when the great crowds of peasants are coming out of the chapel I will
tell them just how great a fraud the latest miracle is.” So he goes and
tells the people how grossly the monks are deceiving them and that it was
his plan that destroyed the altar. Do the people believe him? Oh, no.
They believe what the priests tell them and they are so angry with the
young informer for saying he blew up the altar and for trying to open
their eyes that they kill him.
“But,” some one says, “we have been looking at and hearing only a play.”
Yes, that is true, but it is a true play, for all you saw actually
happened in Russia, and it is the deception of such monks that has made
so many Russians hate the church and hate God.
You noticed how the audience leaned forward in their seats, each seeing
in that picture his own story, the forces that drove him far from his
fatherland. You also remember what the interpreter said at a great burst
of applause, the greatest of the night, when we asked, “What was that
for?” “Why,” said the interpreter, “you will be surprised to know what
they are applauding. In reply to the question as to who was his most
bitter enemy, the actor has just said, ‘My greatest enemy is God; through
God and the church come all my troubles.’”
It is the duty and the privilege of the Christians of America to
introduce these Russians to a true church, and to instruct them in the
knowledge of the true God.
V
OUR ITALIAN NEIGHBOR
“Genoese boy of the level brow,
Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes
Astare at Manhattan’s pinnacles now
In the first, sweet shock of a hushed surprise;
I catch the glow of the wild surmise
That played on the Santa Maria’s prow
In that still gray dawn,
Four centuries gone,
When a world from the wave began to rise.”
—_R. H. Schauffler._
V
OUR ITALIAN NEIGHBOR
NUMBERS. Our immigrant neighbor that has attracted the most attention
in the last decade has been the Italian. He has attracted this notice,
first, because of his great numbers and, second, because of the inferior
quality as compared with much previous immigration.
Over two millions have come from Italy in the past ten years, and the
numbers show little prospect of diminishing. This stream that two decades
ago was but a tiny rivulet is now a human Amazon. The Amazon of South
America pours so vast a tide into the ocean that the sailor while far
from sight of land may yet dip his bucket overboard and draw up fresh
water. We may well inquire about these people who are flowing in so vast
a flood into the sea of our American life.
In the year ending June 30, 1911, 213,360 Italian immigrants entered. In
1910, 233,453 were admitted. The largest number entering in any one year
was in 1907, when 294,061 passed through the various entry ports.
When we are dealing in millions figures suggest little or nothing to
us. Let us take another method to show the large numbers of this one
nationality that are pouring in through all our gates.
Imagine the two millions of the last ten years drawn up in a single line,
each holding the hand of the fellow countryman on his right and left.
How far will this human chain extend?
Suppose we step aboard a train at New York. We pass along the
Palisade-bordered Hudson, past Yonkers, West Point, Poughkeepsie, Hudson
and Albany, one hundred and fifty miles. These black-eyed children of
Italy line the track all the way. At Albany we turn west and go to Utica,
Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. We have come over four hundred miles and
still the line is unbroken. Here the porter makes up our sleeping berth,
and all through the night, past Detroit and into Chicago, the metropolis
of the Middle West, along a thousand miles of railroad stretches our
imaginary hand-clasped line. From Chicago we journey still further toward
the sunset until we rumble across the Father of Waters and into the
station at St. Louis. Surely these endless faces are no longer beside our
train. But there they are; westward still extends our immigrant line.
From St. Louis we travel right across the state of Missouri to Kansas
City, almost three hundred miles. Our train moves so fast across the
level country that the hand-clasped strangers seem like closely placed
pickets in an endless fence, but still the line is there and we must
travel one hundred miles across Kansas before the last of that endless
chain waves us farewell. And all these have come in ten years.
