go back to wait for their release. Among these, there was one Bohemian
woman from New York, whose hollow cough and glowing cheeks betrayed the
arch destroyer at work. She was one of six thousand cigar makers
employed by one firm, and she had laboured five years in that shop and
rolled many thousands of cigars into shape. As she had to bite the end
of every cigar, she swallowed much tobacco juice, and breathed in much
tobacco dust. She had attained great proficiency and could earn twenty
dollars a week; but she had ruined her health, had spent all her savings
for medicine and now was going home to die. She was in that stage where
hope had not left her, and she was bent on making the last great fight
for life in the shelter of her “Matushka’s” love.
Two old genteel looking people always stood out from the coarse mass
because they kept clean in spite of the odds against them in the
steerage, and because they were always together. Up and down the
slippery stairs they went, like two lovers. Even seasickness did not
separate them and when the sun shone they were on deck, solemnly smiling
back to heaven. They had left their all in America; their children were
sleeping in the strange soil, and now they were going back to the little
town in Austria from which they had gone thirty-seven years before. They
felt too rich in one another to rail against their fate, and their
complaint was as gentle as their pain was deep. They had come to America
full and now they were going home empty; three sons and two daughters
they had brought, and childless they were going back; but “The Lord had
given and the Lord had taken away,” and they blessed the name of the
Lord.
Those who had prospered in America, and they were the majority, carried
home with them sums of money which in the aggregate, amounted, among
600, to four thousand dollars, which did not however represent all they
had saved; for each week they had sent small sums to their homes, and
the money sent from America to Austria and Italy has been a great
economic factor in the life of those countries. The total sum must reach
into many millions. Nor does this sum represent an entire loss to our
country; for the more money there is in a Slav or Italian village the
more and better cotton goods are bought. The daily diet contains more
American lard, the household is likely to be enriched by an American
sewing-machine, and the notes of the phonograph are “heard in the
land,”--which too comes from America.
Perhaps the greatest gainers by this constant coming and going are the
steamship companies, which for a comparatively large sum of money
provide quarters that in a very short time become unfit for human
beings. The thrifty passengers, and there are not a few of them, who
believe that the steerage going to Europe is not so crowded as coming to
America, and that they can risk travelling that way, are very much
mistaken. Even moderately rough weather makes the unsheltered deck
impossible; the nether decks of the ship become full of sickening odours
and seasickness claims nearly all the passengers as victims. There is no
escape; even on so large a ship as the _Kaiser Wilhelm II_ all must
remain in their bunks. On my last trip I counted five bitter days when
not one steerage passenger could go on deck, while the cabin passengers
were travelling over comparatively quiet waters.
When the sea has become as smooth as a mill-pond the steerage passengers
may venture out; 800 people, crowded in a small space, soon become
acquainted and need not wait for an introduction. Less, much less than
on the outward journey have the races kept themselves apart; it is true
you may still discover groups of Slavs, Italians or Jews; but they have
approached the gates of the Kingdom of God and you may find your
brotherhoods made up of all the nations of the earth. I had around me a
group of forty men who belonged to seventeen nationalities, to four
faiths and to many stations in life; yet we felt ourselves bound to one
another by a meagre knowledge of the English language and by our common
experience in America. Most of these men felt themselves intensely
American; and that was what held us together and in a measure separated
us from the mass. For the majority of these birds of passage are not yet
American, as the following instance will illustrate. In taking a rough
census of the politics of the steerage, I asked one man: “How do you
like President Roosevelt?” He replied: “I no know him. I guess he good
man, I get my pay at shop; I work, I get pay, I guess that all right.”
A few expressed both admiration for the President and loyalty to him,
and hoped he would run for another term. They had opinions in politics
and some even declared themselves neither Republicans nor Democrats, but
“Inepenny.” My group of forty men, growing at the end of the journey to
nearly fifty, were a loyal set, and an honest one.
