"One thing at a time," he replied. "First let's have some refreshments;"

and as we drank the delicious raspberry soda which he prepared, he said:

"If I wished to tell you in one word what has happened, I could do it by

saying: Emigration.

"It seemed almost a miracle to see the first people leaving the

Kopanicze; for neither they nor their ancestors had moved away since the

great persecution in the sixteenth century brought them here from

Bohemia.

"The letters they wrote, and which I had to read to their neighbours,

contained such glowing accounts of America that others went, until

nobody was left but the women, the children, the aged, the witch, and

ourselves. We were at the point of starvation when the first money came

from America, and with it nearly every husband, who sent it, wrote: 'If

there is anything the matter with the children, send for the doctor.'

"My first case was a scarlet fever patient. The child recovered; but the

contagion had spread. The mother whose child I had saved told everybody

that the witch with her machinations made no impression upon the fever;

while the medicine helped. I was called to other cases. In most homes I

am sure that after I left the witch was called also; but I did not care

so long as the children were given my medicine.

"Soon I was called to other villages, and as the money kept coming from

America, and the peasants gained confidence in me, my services were

greatly in demand.

"Our old house, which nearly caved in over our heads, was replaced by

this one. I still owe money on it, but I am sure I can pay the rest in a

year."

"What use do you make of this?" I asked, pointing to the well-known

object found in every dentist's office in America.

"Since the men have come back," he replied, "filled teeth have become as

fashionable as red waistcoats used to be, and I have had to learn

dentistry. And there is more money in filling teeth," he added with a

shrewd smile, "than in giving pills.

"What do I think of the effect of emigration on the Kopanicze? It has

driven out the witch, it has awakened a community which had slept for

many centuries, it has done for these people in the twentieth century

what the Reformation did in the sixteenth. And as for us, it has saved

us from starvation."

As I was about to go, I heard a peasant girl in the hall say: "I kiss

your hand, Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M----. Is the Most Mighty and

Honourable Mr. Dr. M---- at home?" And the "Most Highborn Mrs. Dr.

M----" answered triumphantly, that the Most Mighty and Honourable Mr.

Dr. M---- was at home, but busy. A gentleman from America had come to

consult him about his health; and I am sure that at that moment the

"Most Highborn Mrs. Dr. M----" felt that her dowry had been well

invested and that it was coming back with interest, through emigration

to America.

VII

"MOSCHELE AMERIKANSKY"

The Hungarian town inhabited by Magyars, does not materially differ from

the villages in which so many varieties and subjects of other races

live. Such a town is merely a larger village, and, instead of one broad

street flanked by straw thatched huts, there are at least four streets

which terminate on the "square," around which the dignitaries have built

their more pretentious dwellings. Here also are the stores, usually kept

by Jews, who are not indifferent to the economic movements of the people

whose purveyors they are.

Twenty years ago, before emigration from the district of Nyitra had

begun, the principal town in that district boasted but half a dozen

stores so called, the largest and best of which could be discovered only

by its tiny show-window, where, crowded in dire confusion, were a few

articles of general merchandise. During all the years of my comings and

goings I could never see any change in the articles displayed, nor even

by a wild flight of imagination see any indication that a duster had

lost its way among them.

It is not, however, of this store that I wish to tell, in spite of the

fact that it now has a double show-window, and contains, among many

other new things, a genuine American cash register.

The "Amerikansky Schtore" was once the meanest and smallest among all

the stores of that village. No front door led into it, no show-window

betrayed its existence, and certainly no sign-board gave a hint of what

could be purchased within. It was then owned by "Uncle Isaac," as every

one called him. He made a living out of the store; but his life came out

of the Talmud, and of course both were scanty.

Uncle Isaac's father, Reb Ephraim, studied the Talmud, and his sainted

grandfather, Reb Isaac, after whom he was named, left such a holy savour

behind him that to this day his name is reverently uttered in prayer, as

one who is surely near to God and can intercede for the children of this

generation who study less Talmud and do more business.

Uncle Isaac's forefathers, "God knows how far back," kept this same

store in the same way; for like the ring in Lessing's fable it was to be

left to the son who knew most about the Talmud, and, as a consequence,

least about the business. The Talmud had to be studied, the store ran

itself. Not that there was anything automatic about it in those days;

but Uncle Isaac, true to the traditions of his forefathers, sold only

those things which his forefathers had sold before him, namely; red

earthen pots and big green bowls which he bought from the same family in

the same town where the same peasant potteries flourished, from which

his forefathers had bought their supplies of these same red pots and

green bowls.

If a customer came to the store while the children were little and his

wife was busy caring for them (for Uncle Isaac was blessed according to

the promise made to Abraham) he had to wait until Uncle Isaac

disentangled himself from the mazes of the Talmud. Then almost

reluctantly he sold the pot or bowl, scarcely ever exchanging a word

with his customer, who was usually a peasant, and of course a Gentile

whose presence disturbed the pious atmosphere into which Uncle Isaac had

wrapped himself.

If any of the townspeople came, he was more friendly; he had to be, and

as was often the case in later days if they asked why he didn't sell

cups and saucers and wash-bowls, he would invariably shrug his shoulders

as his blessed forefathers had shrugged their shoulders before him. This

shrug was eloquent, and meant many things; but, above all, it meant:

"Have I not bother enough to remember what Rasche's (a celebrated Jewish

commentator) comment upon Rambam's (the abbreviation of another

commentator's name) comment was? How can you expect me to give my time

to such things as buying and selling wash-bowls and cups and saucers?"

His children, three boys and three girls, were nurtured in this

atmosphere. The sons began studying the Talmud when they were five years

of age, and the daughters were initiated into the mysteries of the

Kosher household before that age.

As the children grew, Uncle Isaac withdrew almost entirely from business

and gave himself more and more to the study of the holy books. The

oldest son, named after the sainted grandfather, went to Pressburg to

study for the Rabbinate, living from the charity of the faithful, by

whom the support of a pious youth is considered a great privilege.

The next son married into a rich but not pious family to whom his sacred

learning was a very welcome asset. This left the business, such as it

was, upon the shoulders of the youngest son, Moschele.

Moschele inherited less of his pious forefathers' piety and much more of

some remote ancestor's business talents, and one day he came home from a

distant market bringing with him a dozen cups and saucers and a

wash-bowl and pitcher.

Had he brought home idols made of clay he could not have hurt his father

more, and the whole town soon knew that Moschele--young Moschele whose

eyes had already rested lovingly upon the blushing faces of young

maidens--had received a beating from his father, who, in his fury, had

broken the cups and saucers, throwing the fragments at the poor,

defenseless head of the culprit. Uncle Isaac's temper was equalled only

by his piety, and the old man was beside himself.

Moschele was in the same mood, and decided to leave his old father with

his red pots and green bowls and dry Talmud. I visited Uncle Isaac's

store many a time after this event. It was less a store than ever. The

house itself was sinking into the surrounding mire, the thatched roof

was falling in on one side and sliding off on the other.

"Where is Moschele?" I asked him on one of these visits. He lifted his

weary head from the Talmud, and extricated from a pile of ancient

manuscripts an envelope printed all over with English letters, which

announced the business of Jake Greenbaum who kept the "finest General

Department Store on Avenue B." in New York. The letter in the envelope

told of Moschele's employment in the great city, and of his life there.

"Moschele, my Moschele, is in America!" And the tears began to gather in

the old man's eyes as he spoke.

"Who knows whether he eats Kosher, and whether he wears the sacred

fringes upon his breast? How I wish I could see him before I go hence!"

I promised to visit Moschele upon my return to America, and the old

man's face beamed.

"Would you mind finding out whether he eats Kosher, and whether he

wears the sacred fringes?"

I promised even that; but I did not find Moschele on Avenue B. He was up

town, on the West Side, in one of the larger department stores, where he

had entire charge of the crockery department. When I told him that I had

seen his father, he plied me with questions. I told him the condition of

affairs and urged him to return home to save his parents from utter

poverty. He promised to go if his father would attend to the Talmud and

let him attend to the business. I did not ask him if he wore the fringes

and ate Kosher, I did not need to; for we lunched together and ham

sandwich was the "pièce de résistance."

Some eight years later, my journey took me once more through Uncle

Isaac's town. The rapid changes taking place in America seemed as

nothing compared with those which I saw in this little spot in the

Carpathians. There was actually a sidewalk, a cement sidewalk, the

cement furnished by Moschele.

The old wooden pump upon which generations had expended their surplus

strength and patience to coax up the water, had given place to an air

pressure pump, sold to the town by Moschele.

In the old days, three coal-oil lamps furnished light for the miry

street (when there was no moon), and now the town had an artificial gas

plant, placed there and partly owned by Moschele. Even as in Florence,

this or that or the other is by Michael Angelo; so in this far-away

town, generations to come will remember that Moschele ushered in a new

era, if not of art, at least of civilization.

It was well worth a trip across the ocean to have looked upon Moschele

and Moschele's store. First of all was the sign in big letters,

"Amerikansky Schtore"; then the outer wall of a new building, covered by

huge illustrations of the various things sold therein--a method of

advertising made necessary because many of the peasants cannot read.

The store itself was full of all sorts of crockery and tin and

graniteware, such as had never been seen there before. And oh! the

wonder of it! Moschele had already sold one bath-tub, and carried four

patterns in stock. "I have not seen such faith, no not in Israel." He

also sold building materials, and the yard was full of everything which

could not be crowded into the store. That which especially marked the

business as American, was the fact that one price was charged to all.

Uncle Isaac had withdrawn from the world and mourned the departure of

the good old days. I found him sitting in a well-lighted, well-furnished

room, clothed in finest broadcloth; for it was the Sabbath. Everything

around him was new except the Talmud.

Was he happy? No, indeed!

"Where can a thing like this lead? Only to destruction!

"Who ever heard of such a thing as this before? Moschele rests neither

by day nor by night; he prints bills and scatters them as if money were

paper; he sleeps with an open window even in the winter, as if he wanted

to heat all outdoors, and he has even travelled on the Sabbath!"

Then the old man broke down, hid his face in the Talmud, and wept. I

think I comforted him; at least I tried to, and as I left him he

breathed a prayer for his venturesome son who had deserted the Talmud,

and the red pots and green bowls; who certainly was no longer in peril

of poverty, but in peril of his soul.

One more year passed and in visiting this town, I immediately turned my

steps towards the "Amerikansky Schtore." I found its doors closed, and

from within came sounds of bitter wailing and lamentation. I did not

need to be told that the death angel had made his sorrow-bringing

visitation, and my heart grew tender as I thought of the dear old man

who would no more bend over the Talmud and mourn the departure of the

good old times.

