special need of the help and sympathy of all American boys and girls.
Frequently he is the sole person in the home who speaks English, and so
is called upon for advice and is consulted in many things upon which
American fathers and mothers never need to consult their children.
This is unfortunate for him, as we can readily see. He often despises
the language and customs of his parents and then ends by despising the
parents themselves. He cannot understand the love his parents feel
for their homeland; he cannot see the blue skies and green hills and
mountains so dear to them; he cannot feel the home attachments.
“I recall a certain Italian girl,” writes Miss Jane Addams, “who came
every Saturday evening to a cooking class in the same building in which
her mother spun in the Labor Museum Exhibit; and yet Angelina always
left her mother at the front door while she herself went round to a
side door, because she did not wish to be too closely identified in the
eyes of the rest of the cooking class with an Italian woman who wore a
kerchief over her head, uncouth boots, and short petticoats. One evening,
however, Angelina saw her mother surrounded by a group of visitors from
the School of Education who much admired her spinning ability, and she
concluded from their conversation that her mother was the ‘best stick
spindle spinner in America.’
“When she inquired from me as to the truth of this deduction I took
occasion to describe the Italian village in which her mother had lived,
something of her free life, and how because of the opportunity she and
other women had had to drop their spindles over the edge of a precipice
they had developed a skill in spinning beyond that of the neighboring
towns. I dilated somewhat upon the freedom and beauty of that life, how
hard it must be to exchange it all for a two-room tenement and to give
up a beautiful homespun kerchief for an ugly department store hat. It
was easy to see that the thought of the mother with any other background
than that of the tenement was new to Angelina, and at least two things
resulted; she allowed her mother to pull out of the big box under the bed
the beautiful homespun garments which had previously been hidden away as
uncouth, and she openly came into the Labor Museum by the same door as
did her mother, proud at least of the mastery of the craft which had been
so much admired.”
While it might seem that the child represents the most precious future
wealth of our cities, he evidently is not so valued. Real estate is worth
more than he is. Dirty, disease-breeding blocks that should be parks and
playgrounds are worth more than he is. Even where grass grows, big signs
everywhere indicate that grass is sacred and of more account than he is.
In planning our American cities the child seems to have been entirely
left out. When tenements became profitable, and the tenements are the
homes of the immigrant children, the backyard playground disappeared.
The street is the only playground left and, cursed by drivers because
the horses stumble over them, and by chauffeurs because they limit their
speed, and chased by the police as a general nuisance, the children of
the tenements are surely to be pitied.
A young Italian girl fifteen years of age was being sworn in a Brooklyn
court. Before swearing her the Judge told the clerk to inquire if she
knew the meaning of an oath in court. He asked, “Do you know who God
is?” She replied, “God, who is he?” He said, “Do you know anything about
Christ?” She replied, “Christ, where does he live?”
Here is a chance for the boys and girls of America to be good neighbors.
_The Settlement._ Some one says, “I have often heard about settlements,
but what do they do?” The Church of All Nations carries on a church and
settlement work on the lower East Side of New York. If you were to pay
it a visit during a week day this is what you might see. By 8.30 o’clock
in the morning there would be a patter of little feet and a babel of
children’s voices and we would know the Italian boys and girls were
coming for the daily kindergarten. At nine o’clock the office bell begins
to ring; just sit in the office and listen to the people who call. One
says, “I need to go to the hospital”; another, “I want to get a friend
out of prison”; a big able man says, “I want work”; some are in need of
clothes or food, or a lawyer, or are discouraged and have come to talk
over their troubles. These last keep coming during the morning office
hour and, in fact, all day and into the night.
[Illustration: Italian Kindergarten (Penn.)]
In the afternoon there is a mother’s meeting for Italians, or Hebrews, or
some other nationality, with an address of a religious nature or a brief
talk on some topic that helps make the mothers better able to care for
their children. American boys and girls may think all mothers know how to
take care of children, because their mothers took such good care of them.
