled with, as has been done very successfully; just as zealots
juggle with Bible texts to prove their contentions. I have done
something besides gathering figures, and that something may be of
importance. I have visited nearly all the penitentiaries in the eastern
and western States; not to ask how many foreigners there are in jail,
but to ask why and how they were convicted, what their present behaviour
is; to look the men and women squarely in the face and to converse with
them. Let me say here again, emphatically, that statistics are
misleading and that in spite of the large number of Italians in prison,
there are by far _fewer_ criminals among them than the statistics
_indicate_. In a large number of cases, the crimes for which the Italian
suffers, have grown out of local usage in his old home. None the less
are they justly punished here, lest they be permitted to perpetuate
themselves in the new home.
Most of the Italians in prison have used the stiletto and the pistol too
freely, just as they used them at home when jealousy made them mad, or
when they were in pursuit of vengeance for real or fancied wrongs. There
are not a few real criminals who have used the weapon for gain, but in
the majority of cases the stabbing or shooting was an affair of honour
with those concerned, and even the aggrieved parties preferred to suffer
in silence and die, bequeathing their grudge to the next generation,
rather than bring the affair before a sordid court. Testimony in such
cases is very hard to get, and I have seen many a wounded Italian bite
his lips, inwardly groaning, and suffering in silence, unwilling to let
strange ears hear the proud secret of which he was the keeper and the
victim.
Italian burglars have not reached proficiency enough to have a place in
the “Hall of Infamy,” and bank robbers and “hold-up” men need not yet
fear serious competition from that source. The prisons contain many
Italians who transgressed out of ignorance as well as from passion;
numbers suffer because they do not know the language of the court, and
did not have enough coin of the realm.
The worst thing about the Italians is that they have no sense of shame
or remorse. I have not yet found one of them who was sorry for anything
except that he had been caught; and in his own eyes and in the eyes of
his friends, he is “unfortunate” when he is in prison and “lucky” when
he comes out. “He no bad” his neighbour says: “He good, he just caught,”
and when he comes out, he is received like a hero.
This is the severest indictment that can be brought against the Italian,
and it is severe enough; but it comes largely from his attitude towards
the State and from the nature of the crime. Lillian Betts, who knows her
foreigners critically and sympathetically, says:
“In New York, the streets the Italians live in are the most neglected,
the able head of this department claiming that cleanliness is impossible
where the Italian lives. The truth is that preparation for cleanliness
in our foreign colonies is wholly inadequate. The police despise the
Italian except for his voting power. He feels the contempt but with the
wisdom of his race he keeps his crimes foreign, and defies this
department more successfully than the public generally knows. He is a
peaceable citizen in spite of the peculiar race crimes which startle the
public. The criminals are as one to a thousand of these people. On
Sundays watch these colonies. The streets are literally crowded from
house line to house line, as far as the eye can see, but not a policeman
in sight, nor occasion for one. Laughter, song, discussion, exchange of
epithet, but no disturbance. They mind their own business as no other
nation, and carry it to the point of crime when they protect their own
criminal. Like every other human being in God’s beautiful world, they
have the vices of their virtues. It is for us to learn the last to
prevent the first.”
In spite of the fact that Italy seems to be the land of beggars, the
Italian immigrant is rarely a medicant and (according to Jacob Riis),
among the street beggars of New York, the Irish lead with fifteen per
cent., the native Americans follow with twelve, the Germans with eight,
while the Italian shows but two per cent. In the almshouses of New York
the Italian occupies the enviable position of having the smallest
representation, with Ireland having 1,617 persons and Italy but
nineteen; while the figures for the United States are equally
favourable.
Considering the congested conditions of the tenements, the Italian
retains much of his inherited vigour, but consumption which plays havoc
with him in this uncongenial climate is aggravated by his mode of living
that is so entirely changed. Especially do the women and children
suffer, for they are suddenly transferred from a complete out-of-door
life to the prison-like walls of the tenements.
In Chicago I visited a family in which I had become interested through a
son who was in constant antagonism to the school law and who was the
special pet of the truant officers. When I first saw these people they
occupied two rear rooms in which the mother had been for three months
without once going out of doors. She was coughing constantly although
hard at work making vests; and the husband could not understand how her
red cheeks could so soon have disappeared, or why her colour was as
yellow as the light of the coal oil lamp by which she worked ten of the
fourteen working hours of the day. Thomasio, the son, was stunted
physically and mentally, and the mark of the tenement was upon him. He
was the oldest of eight children and had borne the burden of his seven
brothers and sisters as if it were his own. While the other boys were
playing on the sidewalk, he had to rock the baby. Through seven years he
had rarely seen God’s out of doors, except as it shone upon him through
a little spot in the air shaft of the tenement. He and his parents hated
the school and the school officers who were after him, and that c-a-t
spells cat will be as much as he will know of all the mysteries, in
spite of the zealous truant officers and teachers, lay and clerical. The
public schools will be unable to work their magic not only upon Thomasio
and his family of seven, but upon numbers of the same kind, reared under
the same circumstances, for even before they were born they were robbed
of their mental and physical background, and their horizon will always
be bounded, more or less, by garbage cans, barrels of stale beer,
wash-tubs full of soiled clothing, and by cradles full of little
bambinos.
