CONDITIONS (_continued_). THE STANDARD OF LIVING
We turn now to a closer study of the life conditions of the immigrants
after they have been admitted to this country, and have become a part of
our body politic. These conditions affect all the life interests of the
alien, and must, in the end, have a determining influence upon the
desirability of immigration, both from the point of view of the
immigrant and of the United States. They are manifestly so diverse and
complicated as to make it difficult to frame any classification which
will not overlap, and confuse rather than clarify. In general, however,
we may divide these conditions into two categories, which are not
absolutely exclusive and definite, but will serve the purposes of
arrangement. These are as follows: (1) Those conditions which are
primarily individual to the immigrant himself, and affect the general
life of the nation only indirectly, because the immigrant is a resident
of that nation. (2) Those conditions which have to do directly with the
life of the immigrant as a member of society, and immediately affect the
interests and welfare of others besides himself. To the first category
belong such matters as housing conditions, food, and standard of living
in general, wages, recreations, religious life, certain forms of vice,
education, etc. To the second, pauperism, crime, sex vice, insanity,
contagious diseases, industrial efficiency, trade-union affiliations,
political activities and affiliations, money brought into and sent out
of the country, and anything which increases or lightens the burdens of
the average citizen of the country. In each of these two classes, there
are conditions which may be considered as political, religious,
economic, and social. Many life interests belong partly in one category,
and partly in the other. This is especially true of that great class of
facts having to do with marriages, births, and deaths, which affect
first of all the immigrant, but through him the general population of
the country.
Among those conditions which are primarily individual, many of the most
important come under the head of the economic. And many of the most
significant economic conditions may be considered under the head of the
standard of living. It has been said, with a great deal of truth, that
the immigration problem in this country is largely a matter of a
competitive struggle between different standards of living.
Probably no other department of the standard of living of the immigrants
has received such careful study in recent years as the matter of
housing. As a result, we are now able to draw more accurate general
conclusions in regard to this matter than is possible in respect to
almost any other phase of the standard. Particularly is this true in
regard to conditions in the compact colonies of our large cities, which,
as we have seen, constitute the characteristic home of the new
immigrant, and where the problem is the greatest. There is also a mass
of reliable information in respect to another characteristic home of the
immigrant, the residence portions of mining camps, and the smaller
manufacturing cities.
Up to the present the slum, in spite of all the attacks upon it, has
maintained itself as a permanent feature of most of our large cities.
But the population of the slum is not a permanent but an ever changing
one. The unsuccessful, unfortunate, and incapable individuals remain,
but the more ambitious, progressive, and successful move on to other and
better sections. Nevertheless, the slums are always full; and grow
rather than diminish. There is a never failing supply of new recruits,
in the body of recent immigrants, to take the places of those who move
up. Thus the slum becomes the great sifting ground of the foreign-born,
and tends to become more and more the abode of the poorest classes of
our population. Not only is there a progression of individuals through
the slum, but some of our cities have witnessed a most interesting and
significant succession of races along the same course. The natives were
displaced by the Irish; they in turn were crowded out by the Italians
and Jews, and now the Greeks, Syrians, and allied races are driving out
the Italians. Races may come and races may go, but the slum goes
on—forever?
The character of the modern tenement has been sufficiently described by
many writers to obviate the necessity of going into any detailed account
of it in the present connection. Our main concern is the life of the
immigrant within this tenement. The most recent and reliable information
upon this point is that furnished by the Immigration Commission in their
report on Immigrants in Cities.[200] The agents of the Commission made a
detailed study of the most densely congested districts of New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Milwaukee. They
found the population of these districts to consist mainly of members of
the recently immigrating races. In all seven of these cities Russian
Hebrews and south Italians are among the principal races represented in
the congested districts, while in the cities on the Great Lakes Poles,
Bohemians, and other Slavic races are relatively more numerous than in
the Atlantic coast cities. Very few families whose heads were
native-born of native fathers were found in these districts. Nearly one
half of the foreign-born heads of households had come within the last
ten years, and over one fifth within five years. Not only were there
very few native families, but only the remnants of colonies of Germans,
Irish, and Swedes were found.