A Jewish house of mourning is sadder than can be described. Its

atmosphere chills one to the bone, such an air of resigned hopelessness

pervades everything. All is sackcloth and ashes; no sign of hope is

visible and but little of it lies in the hearts of the mourners.

Entering the room, where the family sat upon the ground lamenting its

dead, how great was my amazement to find that Uncle Isaac, instead of

being the one mourned for, was the centre of the group of mourners;

while the one missing was Moschele, the pillar of the household, the

founder of the "Amerikansky Schtore."

The old man stretched out both hands to me in mute welcome, and when I

sat down beside him he told me the sad story which I shall try to give

in his own words.

"Moschele is dead! What a blow! What a blow! I expected something

terrible! I knew this couldn't go on! He grew bolder and bolder, and

richer and richer. Have you seen the new store? In all Hungary there is

nothing like it. He was a genius; even his enemies admit that." Then the

old man fell into silence.

"But tell me how he died."

"He went out from among us in the morning as strong and straight as an

oak, and he was brought home felled to the ground as if struck by

lightning. God's ways are mysterious; but oh, my son, my strong, noble

son! If only he had not departed from the ways of his fathers I might

still have him.

"He went to the railroad; they had switched his car of goods where he

could not get it--he was buying goods by the carload; nothing like this

has ever been heard of before--and he wanted his car; so he helped the

men to move it. Moschele wasn't afraid of anything. The men pushed and

Moschele fell over a switch and the car went over him."

Here a paroxysm of grief silenced the old man and he swayed to and fro,

weeping piteously.

* * * * *

And again I passed through the town, and this time I went to the God's

acre with Uncle Isaac, to visit the grave of his son. In weird confusion

lay the gray and moss-grown stones. No care is bestowed upon the graves

or upon the memorials of the departed; for the body is nothing, the

spirit is everything and that is with God.

In the centre of the cemetery is a knoll, and upon its crest is a

monument such as cannot be found anywhere in Hungary. It is in the shape

of a sarcophagus, is hewn out of Vermont granite and is so heavy that it

cost over 500 kronen to bring it from the station and put it in place.

How much the stone cost no one knows except Uncle Isaac, who erected it

for his son Moschele, who wanted everything he had to come from

America--even his tombstone.

VIII

"NOCH IST POLEN NICHT VERLOREN"

It has always seemed to me wise to carry letters of introduction,

especially when travelling to the East of Europe; often, too, I have

found it still wiser to forget that I had them, for a letter of

introduction sometimes blocks avenues of investigation, particularly

when the problem in question involves the privileged or official

classes.

This time in following the immigrant tide, I carried one letter which I

was eager to deliver; it was given me by a personal friend in America

and was to be presented to his mother-in-law in Poland. Not that I was

overanxious to meet his mother-in-law, but because Polish women of the

upper class are, as a rule, so superior to the men, so ready to talk and

talk so well, that I promised myself a rather fruitful call. I did not

meet the mother-in-law yet I was not disappointed.

Cracow looks dingy even to one who, like myself, is able to illuminate

its sombre present in the light of its important if not glorious past.

Coming, as I had come, by way of industrial German-Poland, with its

glistening newness, from the

[Illustration: THE MARKET SQUARE IN CRACOW

Here Poland mourns her glorious past, and the returned immigrant assures

her of a glorious future.]

policemen's helmets to the weather-vane of the new Rathhaus; out of its

tense atmosphere of whirring wheels within wheels; out of its

geometrically correct parks and new and ever growing building additions,

Cracow looked to me as if it had fallen off this revolving planet and

settled itself "Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are

at rest"--wherever that may be.

The only thing that had grown since last I saw the city was its hatred

of the Germans. On the doors of many stores on the Rinok were large

placards, which, literally translated, read: "The gentlemen travellers

from Germany, who wish to come in here to do business with us, are

politely requested to stay out."

Everything else looked the same, only more dingy; even the Austrian

officers who loaf around Havelik's restaurant seemed to have lost

something of their newness; for braid and buttons, two of the component

elements out of which Austrian officers are made, were tarnished and

worn.

The Jews' quarter seemed more hopeless and wretched than ever. On the

Kazimir were the same haggling crowds in the same small stores, and the

same shambling Jews in black, greasy cloaks. In front of the Jesuit

church stood the same twelve apostles, and I regret to say that they

were just as shabby-looking as their unbaptized brethren.

Cracow, the freest portion of divided Poland, is certainly as wretched

looking as Warsaw, where liberty dare not lift her head, and it cannot

compare with any of the cities of German-Poland where the Prussian

gendarme is trying, at the point of the bayonet, to cram German speech

down the unwilling throats of Polish children.

Why, I asked myself, should this shabbiness, this negligence, this

"run-down-at-the-heel" appearance prevail in all the Slavic cities from

Belgrade to St. Petersburg, and from Cracow to Irkutsk? Why should this

be so of every place, except where the German has stepped in with his

iron heel or where the Magyar or the Jew is trying to make of the Slav

what he is not and does not care to be?

I was tempted to take the first train out of Cracow, so painful to me

was this condition of affairs; for I admire the Slavs, although I think

I know their weaknesses. But the first train did not go until midnight,

and I had nearly eight long hours on my hands. Then I remembered my

letter of introduction. I found it with my passport and letter of

credit, and looked at it again, to assure myself that it was right. Yes,

it was addressed to the Countess So & So, and all the way to the house,

I pictured to myself my friend's mother-in-law. She would be rather

rotund, for Slavic women incline that way, especially during the full

moon of life. She would have gray hair, dark complexion, and a rather

pronounced down on the upper lip. That seems to be the tendency of the

Polish woman as she grows older; perhaps because of her great vitality.

Beneath the portal of a so-called palace, which was pervaded by an

incredibly strong smell of whitewash, I presented my card to the porter,

who looked somewhat contemptuously at the German name it bore. After

long waiting I was guided to the very top story of the house, through

clouds of falling mortar and showers of broken brick. The building

seemed to be in the possession of masons and plasterers, and the noise

they were making was as confusing as the dirt and dust their destructive

hands were creating.

Two surprises awaited me. The first was, that in spite of the fact that

the roof was partly torn off, and confusion reigned supreme, that top

story contained some of the most lavishly appointed apartments I have

ever seen. Pictures, statuary, and bric-à-brac, created by Polish

genius, costly vases, rare flowers, exquisite rugs and furniture; and

everything in perfect taste. If Cracow without seemed dingy and dead,

here it was brilliant and alive. Thus had I pictured my Slav at his

best--imaginative, creative, revelling in the beautiful, lavish of

colour, yet creating harmonies. Everything around me seemed to breathe

out life, and here I could understand the "Noch ist Polen nicht

Verloren," although in the street I had been ready to sing a requiem for

the nation.

A hundred questions passed through my brain; questions which I would ask

the mother-in-law when she appeared. Then came my second surprise. As I

sat there thrilled by contending emotions, the curtain opposite me was

thrown back gracefully and quickly, not at all as if a short, stout

mother-in-law were behind it--and my eyes fell upon one of the most

beautiful young women I have ever seen. This again was Poland at her

best, if not Poland typified. Her eyes were burningly eloquent, yet

showed a hidden pathos; her features looked as if chiselled by a

master's hand, yet, in the background, the crude touch was faintly

visible. The welcome accorded me was genuinely cordial, yet tinged by

the proper reserve.

"How is it," I asked, after some conversation, "that you don't look like

a mother-in-law, and that you speak English as if you came from Boston?"

"Because," she said, with the sweetest smile, "I am as yet only a

sister-in-law, and I do come from Boston. That is, I lived there for

years after my parents were exiled from Poland. I came back here after

my marriage."

This, then, was my chance to ask all manner of questions about the Slavs

in general and the Poles in particular, and have them answered in the

light of a rather unique experience.

"Why is Cracow a dead city?" This was certainly a perfectly familiar

American question, and I received a characteristic answer.

"It is dead because it is 'crying over spilt milk.' Nobody is regarded

as a patriot unless he talks about our past glory and blames some one in

general and the Germans in particular, for the loss of that glory. We

might do great things if we would just do them. We have the vision and

the talent; but we wear ourselves out, saying what a great people we are

and how superior to all other human beings; yet we accomplish nothing.

Look at this house of ours, and you see Poland in miniature. I don't

know just how old it is, my husband can tell you; but when it was built,

the work was poorly done, and every year it has to be repaired from the

bottom up. In America, it would have been torn down years ago, and a new

house built, to suit the needs of the times. Instead of that, my husband

is spending a fortune trying to make it a fit place to live in, and he

never succeeds.

"Yet that is the thing he enjoys. He can scold the workmen half the year

for dragging their task along, and the other half year he scolds them

for having done their work so poorly.

"You Americans enjoy being comfortable, we Poles enjoy being miserable.

If the Polish men had half the energy of the American men, we would

indeed be a great people, and Cracow would be a city worthy of our pride

in it."

I am not sure that I am recording the Countess' exact words, for to see

her talk was such an æsthetic pleasure, that I must have forgotten much

of what she said; but I give the substance of her words.

"See what America is doing for our peasants!" she continued.

"They go there lazy and shiftless, they come back thrifty and

industrious, and are rapidly taking the places of our decayed nobility.

When they come back, they have what we Slavs have always

lacked--initiative. I wish we could export to you all our stock of

Counts."

I suggested that she might try it as a business venture; for they would

bring a good price in our matrimonial market.

"Oh, no!" she replied. "We would want them back. They have talent and

devotion; they need only to learn to work, and America is the world's

great boss."

At this point in the conversation the Count entered the room. The

Countess had told me that her home was the type of Poland; she had not

told me what I soon discovered, that her husband was the typical Pole,

both physically and mentally.

He was a small man with unmistakable Polish features, which looked well

worn; for being a Polish nobleman, he had travelled through life swiftly

and indulgently. After scarcely five minutes' conversation, he began

talking about the sufferings of the Poles, and what they would do if it

were not for those wicked Germans.

Then followed what was as nearly a family jar as I care to witness. My

hostess opened wide her beautiful eyes, and, in most forceful Polish,

gave her liege lord a piece of her mind.

"I am tired of your tirades against the Germans. I don't admire their

methodical ways, myself; but they are doing things.

"Go out of Cracow to the border and look across, and you will see order

on that side and disorder on this. Step into a German train; it is clean

and efficiently managed, while our cars, from the first-class to the

third, are dirty and ill-lighted and the trains go by fits and starts.

"Go to the German towns, and you will find business flourishing; while

ours stagnates. They don't neglect art, either. Their music may be

slower than ours, but it is art; their paintings may not be as brilliant

as ours, but they are as artistic. Go to work! Do something worth while!

Build from the foundations! Develop some backbone, some character, do

better than the Germans, and then you may call them names!"