It would surprise them to know that in the fall some of the immigrant
mothers sew a suit of clothes on their child and expect that suit to
stay on through the winter—it is not to come off at night, either. Many
Italian mothers wrap up their little babies until they look like a mummy
that you may have seen in a museum. The baby can move its hands but not
its feet; it can also move its big black eyes, and laugh or cry. We know
better than these mothers, so we try to teach them wiser ways of caring
for their children.
At three o’clock there may be sessions of the sewing-school, or game
room, or gymnasium classes for the younger boys who are not allowed
to come at night. In the evening there are club meetings under chosen
leaders, bowling contests, basket ball games, and night school for
Italians, Chinese, Hebrews or Russians. In other parts of the building
may be illustrated lectures or motion pictures. So you see a Settlement
has a very busy and varied sort of day’s work, and is a good neighbor to
the immigrant.
_Other Good Neighbors._ In addition to the good neighbors mentioned,
many other forces assist in the Americanizing of the foreigner. America
itself, the streets, the stores, the factories, the public institutions,
the work at which he is employed and the conditions under which he toils,
all have a marked effect upon the stranger. Those who have studied the
matter say that the Jew is developing a better physical type than at
home, while the Italian, used to open air peasant life, is running down
in stature.
While the immigrant is a stranger in a strange land he is by no means a
stranger in a friendless land. America is not only rich in dollars, it is
rich in kindness and sympathy. Our fathers were pilgrims and strangers;
some of us were ourselves strangers. We should, therefore, try to carry
out Christ’s story of the good neighbor, and, if we find our immigrant
brother in need of help or protection, we should be among the first to
have compassion on him.
VIII
GOOD NEIGHBORS AND BAD
“Lead on, O King eternal,
The day of march has come:
Henceforth in fields of conquest
Thy tents shall be our home.
Through days of preparation
Thy grace has made us strong,
And now, O King eternal,
We lift our battle song.”
VIII
GOOD NEIGHBORS AND BAD
THE CHURCH. The Protestant church in America is a good neighbor to the
immigrant. The trouble is that many immigrants refuse to permit it to be
their friend.
We have seen that the chief reason that the church cannot do what it
would among the Jews, Russians, Italians and Chinese, the people we are
studying, is because these people do not understand that the church in
America is different from the church in their home countries. They do not
know that American Christianity is a friend of liberty, and is really
trying to aid the common people.
When the Irish immigrants came in such multitudes to America they
thronged the Catholic Churches. Their church had been their loyal
champion in Ireland, and they knew it would be the same friend in
America. The same loyalty was shown by the Lutheran to his church when he
came from Germany to America.
But the million and more Jews that have flowed into America want to have
nothing to do with the church, and the multitudes of Italians, when loyal
to any church, belong to the Church of Rome. The Russians are often
exiled from home because of the church.
To be the best of good neighbors to these people, it is necessary, first,
for the church to know their history. Only in that way can church people
understand how the foreigner feels toward the church and how most wisely
to approach him.
_The Jew and the Church._ What does the Jew regard as the cause of the
sorrow which has sent him to America? I have seen old Russian Jews stand
in front of a Christian church at night, when they thought no eye saw
them, and shake their fist at the cross over the door, spit at it, curse
it, and go their way. “If,” said a Jewish woman, “the Christians want
to be friends with the Jews why do they forever preach that the Jews
killed Jesus? We know our nation was the cause of His death, but how many
Christians have died in the religious wars between themselves?” She laid
the persecution of her race at the door of Christianity.
Speaking one day of the religious fervor of an old Hebrew, his daughter
said: “Yes, he is religious, but none of the rest of us have any use
for it. I think it is through religion that most trouble comes into the
world.” “Now,” she continued, “the best friend I have in America has just
gone out angry because when she came in she found a fire in my house,
and this is a Jewish fast day. Religion drove us out of Poland with the
loss of everything. I believe we would be better off if religion was out
of the world.” I tried to show her that true Christianity was not guilty
of these cruel persecutions of her people, that it was the lack of true
Christianity that caused them; yet I doubt if I convinced her.
