SOME IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORS
_Interdenominational Home Mission Study Course_
Each Volume 12mo, cloth, 50c. net: paper, 30c. net.
_1. Under Our Flag_
_By Alice M. Guernsey_
_2. The Burden of the City_
_By Isabelle Horton_
_3. Indian and Spanish Neighbours_
_By Julia H. Johnston_
_4. The Incoming Millions_
_By Howard B. Grose, D.D._
_5. Citizens of To-Morrow_
_By Alice M. Guernsey_
_6. The Call of the Waters_
_By Katharine R. Crowell_
_7. From Darkness to Light_
_By Mary Helm_
_8. Conservation of National Ideals_
_A Symposium_
_9. Mormonism, The Islam of America_
_By Bruce Kinney, D.D._
_JUNIOR COURSE_
Cloth, net 40c.; paper, net 25c.
_Best Things in America_
_By Katharine R. Crowell_
_Some Immigrant Neighbours_
_By John R. Henry, D.D._
[Illustration: “Where Us Fellows Has to Play”
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York City]
_Issued under the direction of the Council of
Women for Home Missions_
SOME IMMIGRANT
NEIGHBORS
BY
JOHN R. HENRY
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1912, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
To Eloise Elizabeth Henry
FOREWORD
This little book for Junior Home Mission Study classes has been written
from the point of view of a New York City pastor. The races that have
been selected for study are so chosen because the writer knows them at
first hand through having labored among them in institutional and church
work.
The book is an invitation to become acquainted with the immigrant and be
his friend and good neighbor.
The thanks of the author are due the many writers whose works he has
freely used, the members of his staff, and Miss Alice M. Guernsey for
helpful suggestions, and the Rev. F. Mason North, D.D., for reading the
manuscript and for valuable criticisms.
J. R. H.
CHURCH OF ALL NATIONS, New York City, April, 1912
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Page_
“Where Us Fellows Has to Play” _Frontispiece_
A Jewish Immigrant Boy 17
A Little Maid of Italy 17
The Home of a Russian Peasant 48
A Russian _Moujik_ and His Family 48
From the “Church of All Nations,” New York City 66
An Italian Kindergarten (Penn.) 74
How the Chinese Babies Ride 82
Rescued Slave Girls (New York City) 82
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Who Are They? 13
II. Why Do They Come? 21
III. Our Jewish Neighbor 35
IV. Our Russian Neighbor 43
V. Our Italian Neighbor 51
VI. Our Chinese Neighbor 59
VII. Makers of Good Neighbors 69
VIII. Good Neighbors and Bad 77
IX. Neighbors to the World 87
I
WHO ARE THEY?
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink,”
“Greaser,” and “Nigger,” and “Jap.”
The Devil invented these terms, I think,
To hurl at each hopeful chap
Who comes so far over the foam
To this land of his heart’s desire
To rear his brood, to build his home,
And to kindle his hearthstone fire.
While the eyes with joy are blurred,
Lo! we make the strong man sink,
And stab the soul, with the hateful word,
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink.”
—_Bishop McIntyre._
I
WHO ARE THEY?
Since we are going to study about “Some Immigrant Neighbors,” it is well
to know just what we mean by the words “Immigrant” and “Neighbor.”
_Immigrant._ The word Immigrant is confusing because it looks and sounds
so much like the word “Emigrant,” but they are quite different. An
Immigrant is one who comes _into_ a country, generally with the intention
of settling there. An Emigrant is one that goes _out_ of a country, with
the intention of settling in some other land.
The people we are to study are the Immigrants who have come, and are
coming, into America.
_Neighbor._ Every one knows the meaning of the word neighbor. A neighbor
is one who lives near another, across the street, or next door, or maybe
in our own village or town. If you live in a large city it is not so easy
to feel that the people who live near you are your neighbors. It was
much easier years ago, when all that are now cities were only towns and
villages, and many cities now well known were simply prairie with waving
grass and flowers, roamed over by bands of Indians and trampled by the
hoofs of countless bison.
The word neighbor has a larger meaning than merely one who lives near
another. There is a wonderful description of a neighbor, given by One
who is the World’s Good Neighbor. He tells of the traveler who found
a stranger lying by the roadside, wounded and helpless. At personal
inconvenience and expense the traveler cared for the half dead man, and
continued his aid until the stranger was again able to care for himself.
We shall have gained a great deal from the study of this book, if we
learn not only to look on these immigrants as neighbors, those who live
near us, but if we seriously ask ourselves how we may be Good Neighbors
to the strangers from across the sea.
_The Neighbors to be Studied._ We are not going to talk about all of
the thirty-nine races of immigrants that are separately listed by our
government, but only about four of them. Some one says, “I hope you will
tell about the ones I like.” Well, we hope before we are through you will
like the ones we shall tell about, and we are sure you will, for you
will be better acquainted, and it is wonderful how much more likable the
immigrant is when you know him.
_Numbers._ Although we are to study only Chinese, Jews, Russians and
Italians, 333,694 of these four classes of immigrants landed in America
in 1911; 920,299, almost a million, landed in the three years last past,
and that is a large falling off as compared with some previous periods.