_The Italian Compared with Former Immigrants._ The earliest immigration
to America was not that of the peasant class. “It was the middle class
tradesman and the stout, independent yeoman.” The immigration of a
few years ago, as is well known, was from Northern Europe, bringing
the German, the Scotch, the English, the Irish, the Welsh and the
Scandinavian. These were races from the temperate zone who had gained
culture and the virtues of a Christian civilization, largely Protestant,
through long centuries of intelligent struggle. The Italian immigrant
of today is from Southern Italy. The Northern Italian, more skilled and
better educated, does not come to the United States in any large numbers;
his goal is mainly Argentina and Brazil, in South America.
The Italians from Sicily have lacked educational advantages. If, when
they land at the Battery from Ellis Island, you asked them to read the
name of the street upon the lamp post, sixty out of every hundred would
shake their heads. In the public schools the Italian is by no means so
clever as some of the other immigrants, nor is he employing his leisure
time in so wise a manner as is the Jew, for instance.
_Thrift._ The Italian is frugal and thrifty. Most of them seem to have
money. A poor woman exclaimed at one of our free Saturday night concerts
some time ago, “O Signore, some one has robbed me.” I looked at her and
thought to myself, “She is so poorly dressed I do not believe she has
lost much,” but I said, “Come and see me after the concert.” On talking
with her I found that the thief had been better informed than I, for he
had cut the skirt of her dress with a knife and had taken $80 which was
in an inside pocket. It is no unusual sight for a laborer to draw from
his wallet a roll of bills amounting to $50 or more to pay for a ten cent
spelling book in our night school. The amount of real estate the Italians
own in New York is very large; some years ago it was estimated at over
sixty millions. It is probably more than double that today. Some of them
own tenements and rent rooms that are slept in by day by one shift of men
and at night by another.
One must be careful that he is not an innocent party to placing children
in orphan asylums and other such homes to be educated at the public’s
expense when the family is entirely able to support its own children. An
Italian woman wished me to place her two boys in “college.” By “college”
she meant an orphan asylum. When I investigated I found that she was
married, had a husband who was in perfect health, and was herself worth
between three and four thousand dollars. The church receives very little
financial support from these people, although they are lavish enough when
it comes to a big display at a wedding, a christening, or a funeral. The
money paid for bands to walk before the hearse must amount to hundreds of
thousands of dollars every year in the Italian colony of New York City.
_How They Are Misused._ There is no question but that the Italian earns
the money that is paid him in America; no better laborers ever came to
these shores, and the way they are sometimes misused is shameful. I saw
once a pitiful exhibition of this. It was an August day, one of the most
intensely hot I had ever experienced, and all the worse because it was
in a long succession of stifling days and nights. Everywhere men were
stopping their horses and cooling them off with the hose, or with pails
of water and, despite it all, dead horses were lying in all the principal
thoroughfares.
An Irish boss was foreman of a gang of Italians that was asphalting a
city street. A line was drawn down the middle of the street and the force
divided, each gang taking the part on either side of the line from the
middle of the street to the curb. The gang that asphalted their half of
the block first would receive as reward a keg of beer that stood perched,
temptingly, on an elevated platform at the end of the street. I do not
remember ever seeing elsewhere human beings driven at such inhuman
speed; it was a cruel proof of what greed and a total disregard of the
welfare of the poor immigrants could furnish.
A writer in “Everybody’s Magazine” saw the statement of the press agent
of the Erie Railroad that no lives had been lost in cutting the great
open air rock entrance of the Erie into Jersey City. He was interested
enough to investigate it, and he learned of twenty-five who were killed
and so many who were injured that a partial list filled four newspaper
columns, a year before the work was completed. “Why,” he asked, “was it
said that no lives were lost?” “Because,” was the reply, “the killed were
only Wops (Huns) and Dagoes.”
_Spiritually._ The Italian is naturally religious, and when converted he
becomes an earnest, intelligent follower of Christ. We must not fail to
tell him the story of “Jesus and his love.”
VI
OUR CHINESE NEIGHBOR
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink,”
“Greaser,” and “Nigger,” and “Jap”;
From none of them doth Jehovah shrink.