The sensitive nostrils of the husband grew wider and contracted again.

He was furiously angry; but facing him was his Americanized wife, and he

knew that "Discretion was the better part of valour"; so he permitted

his anger to cool while he nervously bit the ends of his moustache.

"Yes," he said, ignoring the Countess' outburst; "there is a great

future for us Slavs when we all get together. We were in Prague this

summer, at the Slavic Congress, and everything between us was so

harmonious that I have great hopes of a Slav Confederation. Then we will

crush our German oppressors. What do you think of it?"

I analyzed the situation thus: "As yet, the Slavs lack racial

consciousness. Each group, no matter how small, thinks itself different

from the other, and often superior to it. Not only are they divided by

small historic dissimilarities, but religious differences have obscured

racial unity to such a degree that I have but little hope that their

racial consciousness will soon ripen into tangible results.

"In the great game of politics, the Slav has given his soul as a pawn,

with which popes and patriarchs have gambled. Poland's national life has

been lost, not so much by corruption from within, as because the Pole

was used as a tool by the Roman Curia in the game of world politics she

was playing, and playing unscrupulously."

Ah! It was good to see the Countess' dark eyes dancing from pleasure,

while I thus analyzed the situation. I continued:

"The Slav either lacks sane pride in his race, or he has an overbearing

conceit; he is either easily crushed, or he crushes, ruthlessly. Look at

this daily paper. In Dalmatia, the Serbs break the windows of the

Italians, and tramp madly through the streets proclaiming their

superiority over the Latins. In Laibach, the Slovene does the same thing

to the Germans. Tears down German business signs, shoots, and is shot in

turn. In Prague, the Czechs are constantly bombarding the houses of the

Germans, until martial law has to be declared. All this, to the

detriment of the development of a rational, racial pride.

"And these same boisterous, roistering Slavs, to-morrow will cringe

before their Magyar and German masters.

"Another thing is in the way," I hastened to add; for I saw that my host

was eager to talk: "The Slavs lack collective wisdom. Where there are

three thinking Slavs, there are always three quarrels. People who wish

to rule must learn to act wisely together; yet in the history of the

Slavs this collective wisdom, this inability of one group to acknowledge

the equality of the other, has been their greatest lack.

"The Russian revolution failed, even as the Polish revolution failed,

and as the Czechs' will fail, because they lack collective wisdom. It

will take at least a hundred years," I concluded prophetically, "before

you Slavs will confederate."

My host laughed nervously. "You are a false prophet. It will come in a

decade. We will flow together like small rivers into a great stream. We

Poles, of course, being the most cultured, the most civilized, and the

best prepared to play the leading rôle, will be the stream into which

all these lesser rivers will flow. In the great overture of Slavic

union, the Pole will play the leading part."

To reason with such a man was futile; so I drank my tea and looked at

the beautiful lady opposite me, in whom the practical American and the

idealistic Pole were so harmoniously blended. Perhaps in her person she

was a prophecy of the great day to come.

The Count talked incessantly about Poland, its past, its powers, its

enemies; but I was not listening.

From my silence he thought he had convinced me, and as I rose to go, he

asked: "Have you not changed your mind about its taking a hundred years

to federate the Slavs?"

"Yes," I replied, "I have changed my mind. It will take two hundred

years; unless"--and I looked at my fair hostess--"you bring back many

more such Polish women from America."

IX

THE DISCIPLES IN THE CARPATHIANS

The river Waag has a broad and beautiful valley in which to indulge its

vagabond habits. Now it seeks a channel close to the Carpathian hills on

one side, and again rushes far away towards the mountain wall, close to

the Austrian border.

The Romans appropriately named the river "Waag," the vagabond river, and

it lives up to its reputation at all times of the year. One can scarcely

find fault with its wandering propensities, for both shore lines are

imposing and wildly beautiful; many of the little towns are

castle-crowned, while each town and each castle has its myth and story,

rivalling those of the Rhine in fantastic invention and equalling them

in historic interest.

The river Waag, however, is not in Germany, where everything is

prohibited, regulated, and subdued, even the turbulent rivers.

This is Hungary, the ill-mated spouse in that Austro-Hungarian alliance,

in which quarrels are continual, and divorce, with alimony or without

it, is threatened every day. Here rivers and races foam and rage; floods

of hate beat against historic walls and there are no smooth channels

for politics, education, or religion.

Struggle there is everywhere. Those who are too weak to fight, resist,

and none, however small or unimportant, is ready to surrender.

Among those people with strength enough to resist, but not enough to

fight, are the Slovaks, who live in wretched villages on both sides of

the river. The villages grow more wretched as they climb away from the

richer valley to the scant clearings in the mountains, where poverty,

ignorance, superstition, and intemperance are the four walls which hem

them in from the throbbing life of the century and shut them out from

it. No one climbs the almost impassable highways except the Magyar

gendarmes, who are the minions of the master race which has subdued the

Roumanians, Ruthenians, and Germans within its borders, and is now hard

at work to blot out the Slovaks, the feeble remnant of a once powerful

people.

These gendarmes are but stupid tools in the hands of a stupid

government. They erase the Slavic names of villages and paint over them

Magyar names, not even remotely related to the original; they prohibit

the Slovak language in the higher schools, fall savagely upon assemblies

of innocent folk and disperse them by force of arms, annoy unsuspicious

travellers and arrest nationalistic agitators and severely punish them.

Then they believe that they have changed sluggish Slovak blood into the

fiery Magyar fluid, obliterated age-long, historic memories, created in

a day a new patriotism, blotted out a vernacular spoken in related

languages and dialects by 100,000,000 of people and substituted for it

one spoken by a warlike people, numbering not more than 8,000,000, and

slowly emerging from Asiatic barbarism.

This they believe; but the fact is that no people were ever assimilated

by force. Force begets resistance, and the most stupid Slovak, shut in

by the four walls of his wretched isba, if he knows nothing else, knows

that the Magyar is his enemy, and that the Magyar speech must not lodge

in his memory and displace his mother tongue. Although he may have no

knowledge of his historic past and no idea of the significance of the

Slavic race of which he is a member, he _does_ know that he must resist

the Magyars, and resist, only where he cannot fight.

Two forces are at work which will soon turn this resistance into

fighting. One of them is the unbearable and unreasonable methods used by

the Hungarian government, and the other is that giant in the growing,

the returned immigrant.

The Slovak immigrant comes back less rugged but more agile; for he has

passed through trials by fire and by flood; he goes back less docile,

for he has had no masters except those that directed his daily task; his

mind is awakened, for he has read the uncensored news from the

Fatherland; news coloured more or less by the not always scrupulous

agitator; added to all this, the Slovak immigrant goes back conscious of

his racial inheritance, for he was one of a great Slavic brotherhood,

organized on this side the sea, carrying on, unhampered, its agitations

against the historic Magyar foe. Above all, he goes back with a bank

account, and money is power in business and politics alike.

Hat in hand, the Slovak used to wait patiently at the ticket window

until the Magyar station agent deigned to notice him and sell him his

third-class ticket; then, as if he were an ox being loaded for the

stockyards at Budapest, the Magyar conductor would push him into a car

crowded by his kind.

I have repeatedly seen Slovak men and women miss the only train that

could take them to the market town or from it, because the proud Magyar

official paid no attention to their repeated request for a ticket. Day

after day I have witnessed the incivilities and even cruelties they had

to suffer on the trains; but when the Slovak comes back, he knows that

the railroad official is only a servant, his servant, and he treats him

like one; he demands attention. Woe unto the bribe-taking conductor--and

there are no others on the Hungarian railways--who pushes him into a car

crowded to suffocation, while more than half the cars of the same class

are almost empty, with only here and there a passenger, who is politely

treated because he is a Magyar or because he has pressed into the

conductor's responsive hand the usual bribe.

The Slovak immigrant returns home somewhat of a rebel. The Hungarian

government knows this, and were it not for the fact that he brings back

money, and spends it freely, his emigration to America would be

forbidden.

Recently a special police force has been created to watch every outgoing

and incoming train, and every third-class passenger who has baggage

enough to mark him as an emigrant is detained, rigidly examined, and if

permitted to go to America at all, is sent _via_ the Hungarian port of

Fiume. On the way he is duly inoculated by the fact that he is an

Hungarian subject and that as such he must return.

The stupidity and the illiberal spirit of the Hungarian government are

nowhere more clearly manifested than in its relation to the religious

movements which are American in their origin and which have been

transplanted from the Alleghanies to the Carpathians. In the hands of a

truly liberal government this new force might become a constructive and

saving one to multitudes of people; instead, it is alienated, put on the

defensive and limited in its usefulness.

When the Y. M. C. A. expedition, of which I was the leader, reached the

valley of the Waag, to study the Slovak language and people, serious

difficulties to the carrying out of our plans presented themselves. The

towns have all become Magyarized by the gendarmes and a multitude of

officials. To speak the Slovak language marks one an inferior and

renders one an object of suspicion.

The village inns are merely dram-shops, kept and generally ill-kept by

Jews, who are under the influence of the Magyars, and consequently look

down upon the Slovaks. Even had it been possible for us to lodge in one

of these inns, our friendly attitude towards the Slovaks would have

forbidden it.

The gendarmes were alert and agitated from the moment we entered the

valley, and when they learned the nature of our errand they were

incredulous. "Who ever heard of anybody's having a disinterested concern

for the Slovaks? How could they believe that Americans, cold,

materialistic Americans, would equip an expedition to study the needs of

this downtrodden race, that it might be lifted up? Of course, we were

nationalistic agitators sent out by the Slovanic Society of America, to

arouse the half-awake Slovak into revolution."

That which confirmed them in this suspicion was the fact that the only

place where it was posible for us to lodge was the home of Jan Chorvat,

Apostle of the Christian faith in the Carpathians, and suspected of

being a revolutionary, because he preached to his countrymen in their

native tongue; preached to them a Gospel broad enough to embrace all

races and nationalities, strong enough to wean them from drink and free

enough to loose them from the bonds of superstition and ecclesiastical

tyranny.

The simple and perfect hospitality which Jan Chorvat and his wife

offered us was the product of that faith. Without hesitation they moved

into the basement and gave the upper rooms to their guests. The first

night of our sojourn with them, our hearts were cheered, and we felt as

if we were at home when we overheard their evening devotions. The words

of an English hymn, "My Faith Looks up to Thee," came in subdued tones

through the thick walls of the room below. Then Jan Chorvat prayed, as

only those can pray who walk consciously with God. The sentences which I

could translate from the strange tongue knitted us into an unbroken

friendship.

"I thank Thee, God, that Thou hast put it into the hearts of the

American people to send these dear brothers across the sea, that they

might learn to speak the tongue of my people so that they may serve them

in the far-away land and inspire them to become sober and chaste; good

citizens, good husbands, and good brothers.