In 1911 the Jews and Italians numbered thirty-five out of every hundred
that came. You see that while we discuss but four classes, two of these
are more than one-fourth of all that come.
These numbers may suggest very little to us, but how they would have
startled the fathers of our country. The warlike Miles Standish, or,
in later years, the peppery Peter Stuyvesant, would have declared no
such numbers could be brought across the sea in a year. The only ships
our fathers knew were small wooden sailing vessels like our coasting
schooners; the giant, floating hotels that we call steamships, that carry
a big village every trip, were not dreamed of in those days. The sailing
vessel took weeks and months to make the voyage; now we can reckon,
almost to the hour, the time of the arrival of a great liner.
[Illustration: A Jewish Immigrant]
[Illustration: A Little Maid of Italy]
It might be well if these numbers did startle us more and if we better
realized how great is this invading army of strangers, friendly as it may
be.
_Dislike of Foreigners._ Many people do not like the immigrants simply
because they are foreigners. This prejudice is as old as the world, and
its origin is a most interesting study. Perhaps some high school boy or
girl can give a reason for this early dislike.
“The reasons for disliking the foreigner in early times were that no one
traveled much and there were no newspapers, consequently neighboring
tribes, or nations, did not get to know each other. Nearby tribes were
suspicious of each other and were much at war, continually robbing and
killing. Every stranger was a possible enemy.”
Yes, that is a good answer. Now, give a reason for present dislike of the
immigrant.
“I have a reason,” one boy says. “My father lost his job because an
‘Eyetalian’ offered to work for less.”
Yes, I am sorry to say that is a very real cause of dislike. That is
also war, although it is now called by a different name. To take a man’s
position, by which he earns his bread, or to steal a man’s cattle, from
which he and his family were fed, amounts to about the same in the end.
Give some other reasons for disliking immigrants.
“They talk such funny English.” “They don’t dress like us.” “They don’t
eat like us.” “They can’t play ball.”
Yes, undoubtedly all these are reasons for feeling that foreigners differ
from Americans, but are they good reasons for disliking the foreigner?
I saw a “grown-up” show this hostile feeling one day as I was passing
along a crowded street on the East Side of New York. An American youth of
about eighteen years of age snatched some fruit from the push cart of a
young Italian of the same age. The Italian grappled with the young thief
and was giving him a sound thrashing when a policeman, leisurely swinging
his club, turned the corner. With one glance he took in the scene of
the Italian-American war. Raising his club and shouting, “You Dago,” he
charged full at the Italian. The young fellow saw him coming and took off
down the street as hard as he could run, dodging as he went the flying
club the policeman had hurled. When the tempest had calmed I stepped up
to the officer and said, “Officer, what did the Italian do?” “Do?” said
he with supreme disgust, “he was a Dago.” Evidently the sole crime of the
Italian consisted in being a “Dago,” a foreigner.
To some people all Italians are either Dagos, or Guineas, all Jews are
Sheenies, all Chinese are Chinks and all Russians are Owskies. They
are foreigners, and that is enough. Such people forget that while the
language of the immigrant sounds “funny” to us, ours sounds just as
strange to him. While we laugh at the pig tail and queer shoes and
strange clothes of the Chinese, they follow the American in crowds
through Chinese cities and make fun of his absurd dress, and call him
names that are not wholly complimentary, all because he is a stranger to
them.
_Our Debt to the Foreigner._ It will help us to cultivate the spirit of a
Good Neighbor if we remember that we are hopelessly in debt to all these
foreigners.
_Our Debt to the Chinese._ The Chinese invented the mariner’s compass
that enables the sailor to strike boldly out into the deep, sure of not
losing his way across the trackless ocean when stars and sun are gone. He
is likewise an example to all the world in his reverence and care for old
age, for father and mother. A traveler recently returned from China says
he has never seen old faces more calm and kindly than those he met among
elderly Chinese farmers. They seemed to think of nothing but the welfare
of others. The rights of the parent are such that any father or mother
with sons or grandsons living is assured in old age of the best care the
children can provide. Though the son may be fifty years of age and have a
family of his own he will yet give his own salary into the hands of his
father week by week. The father need not worry about the future as do
many fathers of large families in our own land, hence the calm eyes and
care-free faces among old Chinese farmers. The Chinese teach that it is
an honor and a duty for the young to toil for those who are old.
“Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee,” is an old command and promise. The
Chinese Empire is hoary with age. Can one reason for its long life be its
obedience to this command?
_Our Debt to the Italians._ An Italian, Columbus, discovered the
New World. Who, then, has a better right to inhabit it than his own
countrymen? An Italian captain, Verrazano, was the first man to push the
prow of his ship into the harbor of what is now the greatest city of
the new world. Roman law rules the world and her treasures of art and
literature have enriched every nation on earth. What school boy would
like to be without the story of Julius Caesar, or not to have heard of
the cackling of the geese high up in the Capitol the night the city was
in danger, and how that cackling awoke the citizens and saved Rome?