He lifteth them all to His lap,
And the Christ, in His kingly grace,
When their sad, low sob He hears,
Puts His tender embrace around the race
As He kisses away its tears,
Saying, O “least of these,” I link
Thee to Me for whatever may hap,
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink,”
“Greaser,” and “Nigger,” and “Jap.”
—_Bishop McIntyre._
VI
OUR CHINESE NEIGHBOR
THE MISUNDERSTOOD CHINESE. The Chinese are the most misunderstood
people in America, and the reason is probably found in the Celestials
themselves. No author in writing about this myriad people feels that he
can give an account of the Chinese in one province, or city, or village,
that he is sure will hold good in another. The earliest bit of wisdom
concerning the Chinese that I remember acquiring was the statement in an
old geography that to write one’s name in Chinese characters was a sure
way of winning their favor. I now know that I am no surer of winning
the favor of a Chinaman by writing my name in Chinese characters than
a Chinese would be of winning my favor by writing his name in English
letters. But the writer of the old geography may have been acquainted
with some place in China where what he states was true.
In our short account of these people we can catch but a fleeting glance,
seeing little more than the curious Chinese himself, who, “when he wants
to get a peep inside a house applies a wet finger to a paper window so
that when the digit is withdrawn there remains a tiny hole through which
an observant eye may at least see something.”
_Unchanging China._ What force was back of the movement that reached its
height in 1892, when almost 40,000 of these people landed in America?
What caused the first large migration from China to the United States?
Today very few come. In 1911 but 5,657 Chinese entered, while 7,065 went
back to China.
That the Chinese would require some powerful force to set this tide in
motion, a few instances would indicate. The Chinese do the same thing
in the same way today as their ancestors did it five hundred years ago.
If a village street is so crooked that one must walk an extra mile, no
one would think of straightening the street. If the village well was
the source of water supply in the past centuries, the substitution of a
pump would not be thought of, as it would be an insult to the past. They
dislike even the most trivial changes; the altering of the time of the
regular hour of meetings; a re-arrangement in the seating of their class
rooms, or the transfer of a teacher, all disturb them. Because things
used to be done in such and such a way is the reason that they ought to
be done so now.
Old customs are followed, although the life has long since departed from
them.
For example, “It is the custom in Mongolia for every one who can afford
it to use snuff and offer it to his friends. Each man has a small snuff
box which he produces whenever he encounters a friend; if the person
with the snuff box happens to be out of snuff, that does not prevent the
passing of the box, from which each guest takes a deliberate, though
imaginary, pinch and returns it to the owner. To seem to notice that the
box was empty would not be good form, and all is according to a well
settled precedent.”
“In a country like China, which stretches through some twenty-five
degrees of latitude, but in which furs are taken off and straw hats are
put on according to a fixed rule for the whole Empire, in regions where
the only heat in the house during the winter comes from the stove bed
or _k’ang_, it is not uncommon for travelers who have been caught in a
‘cold snap’ to find that no arguments can induce the landlord of the inn
to heat the _k’ang_, because ‘the season for heating the k’ang has not
arrived.’” American street car companies and apartment house owners have
at times taken a leaf from the Chinese in this particular. What could
move this people to leave their home and seek a new world?
THE CHINESE IN AMERICA
_What Caused Their Coming?_ The first large migration of the Chinese to
America may be explained by two words, War and Gold.
In 1850 the great Tai Ping rebellion broke out and soon spread poverty
and ruin through southeastern China; the terrors of war with its ever
present hand-maidens, famine and plunder, ruined all business and
paralyzed all industry. The farmer class of the sea coast districts was
driven into Hong Kong and there they met the astonishing stories of the
fabulous wealth in the recently discovered gold fields of California
and Australia. That, in brief, is the history of the first big wave of
Chinese migration to America.