Nevertheless the Italian is not a degenerate; he usually survives the
wretched years of his infancy and then like all people who share his
environment, grows up less rugged, perhaps more subtle, and hardened to
some things which would prove a very serious handicap to those of us who
know the value of pure air and of soap and water.
It would seem upon a superficial glance that the large incursion of
Italians to America would add strength to the Roman Catholic Church
here, and that their coming into a community would be welcomed because
of that; but I have found almost the opposite to be true. The Irish
priests do not like them; they lack the serious devotion to the Church
which characterizes Irish or German parishioners, they care only for the
show element in religion and are not willing to pay even for that. They
will come to church on great holidays, when many candles are lighted and
banners are carried; but they do not bother themselves to come to early
mass, nor are they the best attendants at the confessional. They will
spend much money upon showy funerals and christenings, but if the
Catholic Church were dependent for its support upon the Italian
immigrants it would fare badly. This of course may be due to the fact
that they are very poor and that in Italy the Church is comparatively
rich; but it is most largely due to the fact that, contrary to the
common opinion, the Italian is not religious by nature, that as a rule
he has no understanding for the serious and ethical side of religion,
that he is a heathen still who needs to have his spiritual nature
discovered and stirred, after which he should have the alphabet of the
gospel preached to him in the simplest possible way. The Italian priest
in America is the poorest kind of vehicle for that purpose; in proof of
which I quote Lillian W. Betts because she cannot be accused of
prejudice in the light of the conclusions which she draws:
“To one who knows and appreciates the great spiritual life of the Roman
Catholic Church, the relation between that Church and the mass of the
Italians in this country is a source of grief, for it does not hold in
the lives of this people the place it should. Reluctantly, the writer
has to blame the ignorance and bigotry of the immigrant priests who set
themselves against American influence; men who too often lend themselves
to the purposes of the ward heeler, the district leader in controlling
the people; who too often keep silence when the poor are the victims of
the shrewd Italians who have grown rich on the ignorance of their
countrymen. One man made eight thousand dollars by supplying one
thousand labourers to a railroad. He collected five dollars from each
man as railroad fare, though transportation was given by the road, and
three dollars from each man for the material to build a house. The men
supposed it was to be a home for their families. They found as a home
the wretched shelters provided by contractors, with which we are all
familiar. This transaction, when known, did not disturb the church or
social relations of the offender, but it increased his political power,
for it showed what he could do. He is recognized to-day as the Mayor of
---- Street; his influence is met everywhere.
“The claim is made that the parochial school has the advantage that it
gives religious as well as secular instruction. Observing and comparing
the children living under the same environment who attended the public
and parochial schools, I found that they did equally good work in
English, but that the public schools did very much better work in
arithmetic. The time given in the public schools to the so-called “fads
and frills” was apparently given in the parochial school to religious
exercises and instruction, with about an equal degree of comprehension
and application on the part of the pupils. There was no difference in
the appreciation of truth, honesty or peace. They lied, stole and fought
without showing distinction in training. The singing voices of the
children in the public schools were far better trained than the voices
of children in the parochial schools.
“What the Italian needs in New York above all things is his church in
the full possession of its great spiritual power; young men born in this
country, imbued with a love of and appreciation of its great
opportunities, trained for the priesthood, to work and live among the
Italians; in the interval before this is accomplished, a novitiate of at
least five years for all foreign-born and trained priests before they
are put in charge of an American parish; the establishing of music
schools in connection with all the Roman Catholic churches in the
foreign colonies; the rapid disappearance of the Italian parish because
the people have become American. Above all, the immediate suppression of
all proselyting among these people. Their Church is in their blood. The
veneer, which is all the new church connection is, stifles the vital
breath of the soul, and leaves the so-called convert without a Church.
The exceptions prove the rule. Remove the temptation of the loaves and
fishes in this proselyting endeavour and see how successful the effort
is. Let the Catholic Church in America live at her highest among these
people, and the political problems they create will disappear.”
I do not fully agree with the author of the above; but I join with her
heartily in the desire expressed in her last sentence. I would also
add: let the Protestant Church live her highest before these people;
let her take her share in the responsibilities which these strangers
bring, without a thought of proselyting them; and she will find that her
efforts are needed, and are not in vain.