Each of the men had earned the little money he had, by hard labour; not
one of them by barter, and each had caught a glimpse of the higher life
in America.
The Slavs were nearly all Democrats, the Italians were Republicans, and
so were the Jews. There were six Social Democrats in the group, nearly
evenly divided among the three races; and they were the best educated if
not the most companionable of the number. The whole group was eager to
know, and the questions asked were as pertinent as numerous. All of them
expected to return to America before another year, and each of them will
grow into the full stature of the American man.
The touch with the mass in the steerage can be but light; yet I have
looked into the smiling faces of little children, I have played with the
steerage boys and girls, I have talked with every one of the five
hundred adult passengers in the steerage, and I can still say that
usually all of them return with some blessing, with some wealth gained,
and better for having been in America.
The boys and girls are more boisterous and self-assertive, while the men
and women are less cringingly polite than they were. They have lost some
things but have gained more; and I am convinced that the country in
which they have toiled these years has been enriched by the price of
their labour.
How far these birds of passage present an economic problem is at present
difficult to determine. Those who remain form the greater problem, which
is more than an economic one.
[Illustration: A SLAV OF THE BALKANS
Sometimes crude, often very rough human material. To mould him is the
problem, a problem too, not so difficult as many think.]
XXIV
IN THE SECOND CABIN
If the man who said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches” had been a
modern globe trotter he might have added: “And when I cross the ocean
let me travel neither in the first cabin nor in the steerage but in the
second cabin.” That is if he cared more for the companionship of human
beings than for the luxuries of modern life, and if he had not objected
to the fact that the second cabin is located directly over the powerful
driving gear of the ship.
Because of the latter fact one may experience a “continuous performance”
of an earthquake without its disastrous results, and yet not without
consequences which at the moment seem very serious. The second cabin
does not lapse into the silence of the steerage nor into the dignity of
the first cabin, but begins its noisy comradery immediately; being
interrupted only, when the earthquake plays havoc with good nature, and
resumed as soon as the appetite for food and drink returns.
The second cabin usually holds only one class; the class which has
succeeded. It contains a sprinkling of native Americans, teachers and
preachers, whose modest savings are to be spread thinly over Europe; its
usual occupants are foreigners, who after a longer or shorter sojourn,
return for a visit to the cradle home. The Hoboken saloon-keeper who was
escorted by the band to the dock, and in whose honour it played “Lieb
Vaterland magst ruhig sein,” is a typical second class passenger on a
German ship; and his like in large numbers come from Cincinnati, St.
Louis, Milwaukee and other cities made famous by their output of
sparkling lager.
I discovered on this journey more than thirty dispensers of drink who
were at the bar from morning until midnight, and doing exactly as they
like their customers to do by them; drinking and getting drunk. The
Hoboken saloon-keeper bore the typical name of August, and every one of
the ship’s crew down to the smallest scullion, knew this famous August
and delighted to bask in the uncertainty of his sunshine and to be the
beneficiary of his spasmodic generosity. He was drunk from the moment he
came on board the steamer until he left it, and in his melancholy
moments confided in me, telling me the story of his life and the
magnitude of his fortune. He was born in Bremerhaven, the terminus of
that great ferry which begins at Hoboken. He boasted the friendship of
the Commodore of the German Lloyd fleet, with whom he had gone to
school, and the smoking room steward was called to assert this fact.
“Steward, you k-know me?” “Yes, you’re August.” “D-do you know about
C-Captain Schmidt?” “Yes, you sailed under him to South Africa.” “N-no,
you f-fool; I went to school with him,” and obediently the steward
repeated: “Yes, you went to school with him.” He told me the secrets of
the liquor business, the misfortunes which had overtaken his boy who is
following in his father’s footsteps, and is travelling towards delirium
tremens at even a faster rate than this robust, convivial sailor. I
tried my arts on August, painting in wonderful colours the glories of
the Mecca of his pilgrimage, that I might keep him from drinking himself
to death with beer before he saw his Fatherland. And I succeeded; for
when I saw August of Hoboken again, he was drinking whiskey.