"May these young brothers learn, above all, to love my people with the

passion of Jesus, so that they will be able to lead them to the source

of all redemptive power--Jesus Christ."

Jan Chorvat and his wife, in their outlook upon life, in the strength of

their convictions, in their passion for righteousness, would have fitted

easily into the church of the Puritans anywhere on this side the sea,

where Puritanism is still at its best. In his asceticism Jan Chorvat

reminded us of John the Baptist, in the sweetness of his temper of the

Beloved Disciple, and, in his zeal and passion for Christ, of the

Apostle to the Gentiles.

Here was a Slovak who spoke English almost perfectly, who wrote his

native language classically, who clung to a noble faith passionately;

yet that which bound us to him closely and I must regretfully admit,

most closely, was the fact that Jan Chorvat was what he was, because of

certain religious influences emanating from America. These influences

and ideals, which are slowly growing stronger, are being augmented and

reënforced by returning immigrants who come home with a passion for

their kinsmen, eager to redeem them from their individual and national

sins.

The centre of this religious movement is in O Tura, one of those

mountain villages isolated, but brought into the world's current by

mighty ideals; fit birthplace of a new hope.

Here a Protestant pastor ministered in the more or less stereotyped

forms of the established faith, and, when he died, left three daughters,

the "Roy Sisters," to carry on his work for the people he loved.

Hampered by a strict orthodoxy and a suspicious government, they

hungered with their people and for them, unconscious of a larger faith

and a better way; until so commonplace a thing as a religious newspaper,

published by the missionaries of the American Board at Prague, found its

way to them.

Our credulity has been so severely tested by the narratives of

missionaries who hinged mighty consequences upon trivial causes, that

here too one is assailed by doubt; until one reads Christina Roy's

little story: "How I came to the Light."

In simple yet graphic language, she tells of her life in the parsonage,

her father's struggle against adverse conditions, her own budding

ideals, and finally the important moment when for the first time she

came in touch with the vital truths of Christianity as presented in the

little Bohemian newspaper, _Bethania_. Upon so slender a thread

travelled this mighty current which gave direction to her own life,

which has enabled her to enlarge the vision of an oppressed peasantry,

and which is now encouraging her and the noble group of men and women

around her to attempt the almost hopeless struggle against

intemperance.

Whether one agrees with the type of theology which these people preach

or not, one can but feel that they are in touch with real spiritual

forces, and that, by the test of character and of work accomplished, we

who travel faster in the paths of what we call progress, are compelled

to halt and admire.

The students who were the members of my expedition were nearly all

recent college graduates and had left their schools with much of their

traditional faith unsettled. Any doubts they may have had regarding the

doctrine of the Incarnation, as it is commonly interpreted, were lost,

when they saw the spirit of Jesus dominating the lives of simple

peasants whose dull faces have become radiant, whose animal appetites

have been controlled, and whose homes have become the abodes of peace

and happiness.

To look into the faces of the "Roy Sisters," of Jan Chorvat and his

wife, and of hundreds of peasants who come to hear the Gospel preached

in true simplicity, was a better definition of the doctrine of the

Incarnation than any professor of theology can give.

The Atonement, as defined by our orthodox churches and which is such a

stumbling-block to the rationalistic mind, lost all its mystery in

watching another member of this group, John Rohac[ve]k, at work among

the gypsies; loving those whom no one loves, living with them in huts by

the wayside and trying with a divine passion to lift them out of

age-long Paganism into a wholesome relation to the doctrine: "Without

the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."

Although John Rohac[ve]k believes with all his simple soul that "Jesus

paid it all," he is willing and eager to shed his blood for God's

despised children, those most neglected of all, the gypsies. For them he

has suffered persecution, imprisonment, hunger and thirst, in the true

apostolic spirit; and although those American students may never be able

to explain to themselves the meaning of the Atonement, they certainly

will never be able to say that they have not seen the Atonement "at

work."

Here among the Slovaks, the seed sown by the American missionary at home

and abroad has brought forth more vital fruit, perhaps, than on the home

soil. Although these Slovak disciples have gone out to save only this

one or that one, they are helping to save a nation and are lifting a

race out of degeneration.

Nominally, Jan Chorvat was a teacher in the Slovak language to our

expedition; and to learn the more effectually, my students often went

with him on his tours from village to village. As they walked, he

explained to them the grammar

[Illustration: AT THE FOOT OF THE TATRA MOUNTAINS]

and enriched their vocabulary. How much of the difficult Slovak language

they will remember when they come to their task in Pennsylvania, I do

not know; but they can never forget the lessons he taught them by his

singleness of purpose, his devotion to his people, and his fearless

approach to those who he thought needed his admonition. Those students

will surely remember that "Though they speak with the tongues of men and

of angels, and have not love, it profiteth nothing."

The last day of our stay in Hungary brought us early to a village at the

foot of the Tatra mountains, the village of Czorba. Leaving our

uncomfortable third-class carriage in which we had spent the night, we

were quickly revived by the ozone-laden mountain air, and by the

marvellous sight which greeted our eyes. Here were the giant mountains

of Hungary which she has proudly pictured highest on her escutcheon.

That which most quickened us, however, as a group of strangers, was the

greeting extended to us by three men waiting in the early dawn. They had

come many miles on foot to meet us, and carried huge loaves of rye bread

and bottles of milk for our refreshment. They were to guide us to the

top of the mountain. The three men belonged to three antagonistic races

of Hungary, and we were Americans, a conglomerate of races; Teutonic,

Semitic, and Celtic. Together we broke bread, prayed, sang, and

exchanged thoughts about the vital things of life.

The man who appeared to be the leader of the group, the brightest and

happiest of the three, the one with the largest outlook on life, was a

Slovak who had found his vision and his happiness in America. He worked

in a blacksmith's shop in Torrington, Conn. Here some one with a passion

for common men ministered to him and led him from drunkenness to

sobriety, and from his coarse animal existence into fellowship with the

divine. He returned home and is daily at his task of shoeing horses and

mending broken ploughshares; but he never forgets that what carried him

back among his people was his awakened passion for them.

At the forge, he preaches the gospel of sobriety, of industry, and of

peace; and, as he welds broken iron, so he is trying to weld into union

the three alien races that battle round the foot of the Tatra. The task

is difficult, and it will be slow.

The stupid and materialistic Hungarian government is trying to

accomplish this task by throwing people into prison, because they love

their mother tongue, or do not lightly regard their historic

inheritance.

The Slovak Christian will certainly accomplish more than the gendarmes

for the unification of these alien peoples in Hungary; for the Gospel

is more powerful than guns and bayonets.

As we parted from our new friends that last day, we sang: "Blest be the

Tie that Binds." The gendarmes, who were watching us, thought we were

singing some revolutionary "Marseillaise," and in that they were not

mistaken; for there is nothing more revolutionary than the force which

"Binds our hearts in Christian Love."

X

THE GUSLAR OF RAGUSA

It is a long time since I first saw Dalmatia, on the eastern shore of

the Adriatic. Her hills were denuded of verdure, monotonously barren and

ashen gray, with a bit of Paradise here and there along the edge of the

sea. In silence, her ancient cities mourned a turbulent past of which

they were reminded by walls and palaces which the Romans built, as only

the Romans knew how to build.

Although these walls have felt the force of Venetian battering-rams, of

French, Turkish, and Austrian cannon-balls, they still stand, silent

witnesses of a civilization which carried culture in the path of its

conquest, and brought a certain kind of liberty to its captives. The

Venetians took away these liberties, and, in exchange, gave the

Dalmatians churches, whose graceful campaniles tower over the gray and

solid Roman walls.

The French came and went; but, far as the eye can see, left nothing

behind them.

Austria brought soldiers who are still there; nesting in the forts,

commanding the mule-paths

[Illustration: COAST OF DALMATIA

From here, come virile children, of the stony soil, to mine our coal and

dig our trenches.]

and seaways and hated by the native population, which is Slavic with a

sprinkling of Italian, both races being antagonistic to the ruling

power.

That Dalmatia has been badly governed, no one denies. It has been

purposely kept out of touch with the mainland, the old motherland behind

it, Croatia. Only by the sea had it access to other peoples, to whom it

rarely went and who seldom came to it.

Of all Dalmatian cities, Ragusa is the proudest, even as it is the

poorest. Once the seat of a virile republic, she sent out armadas for

conquest, watched from her sea-girt walls the struggles between Venice

and the Ottomans, and, by force of arms, helped to decide the destinies

of nations.

Ragusa's glory was short, but memory is long; although her harbour is

choked and useless, her sea-wall in ruins, and her pavements

grass-grown; still under marble porticoes half-sunk into the ground, sit

the grandees of the city, smoking the Turkish _czibuk_ and musing over

those golden days when Ragusa called herself the "Queen of the Adria,"

and fought with Venice for its supremacy.

On the corner of the Stradona and the Piazza, there stood all day long

an old minstrel, who strummed monotonous strains on the _gusla_, while

he sang the epics inspired by centuries of conflict. As he sang, the

grandees smoked and mused; while the lesser folk cobbled _opankee_,

embroidered garments after Oriental fashion, and wove tiny strands of

silver into crude filigree.

The old _guslar_ was minstrel, poet, and historian. It was he who told

me marvellous stories of the time when in each of those palaces on the

Stradone there lived a statesman-soldier, at war politically with one

half his world and in social rivalry with the other half. The city's

gentlefolk were divided into the _Salamanchesi_ and the _Sorbonnesi_;

those who sent their sons to the University of Salamanca and those who

sent them to the Sorbonne.

These divergent cultural currents kept the nobility apart and gave ample

cause for petty quarrels; many a Ragusan Romeo's love for his Juliet has

furnished material for a romance and for a beautiful funeral.

Against these old walls and old traditions the immigrant tide has been

beating for the last ten years, carrying away the grandee's sons,

numbers of whom are now digging coal in Pennsylvania, or waiting on

table in some cheap restaurant in New York. Yet, whether he lives in a

wretched boarding-house in a Pittsburg "Patch," or accepts the modest

tip his patrons give him, the son of a Ragusan grandee never forgets his

nobility.

These immigrants, too, have gone home again, and make their presence

felt, economically and socially. They have repaired the old palaces and

brought money into circulation; but the old _guslar_, who stood on the

corner of the Stradona and the Piazza, and whom I sought out after these

ten years, had his story to tell.

"Yes, Signor, many have gone to America and have come back, and will go

again; but, Signor, that must be a bad country, a wild country. They

come home and walk carelessly up and down the Stradona, the finest

street in the world, every house a palace--and they talk of it with

disrespect!