XIX
WHERE GREEK MEETS GREEK
A baggage wagon heavily loaded by bags and trunks, and half lost to view
in the muddy street and against the muddier sky of Chicago, stopped in
front of the saloon to the Acropolis, on Halstead Street. The baggage
man was surrounded by an angry mob, for he demanded four dollars for his
trip, and that, the unsuspecting immigrants were unwilling to pay. In
this they were supported by their countrymen who had come out of the
saloon to welcome them to New Greece, which is unpicturesquely located
on the West side of Chicago, between dives and cheap restaurants on one
side, and the busy Ghetto on the other. Men of all nationalities, if of
no occupation, gathered about the haggling crowd, and the baggage man
received the support of the mob, for he wore a Union button, and the war
cry: “It’s the Union price” was the Shibboleth by which the Greeks were
vanquished and made to pay the four dollars; not of course, without
having spent an hour in their national pastime of haggling for the
price.
The driver mounted his quickly emptied wagon, with a curse upon the
“Dagos,” and the crowd informally discussed for a while the immigration
question; its verdict being, that it is time to shut our doors against
the Greeks, for they are a poor lot from which to make good American
citizens.
The crowd dispersed as quickly as it came and the freshly landed Greeks
entered the gates of the “Acropolis,” a Greek saloon and restaurant
combination, not unlike (externally at least) its American prototype on
the same street, where the saloon is decidedly at its worst.
The newcomers were feasted on black olives, brown bread and goat’s
cheese; for the Greek is very loyal to the national appetite,--and they
immediately begin to plan their entrance into the busy life of America,
through the avenues of barter or of labour.
It is not to be wondered at that the crowd which knows nothing of the
Greeks, called them “Dagos,” for it would be hard even for one who knows
them only from the classic past, properly to place this group of men,
were it not that their speech betrayed the ancient heritage.
We never picture the heroes of Greek epics, undersized, like these
moderns; round headed, looking into the world out of small, black,
piercing eyes, their complexion sallow and their hair straight and
black. We too, would place them nearer modern Palermo than ancient
Athens, and judge their blood to have flowed through the veins of rough
Albanese mountaineers and crude Slavic plowmen, rather than through the
perfect bodies of those Greeks who have dissolved with their myths, and
who disappeared when Mt. Olympus was deserted by its divine tenantry.
These modern Greeks have retained much of their past, stored in their
memories at least, and scarcely one of those whom I have met but knows
the Iliad and the Odyssey, or whose black eyes do not sparkle proudly
when he recounts the glory of those Attic days.
They are still eager to know, even more eager to tell what they know,
and a brave front is not the least part of the equipment of the modern
Greek. A consuming pride which amounts to conceit, shuts his eyes to his
own faults as well as to the virtues of other races, and he will long
hold himself aloof from the hopper which grinds us all into the same
kind of grist.
“Where do these men come from, Mr. B?” I asked the keeper of the classic
bar of the “Acropolis.” “They are all Athenians.” Every Greek is,
although cradled in some island unrenowned either in the past or the
present. “Why do they come to Chicago? To make money?” I answer my own
question. “Oh, no!” replies the classic barkeeper, delicately ironical.
“They are not poor, no Greek is ever poor, even if he cannot buy five
cents’ worth of black olives.” “Do they come here because they have a
better chance?” “Chance? why, everyone of these men was on the way to
become a Demarch (Mayor). They have come here to learn American ways,
and incidentally to enrich American culture by their presence.”
Full of this pride and confidence in themselves, they are nevertheless
ready to blacken our boots for ten cents, and they do it remarkably
well, displacing negroes and Italians, until later, they open stores and
sell American candies to an undiscriminating public, hungry for the
cheap sweets. No labour is too hard for them, although they prefer to
stand behind the counter. More or less, all the Greeks will finally be
in trades of some kind, and monopolists in all of them. At present,
their eyes are on bootblacking and confectionery stores, nearly every
town of any size in the United States being invaded by them, so that
their presence is beginning to be felt.
The modern Greek still has the license of the poet, and he uses the
license whether he has the poetry or not. I think he is happiest when he
exaggerates to no one’s hurt; albeit, like the rest of us he does not
always stop to ask whether it hurts or not. Conceit and deceit are as
close relatives as poetry and lying, and to Greeks and Americans they
often look strangely alike.
If the modern Greek is a hero, he is a cautious one and recklessness is
not one of his faults. He is no “Plunger,” but moves along the “straight
and narrow way which leadeth to”--a big bank account. Contented by
little, he does not despise the much, and although he is not meek, he
will inherit a fair share of this earth’s goods. Born with democratic
instincts, he soon feels himself as good as anybody, and when he grows
sleek and fat, he selects “the chief seat in the synagogue” or some
other lofty height, from which he looks in disdain upon his poorer
brothers.
While hospitable, he has become strangely suspicious of strangers, and
he is not a good bedfellow for he likes to occupy the whole bed. If it
is a settlement which opens its doors to him it becomes all his, and he
does not shrink from intimidation as a means of driving the Italian or
the Jew from its welcoming gates.