Poles, Bohemians and Slovaks all travelled in the second cabin; but
invariably they were saloon-keepers and displayed the demoralizing
tendencies of their business to their full extent.
The first days of this journey were made memorable by the noisy
behaviour of two Polish priests who were constantly mixing whiskey with
beer, and who rose to a spiritual ecstasy which was both unpriestly and
ungentlemanly. Among the many priests who were on board, but few were
priests in the true sense of the word, the others bringing disgrace upon
their calling and upon their Church. In spite of the fact that the
steerage was full of their kindred and people of their faith, not a
priest found his way to that neglected quarter. As a rule they were
busier at the bar than at their prayers, a fact which of course must not
be charged to priests as a class; but the sooner the Church in America
gets rid of most of its foreign born priests, especially those from
Italy and the Slavic countries, and replaces them by Irish or Americans,
the better for the Church and for our country.
Dividing the passengers according to their race, most of them were Jews
from Hungary and Russia; and while still unmistakable Jews, they all
bore marks of the new birth which had taken place. The Russian Jews in
many cases were slovenly, obtrusively dressed and noisy; their Yiddish
was tainted by bad English, but they were frugal, sober, and minded
their own business.
One of the group which I had gathered around me was on his way to
Palestine where his parents now live. His home is in a little Illinois
town not far from Chicago. He began his career like many of his kind, by
peddling. Now he owns a department store and allows himself the luxury
of this long and expensive journey. He is leniently orthodox in his
faith, has come close enough to his Gentile neighbours to have a glimpse
of Christianity at its best, and has been completely permeated by the
American spirit. His daughter is a high school graduate, plays the
piano, gives receptions, dabbles in art, takes part in the Methodist
Church fairs and on occasions sings in the church choir.
Such a close touch with American life was not vouchsafed to another
Russian Jew in that group. He had lived in New York and had also gone
through the long tutelage of hard bargaining and hard times. He too was
going to Europe; but he went to buy diamonds, not to visit his
relatives, and neither his past experience nor his vision was tinged by
any idealism. He was money from the toes up, and in each pocket he
carried some trinket, from fountain pens to diamond pins, which could be
bought at a bargain.
The Hungarian Jews from “Little Hungary” had progressed most rapidly in
becoming Americanized. They played poker from morning until night, could
bluff with the true American “sang froid,” and swear at their ill luck;
but that they had kept their Jewish shrewdness was shown by their
leaving the game when the tide of luck was at its height. When they did
not play poker they talked about the game of politics as played in New
York, and they knew its ins and outs thoroughly. The higher and better
note struck by Roosevelt and Jerome they had grasped in but a vague way;
and that a man could be honest in politics was strange news to them,
nor did they believe that President Roosevelt’s activities were without
regard to his own profit in the game.
“Little Hungary” has been a bad political school and one need not be
over apprehensive if he regards this poor political tutelage as one of
the greatest problems connected with the influx of foreigners into our
large cities. In speech and names these Hungarian Jews were almost
completely metamorphosed, and their patriotism knew no bounds. On a
certain day one of them dug out of the depths of his trunk a dozen or
more American flags, with which he wanted us to parade up and down the
ship to the notes of a patriotic air. Upon our refusal to do so he grew
angry, saying: “Nice Americans you fas.”
In contrast to the steerage, the women in the second cabin appeared to
have changed most, and among the younger women, the transformation
seemed complete. I doubt that their clothing lacked the latest
fashionable wrinkle; their physique had lost its robustness and they had
gained in self-possession. I have noticed a very important difference in
the behaviour of the second class coming from America and going there.