"Why, Signor, they say that in America there are finer streets than

this, and bigger houses, and they laugh at the _Dogana_, Signor--at the

_Dogana_, where our _Principes_ and our _Consiglios_ made treaties with

the great powers, where we received the ambassadors of the Sultan and of

the Doges of Venice!

"Signor, they walk up and down the street with their heavy-soled shoes,

talking loudly, and making such a noise that the grandees cannot take

their siestas undisturbed.

"Yes, Signor, there are some of them here now. They came back a

fortnight ago, a man and his two daughters. A good-for-nothing he is,

Signor. Think of it! Ah, listen!" He paused abruptly. I listened. The

sweet, harmonious quiet was rudely broken; the air, full of the

fragrance of oleander blossoms, seemed suddenly vitiated; the Monte

Sergio and the swaying palms beneath it, which made so marvellous a

picture, seemed to drop with a crash out of their frame of sky and sea.

"Signor, listen!" And the old _guslar_ trembled from anger and pain. It

was the grinding of a phonograph which struck our ears. "Listen, Signor!

That they bring out of America! Out of your barbaric country!"

True enough; they were the painfully familiar notes of "canned ragtime"

at its worst.

"Signor, that man has come back with his two daughters. They can't speak

a word of their mother tongue; and oh, Signor! they walk up and down the

Stradona without a duenna, they look boldly at the men, and they keep

their jaws moving constantly, even when they do not speak.

"The father drinks, he drinks maraschino by the bottleful and he defiles

the pavements of our ancient streets by his polluted spittle. You want

to go to see him?" The _guslar_ looked deeply hurt. He feared that the

phonograph had lured me from him.

"No, I shan't go until you play and sing for me."

He took his _gusla_ and moved his bow gently over its single string,

while he sang of "Mustapha who came riding on a dapple gray stallion,

with thirty Pashas as his escort. He struck a glass of wine from the

hand of a Servian hero, who vowed that he would shed the black blood of

the Turk," which, after many monotonous verses, he did.

"Signor, I can't sing very well--ah, there it is again!"

While he had been singing about Mustapha, who died so many years ago,

the phonograph bawled lustily about "Tammany, Tammany," which,

unfortunately, is very much alive.

I made my peace with the _guslar_ by putting into his hand a liberal

fee; then I followed the sound of the phonograph which had been switched

from "Tammany" to the song of "A nice young man, that lives in

Kalamazoo."

On the lower floor of a house in one of the small streets which divide

the Stradona, I discovered the phonograph and its owner, a man neither

of the nobility nor noble. His knowledge of America extended as far as

Brooklyn and the Austro-Italian docks, near which he had established a

boarding-house. Of course, he had come home rich, and only for a visit.

"Who could live in Ragusa after Brooklyn?"

He told me that he made a great deal of money selling liquor, and

acknowledged that he sold it without a license. Besides that, the

sailors brought over various articles for which he found a ready market.

His case would not be worth recording were it not for the fact that he

may be looked upon as a man who has been spoiled by his sojourn with

us. I doubt, though, that there was anything to spoil; evidently, he was

a man of poor breeding and low moral standards. In America, he had found

an outlet for his evil tendencies, and a bad business which offered

opportunities for lawlessness.

His daughters were more interesting than he; for they came back perfect

strangers, into the environment which they had left as children. They

had quite forgotten Italian and spoke Serbo-Slavic very poorly; while

their English was typical.

"Golly! But Ragusa is a bum town!"

The Adriatic shore could not be compared with the sea they knew,

bordered as it was by Coney Island.

"No, sir-ree! Give me Coney Island, and you can have this two for a

cent, Gravoosa." And I suppose, the peninsula of Lapad also, circled by

palms and olives and set in a sea of turquoise blue.

When I mentioned the _guslar_, one of the girls said that he "might make

a hit at Coney Island as a side-show."

"Were there many Dalmatians in America?" I asked the father.

"You bet! They have gone from along the whole ---- coast, and there is

one ---- little town near Lucin Piccolo where there is not an able-bodied

man left. They'll all come over when they get the ---- money. The more

come the better for me."

His place was the centre to which they came and from which they

radiated.

"What do they do in America?" I asked.

"Oh! any old thing. It all depends. There is one back here now."

"He's a regular big head," interrupted one of the girls; "thinks he's

the whole cheese. He's a newspaper man. I suppose he'll be on the

Stradona to-night."

Every evening after sunset, all Ragusa wakens out of its day-dreams and

is on parade in the Stradona.

Demure maidens come out from behind latticed windows, reflecting in

their garments the sombre hues borrowed from Venice, and a riot of

Oriental colours. They are dark-eyed creatures, these maidens, and their

faces, as well as their garb, show the mixture of Latin and Slav; for

this is the battling-ground of the two races, the persistent Slav being

in the ascendency.

The youths followed at a distance; for propriety is one of the assets of

Ragusan society.

Noiselessly they walked up and down over the grass-grown pavement, and,

when one heard the heavy-soled shoe striking it, one recognized the

stranger; and by that sign I knew the Ragusan-American newspaper man. A

graceful, swarthy young fellow he was, upon whose face his new

environment had already written its story.

His eyes had lost their melancholy look, for he had escaped the thraldom

of the past and seemed like a man fully awake to the present. When we

met, he looked at my shoes, I looked at his, and the contact was made.

Interesting, indeed, his story was, beginning with his running away from

home, one of those ancient palaces on the Stradona. His assets were:

money enough to take him to Triest, third-class, a large stock of

inherited pride, and nothing else.

At that time there was no passenger service from Triest, but there were

freight steamers and a chance to serve as steward to the officer's mess.

Three weeks of life on the sea and then New York. There he served his

apprenticeship in the art of "getting along" by walking up and down

Broadway, hungry and cold, sleeping in "Sailor's Boarding Houses," and

finally in the police station.

At last came a turn in his fortunes, through getting work as a

strawberry-picker in New Jersey, then working in a restaurant in

Pennsylvania as waiter and cook. After much chance and change, he had

become the owner of an Italian newspaper, whose chief object was to

chronicle the happenings in the Fatherland, for the edification of his

countrymen.

It had been a rough road, but it was worth the struggle; for it led to

usefulness and into life. He thought that his countrymen always

experienced unusual difficulties in America.

"The masses of them are illiterate to an alarming degree; bound by

traditions, tribal in their social outlook, and serve as so much carrion

for those birds of prey, the steamship companies' agents, the _padrone_,

the boarding-house keeper, the saloon, and the venal justice of the

peace."

Our national moral character he interpreted in the light or the

experiences of his countrymen, and his judgment was not a flattering

one. Yet he admitted that America is a blessing to Dalmatia. It has

relieved bitter poverty, mentally awakened the people, and has broken

down worthless traditions.

In Dalmatia, as elsewhere, the returned immigrant has sharpened the

hunger for political liberties, and has intensified the struggle between

the oppressed and the oppressor.

Wherever the government was aided by the reactionary church, the people

left the church. This is especially true of the northern towns of the

peninsula, between Zara and Triest.

"Yes, indeed! The returned immigrant causes much trouble, and I am no

exception. I wound my parents by my democratic ways, and I have

forgotten many of the niceties of their social life.

"Yes, it was I who hurt the _guslar's_ feelings by telling him that

there are streets in New York finer than the _Stradona_, and houses

bigger than the _Dogana_. Ah, yes; the returned immigrant causes both

sorrow and annoyance. Just watch that man and his two daughters."

There they were; the man from Brooklyn, garishly attired. His daughters

walked proudly beside him, heedless of the fact that over those

pavements generations of Ragusa's great men had walked to victory or to

death.

The Brooklyn man seemed quite oblivious of the fact that these people

whom he passed so carelessly were the sons and daughters of nobles and

heroes. He did not lift his hat to them or step aside to let them pass;

his daughters occupied more than their share of space, with their

gorgeous and exaggerated hats, and smiled encouragingly on the young men

whom they met, although strangers to them.

Later, there was much discussion of these "Americans," among those who

spend the evening at the "Café Arciduca Federigo"; smoking, singing,

sipping _granite_, and talking about the good old days, those quiet,

dreamy days which they had spent on this matchless spot, watching the

sea as it encircled with its phosphorescent splendour the Island of

Lacroma, or when, beaten by the Bora, it lashed itself into fury against

the ancient walls.

The young newspaper man told me much about the pride and poverty of his

countrymen, of their love for this fair spot, of their moral standards,

and their unbroken word.

The _guslar_, standing in front of the café, began tuning his Jeremaic

instrument, looking wistfully, as he did so, at the stranger who had

given him so liberal a fee. He needed but slight encouragement to begin

his plaintive recitative. A few lines clung to my memory; for they

fitted so well into my conversation with the young Ragusan:

"Go out and sing of right and truth,

Of valour and of manly strife;

Better far, thy tongue grow mute

Than that thou sing of baser life

For common gain."

In the middle of a verse, he dropped his instrument hopelessly.

"Oh, Signor! These terrible Americans! Listen!"

The quiet of that matchless night was being assailed by the awful

refrain of: "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."

"Ah, me, Signor! This will be my ruin! All the young men are at that

man's house drinking like beasts; they no more care for me, or for the

heroic songs of their ancestors, and while they used to give me

_kreutzer_, they now give me _heller_, if they give me anything."

The old minstrel sighed profoundly and disappeared into the darkness,

his _gusla_ under his arm; while from the tin horn poured a medley of

songs, the climax of which was: "A nice young man that lives in

Kalamazoo."

The sorrowful old man and his grief made me feel guilty, as if I were

responsible for that terrible, torturing, unmusical outburst which

disturbed the peace of the wonderful night.

After the _guslar_ had left us, the newspaper man rowed me in his

father's _barquetta_ across the shallow harbour, as far as the shadow

cast by the gigantic palm trees on the shore. Every time his oars dipped

into the water they brought to the surface a flame of fire; yet amid all

the splendour of that night, I could think of nothing but the sad old

musician.

Many months passed and I had quite forgotten the _guslar_ of Ragusa.

Again I was at the seashore; but it was the turbulent Atlantic--not the

sunny Adriatic; Coney Island--not Lacroma.

Many confusing strains of music were in deadly conflict with one

another; myriads of glowing lights encircled grotesque buildings of all

descriptions; through streets given over to pleasure, crowded in one day

nearly as many people as there are inhabitants in all Dalmatia.

I certainly did not think of Dalmatia, until I stood before an "Oriental

Palace of Pleasure," in front of which I saw the man from Brooklyn,

resplendent in a gorgeous Oriental costume, "barking" to the multitude

the sensuous pleasures which could be enjoyed within "for the small sum

of one dime, only ten cents."