The first point to demand our attention in regard to the life of the
foreign-born within the tenements is the amount of congestion. Among the
households studied by the Immigration Commission, the average numbers of
rooms per apartment was 3.72. The average number of rooms per apartment
for the households whose head was native-born white of native father was
4.47, of the native-born of foreign father 4.34, of the foreign-born
3.64. The average number of persons per household for the native-born
white of native father was 4.14, for the native-born of foreign father
4.39, for the foreign-born 5.16. An interesting indication of the habits
of life of some of the newer immigrating races is given by the fact that
while, among the Greeks, 32.7 per cent of the households consisted of
two persons, and 18.4 per cent of three persons, 8.2 per cent consisted
of ten or more persons. Among the Servians 18.2 per cent of the
households consisted of ten or more persons, and among the Slovenians
11.2 per cent. This is the result, as will appear later, not of large
families, but of the tendency on the part of the male representatives of
these races to group themselves together into large coöperative
“households” (pp. 21, 22, 23).
The average number of persons per room in the households studied was as
follows: native-born white of native father, .93; native-born of foreign
father, 1.01; foreign-born, 1.42 (p. 24). Only 51.9 per cent of the
native-born white of native father had one or more persons per room,
54.7 per cent of the German households, 68.5 per cent of the Irish,
south Italians 91.9 per cent, and Greeks 98 per cent. Of the Slovaks,
Slovenians, and Syrians, 90 per cent or more of the households had one
or more persons per room. Two per cent of the Greeks, 2.6 per cent of
the south Italians, and 3 per cent of the Syrians had four or more
persons per room. The number of occupants, per _sleeping_ room, is of
course somewhat higher. The total average number of persons per sleeping
room in the households whose heads were native-born white of native
father was 1.93; of the foreign-born, 2.39. Two per cent of the Greek
households studied had six or more persons per sleeping room, as did 2
per cent of the south Italians and 5.2 per cent of the Slovenians.
Fourteen per cent of all the foreign-born households slept in all the
rooms in their apartments, and 41.1 per cent in all the rooms except
one, while among the native-born whites of native fathers 2.3 per cent
slept in all the rooms, and 20.2 per cent in all the rooms but one.
The foregoing figures may be taken as giving a reliable summary of the
amount of congestion in the crowded districts of the seven great cities
mentioned. It is painfully evident that conditions exist on a wide scale
in these centers, which are a disgrace to any civilized country. A large
proportion of the lower classes of our cities are living under
conditions which render self-respect, cleanliness, and even decency
almost impossible. Moreover, it is apparent that the native-born whites
of native fathers, studied in this investigation, although representing
the lowest portions of that class, rank decidedly above the foreign-born
as far as can be judged by the degree of congestion. The native-born of
foreign fathers stand between the other two classes. A more vivid and
vital aspect may be given to the picture by taking some specific
instances of life conditions among various groups of the foreign-born.
Among the Italians extreme congestion had manifested itself as long ago
as the decade of the nineties. The average density of population in the
Italian quarter of the North End of Boston was said to be nearly 1.40
persons per room.[201] In the Italian quarter of Philadelphia
investigators found 30 Italian families, numbering 123 persons, living
in 34 rooms. In some of the Italian tenements in this city, lamps were
kept burning all day in some of the rooms, where day could scarcely be
distinguished from night.[202] The Jews at this time were only a little
less densely crowded than the Italians. In 1891 nearly one fourth of the
whole number of Jews living in two of the precincts of the North End of
Boston were living with an average of more than two persons to a room
and were found to be very uncleanly in the care of their homes. Among
the Irish an average of 1.24 persons per room was found in Boston in
1891. On the whole they kept their tenements cleaner than did the Jews
or Italians.[203]
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, interest in the slum
population of our cities has centered itself about the Slavic and other
races of southeastern Europe, even more than about the Italians and
Jews. About one sixth of the entire population of Buffalo, or 80,000
individuals, is Polish. Of these, about 4000 families, representing
20,000 persons, own their homes. They are said to be thrifty, clean,
willing, and neglected. Nearly all the Poles live in small one and two
story wooden cottages. Good tenement work thirty years ago avoided the
serious structural conditions which prevail in most cities. The
principal evil now in the Polish section is room-overcrowding. The
two-story cottages hold six or more families, while the older one-story
cottage was built for four families, though the owner is likely to
occupy two of the rear apartments. There are 15,000 of these cottages,
all subject to the tenement law. A Pole was recently made health
commissioner, and gave promise of being the best incumbent of that
office that Buffalo has ever had. That there is plenty of work for him
to do may be judged from the description of some of the conditions which
prevail.