The young women who go to America are more or less molested by the men,
their language and behaviour one to the other is not always correct, and
even the American girls have lost something of their dignity and
reserve; but going to Europe the greatest propriety is observed, and
although the young people have a good time together, the young women
know how to take care of themselves, the men know better than to be
obtrusively attentive, and if they try, they receive a rebuff from which
they do not lightly recover.
The second cabin goes back richer not only in worldly goods but in
conscious manhood and womanhood, in loftiness of ideals and above all
else, pathetically grateful to the country which gave these gifts.
“I owe everything to America,” “I would give everything I own to
America,” “It is God’s country,” are phrases from which I could not
disentangle myself, so fervent and frequent were they. Some of these
people have still a richer inheritance in the consciousness of having
had a share in building up the country in which they have lived. Among
these was a Jewish gentleman, Mr. K., who had in his possession letters
from Christian people in his county, commending him to their friends
abroad, praising his public spirit, his generosity towards the people of
all faiths, and his uprightness in business. He was proud of the fact
that he had voted for William McKinley when he ran for prosecuting
attorney of his county, and that he had voted for him every time he ran
for office. It is true that Mr. K. belonged to that class of Jews which
came from Southern Germany and which is the best Jewish product that
Europe has sent us; but his is not an isolated case, and nearly every
county in America has produced such specimens coming from widely
different portions of Europe.
But few Italians travel in the cabin; there were half a dozen who had
reached that degree of prosperity, and they came from the South, had
been engaged in the cotton business and were indulging in an European
trip, while the product of their plantations was daily increasing in
price. They were genteel, and quiet, and so well dressed and well
groomed, that it came as a surprise to most of the passengers to find
that they were Italians, and that they had risen from the “Dago” class.
On them America has performed the miracle of transformation, in spite of
its sordid instincts and its materialistic atmosphere; a miracle which
art-filled Italy could not perform, a task before which both sculptor
and painter are powerless.
The Slavs of the first generation who were in the second cabin, were
nearly all saloon-keepers with their families; and although the change
wrought upon them was great, their business obtruded, and they were not
pleasant companions. They had retained the reticence of their race,
spoke only when spoken to, were suspicious of one’s approach, but warmed
to one after a while Their horizon had remained bounded by the mining
camps in which their saloons were located; even those from Pittsburg,
and they were not a few, had not looked deep into our American life.
That the Pole and Slovak will be hard to change, and that they present
somewhat tough material, not easily assimilated, often forces itself
upon me; yet when I see their children, that second generation, born in
America, I can see no difference between the Slav and the German. One of
the most beautiful girls on board of ship, one of the most refined in
her attire and behaviour, was a Bohemian girl born in Chicago. Although
she spoke the language of her people, she spoke English better,
associated with the American girls on board of ship, and it would have
taken a keen student of racial stock to discover her Bohemian origin.
She is not an isolated figure nor an exception. On nearly every journey
I have taken I have found her type, and I recall with especial pleasure
and satisfaction the companionship of two Bohemian school teachers from
Cleveland, Ohio, both of them born in Bohemia, but having grown to
womanhood on the shores of Lake Erie. While they showed in their faces
the Slavic strain, they were thoroughly Americanized and must have been
a blessing to the children whom they taught.
So one’s apprehension is quieted by such facts, which are by no means
rare. Certain crude elements may survive, even in the second generation,
and may perhaps enter into our racial existence, but other such elements
have come to us from other races, and have not spoiled us nor yet undone
us. If we were to pick out on board of ship the most disagreeable
people, we would not seek them among the Slavs nor among the Italians,
but among a certain class of German and Jewish Americans, who are all
flesh; blasphemous in language, intemperate in habits and who are
intensely disliked on the other side of the Atlantic among their own
kinsmen. This is not intended to reflect upon that large class of sober
and intelligent naturalized Americans one meets; but to emphasize the
fact, that the classes of immigrants most desired by us, compare very
well with the best element in our polyglot population. Looking back over
all my experiences, I am justified in saying that the Slav, the Italian
and the Russian Jew, will finally compare well with the earlier output
of foreign born Americans.