When he paused for breath, I heard peculiar, strange, and yet familiar

music. Following the sounds, I found on a balcony, in a blaze of

electric lights, the _guslar_ of Ragusa. When he finished playing, he

too cried: "Tenee cenee, onlee tenee cenee! C-o-m-e een! Only tenee

cenee!"

XI

WHERE THE ANGEL DROPPED THE STONES

Prince Nicolas of Montenegro does not remember me, and why should he? It

was many years ago, and I was one of 20,000 guests who suddenly

descended upon his little capital of 5,000 inhabitants, during its

national festivities in honour of the Prince of Bulgaria.

Cetinje's two modest hostelries, in which under normal conditions twenty

strangers might have found crude comforts, were packed from cellar to

garret with the entourage of the royal guest. The rest of us, mostly

natives and a few strangers, roving about the odd corners of Europe,

were sheltered in private homes, hospitably thrown open by Cetinje's

citizens, who still believe in hospitality as a virtue, which they

practice on all occasions.

I did not know until the morning after my arrival that my host was the

Minister to the Exterior. The Interior, being so small, needed no

minister, I suppose. His house, a rude stone structure, was only a

degree better than that of the peasant; the bed was softer than his, for

it was not the stone floor. The food was practically the same; a

monotonous diet of maize bread and mutton, the staple food of rich and

poor alike, except that the peasant eats only the bread and sells the

mutton.

To find that my boots were blacked by a relative of the Minister to the

Exterior, and that by virtue of being his guest I was also to be a guest

at the banquet given by Prince Nicolas in honour of his princely

visitor, produced in me no little feverish excitement; revealing the

fact that I was a mere mortal, and as much pleased by my aristocratic

surroundings and the prospect of royal favour, as if I were not a

student of social phenomena with a strong bias towards democracy.

It is of no consequence to chronicle these facts here, except that they

led to a passing acquaintance with the Prince and his family. His

youngest son was then a growing youth of exceedingly lovable character.

At that time the Queen of Italy was a visitor in her father's simple

home. The Prince is a writer of some ability, and I was glad to be able

to tell him that I was familiar with his contributions to Serbic

literature.

The royal favour accorded me stood me in good stead; for not only could

I watch the pageant and other festivities from a splendid vantage

ground, but it proved very helpful in my journey through the

principality, which I traversed from Nyegusi to Lake Skutari, and from

the Albanian Alps to the Herzegovina.

The country seemed like a huge eagle's nest, perched amid inhospitable

mountains. Here all men were warriors, from the time they were weaned

from their mother's breast, until they sank into their rock-hewn graves.

The women reared the young, tilled the bit of precious soil found among

a waste of boulders, and carried mutton carcases to the market at

Podgoricza or Cattaro, the largest trading town in Dalmatia. On the

return home, they brought coffee and spring water, the two luxuries of

those arid mountain heights. These poor homes, although rarely better

than stables, sheltered people full of heroism, hospitality, and

primitive social virtues; as well as a passionate hatred for the

"Schwab," their Austrian neighbour, and the Turk, their ancient foe.

The men lived in anticipation of war, not much caring whom they fought;

for peace meant a stagnant poverty, while war held glory and pillage.

It was the day of the farewell festivities for the Bulgarian Prince,

that the peasant subjects of Prince Nicolas passed in review before

their patriarch, who was the supreme judge and arbiter of their fate.

The menials kissed the hem of his coat, while the heads of different

tribes kissed his cheek. Each man in passing before his lord told his

troubles openly, and waited for the word of cheer or of judgment.

With little variation they all told of utter poverty--the kind of

poverty which meant that from the month of August until the next autumn,

there would be no bread; for the crops had failed. There was no prospect

of relief, the Prince himself being poor and in debt; and the country

had no resources.

I proposed emigration as a remedy, and rather impatiently the Prince

dismissed the suggestion, saying that every warrior was of value in this

mountain fastness; soldiers were its one asset, and they might at any

moment be needed by their godmother, Russia, if not by himself.

Soldiers we did not need, I told him; the war with Spain was over, and

even during its progress, we had soldiers to spare; but if his men would

learn to "turn their spears into" crowbars, and "their swords into"

shovels (taking liberties with a prophetic utterance) they would find

opportunity for work, if not for valour; for a good wage, but not for

pillage.

I knew they would come and they did. An apostolic band of twelve men

first; seventy and more, following; three hundred on the next steamer,

after which a temporary check. The three hundred, having violated the

contract labour law, were sent home.

Then, like a flood, too long held back, came thousands, scattering

through the Alleghanies and the Middle Western plain, as far as the

Missouri River, and into California, where a colony of many hundreds at

Los Angeles is in Paradise; although first they went through many a

purgatory.

Ten years, and ten times ten years, which in Montenegro's past were more

or less glorious, had left the country practically unchanged; except as

the present ruler had tried to root out some of its latent barbarisms.

Here Slavic traditions at their best were immovably intrenched, and here

were the bulwarks against the best and the worst in our civilization.

Neither steam nor electricity, those destroyers of archaic simplicity,

had yet entered the country, nor had our vulgarities of French dress and

morals driven out the simple virtues or the picturesque national garb,

worn by the Prince and by the peasant.

On all sides, Montenegro's neighbours, the Albanians, Bosnians,

Herzegovinians, and even her brother, Servia, in the lowlands of the old

cradle home--had all yielded, in a greater or lesser degree, to

Mohammedan influences. Montenegro alone remained an unsealed fortress,

in which the crescent never supplanted the cross; nor did the horse's

tail wave from its flag-staff, on which once and forever had been

unfurled the victorious colours--red, black, and white.

The dawn of the twentieth century found the principality still Homeric

and patriarchal, but the brief years since its opening have been

significant ones. During those years her sons for the first time left

"their crags and unsealed passes" to go out upon so base an errand as

seeking work across the Atlantic, later to return with the booty of a

bloodless conquest.

About ten years after my last visit to Montenegro, I was again

journeying towards it upon that serpentine road from whose every winding

the truly matchless bay can be seen, receding with every turn, hemmed in

more and more by the chalk cliffs which look like petrified clouds.

Almost barren of verdure they are, but full of an awful majesty; until

they blend with the bay, when one can see beyond them the blue Adriatic.

The ships upon her bosom are moved by a gentle _sirocco_, while the

islands on the Dalmatian coast, hidden in the shining green of the olive

and the yellower tints of fig leaves, make patches of colour which seem

to be floating away in the mist rising at noontime from the sea.

Suddenly one turns northward and faces gray stones, walls of stone,

fields of stone--nothing but stone--and that is Montenegro. My peasant

driver told me that when God made the earth, He saw that He had made it

good, with the exception of the stones, of which there were too many. He

called His angel Gabriel and told him to take a bag as large as the ends

of the four winds and go down to earth, pick up the surplus stones and

cast them into the sea.

The devil, who delighted in the stones and the trouble they would give

humanity, flew after the busy angel.

When Gabriel had picked up all the superfluous stones on earth, and was

about to drop them into the Adriatic, his Satanic Majesty took his

pocket knife, cut a hole in the angel's bag, and all the stones dropped

on to that part of the earth where Montenegro is situated.

The peasant's story accounts for the topsy-turvy position of the stones;

now piled high as mountains, then solid walls of stone, and, again, huge

boulders scattered about, with plenty of smaller ones between. There are

some fertile spots, especially the famous _Brda_, where flocks find

pasture; and there is an occasional field large enough for a horse to

turn with its plough. Most of the country, however, is barren, and it is

from this bleakest mountain region that the exodus to America has taken

place.

At Nyegusi, as usual, there was an hour's wait, and a chance to refresh

the inner man with cheese and coffee. In this primitive hostelry one

noticed the first evidences of the changes wrought. Nyegusi, the

birthplace of the Prince, under the shadow of the historic Lovczin, has

been more drained of its men in these times of peace than ever it was in

time of war.

[Illustration: WHERE THE ANGEL DROPPED THE STONES AND NOW DROPS DOLLARS

A typical landscape in a district of Montenegro, from which immigration

has set in.]

When last I passed through it, there stood before every one of the

wretched stone huts a giant-like figure, attired in his native costume,

which, according to Montenegrin standards, was worth a fortune, and did

indeed represent its wearer's wealth. Ancient and costly weapons

protruded from his belt, generously wound around his portly body. Thus

armed, he paraded up and down the rocky streets of Nyegusi, or lounged

in the village inn, smoking cigarettes and drinking his _raki_, if he

had the wherewithal.

At the time of which I write, the streets were deserted, save for the

women, who bent beneath their heavy burdens of wood which they bring

down from the ravines in the Lovczin mountain.

Old men sat wearily on the stone walls which surrounded their small

fields, and every one told of a son who had gone "to Amerikee."

One toothless woman could tell her age only approximately, by the number

of sons she had borne; and there were eighteen. Ten of them were in

America; the others had been killed in border warfare.

In this same town I met a mother of twenty-two sons, twenty of whom had

lost their lives in battle. The two survivors were the innkeepers of

Nyegusi. The inn itself was the same as when first I saw it, with its

beaten earth floor, and walls bare, except for the _icon_, a splendid

bit of Byzantine workmanship; but since I drank the excellent coffee

there, ten years ago, more than 5,000 braves have been under its roof,

bound for my own country or returning from it. Now the room is full of

them, all homeward bound, spending money far too freely in drinking and

gambling; two vices which, although taken with them from their

mountains, they bring back in exaggerated form.

I must confess to a sense of disappointment when I saw them beside the

Montenegrin who had remained at home. The sombre dress of our

civilization was a poor exchange for the brilliant, native costume. The

hard labour the men performed in America had robbed them of their erect

and elastic forms, and they looked like the menials of their brothers

who had been keeping watch against the "Schwab," in the shadow of the

Lovczin.

The change was not unlike that which has taken place in the American

Indian who left the war-path to repair the steel path of the railroad.

The men in the inn, nearly thirty of them, belonged to all parts of the

little realm, from Niksic in the North and Grahova on the Herzegovinian

border, to Cetinje and Podgoricza, its centre. They had gone out in

neighbourhood groups, members of one tribe; but, returning, had become

badly mixed. Some in the original group had failed, while others had

succeeded; some decided to remain in America, others were glad to come

home.

Most of those in the inn had been West, and knew only the rigorous side

of our industrial life, and to no European people could the experience

have been so trying; while none could have adjusted itself less easily

to it.