“Counting little bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens (and they are
pretty nearly indistinguishable), Mr. Daniels tells us that half the
Polish families in Buffalo, or 40,000 people, average two occupants to a
room. There are beds under beds (trundle beds, by the way, were once
quite respectable), and mattresses piled high on one bed during the day
will cover all the floors at night. Lodgers in addition to the family
are in some sections almost the rule rather than the exception. Under
such conditions privacy of living, privacy of sleeping, privacy of
dressing, privacy of toilet, privacy for study, are all impossible,
especially in the winter season; and those who have nerves, which are
not confined to the rich in spite of an impression to the contrary, are
led near to insanity. Brothers and sisters sleep together far beyond the
age of safety. It begins so, and parents do not realize how fast
children grow, or how dangerous it all is.”[204]
Even in Buffalo, the congestion problem is not limited to the Poles. The
author just quoted describes the Italians as tending to establish
residences in old hotels, warehouses, and abandoned homesteads, and
says, “As late as 1906 we found Italians living in large rooms,
subdivided by head-high partitions of rope and calico, with a separate
family in each division.”
In Milwaukee there are three foci of the tenement evil, the Italian
quarter, the Polish quarter, and the Jewish quarter. While there are not
the large tenement houses that prevail in larger cities, there are the
same evil conditions in the small cottages of the laboring class. The
following paragraphs give a vivid picture of some of the conditions in
each of these three sections.
In the Italian district, “Entering one of these dwellings we had to duck
our heads to escape a shower bath from leaking pipes above the door.
Incidentally, we had to dodge a crowd of the canine family which did not
seem to be particularly pleased with our visit. The rooms were dark.
Something, which I supposed was food or intended for food, was bubbling
on a little stove. A friendly goat was playing with the baby on the
floor, and the pigeons cooed cheerily near by. Through the door of the
kitchen we got the odor of the stable. The horses had the best room. In
the middle room, which was absolutely dark, on a bed of indescribable
filth, lay an aged woman, groaning with pain from what I judged to be
ulcerated teeth, but which for aught she knew might have been a more
malignant disease. In this single dwelling, which is not unlike many we
saw, there lived together in ignorant misery one man, two women, ten
children, six dogs, two goats, five pigeons, two horses, and other
animal life which escaped our hurried observation.”
“In the Ghetto, in one building, live seventy-one people, representing
seventeen families. The toilets in the yard freeze in winter and are
clogged in summer. The overcrowding here is fearful and the filth defies
description. Within the same block are crowded a number of tenements
three and four stories high with basement dwellings. One of these is
used as a Jewish synagogue. Above and beneath and to the rear this
building is crowded with tenement dwellers. The stairways are rickety,
the rooms filthy, and all are overcrowded. The toilets for the whole
population are in the cellar adjoining some of the dwelling rooms,
reached by a short stairway. At the time of our visit the floors of this
toilet, both inside and outside, were covered with human excrement and
refuse to a depth of eight to twelve inches. Into this den of horrors
all the population, male and female, had to go.”
A typical dwelling of the Polish working people is thus described.
“There is an entrance, perhaps under the steps, which leads to the
apartments below. In this semibasement in the front lives a family.
There are perhaps two rooms, sometimes only one. In the rear of this
same basement lives another family. Above, on the first floor, lives
another family, likewise in two or three small rooms; and in the rear is
another. Thus four or more families live in one small cottage—and,
often, in true tenement style, they ‘take in’ boarders.... Here,
together, live men, women, children, dogs, pigeons, and goats in regular
tenement and slum conditions.”[205]
Such instances as these, which might be multiplied almost indefinitely,
are individual manifestations of conditions which are represented _en
masse_ by the figures of the Immigration Commission. It is apparent that
slum conditions exist, fully developed, in other places than the great
cities, and in other types of building than the regulation tenement. As
will be seen later, they may be found in communities which do not come
under the head of cities at all. The slum is a condition, not a place,
and will crop up in the most unexpected places, whenever vigilance is
relaxed. The slum can never be eradicated by erecting model dwellings,
however well planned, nor by any other superficial method alone. The
foundation of the slum rests in the social and economic relations of
society, and can be effectually attacked only through them.
In the foregoing quotations, frequent reference is made to the filthy
condition in which the dwellings of the foreign-born are kept. It is the
current idea among a large class of people that extreme uncleanliness
characterizes the great majority of immigrant homes. Unfortunately there
is all too large a basis of truth for this impression. Yet there is
undoubtedly much exaggeration on this point in the popular mind. The
Immigration Commission found that out of every 100 homes investigated in
its study of city conditions, 45 were kept in good condition, and 84 in
either good or fair condition, though the foreign-born were inferior in
this respect to the native-born. In many cases the filthy appearance of
the streets in the tenement districts is due to negligence on the part
of city authorities, rather than to indifference on the part of the
householders. “In frequent cases the streets are dirty, while the homes
are clean.”[206] Not only is it an error to suppose that all immigrants
are filthy, but it is also untrue that all immigrants who are filthy are
so from choice. While the standards of decency and cleanliness of many
of our immigrant races are undoubtedly much below those of the natives,
there are many alien families who would gladly live in a different
manner, did not the very conditions of their existence seem to thrust
this one upon them, or the hardship and sordidness of their daily life
quench whatever native ambition for better things they might originally
have had.