The last night before the landing, an enterprising and pleasure loving
Jew arranged a concert; and although the participants were Jews,
Bohemians, Poles, Germans and Russians, it was a typical American
affair, was as decorous as a church social, and nearly as dull. These
children of the foreigners sang American parlour songs, recited “Over
the hills to the poorhouse,” and other poems which are intended to make
one happy by making one sad, and they concluded by singing together “My
Country ’tis of Thee,” but could not remember the words beyond the
second verse, which is so typical of our own young people.
The day we were to land there were more American flags in evidence in
the second cabin than in any other quarter of the ship. The
over-patriotic Jew had his dozen flags out, swinging them all in the
face of the German policemen who lined the dock at Bremerhaven. Every
button-hole bore the Stars and Stripes. When one of the thriftier Jews
suggested that the wearing of the flag would cost them money, because
the hotel keepers would charge them American rates, another replied: “It
is worth all they will make me pay,” while another still more
emphatically said: “They will see it in mine face that I am from
America; let it cost me money.”
Swinging the Stars and Stripes they descended the gang plank; Slavs,
Italians and Jews, all of them vociferous, patriotic Americans. Wherever
they went they proclaimed their love for this country, and the
superiority of America over the whole world.
“I will talk nothing but American; let them learn American, the best
language in the world,” said one; and much to the chagrin of the
sensitive Europeans, these second class passengers went blatantly and
noisily through the streets of the cities of Europe, criticising
everything they saw, from barber shops to statuary. One of them who had
travelled far, who had seen on that journey the galleries of Paris,
Munich and Dresden, and who had some little art sense, said: “I tell you
the finest piece of statuary in the whole world is the Goddess of
Liberty in New York Harbour;” and all those who heard said: “Amen.”
How deep the American ideals have taken root among them, one cannot yet
discern; how completely the second generation will come under their
sway, how much of the old world spirit will disappear or remain, is
difficult to determine. This is no time to be blindly optimistic nor
hopelessly pessimistic; it is a time for facing the dangers and not
fearing them; for this is the noontide of our day of grace. This is the
time to bring into action the best there is in American ideals; for as
we present ourselves to this mass of men, so it will become. At present
the mass is still a lump of clay in the hands of the potter; a huge lump
it is true, but America is gigantic and this is not the least of the
gigantic tasks left for her mighty sons and daughters to perform.
XXV
AU REVOIR
_My Dear Lady of the First Cabin:_
I have followed your good advice, have told my story as I told it to
you; and yours be the praise and the blame. You interrupted me in the
telling, by saying that I did not know the first cabin, and that my
story would not be complete until I knew that part of the ship and that
portion of the world also.
I have as you see taken passage in the first cabin. They sold me the
ticket as readily as if it were for the steerage and did not ask for my
pedigree, only for my check. Fifty dollars more gave me the privilege of
sitting where you sat (which was at one time the “seat of the
scornful”), of looking proudly upon the second cabin, and pityingly upon
the steerage below.
It is a delightful sensation this; of being summoned to your meals by
the notes of a bugle rather than by the jangle of a shrill bell; of
looking over half a yard of menu, and ordering what you want, and whom
you want, just as you please, rather than being ordered about as some
one else pleases.
The first day out I found the first cabin as quiet as the steerage;
only more dignified. The passengers were walking on tiptoe; many of them
trying to adjust themselves to these labyrinthine luxuries; while the
distinguished rustle of silken petticoats relieved the pressure of the
atmosphere, which naturally was tense from the excitement of the
beginning of a journey. Critically, almost with hostility, each
passenger measured the other; the tables were buried beneath the loads
of flowers and floral designs which were past the fading, and in the
first melancholy stages of decay; so that all of it reminded me of a
palatial home, to which the mourners have just returned from a rich
uncle’s funeral.