Even when Jewish children are allowed to attend Christian religious
institutions to get them off the streets they are often forewarned. I
noticed one day that a boy who sang lustily some of the hymns stopped
at the word “Jesus,” or else substituted the word, “Moses.” “Curley,” I
said, “why don’t you sing the name Jesus?” “My mother told me not to say
it or my tongue would turn black,” came the prompt reply. Another boy
attending our classes reached up and kissed a gold cross that hung on a
chain around the neck of one of our workers. He had no sooner done so
than he cried across the room to his sister, “It never hurt me.” “What
did you expect would hurt you?” said the teacher. “My mother told me I
could come to class but if I said the name of ‘Jesus’ it would turn my
tongue black, and if I touched the cross, it would kill me, and I didn’t
believe her.” This was especially sad, for the boy said his mother had
told him a falsehood.
_The Russian and the Church._ The Russian dislikes the church. He does
not know the Protestant church of America. All he knows is that the
church of Russia is at least no friend of liberty. He wants nothing to do
with what he considers a similar enemy in America.
_The Chinese and the Church._ The most devoted Chinese we ever had in
our work after he became a Christian, had a similar feeling. His idea
of Christianity came from the Catholics of Mexico, who have treated the
Chinese very cruelly. He came to our school because he hoped to learn
English and not because he wanted to hear of Christ.
_The Italian and the Church._ The church in Italy is more or less a
political machine. The Italian knows how the Roman church opposed the
liberty of Italy and this makes him fear or hate all churches. Great
churches in Italy are often found with but a baker’s dozen in attendance.
The only times on which they are thronged are when a “_festa_” is being
held, a festival in honor of some saint.
_Brave Christians._ Numbers of the immigrants who become Christians
are real heroes. The story of the persecutions they suffer would be a
surprise to most Christian Americans. The Jewish daily papers sometimes
publish the names of the Jewish attendants at Christian meetings that
they may incite their Jewish neighbors against them, and the tenement
has so bitter a tongue that it often drives the family out of the
neighborhood.
Young people who are baptized are mourned for as dead, cast out of their
homes, and made practically orphans, and Christian workers must find
homes for them. Spies are sent into Christian meetings to secure the
names and addresses of Hebrews present, and then letters, or visits, or
both, follow. Bibles of young converts are taken from them and burned.
While the streets are filled with children with no religious instruction,
the whole Ghetto is stirred over one convert to Christ.
One leading Russian revolutionist told me that if he were to come out
openly in favor of the Christian church his business would be ruined.
The country founded by men who sought it for liberty of conscience is not
a free country to every one and men who have found an asylum here from
the oppressor of Europe become in turn oppressors themselves.
The greatest need of all these people is Christ.
_The Need of Christ._ The non-Christian Chinese are at times cruel and
merciless beyond description. Slavery is common among them, women being
bought and sold like merchandise. The treatment of little “servant” girls
is sometimes so inhuman that they commit suicide. These little girls are
bought by the Chinese and then frequently sold by them when 12 or 15
years of age. The picture of two of these little “servant” girls, rescued
by the Church of All Nations, appears opposite this page.
[Illustration: How Chinese Babies Ride
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York City]
[Illustration: Rescued Slave-Girls (New York City)]
One Christmas night a great company of Chinese and their friends had
gathered to celebrate the birth of Christ. Chinese women were there who
had never before been in a public gathering; bound-feet women were there
who are never seen on the streets. The platform was thronged with Chinese
children in their quaint, beautiful, and becoming Oriental costumes. The
first Christmas was long, long ago. Scripture tells us that on that night
a song so full of joy that it startled the shepherds rang through the
wintry sky. Poets and other people say that as Christmas time comes round
again they can still catch faint echoes of the angels’ song. Perhaps the
angels still sing it each glad Christmas Eve; anyway, at no other time
does a child seem so beautiful and so holy.