_The Sort of Chinese Who Came._ Those who came were largely from the
farmer class. The Chinese farmer is very different from the Sicilian
farmer; the latter rents his land at a ruinous price from the large
land owner, or works it for a meagre wage almost as a serf; the Chinese
farmer belongs to one of the most honored classes in China. “He owns
the land, has freedom of trade and industry, local self-government, can
appeal against official misgovernment and has the opportunity to rise
to any social or political station.” The social system of China is well
worth keeping in mind. First in rank comes the scholar, the man with
the trained mind fitting him to be a wise leader and guide; second,
the farmer, the producer, the creator of wealth; third, the artisan,
who changes the raw material into usable forms, makes furniture of the
timber, pots from the iron, dishes from the clay; fourth, the merchant,
the middleman, who sees to the distribution of flour, rice, clothing,
etc.; fifth, the laborer; and last, the soldier or non-producer. In what
order do we rank these classes? The early type of immigration from China
was of a high grade.
_How They Were Received._ The Chinese were received in California with
open arms, so to speak. “Industrial necessity” overlooked the visually
present race prejudice, and the Chinese turned their hands to anything
that would fill the gap the American gold-seeker had created. They
became cooks, restaurant keepers, laborers, household servants—there
were no women on the Pacific Coast then, willing to do the last named
work—carpenters, farmers of neglected land. Governor McDougall, in
1852, recommended a series of land grants to induce their further
coming; editors praised their industry, their cheerfulness, and personal
cleanliness; the Chinamen must have thought the Golden Age was come again.
_The Rude Awakening._ In 1854 came the collapse of the California boom;
placer mines gave out; men from the mines seeking employment were
coming to the city in droves; the wage of $10 per day for skilled and
$3.50 to $5 for unskilled labor was over; then came the cry of America
for Americans. The Chinese were ill-treated and many lost their lives.
Committees were formed by the better class of Americans to protect them,
but the cry against them never ceased in California until the Chinese
exclusion law of 1888 was enacted, barring them from the country.
_The Chinese Intellectually._ The Chinese rank high intellectually.
Their age-long reverence for learning—for a knowledge of the Chinese
classics opened the door to the highest positions—has undoubtedly had a
marked effect upon the mental side of the nation. The Chinese hero has
been the one who passed successfully through the various examinations in
the classics and finally, after many difficulties, attained the coveted
degree. Their “highways are spanned with arches erected, not to great
soldiers, but to great scholars.”
The nature of the outings that the average young American of the East
Side conducts is pretty well known throughout the city of New York. They
are usually anything but orderly and thoughtful. But on a Christian
Chinese picnic I have gone from the bow to the stern of the boat and
found numerous games of Chinese chess in progress, each game surrounded
by an excited group of advisers telling the players what move to make to
checkmate their opponents. The playing of a good game of chess is not a
childish task. The Chinese are a thoughtful people.
_Generosity._ Few favors done the Chinese pass unrewarded. I have seen
many touching examples of sympathetic helpfulness. A few years ago a
beautiful Chinese woman was helped to escape from worse than slavery.
To save her from the sworn vengeance of her master, it was necessary to
send her clear across the continent in company with a missionary. This we
did. Like Nicodemus, who came to our Lord under cover of darkness, there
came to us later a woman from Chinatown. Her husband is one of the most
notorious gamblers in the country, but his wife had a woman’s sympathy
with the kindly service rendered, and she left a hundred dollars as her
gift toward the safety of her unfortunate countrywoman.
_Spiritually._ I am repeatedly asked, “Do the Chinese ever become
Christians?” Their spiritual nature is as keen as that of any
foreign-speaking people that come to us. The spirit that changes the life
of a wicked, gambling, drinking American performs a like office in a
wicked, gambling, opium-smoking Chinese. The Christ that attracts little
American boys and girls is a like magnet to these little Chinese lads and
lassies. We had in our school for some years a little Chinese boy named
Guy. He was bright and courageous, and accompanied our missionary on many
of her visits among the Chinese. He said one day, with great earnestness,
“There are three things I want. First, I want to become a Christian and
get my heart right; second, I want to be baptized so that all the Chinese
may know that I am separated from paganism, and third, I want to be a
preacher of the Gospel so that many may hear the glad news.” You will
agree that these are good wishes for even an American boy. One night he
dreamed that his father, who was in China, had returned to America and
that he and Guy stood together at the altar of a church while Guy was
being baptized.