_Our Debt to the Russians._ As to the Russian, it is an ungrateful
American who forgets the service rendered this country in that saddest
war of history, when brothers of the North and South rose in arms against
each other. France had determined to found an empire in Mexico. She knew
that this could be done only after the American Union had been destroyed.
Russia refused to join with France and England in the course that might
have made possible this division of our country. In the darkest days of
our struggle the Russian fleet appeared at American ports as a pledge
of her friendship and a protest against the attitude of these European
powers.
_Our Debt to the Jew._ If we said nothing more than that through the Jew
has come the Bible, that gift would place all of us forever in his debt.
No other sacred book tells us so clearly of God; no other book shows us
so truly how we may obey Him and be useful, strong, and holy. In no other
place are we told the secret of that
“City builded by no hand,
And unapproachable by sea or shore,
And unassailable by any band
Of storming soldiery forever more.”
It is true some of the Jewish people did oppose Christianity, but other
Jews were the founders of the Christian church.
Through the Jewish nation came our Lord. Upon the streets of Jewish
cities “walked those blessed feet that nineteen hundred years ago were
nailed, for our advantage, to the bitter cross.”
Kind neighborliness to these strangers is one way of repaying our debt.
II
WHY DO THEY COME?
Lo, the tyrant’s days are numbered,
Liberty no longer slumbers,
Error dark no longer cumbers;
Risen is the Sun.
—_H. A. Clarke._
II
WHY DO THEY COME?
MIGRATION. Why do such vast armies of human beings leave their homes? Why
do they travel weary miles over land and sea and suffer such hardships
and privations? The causes would indeed be urgent that would induce us to
take a like journey and leave behind our pleasant, comfortable homes. Can
it be that the home of the immigrant is not pleasant and comfortable? As
we continue our study we shall find at least some of the reasons for this
greatest migration in history.
On a beautiful day in autumn you may have seen large flocks of swallows
wheeling around the steeple of some old church—“a river of winged life.”
Some one has told you they are gathering before they migrate. “Oh, yes,”
you say, “they are going away because they do not like the cold winter.”
In the spring, you have seen a great moving V in the sky all made of
birds, and some one has cried out, “There go the wild geese,” and you are
told that they are journeying to the far, desolate North where the summer
will soon be and where no one will molest them while they rear their
young. So when great companies of people migrate there is a good reason.
No one wants to leave a comfortable home without good cause.
You will be interested to study the causes of some of the great
migrations in the past. If you will turn to the Book of Exodus you will
find there the story of a vast human river of slaves flowing out of
Egypt, across the Red Sea, into the wilderness. Why did they migrate?
What drove the Goths down into the pleasant valleys of Italy? Did the
richness of the Italian cities, the fertility of the plains, and the
indolence of the inhabitants have anything to do with it? What brought
the Tartars into China where as Manchus they have ruled 300 years, and
where their long rein is now ended? The answer is simple. The Manchus
were warlike Tartars, soldiers of fortune of a barren country. The
Chinese were peace-loving dwellers in fertile valleys and plains. The
better soldier was the victor.
There is no great nation of ancient or modern times but can tell its
own story of migration. There once crossed into England a company of
many thousands of splendid craftsmen bringing from France the secrets of
trades that have helped make England great. What drove these Protestant
families from their beloved land? There rang in their ears the solemn
tolling of a great palace bell. That bell, sounding over the city of
Paris, was the signal for the death of over forty thousand of the noblest
Protestants of France. The St. Bartholomew massacre caused the migration.
In recent years a great tide of Irish began to move across the Atlantic.
In ten years this mighty tide totaled over one million and a quarter
human beings. The reason they came was the failure of the potato crop.
The potato was their great food staple, as bread is ours. Great armies of
Germans began to come after 1848. It would be interesting for you to find
the reason of their coming. How hard it must be for the Southern Italian
to leave his beautiful home and exchange his blue skies and hills and
mountains for a dark, ill-smelling tenement, or for toil far underground
in a mine. Why does he migrate and in numbers so great as to form every
year a city the size of Portland, Oregon? We may find the answer farther
along in our studies.
“If I were a Russian,” some one says, “I would want to leave home. The
winter is so long, there is so much ice and snow, I would be glad to get
to a warmer country.” But the Russian loves his winter. He drives his
_sankey_ with its hoop of tinkling bells arched high over his horse’s
back faster than any other horseman in Europe. In his home is a great
brick oven and on top of this the family sleeps, no matter how the storm
blows, as warm as a Negro boy in a Southern cotton field. The Russian
does not leave his home because of the winter.
WHY THEY BECOME OUR NEIGHBORS
_Opportunity._ Some one says another name for America is “opportunity.”
Amid weeping and “_Il Signore vi Benedica_,” “God Bless You,” Giuseppe
has gone away. He has been earning as _contadino_ (farmer) 20 cents per
day and is like a serf tied to the land. He earns in America $1.50 a day,
or as much in one day as he earned before in seven. Giuseppe is frugal.