When the exercises were over I said a parting word to our guests. One
Chinese woman, carrying in her arms a beautiful little baby girl, came up
to say good night. “Why, Mrs. Sun,” I exclaimed, “I did not know you had
a little girl.” “Oh,” she said, “I hadn’t, but Mrs. Wu had one girl and
when this baby was born she didn’t want it because one girl was enough,
so she gave it to me.” This in New York on Christmas night, 1911. Can you
imagine a Christian mother glad to give away her little girl? The Chinese
need Christ.
The Russian needs something other than shorter hours and larger wages.
Many of them are seeking the higher things. A Russian pastor told me
of making an engagement with one of his hearers at a Russian open air
service to discuss and explain Christianity to a Russian in his home.
When the night came this Russian revolutionist had gathered a group of
his fellows in his tenement quarters and there pastor and men discussed
the Christian faith from 8 o’clock in the evening till midnight and would
have kept the discussion up all night, could the pastor have remained.
Christ and the church are needed by the Russian.
You see that some people have misrepresented our Lord and His church. We
must try to right this wrong done the foreigner and we must be patient
and loving in doing it. The immigrants are in need of many things—we must
endeavor to supply these needs. We must do it for the sake of Christ. We
must do it in the name of Christ. We must do it as if our Lord Himself
sat weary and thirsty before us and it was given us to hand Him the cup
of water. How glad we would be for such an honor!
BAD NEIGHBORS
_The Saloon._ It is sad to see so many bright Italian boys with their
fruit stands and shoe polishing chairs hard by saloon doors. They do not
know how great an enemy is pretending to be their friend.
The saloon is a bad neighbor to the immigrant. It wastes his money and
his time. It unfits him for work, starves his family and makes them
feel ashamed of husband and father. It leads to disease and often to
prison, for the saloon is the mother of innumerable crimes. It helps
make weak-minded and deformed children and is an evil organization whose
destruction has already been determined upon by the truest and best
Christian people in our land. For the sake of the immigrant, for the sake
of the fair name of America, let us unite to shut its doors and banish it
from our country.
_Ignorance._ Ignorance keeps the immigrant un-American. One who cannot
read is at a serious disadvantage. When it is remembered that of the
Italians sixty out of one hundred of all those over fourteen years of age
who come to America belong to this class, we see the need of the work of
night schools to overcome this ignorance. The case is made still worse by
the fact that the immigrants crowd together into colonies, as “Little
Italy,” “Little Russia,” and “the Ghetto,” where the English language is
not spoken and there are no broadening American influences.
_Injurious Employment._ The work in which the immigrant is generally
employed helps keep him un-American. He has no opportunity to know
America or to know Americans. Much of the work is wearying and
disheartening. Men bound for the coal mines are packed in cars and
hurried away, often through the night, to the distant coal fields;
underground all day and sleeping in wretched quarters above ground at
night, they have little opportunity to see or know anything of their
adopted land. I stepped up to a stone house alongside a railroad
excavation in the country part of Connecticut once to have a look at
the occupants. There were two floors in the old tumble-down house
and both were packed with mattresses and makeshifts for beds until
practically the whole floor space was covered. It was a wet day and all
the men were crowded indoors. A handsome young fellow lay sick on one
of the mattresses. I put my head in the door and said: “_Io parlo un
poco Italiano ma non bene._” “I speak a little Italian, but not well.”
Immediately there was a laugh, probably at the “not well,” and they rose
to greet me as courteously as if all were trained gentlemen. The sick boy
began to talk and the group was friendly with me in a moment.
The day will come when we shall find that these people can do something
other than dig ditches and mix concrete. The Italians who are now
employed as our hewers of wood and drawers of water, are of the race of
painters and sculptors and silk makers of earlier days.
We must help the immigrant to overcome his bad neighbors, and to know who
are his true friends.
IX
NEIGHBORS TO THE WORLD
For lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
“Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
IX
NEIGHBORS TO THE WORLD
THOSE WHO GO BACK. “Do these immigrants ever go back home?” asks some
one. “If I went away from home and made my fortune I would want to go
back home to spend it.”