The complaints as registered in Cetinje were many, and on the whole

justified. They may be classified as follows:

Cheated by Employment Agencies 80%

Cheated by Austrian boarding-house keepers 60%

Money lost by giving bribes to Irish-American

bosses who promised jobs which were never given 36%

Rough treatment by bosses 72%

Robbed by railroad crews in Montana 80%

"Shanghaied"--made drunk and railroaded

from St. Louis to Southern Kansas 15%

Robbed of money and tickets before departure

for home 40%

This represented the dark side of the experience of the Montenegrin

immigrant. The brighter side cannot so easily be classified. As with

other groups, so with those; America meant an enlargement of their

horizon. Most of them had earned money and meant to buy land; some of

them had an eye to the undeveloped mineral wealth of their country, and

two carried home enriched lives through having attended an evening

school, where they had learned to read and write some English.

All were still loyal sons of their mountain home, and only three of the

thirty in the inn meant to try their luck again.

The innkeeper thought emigration a great boon, and it was, to him; for

the emigrants all passed through Nyegusi whether they came or went, and

that meant revenue.

Externally, Cetinje, the capital, is still the same; although there the

greatest change has taken place since my last visit. Cetinje now has a

parliament, and its post-office officials have something more to do than

smoke cigarettes. Its storekeepers are enriched by the inflow of money;

the women respond to the new spirit; for a comparatively large number is

going to America, and a few have already gone. The men, especially the

old peasants, find this new spirit most trying. One of them, in a little

stone hut at Kolasin, said: "The women come home after three years'

absence and the devil has got into them. They _sit_ in my presence and

demand to eat when I do!

"What kind of country is that anyway which encourages such things? Is it

a woman's country?"

I met one woman whose son I knew in the "States." He is one of the few

that have prospered, and he means to stay. His mother's little cottage

on the outskirts of Cetinje shows plainly the influence of America.

On the walls hang many gaudy calendars, and a crayon portrait of her

son, in an elaborate frame.

"Tell me," she said, as she pointed to a bulky newspaper printed in

Scranton, Pa., and sent by her son, as a curiosity, "how many weeks does

it take them to read it?"

Her son sends her ten dollars every month, which means fifty kronen.

"Only the good Princess has so much money of her own!" the proud mother

said; and I am not so sure that even the Princess has it.

There must be many such huts; for the postmaster told me that $30,000

came into this little rocky nest in one year; more money than passed

through the hands of that postmaster in twenty preceding years. In a

country so impoverished, this money cannot help being a blessing.

It is true, that after a brief glimpse of Montenegro I left it with

feelings decidedly mixed as to the benefits it has derived from

emigration. The Prince is less a patriarch than he was and not so

accessible to his subjects; for he has felt the force of a revolution,

small but significant.

The grand opera setting of the villages and towns is being destroyed;

men no more strut about like stage heroes, waiting for their cues. The

picturesque is going, is almost gone, and will go entirely; poverty,

extreme poverty, pinching, grinding poverty is going too, and will soon

disappear. Men drink more fiery _raki_ and gamble more; women are

beginning to lift up their heads and walk _beside_ the men, not _behind_

them. I am convinced that the relative of the Minister to the Exterior

would not now black my boots; for which I rejoice, although the old

braves complain and say: "America is a woman's country."

Montenegro, hemmed in on three sides by Austria and on the other side by

Turkey, and all around by poverty, has found an outlet and relief by way

of the sea. Progress has come slowly and from far away and she must pay

the price; yet when all is considered, she ought to be glad to pay it.

In talking to the postmaster of Cetinje, I referred to my driver's

story, about the angel's dropping the stones upon Montenegro, and said:

"It must have been a poor sort of angel; for he didn't pick them up

again."

"Ah, well! He is trying to make up for it. Look here;" and he showed me

advices from New York for 1,500 kronen.

"If that angel keeps up the good work, we will have a krone for every

stone that he dropped on our soil. Don't you say anything against our

angel!"

XII

"THE HOLE FROM WHICH YE WERE DIGGED"

It was some sort of saint's day, one of the many; this day, just before

the harvest time, served at least one useful purpose. It brought

together the _latifondisti_, the landowners, and the _contadini_, the

labourers, who, after mass, bargained with one another for the harvest

wage.

There was a time when the _padrone_ had a dozen men at his heels begging

to procure them work; but now the tables are turned, and smartly dressed

men court these rough toilers of the Abruzzi, and are happy, when, over

a bottle of wine and a hand-grasp, the bargain is sealed.

In less than twenty years wages have increased from sixteen to sixty

cents a day, and the difference in the attitude of the two classes

towards each other is correspondingly great. The withdrawal from the

intense congestion in Italy of nearly 2,000,000 toilers in the last ten

years, accounts for the change in the economic condition of the common

field labourer of that country. No phase of human relations has been

left unaffected by this remarkable movement away from the home soil.

"Just as you wish, Signor," I heard a man say to one of the upper class.

"Three _lire_ and not a _centesimo_ less."

The landowner watched the labourer closely, and when he saw him

approached by another landowner, ran to him and sealed the bargain.

"Ah, Signor! Emigration has done this!" the labouring man said when I

entered into conversation with him. "There are not men enough left to do

the work, and if it weren't for the hard times in America, I would have

charged him two _carini_ (about sixteen cents) more; but there are some

men back from America who have not done so well, although they too will

not hire out for less than three _lire_. They say that in America they

have received three times as much."

The gentleman to whom I introduced myself, and who was suspicious that I

might be in his parts encouraging emigration, took a different view of

the situation.

"It is a curse, sir! Why, sir, you rob us of our men; of our strongest

men, and leave only the aged, the women and the children!

"I have fields still unploughed, although it is June, and the bringing

in of my crops will cost me three times as much as it did ten years

ago."

"Didn't he get a much better price for his produce?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed! Perhaps I am no worse off financially than before; but

worse than the higher wage is the changed attitude of the common people

towards the landowner. Signor, those who come back are worse than the

Socialists! The Socialists simply talk and argue; most of our common

people cannot understand what they mean. They have always known that God

made some rich and some poor, they were content with their cheese and

their olives; but these men who come back from America walk through the

streets as if they were our equals. They wear just such clothing as we

do; shoes without hobnails and starched shirts and collars.

"They no longer greet us respectfully as they used to, and the way they

spend money looks to these deluded _contadini_ as if they had _found_ it

in the streets of New York.

"Everybody in my town who has anything to sell, sells it or borrows from

his friends in America and goes there. Last year over 1,600 went out of

my town, which has less than 6,000 inhabitants. The saints alone know

what will become of us! And the worst of it is, Signor, that they lose

respect for us!"

Travelling from Naples towards Calabria, I noticed in the second-class

compartment a group of Italians returning from America for a visit to

their native hill town. Among all the people of this class that I had

seen, these were the most remarkable. They were better dressed than

others, spoke English fluently, were cleanly in their habits and

travelled second-class.

"Oh, yes! Italy is beautiful!" said one of them, who I afterwards

learned was a stationary engineer at New Brunswick, N. J. His finely

chiselled face showed his delight as he watched the landscape.

"But America is more beautiful on the insides. You ask why? I will tell

you.

"I was born in a small hill town of 3,000 inhabitants. My parents were

poor labourers and I was born in a hole in the wall. I will show you the

wall when we come to the town. No windows, no chimney, no nothing. Our

goats and pigs had another hole, smaller than ours; but the goats and

pigs were not ours, they belonged to the landlord and when the pigs were

killed we got half. We had just one meal of the meat and the rest had to

be sold to those who could afford to eat it; we couldn't. It was a great

day though when we had that taste of meat, and I don't think I have ever

tasted such good meat since. Of course we had meat only three or four

times a year.

"My father and mother both had to work in the fields. They left the hole

in the wall at four o'clock in the morning and came back to it at seven

in the evening. When I was a baby, my mother carried me along on her

back; later my sister carried me and I can't remember the time when one

of my sisters didn't carry a baby out into the field.

"I worked from the time I was seven; we all worked when there was work

to do. I never was hungry when the melons and the figs were ripe; but I

never remember having eaten as much bread as I wanted. I remember I

wanted to be older than I was, for the children got about an inch more

bread for every year, as they grew older.

"I went to school to the _padre_, and he taught me the _Pater Noster_

and the _Ave Maria_ and just enough writing to sign my name. When I was

fourteen years old, an uncle who lived in New York sent money to my

father and mother to come over. Never can I forget when that letter

came. I nearly went crazy. I ran around to every hole in the wall and

called out: 'We are going to America! We are going to America!'

"My father was crazy, too; for he gave the letter-man half a _lira_ for

bringing him such a letter and reading to him the good news. Everybody

in the town knew of our good fortune; for the letter-man told all those

to whom we could not speak, because they were above us. When we went to

Naples I thought I was going to heaven, and on the ship, in spite of

seasickness, I was happy; because for the first time in my life I had

enough bread to eat.

"I can't tell you how I felt when we came to New York; but at Ellis

Island they turned all my joy into weeping. Two of the younger children

had eye disease and they wanted to send all of us back. My uncle said he

would take care of us older children, so they let us in and sent father

and mother and the younger ones back. It was terribly sad and father and

mother cried; but although I too cried, I felt very happy because I

would not have to return to Italy. We promised them to come back and

here we are."

These then were the older children, three sons and one daughter, who had

been admitted to their heaven and were now coming home to the _padre_

and _madre_ who had lived in the hole in the wall.

"What do you think of emigration?"

The young woman answered: "Signor, it works like a miracle! I used to

pray many a time, when I went to sleep, that the good saints would work

a miracle and wake me in another world, where I could wear real

stockings and ribbons, and now my prayer is answered and the miracle has

happened."

Indeed it was a miracle. "Bessie," as the brothers called her, was

transformed and transfigured. She was more "stylish" than the

landowner's wife who travelled in the next compartment, and I feel sure

that her gown cost more than that of a certain American woman who shared

with me the pleasures of the journey Bessie was engaged to be married

to a countryman of hers, who is head gardener in a cemetery in one of

New York's suburbs.

"When we are married we will live in a cottage all our own, Signor, at

the edge of that beautiful cemetery; six rooms it has and a bath room!"

A miracle indeed! From the hole in the wall to a six-room cottage.

Of course this group is not typical. These people went to school in

America during their youth. The boys went to night school in New York

and the girl went to the public school; they had entered profitable

trades. Stone-cutting, engineering and dressmaking.

What was perfectly normal in their history was the effect that their

going away has had upon the town from which they came.

Does the father live in the hole in the wall? No indeed. They sent home

money enough to build him a house and buy about fifteen acres of land.

The children at home were all sent to school. Yes, times have changed.

All the children in that town are sent to school; for the immigrant

father writes to his wife: "Let the children learn how to read and

write. We who cannot, have to remain beasts of burden, while those who

can, rule over us."

My travelling companions grew greatly excited as the train drew near

their home. They collected their numerous packages and then looked

longingly at the town, perched upon a high hill and crowned by a

magnificent castle.

"Look, Signor, look! You see that wall, the old city wall? You see those

holes? I was born in one of them!" Tears stood in Bessie's eyes. No

doubt she thought of the six-room cottage and the miracle.