He rises in his position to better pay, spends little money, and his
bank account goes up until he has a sum that would have seemed a fortune
in the little Sicilian village. Then, work slacking, he returns home.
His watch and ponderous gold chain, his stylish American clothes, an
exhibition of lofty independence, all make him a marked man.
Wherever you meet him on the village street, an awed, admiring group of
friends is with him. He spreads the glowing tale of the New World and
you may be sure the reality loses nothing in the telling. Every youthful
heart is fired to a like adventure, to seek the golden, western world.
As one returned immigrant said:—“It’s a land where all wear shoes, where
trains shoot through the air, and shoot through the ground; even the poor
ride, no one needs an umbrella, the cars pass everywhere.” It is little
wonder they want to come. In America labor is dear and materials are
cheap; in Italy labor is cheap and materials are expensive. There it pays
a landlord to hire a man to watch his cows, rather than to build a fence,
wood is so costly. In America no one would think of hiring a man for such
a purpose, labor is so high.
The price paid in health and suffering for the money they take back is
often far more than its worth. Many a poor fellow pale and haggard with
that dread disease, tuberculosis, goes home hopeful that his genial skies
will cure him of the death-blow the wet and cold and exposure of America
have given him. But the defeated come home in the twilight, unattended
and silent, while the successful swagger in at noonday with the blare
of trumpet and beat of drums. As one Italian said to me no later than
yesterday, “My uncle never told me the hardships I would have to face.
I was far better off in Italy than here, but I am ashamed to go back.”
And yet, all who come realize that the possibilities of success are far
greater here than at home. As another said, “In Italy I wanted to do
but could not. In America I want to and can. I am sorry, but ‘Good-bye,
Italy.’”
The same opportunity for riches attracts the Chinese. He lives in a land
that, labor as he will, is barely able to feed its almost half a billion
human mouths. His wages at home are so meagre he can never hope for
independence; two cents per day is what the farm laborer in Shantung
earns. Since as a laborer he cannot legally enter the United States, he
comes in under cover of darkness over the Mexican or Canadian borders, or
any other way he can devise. The same hope of wealth attracts the Chinese.
_Steamship Advertising._ Many come because the steamship companies are
such good advertisers. These companies paint beautiful pictures of the
New World, and the peasant sees great farms, busy factories, and wealthy
cities. The companies never show any views of dark, unhealthful tenements.
Through this steamship advertising many unfit persons sail for America,
persons whom the agents might have known would be rejected, while many of
the lowest class are induced to leave their country because their country
is glad to get rid of them. It is said that in one small district in
Austria two hundred and seventy criminals were released from prison one
year and one hundred and eighty of them were in America within the next
twelve months.
The Commissioner of Immigration at New York stated one year that 200,000
of the one million immigrants of that year were a real injury to the best
interests of the country. Since the steamship company must be at the
expense of returning an immigrant who is sent back, they make doubtful
cases give a bond repaying them the return fare if the immigrant fails to
slip by the “man at the gate.” Of course the only interest the company
has is to get the immigrant’s money.
One steamship line anxious to make money brought over on one ship
three hundred and eighty diseased peasants that Ellis Island promptly
sent back. Among those peasants were many people of Montenegro. The
Montenegrins are great soldiers. Tennyson wrote of them as
“Warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years.”
For five hundred years they have stood as a bulwark between the Turk and
Europe. When they reached the home port, they stormed the offices of the
steamship company, demanding the return of their fare, and after one look
at their determined faces the clerks promptly locked themselves in and
telephoned the authorities for help.
Some are induced to part with all they own, selling their little
business and then, because of ill health or other difficulties that
the agent might easily have known, are turned back broken-hearted and
poverty-stricken to the village whence they came. Sometimes they are even
sent to ports entirely different from those to which they had planned to
go. This, of course, is all wrong.
_The Employer._ The reason back of the coming of many of these people
is the employer, the man who manages the railways, the mines, or large
contracts. He works through the padrones, and the Italian banks that
“direct two-thirds of the stream of Italian immigration.” You may be
surprised to know that the news of a big railroad contract reaches Italy
as soon as we hear it. If we are to build subways or barge canals,
or carry an underground river into New York, or let great railroad
contracts, or make a garden of the desert with colossal irrigation
reservoirs and canals, the message flies under the ocean to far-away
Italy and there is spread through a thousand villages.
The employer is constantly looking for cheaper labor. Around his mine or
factory are American homes, practising the “American standard of living.”
This is a valuable term much in use and since it will occur again in this
book we stop here to explain what it means. The American standard of
living simply means the way most Americans live. Do you know that we live
better than any other people in the world?
“I don’t think _we_ live well,” one boy says, “we don’t have an
automobile, or a pony, or a piano, and the people next door to us do.”
But automobiles, and ponies and pianos, while pleasant to own, are not
real necessities. Let us take a peep into the home of a Chinese boy.