I am glad to hear that question and some of you may be surprised at the
answer.
We have all heard of the incoming immigrant army, and small wonder when
we know that in some years it numbers over a million human beings. But we
have heard little about the returning army. How large is it? How many of
our immigrant neighbors prefer to spend their savings at home? How many
go home because fortune has not smiled upon them in America, or because
their mothers write, “I am getting old and it is very lonesome with my
son far across the sea”?
Let us lay on the table nine, bright, new, copper pennies. Now suppose
each penny represents one hundred thousand immigrants. Then the nine
pennies would represent nine times one hundred thousand, or the nine
hundred thousand immigrants that landed in 1911. Since almost three
hundred thousand immigrants went back home in 1911 how many of these nine
pennies shall we have to remove to show the actual immigrant increase for
that year?
For 1908 we would have to use eight pennies to represent those who
came, and to remove six of these pennies to represent the numbers that
returned home that year.
I am sure this will surprise some of you. You did not know so great a
multitude returned to Italy, or Russia, or elsewhere, yet every year
anywhere from two hundred thousand to six hundred thousand leave our
shores for home. That makes us feel the truth of the song we all know,
“Be it ever so humble,
There’s no place like home.”
_Influence of the Returned Immigrant._ What effect has this home-coming
multitude upon towns and villages all over the world?
When Stefano came to America he could neither read nor write. One day a
friend said, “I know a church where Italians are taught to read free of
all expense.” Stefano was sending money home to his mother each month, so
he was glad to know of a free school. One night the leader of the school
said, “We shall have a short session to-night because we are to have a
prayer-meeting after school.” Stefano and fifty other young Italians
remained for the prayer-meeting. At home Stefano had ceased going to
church after he had been confirmed, except sometimes on feast days. He
remained to the prayer-meeting, not because he wanted to but because all
the others stayed. He listened with great attention to the speaker; he
had never heard such an earnest address as the pastor gave that night.
It seemed as if some one must have told the preacher all about him.
All through the week he thought of the prayer-meeting and after he had
attended a few times more he came to the preaching service on Sundays,
and then Stefano became converted.
When he returned home he was on fire with the new religion he had found.
His heart was full of love for everybody. But he was saddened when he
saw how little the people of his village knew about God. One night he
determined to tell them how he had found Christ in America, and so he
called them together in his mother’s home and told his story. When he had
finished what was his surprise and delight to have three other men rise
and tell how they had found the same Christ in golden America.
Every one was interested. The villagers said, “Some of these men were
bad men when they went away; they are now good men.” You will be glad to
know that whole villages in Sicily have become Protestant and Christian
by the preaching of just such returned immigrants as Stefano. Last year
eighteen Protestant Churches of one denomination were founded in Sicily
by returned immigrants converted in America.
This shows us the wonderful opportunity we have of being a good neighbor
to one part of the world by being good neighbors to the Italians who live
near us.
What has caused so old and conservative a nation as China to change to a
republic? The leaders of this revolution are Christian men. If we asked
them they would say, “We saw that the cities and towns and schools and
churches and men and women and children of Christian lands were different
from those of China. We believe the reason they are better is because
they know Christ and are following Him.”
We have helped China by being a good neighbor to the Chinese who lived
among us.
A few weeks ago a Russian school-teacher attended a preaching service
in my church. After the Russian pastor had finished preaching the
school-teacher sought him out and said: “I had fifty young men in my
class in the Russian village where I taught. I told these scholars all I
knew about God but I could not tell them much, I knew so little myself.
I determined to know more so I visited the most celebrated monasteries
in Russia in order to find out about God, but I didn’t find God in the
monasteries. At the great monastery of Kieff after talking for hours
with the abbot he said, ‘You are too good a man to come in here. Go back
into the world, and somewhere there you will find God.’ I found him this
morning as I listened to the sermon. Now I shall go back to Russia and
tell the men of my village of the God who now speaks to my heart.”
We shall help the Russian Empire by being a good neighbor to these
subjects of the Czar.