The station, in the shadow of the town, was much like other such

stations. There was the usual donkey cart. Pompous officials bustled

about and a few _carabinieri_ walked up and down, proud of their fuss

and feathers. The _padre_ and _madre_ were there, and a throng of

brothers and sisters and relatives, who greeted the travellers with

noisy and affectionate salutations.

Bessie's _madre_ held her at arm's length at first, as if to be sure

that this fine _Signorina_ was really the little girl she left behind in

New York twelve years ago. Ah, me! It was a love-hungry heart to which

Bessie was pressed. And the boys! What pride shone on the father's face!

Any father might be proud of them, and I was prouder than the father.

"See what America does for your men!" I cried to a portly gentleman who

stood beside us at the window, watching the interesting scene. He did

not answer; for the train puffed and screeched, and the cars lurched as

they were drawn around the curves. For a long time we could see the

donkey cart piled high with baggage, the happy people following it.

The train came closer and closer to the walls of that ancient town, and

on its southern side we saw again the holes in the wall, swarms of

little children, a gray, tired donkey and picturesque dirt and

confusion. At sight of those holes in the wall, I repeated my remark.

"See what America does for your men!"

"Ah!" replied the gentleman, "you see only one side of it; the bright

side. There is a dark side to emigration, as there is to an olive leaf.

We have given you nearly two million of our best men, to do your dirty

and dangerous work."

"Yes," I replied; "but we pay them a decent wage; more wages in one year

than you pay them in ten."

It was this remark, the sight of those holes in the wall, and the vision

of that six-room cottage in America, which set me to striking the

balance for Italy, the country most affected by the good and ill of

immigration.

Italy has given to America for shorter or longer periods nearly two and

one-half millions of men, for whose labour we have paid her a fair wage.

At least two million dollars annually to every one of the provinces from

which we have recruited this army of men.

While not all the money will remain in Italy, most of it has already

been invested in land. In 1906, there were at least 50,000 land sales

made, and much of the land will become doubly productive as a result of

the extreme care which will be given it by this landless class, which

has suddenly gained its foothold.

The rise in wages which is not far from sixty per cent. is a distinct

benefit to the whole country; for a living wage means adequate

consumption and increased production. While in some provinces there has

been a dearth of labour, Italy is rather remarkable in that there is no

danger of its being depopulated, and economically, the entire country is

the gainer through emigration.

I have heard many complaints, especially in Italy, that we make

Socialists and Anarchists out of their once docile peasantry. The facts

are these. Crime has decreased in all districts affected by emigration;

which however does not prove that the criminal classes have moved to

America. There are other reasons. First, improved economic conditions

have removed the causes for many crimes. Second, much crime was due to

the uncontrolled passions and undisciplined characters of the peasantry;

and the sojourn in America has given to many of them the power of

self-control.

That Calabria in Sicily reports a reduction of about forty per cent. in

crimes against the person, is certainly significant.

Again, the privileged classes in Italy and other European countries

naturally look askance at the spirit of independence which the men bring

back with them. Much as we may deplore with the aristocracy the fact

that the peasant has lost his fine manners, we can but believe that, on

the whole, the loss of docility and the gain in independence are a

splendid exchange and of untold benefit to all concerned.

Some day, Democracy may teach her children the art of polished manners;

let us hope that it may not be at the loss of the democratic spirit.

That the peasant looks his master straight in the face and does not

cringe; that he demands fair treatment, a comfortable yoke and no

pricking with the goad, are as much benefit to Italy and Austro-Hungary,

as they are cause for pride to those of us who believe that America has

a mission to fulfill in the world.

If the Italian has really lost his good manners, we have given him in

exchange a spirit of independence which, I admit, is sometimes a little

in need of pruning, and with it, a yearning for better things and the

possibility of its realization.

Public education in Italy has received an impetus directly traceable to

the returned immigrant, who saw its value. He was a beast of burden

because he knew nothing. The men who were educated had wealth, leisure

and all that was denied him and his children.

If ignorance is removed from the common people of Italy, especially from

those of the Southern provinces, she can well afford to pay double the

price she has paid, whatever that price may be.

It is also charged against the returned immigrant, that he spreads

sedition by bringing home strange religious ideas.

"Signor," said a priest to me in the Campagna, "a man came home who had

been in America a few years; an ignorant, stupid fellow, and when he

came, he invited his neighbours to his house. Not to treat them with

wine, as you might think; but to preach to them. Think of the impudence

of the man! A common man, uneducated and not a priest!

"And the people flocked to hear him! One day shortly after that, there

came a real American and he preached to them and they sang. I could hear

them singing, Signor, while I was saying mass. The tunes kept going

around on the tongues of the people and a few months after, they began

building a church. They call it the 'Methodisto' church.

"Tell me, what heresy do they teach? My flock is divided; the women are

crazy over this new doctrine and they gather the little children and

teach them to sing these heretical songs."

Undoubtedly, a new element of friction has been introduced into the

solidary, religious life of the nation; but it is equally true that, in

most of the towns of Italy, destructive ideas have long been at work

and have weaned many peasants, especially the men, from the Mother

Church, leaving them in an anarchical attitude towards Church and State.

The new religious ideals, which are largely the ideals of Protestantism

while also acting destructively, have, after all, large constructive

powers, and, on the whole, are of undoubted benefit. It is the

undisputed testimony of impartial observers, that the Sectarians come

home "cleaner" than others, that almost without exception they insist

upon temperance and chastity, and that they encourage a sane,

intellectual activity.

I have given concrete examples of this in other countries; but in Italy

these examples could be multiplied. I do not know of a single instance

where the introduction of vital religious ideals has not done more good

than harm.

The work of Rev. Luigi Lo Perfido, a Baptist minister, is somewhat

exceptional, yet in the main, typical. He has introduced into the town

of Matera a really constructive, liberal, religious movement.

This includes, in addition to the simple church services, a coöperative

system which has large economic consequences. He has made his church a

social and literary centre besides keeping it a spiritual force of

acknowledged value.

The Church in Italy may regard as a menace this spirit of the

Reformation, which it thought dead; but the Church itself cannot fail to

be stimulated by the introduction of the leaven. The Mother Church will,

perhaps, have to bestir herself to hold the people, by offering them

something better than _festas_ and processions.

Many observers complain that in Italian towns especially, emigration has

left too great a burden upon the women, and that their economic and

social condition is worse than before. This is partially true, but is

only temporary. The full truth is, that woman is being benefited most by

these great changes, although she now suffers most. Just as the

_contadino_ in Italy or the _nadelnik_ in Hungary has been freed from

the oppression of his masters, by emigration; so the woman in Italy will

be freed from the oppression which she is suffering from her "liege

lord" who, especially among the peasant classes affected by immigration,

is always at his worst in his relation to his wife.

If there is one complaint against the returned immigrant which is louder

than others, it is that the woman who has been in America is spoiled and

that she is a mischief maker among the other women, who are apt pupils.

While I do not anticipate that the peasant women of Southern Europe will

demand suffrage, they are beginning to demand a voice in the affairs of

the household; which has ever been their right, which has long been

denied them and which certainly does not indicate that they are spoiled.

Neither is there danger of their being spoiled; and it is more than

probable that the women of Italy as well as of other immigrant centres,

are as much benefited as the men, if not more than they.

After seeing the hole in the wall in which Bessie and her brothers were

born, and after looking at the matter from all sides, I can still say,

and with firmer conviction than before: "So far as my observation goes,

I feel certain that emigration has been of inestimable economic and

ethical value to the three great monarchies chiefly concerned, namely:

Italy, Austro-Hungary and Russia. It has withdrawn inefficient labour

and has returned it capable of more and better work; it has lifted the

status of the peasantry to a degree which could not have been achieved

even by a revolution; it has stimulated the neglected masses, lifted

them to a higher standard of living and has implanted new and vital

ideals."

The hole in the wall in which Bessie and her brother were born brought

to my mind anew the prophetic injunction: "Look unto the rock whence ye

were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye were digged," and aroused

in me the spirit of humility; an attitude of mind essential for the

appreciation of all the problems and opportunities arising from the

presence in our country of these "lesser folk."

This attitude of mind ought not to be a difficult one for the average

American to attain; because most of his ancestors came out of such holes

in the wall--some better, some worse.

Even those of whom we no longer think as immigrants, but proudly call

our forefathers, who came long ago, came from good, plain, peasant

stock; not blue blooded, but of virile red blood.

For this we should be deeply grateful; although we are likely to forget

it, and also willing to forget it, I fear.

Recently I travelled with a friend and his wife. The gentleman, a

professional man of high standing, was going on a pilgrimage to his

ancestral village in Germany. The wife went there in the firm conviction

that the home of his parents must have been some ancient castle; for her

husband was a noble fellow indeed.

When we found the place where he was born, it was a cow-stable and

looked as if it had been none too good for that purpose, even in its

palmy days, and my friend discovered that his parents were peasants, so

poor that they were sent to America at the expense of the town.

Nevertheless, he and his wife are cultured Americans and their children

are graduates of our best colleges and universities.

Not long ago, in travelling from the East to the West, my neighbour in

the coach, a young man of evident good breeding, complained bitterly at

the presence of some Russian Jewish immigrants. He hated them all, he

said; and had no use for them.

I looked into his face, and beneath the ruddy skin and dark, wide open

eyes, saw that which only the initiated can readily detect--the racial

origin. "May I ask your name?" His name was McElwynne, and his parents

were English; but before I had done with him I knew that they had come

from Russia, that their name was Levyn and that he was a Russian Jew but

one generation removed from the steerage.

Quite unintentionally, I once almost broke the heart of a woman in

fashionable society. She pronounces her name with a French accent, and I

translated it into Slavic; in that language it means a common garden

tool, which proves her husband to be of peasant origin.

The sight of the hole in the wall in Italy, and of the wretched huts in

Hungary and Poland, has quickened my sympathies with the people who come

out of them. Even so our fathers and mothers went forth, driven by

hunger and dire need, drawn by the dream of better things and sustained

by a simple and devout faith.

After all, we are brothers. Born out of the womb of poverty, nourished

by coarse fare, taught in the hard school of labour and saved from

wretchedness by the same good providence.

More and more we shall grow into one another's likeness, and that of

God, as all have more bread, better air, cleaner homes, good books and

an unobstructed view into heaven.

For this, "Praise ye the Lord, kings and all people; princes and all

judges of the earth!"

Praise Him ye Irish and Scotch!

Praise Him ye English and Welsh!

Praise Him ye Germans and French!

Praise Him ye Slavs and ye Latins!

Praise Him ye Gentiles and Jews!

"Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord! Praise ye the Lord!"