It is breakfast time and he is busy with a bowl of rice and a pair of
chopsticks. Do you think you could eat rice with chopsticks? No! I
think you would do much better with a spoon. “But doesn’t he like milk
and sugar on his rice?” Perhaps so, but neither milk nor sugar are in
sight. Now, let us look in at dinner. Here are the same boy, and the same
chopsticks, and the same bowl with more rice. “Where are the bread and
butter, the meat and potatoes, and the dessert? We always have different
things like that for dinner,” you say. The Chinese boy does not seem to
miss them; what seems to be troubling him is the small amount of rice
left in the bowl.
Now take a look through this crack in the paper window, (the father of
this little man is too poor to have glass windows in his home,) and see
what our boy has for supper. Why there are the identical bowl, and the
identical chopsticks, and what looks like the identical rice, though of
course it is not. “So that is all this boy has had to eat for breakfast,
dinner and supper—only rice?” Yes, that is all, and let me tell you he is
very well satisfied, because he likes that much better than eating millet
seed and that is what so many really poor Chinese live upon. As for
shoes, our Chinese boy has none. His clothes cost only a few cents where
yours cost dollars.
Nor is the Chinese boy so great an exception. The standard of living
among the peasants in Russia is also very low; the same is true among the
great mass of peasants in Sicily, and remember these peasants form the
large majority of the population. That our standard is not the standard
of living of some nations may be gathered from the question of the great
Chinese viceroy, Li Hung Chang, when visiting America. After seeing the
ever-present throngs of prosperous-looking people on the streets, he
asked in great surprise, “But where are your working people?” He did not
know that the happy-faced, well-dressed people he was looking at were
working people practising the American standard of living.
The immigrant provides the cheap, unskilled labor. As he becomes
influenced by American customs, he requires better clothes, a room
for himself instead of sharing his room with ten other men, more pay
as he becomes more skilled. He wants shoes for his wife. The American
law compels him to send his children to school instead of making them
wage-earners while little children. As his expenses increase he demands
more money that he may live as the people about him live. Then the
employer begins to replace him by labor costing what he formerly cost.
Herein is a remarkable story that would fill many little books like this.
It accounts for the procession of the Welsh, Scotch, Irish, Germans,
and Huns in the coal regions. It accounts for practically all the civil
war, in the form of bloody strikes, carried on in the Pennsylvania coal
fields, and much of that which occurs in other industries throughout the
country, this method of the employer seeking to replace those demanding
higher wages by those willing to work more cheaply.
OPPRESSION
_The Sicilian._ Many come because of oppression in the home land.
The Sicilian lives in a beautiful country, but while the sea and the
mountains are good to look upon, the people are very poor. The farm
worker cannot send his boy to school as boys go in America, for the
rural schools are few. He must pay such heavy taxes he has little left
for himself. Then, a few rich people own almost all the land and he must
work for them, or starve. They pay him such small wages he cannot buy
good, nourishing food for his children and they often suffer greatly
in consequence. You draw a long breath when you are told his wages are
from eight to thirty-two cents per day. Many of us use more each day in
car-fare than a laborer in Sicily receives though he works from the time
the top of Etna is crimson with morning, until the birds go to sleep.
Even salt, so cheap with us, is taxed so heavily he cannot use it and
when he cooks his corn meal in the salt water from the sea he is accused
of smuggling. Oppression is what makes many of these people our neighbors.
_The Jew._ Let us step in and visit an old Jewish tailor, a saintly man
who worships devoutly after the manner of his fathers. I am very careful
not to give him any work on Saturday as it grieves him to disoblige his
friends, and yet he will not work on his Sabbath day. He says, as do many
others of the Jewish race: “I pray every day; my son prays once a week;
my grandson does not pray at all.” This old tailor speaks such broken
English, we will let his daughter tell the story. “My father is almost
eighty years of age; he never worked with his own hands until he came to
America. He was for many years the tailor of a Russian regiment, making
all the uniforms for the officers and having a number of men employed
under him; we were well-to-do, the officers loved my father, but when the
riots arose it was all they could do to save his life and all we had was
destroyed. Now he is an old man, he should not toil any more, but,” as
she shrugs her shoulders, “who will give us bread?”
A kindly-faced man is sitting in my office. He speaks such good English
you can tell he is a foreigner only by the peculiar way he pronounces
some words. He says “dough” for though. Just imagine yourself sitting
quietly by and listening, then you will know why many thousands come to
us from one part of Europe. “We were friendly with all the people of
our town. My ancestors had been in the same business for generations.
All the Russians trusted us and although we were Jews they would rather
deal with us than with their own countrymen. One day there had been
many murmurs around us; the people had looked less friendly; they were
ignorant, superstitious people, and they were miserably poor. Few of them
could read or write. The nobility had fleeced them for centuries, but the
nobility was too strong to be reached and so as scapegoats for the nobles
we were pointed out as the cause of their wretchedness. We went to sleep
that night, peaceful, prosperous and unsuspecting. At midnight our house
was in flames. I never again saw father, mother, brothers, or sisters
alive. I escaped in the night and was hidden by some friendly Russians.