Wong Sing came into our night school seven years ago. He hated the name
of “Jesus.” When he heard in America that Christ was being preached in
his native village, he said, “Hot anger rose within me.” One reason for
this was that Wong Sing knew only the Christianity of Mexico, and this
is cruel and disdainful toward the Chinese. It has taken the world many
centuries to learn that the Christianity of Jesus is best extended not by
sword or force, or even by argument, but by loving-kindness.
[Illustration: A Chinese Family
(Church of All Nations, New York City)]
One day Wong Sing went home from our school with a Chinese New Testament,
and to him it was the Word of God from heaven. He read it all night,
getting an hour’s sleep in the early morning before he went to work. He
was converted by the reading, and then he threw himself, with all his
soul, into the work of the church. He was all for Christ. In the last
four years he was with us he did not miss one session of the school.
Finally, business called him home. His mother in China was greatly
grieved at his conversion. She said, “My son has deserted the old faith.
When I die, who will worship at my tablet? My son went away a good boy,
he comes back possessed of a devil.” Wong was the only Christian in the
village. He tried to show his mother the better way he had found in
Christ, but without success, and in great bitterness of heart over the
loss of her boy’s faith in the old religion, she ended her own life. On
this young Christian has fallen the curses and revilings of the entire
village, but he has “kept the faith.”
When You Toy, a little Chinese slave girl whom we had rescued, told us
her dream, we felt that there was a relation between it and her own life
and thinking. “Oh,” she said, “I had such a wonderful dream; I saw God
and He had a great book, and He called me to Him and said, ‘Here, You
Toy, look in this book,’ and I looked and there was my name, and after it
in bright letters was written, ‘You are my precious one.’” I believe that
a little orphan girl from a far country, trained in ancestor worship,
could never have had that dream if God were not a known and near friend.
What do you think about it?
The Russians, Hebrews, Italians and Americans—none of these people
surpasses the Chinese in loyalty and in labors, once they become
followers of Christ.
VII
MAKERS OF GOOD NEIGHBORS
“Fear not, we cannot fail:
The message must prevail;
Truth is the oath of God,
And sure and fast,
Through death and hell,
Holds, onward, to the last.”
VII
MAKERS OF GOOD NEIGHBORS
TO BEGIN WITH. Who and what are the good neighbors in our country that
are most powerful in changing this many-tongued multitude into Americans?
Who are influencing them so that they understand us and we understand
them? What forces are welding these many fragments into one nation?
To receive into one great common home millions of sons and daughters
strange to that home and to one another in speech, custom and land, and
to blend them into one people, this seems an impossible task. And yet it
is being accomplished.
_The Public School._ Among the good neighbors that are grappling with
this great task most effectively I place the public school first,
because I believe it the most useful neighbor in making young Americans.
Frequently the foreign-born parents see the New World largely through
the eyes of their children, so that the school is a good neighbor to the
whole family.
The public school makes different nationalities friendly. All school boys
know how by studying together, reciting together and playing together
they acquire respect for one another, and learn to look over the barriers
of race. A public school near my church which is made up almost wholly of
Jews and Italians, elected one of my Sunday-school scholars, a Japanese
boy, president of the class, simply because his ability and good manners
had won their respect.
_Manual Training._ By manual training classes the public school promotes
respect for work with the hands. We cannot understand the foreigners’
contempt for this kind of work, but it is very strong. I once took an
Armenian, who had come all the way to America in the hope of getting
an education, to the president of a preparatory school in the hope
that he might be admitted free of expense by doing some work about the
institution. The president stated that the school was overcrowded, but
he would take him in if he would work in the field a couple of hours a
day. The Armenian, who was really an earnest man, felt the work would too
greatly degrade him, and declined.
_Teaching in the English Language._ The English language is of course
another great help in Americanization.