High above the roar of the flames and the din and slaughter rose the
hoarse cry of the peasants—Our Daddy, the Tzar, wants it. Our Daddy, the
Tzar, wants it.” Multiply that scene by thousands and you have a Russian
_pogrom_. Oppression brings many Jews.
_The Russian._ The Russian does not leave his land because of the winter
cold. He leaves it because he dare not speak out against the wrong he
sees. He is always fearful of some police spy making charges against
him, shutting him up in prison, and sending him to Siberia. No one is
safe from these spies. The Russian comes to America because here he can
think aloud and here he can worship according to the voice of his own
conscience. America is his hope.
One of our poets pictures America as she really is, a refuge for these
fleeing, hunted people. He shows how the tyrant must give up the chase
and return empty-handed when once these poor people have reached our
friendly shores.
“There’s freedom at thy gate, and rest
For earth’s down-trodden and opprest,
A shelter for the hunted head,
For the starved laborer toil and bread,
Power, at thy bounds,
Stops, and calls back his baffled hounds.”
III
OUR JEWISH NEIGHBOR
“O God-head, give me Truth!” the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted, he became the slave
Of “Truth,” a pilgrim far and wide.
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged, with none to save.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour;
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.
III
OUR JEWISH NEIGHBOR
THE NUMBERS THAT COME. So great has been the volume of Jewish immigration
that the eyes of the country have been turned upon it in anxiety and
question. In the ten years last past 1,012,721 have come. The largest
number in any one year was in 1896, when 154,748 passed through the
various ports. In 1911, 94,556 arrived. To better understand the meaning
of these figures let us take a large map of the United States. Now be
ready with a blue pencil and draw a circle around the cities I name.
Perhaps I shall name the place in which some of you live. We will start
with a city right on the Eastern coast of the United States, where you
could step on board a steamer and sail away for Europe and see the homes
of some of these people we are studying. The first city is Bridgeport,
Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. The next is the capital of New York
State, the city of Albany. The third city to get a blue circle is where a
famous university stands, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then we will journey
away West and draw a blue pencil mark around the name of a city that
stands near a famous lake out of which no one ever drinks. Yes, that is
the name, Salt Lake City, Utah. While we are West we will mark Spokane,
Washington. Then we will move South and place a circle about San Antonio,
Texas; then come East to Reading, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey.
Michigan is a big state with beautiful forests, and we will blue pencil
the city of Grand Rapids. One more city is needed to make the ten. If
none of you lives in the cities I have named perhaps you may live in the
last one we mark, Kansas City, Kansas. I hear some one say, “Why do you
ask us to place a circle about these cities?” Because I want you to know
that in the last ten years enough Jews entered the United States to make
ten as populous cities as the ones we have just marked.
_From Where Does the Jew Come?_ Five-sixths of the Jewish immigration
comes from Russia. While the Jews number probably 11,000,000 in the
world, about 5,000,000 of them live in that empire, mostly in what is
called the Jewish Pale of Settlement. Why there are so many in Russia
needs a brief statement. Poland invited the Jews to settle within her
borders in order to build up her cities. Here was gathered the largest
population of Jews since the destruction of Jerusalem. In some of the
provinces of Poland the Jews number one-sixth, and in some of the cities
one-half of the population. When Poland was divided between Russia,
Prussia and Austria, fifteen provinces fell to the share of Russia. These
form the Pale of Settlement, for there the Jew is allowed to dwell and
there he is engaged in all forms of industry, including farming.
_Why They Come._ We have learned some reasons why the Jew leaves Russia.
Other reasons are his desire for a better education for his children,
freedom to engage in any business he may choose, and the privilege of
worshipping God and of saying what he thinks without danger of arrest
and imprisonment. Strange as it seems to us, there are still many places
in the world where if a man thinks the judge or the ruler has done wrong
he dares not say so openly. If he were heard to criticise them he would
be in danger of prison. Sometimes when we complain of our own country we
forget how fortunate we are to live in such a land of liberty.
Let us now find some of the reasons for the Russian hatred of the Jew.
There could be no such merciless persecution of any race without some
cause, and it is pretty well understood that the Russian government
encourages and often provokes the attacks upon these people. The Russians
dislike the Jews because the Jews are not Christians, and because they
are much smarter business men than the average Russian, and would soon
own all the land of the ignorant peasants if they were allowed to live
among them and loan them money; the American Indian was cheated in this
way by the smarter and better educated white man. Then the government
does not like the Jew because the Russian government is corrupt and does
not want the people to have a voice in governing themselves, and the Jew
stands for the rights of the common people. Thus we see that while there
is some just cause for dislike of the Jew, there are other reasons why he
should be praised and commended.
_As a Good Citizen._ The Jew, having no country of his own has yet
always been loyal to that of his adoption. The records show that when
war came the Jew was willing to shed his blood for his adopted land.
They are good to their own poor, providing hospitals for their sick, and
homes for children who are without father or mother. The Bible tells us
of the love of David for Absalom and the Hebrew king’s prayer for the
recovery of his little sick son. The Jew is no different to-day, he is
kind and affectionate in his home. We know the evil the saloon does in
every city and town and village in America where it exists. The Jew is
generally an enemy of the saloon. The liquor business does not prosper
where he lives. The Jews are lovers of books and education, and some of
the greatest scholars, musicians, artists, and writers of the world have
been Jews. Some of the noblest people who come to America are to be found
among the Hebrew immigrants.
_Not All Money Lovers._ Jewish people are often accused of prizing money
more highly than any other race and of setting a greater value upon it
than they do upon either truth or justice. Some years ago a great strike
took place in New York among the garment workers, who were mostly Jews.
It lasted till the savings of the workers were exhausted. I was talking
with one of the strike leaders one day and he produced a letter he had
just received from his former employer. It said, “If you will come back I
will make you foreman and double your salary.” I knew the man was without
any money, and I asked, “What will you reply?” “There is only one reply,”
he said as he tore up the letter, “I couldn’t accept because I couldn’t
be a traitor.”
The cheerful suffering that goes on among many East Side Jewish strikers
is heroic, for they feel that they are fighting for principle and these
battles that mean less food, thinner garments for the winter winds
to pierce, and less fire in the homes, are fought with astonishing
cheerfulness. In fact, it would be well for old as well as young folks to
remember that the great battles being fought in these days are not with
machine guns; these settle no principle. But the right to live, the right
to live better than the brutes, the conviction that all one’s time should
not be required in the struggle for bread, for shelter and for clothes,
that the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment,—for these
things the Jews fight by enduring hunger, sorrow and even death for the
sake of simple justice. They are the preachers of world brotherhood.
We do not mean that all Jews can be placed in this exalted class. Among
them are the hardest and most merciless task-masters. Just the other day
I heard a Russian complain bitterly because the Jews for whom he had been
expelled from Russia were paying him the pitiful salary of $4.00 per week
for his toil. But among them are a great multitude of noble men and women
battling for a better day.
_The Jew Intellectually._ If I were to ask the question, “Are Jewish boys
and girls at the head or at the foot of their classes in school?” I know
the answer would be, “They are at the head.” The Jew is delighted at the
boundless opportunities for education in America. He is like one long
locked out from a treasure which he could see but could not touch.
_As a Business Man._ As a money getter the Jew is without a peer in the
world to-day; he seems to possess the golden touch we read of in the
Wonder Book. But when we know how it is done there is little mystery
about it. A Jewish family sent their children to my Sunday-school. They
were poorly dressed and had the appearance of being ill-fed. After a year
or two these signs of poverty disappeared and there was every evidence
of comfort. I wondered what the cause might be and said to the children.
“Your father is doing better, is he not?” “Oh, yes,” they said, “he has
gotten over the hard times he had when he went into business. He always
used to get up at four o’clock in the morning and go to the factory and
get the work ready before the tailors came. Then after they were gone he
used to work until eight or nine o’clock every night, but he has a good
business now and doesn’t work so hard.” Most men would succeed if they
worked such long hours.
_The Jew Spiritually._ The Jew is a religious man but he seems to be
losing his religion in America. In Europe the synagogue was a rallying
point, in America the rallying place is the Labor Union, and many have
turned away from the old faith. Family life, once loyal and beautiful,
now shows many desertions, the father leaving the family to care for
itself. The streets at night are trodden by too many Jewish girls, and
the criminal courts are thronged with too many Jewish boys. Contempt
for old age is one of the saddest products of American life. I have
frequently seen young Jewish boys, twelve and fifteen years of age,
mocking Jews as venerable as Abraham, both by pulling their beards and
by sundry insults. The ignorance of Jewish children on sacred things is
widespread. It is a question if any religious body has a more solemn
festival than the Day of Atonement. It is supposed to be a day of
fasting and prayer, but the restaurants are full, and numerous Jewish
organizations use the day to make money by hiring a hall and selling the
seats at a good profit to all who can be induced to buy. Many Jews who
are members of congregations never attend service except on two or three
of the principal fast days.
And yet, careless as the Jew may be of his old time religious faith,
Christianity calls forth the bitterest opposition. He cannot forget the
many things he has suffered in the name of the Christian church.
IV
OUR RUSSIAN NEIGHBOR
“Come, clear the way, then, clear the way:
Blind creeds and kings have had their day.
Break the dead branches from the path:
Our hope is in the aftermath;
Our hope is in heroic men,
Star-led, to build the world again.
To this event the ages ran:
Make way for Brotherhood—make way for man.”
IV
OUR RUSSIAN NEIGHBOR
I mention the Russian not because large immigration has set in from
Russia, but because I am personally acquainted with work among these
people and because they are coming in increased numbers. When the Russian
wishes to change his home, he is usually directed to some part of his own
vast empire, and large numbers are settling in what was one time thought
to be ice-bound Siberia, and are there successfully engaged in farming.
There is, however, a constantly rising tide of immigration among the
Russians. In 1901, 672 entered the United States. In 1911, 20,121, the
largest number to date, was reported by the Commissioner of Immigration.
_Intellectually._ There is much ignorance among these newcomers. Over
thirty in every one hundred who landed in 1911 did not know how either to
read or write. A number of the Russians in New York are revolutionists
of various classes; they are almost always led by the Jew, who acts
as public speaker and general leader in most Russian affairs. About
two-thirds of those who come are unskilled farm laborers and common
laborers.
_Religiously._ While a large number of those who land are members of the
Russian Greek Church, most of them are members of groups hostile to the
church, although many of this latter class are unusually fine men. They
are exiles from their country for causes that would often bring them
honor in any really enlightened land. In fact, America has little idea of
the great riches in heroism, sacrifice and splendid lives that are hidden
away in the forbidding tenements of its great cities. The Russians’
dislike of the church is deep seated and intense, for the Church of
Russia has been the judge that sentenced them, the jailer that imprisoned
them, the knout that whipped them. The Greek Church in many ways is
an out-of-date church. It is an enemy of progress and free thought,
the greatest ally of a cruel government. These men, knowing no other
church than that of Russia, do not understand the difference between
the Christianity found in America and this church of the Middle Ages in
Russia.
One of the best loved and most influential Russians in New York City
said to me recently, “My wish is to elevate my countrymen. Too many of
them hold their club meetings in saloons and are given over to drinking
habits. But I cannot have anything to do with the Christian church, for
if I did I would be compelled to forget how the church has injured me
and I have suffered too much from it to do that.” The Jews share in this
attitude of the Russian toward the church.
“Can any country afford to lose such men?” I put that question to myself
as I looked over an audience of six hundred stalwart young Russians,
their faces alight with intelligence, their whole bearing showing sturdy
self-reliance, and yet lovable and teachable, withal. The place was an
East Side hall, and the occasion a gathering to do honor to a Russian
fellow countryman, and to enjoy a Russian play. The countryman was an
exile because he wished to hasten the day of freedom for his beloved
land. He was a man with a noble, melancholy face, and eyes that looked
love and friendship. One wondered what that scholarly man could have
done to have the sentence of death passed upon him.
The play when given in Russia was immediately suppressed, and yet it is
founded on an actual happening. Imagine yourself with me at the Russian
hall; let us take a seat and hear what the play is about and maybe we
shall learn why it is that many Russians do not like the church. The
players will speak in Russian, but we shall understand them for we shall
have some one beside us to translate the Russian into English.
Now all is quiet. Here enters a young student in a red shirt and big top
boots. He feels very important, for he has just arrived home from the
University at St. Petersburg. His sister is with him. They are talking
about a monastery in their village. “You know how the great monastery
near us deceives the people,” says the brother. “You know how the monks
pretend the sacred _ikon_ (image) on the altar works miracles, and how
the poor peasants have to give the monks hard-earned money. You know how
these cheats tell the authorities of any one who says he is dissatisfied
with the government. And you know, too, that these monks are not good
men.”
“Yes,” the sister says, “I am sorry that what you say is true. The
monastery ought to be a great blessing to our village, but instead it is
a great curse.”
“Then,” cries the student, walking up and down and much excited, “I am
going to open the eyes of the people and show them that the monastery is
a wicked fraud.”
“How will you do it?” exclaims his sister, greatly alarmed. “Please do
nothing that will cause the police to send you to prison.”
There comes a knock at the door; the brother opens it, and in walks one
of the monks from the monastery. He is such an unclean, repulsive-looking
man you would want to run away from him if you met him on a lonely road.
He does not look at all like the priests, or preachers, we know. He holds
out a tin cup and whines, “Please help a poor friar who is begging for
holy church.” All the Russians in the audience laugh in derision when
they hear the whining voice.
“Why is the church in need of money?” asks the student.
“We need money,” whines the monk, “because the people no longer visit
us as in years past, and since they do not bring money in we monks must
collect it.”
“But,” persisted the questioner, “why have the moujiks stopped visiting
you?”
“They do not believe in holy church nor in the sacred _ikon_ as they once
did.” (The _ikon_ on the altar of this monastery was believed to have
worked many wonders.) “What the church needs is some miracle to restore
the faith of the peasants,” and the monk seems very sad, probably because
he would rather sit down comfortably at home than walk the muddy Russian
roads begging alms.
“Why do you deceive the peasants?” says the indignant student. “You know
your sacred _ikon_ never cured anybody, nor worked any miracle. I will
give you the dynamite if you will blow it up.” The monk admits the _ikon_
worship is a fraud and says finally after a long discussion, “I will
place the dynamite under the image and blow it up.”
When the time comes to explode the dynamite, the monk is afraid and
confesses the plot to the Abbot. “Let us blow up the altar,” says the
Abbot; “we can say the anarchists did it, but we will first remove the
_ikon_ and then tell the people a miracle was wrought—the altar was
destroyed, but the image was saved.”
[Illustration: The Home of a Russian Peasant]
[Illustration: A Russian _Moujik_ and His Family]
So the altar is blown up after the priest has removed the image. The
people are told it is a marvelous miracle and the church is crowded
again, each peasant not forgetting to leave his copeck, half a cent, as
he departs.