In the foregoing paragraphs mention has been made of the boarder as a
characteristic feature of life in the tenements. He is, in fact, a
characteristic feature of the family life of the newer immigrant
wherever found. Since so large a proportion of the modern immigrants are
single men, or men unaccompanied by their wives (see p. 191), there is
an enormous demand for accommodations for male immigrants who have no
homes of their own. This demand is met in two main ways. The most
natural, and perhaps the least objectionable, of the two, where there
are a certain number of immigrant families of the specified race already
in this country, is for a family which has a small apartment to take in
one or more boarders or lodgers of their own nationality. In this way
they are able to add to their meager income, and thereby to increase the
amount of their monthly savings, or perhaps to help pay off the mortgage
on the house if they happen to be the owners. The motive is not always a
financial one, however, but occasionally the desire to furnish a home
for some newcomer from the native land, with whom they are acquainted,
or in whom they are interested for some other reason.[207] The second
way of solving the problem is for a number of men to band themselves
together, hire an apartment of some sort, and carry on coöperative
housekeeping in one way or another. A description of these households
will be given later (p. 247).
The keeping of boarders or lodgers[208] is a very widespread practice
among our recently immigrating families.
Among the households studied by the Immigration Commission in its
investigation of cities, 13 per cent of the native-born white households
kept boarders, and 27.2 per cent of the foreign-born. The following
foreign-born nationalities had high percentages, as shown by the
figures: Russian Hebrews, 32.1 per cent; north Italians, 42.9 per cent;
Slovaks, 41 per cent; Magyars, 47.3 per cent; Lithuanians, 70.3 per
cent. A similar showing is made by the figures given in the report of
the Immigration Commission on Immigrants in Manufacturing and Mining
(abstract quoted). The percentage of households keeping boarders, as
shown in that report, is as follows:
PERCENTAGE OF HOUSEHOLDS KEEPING
BOARDERS[209]
NATIVITY PER CENT
Native-born white of native father 10.0
Native-born of foreign father 10.9
Foreign-born 32.9
Race (foreign-born)—
Norwegian 3.8
Bohemian and Moravian 8.8
Croatian 59.5
South Italian 33.5
Magyar 53.6
Polish 48.4
Roumanian 77.9
Servian 92.8
Footnote 209:
Rept. Imm. Com., Imms. in Mfg. and Min., Abs., p. 147.
The average number of boarders per household, based on the number of
households keeping boarders, was as follows:
AVERAGE NUMBER OF BOARDERS PER HOUSEHOLD
BASED ON THE NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS KEEPING
BOARDERS[210]
NATIVITY NUMBER
Native-born white of native father 1.68
Native-born of foreign father 1.52
Foreign-born 3.53
Race (foreign-born)—
Bulgarian 8.29
Croatian 6.39
Roumanian 12.23
Servian 7.25
Footnote 210:
_Ibid._, p. 149.
This prevalent custom of taking boarders brings numerous evils in its
train. Foremost among these is the absolute sacrifice of family life in
the households. It is difficult at best to maintain a decent degree of
privacy when the family is left to itself; the intrusion of outsiders
makes it wholly impossible. Secondly, the taking of boarders tends to
increase a congestion which is likely already to be extreme. Thirdly, it
lays additional burdens upon the already overworked housewife. Its great
advantage is, of course, the increase of the family income, sometimes to
an amount almost double that which could be obtained without the
boarders. Among the Slavs, for example, women are rare, and are regarded
as very valuable, first as wives, and second as a means whereby a man
may take boarders.[211] The arrangements between the boarders and the
housewife differ in different localities, and under different
conditions. In a Colorado mining camp $10 a month is the customary price
for a regular boarder. A very common arrangement is for the men to buy
each his own food, and pay the woman to cook it. The sums paid range
from $2 to $4 a month for lodging, washing, and cooking.
The life of such a housewife in a coal mining community has been
described in the following words: “The status of the immigrant housewife
from the south and east of Europe is deplorable. The boarding system
followed is one whereby a fixed sum is paid for lodging, cooking,
washing, and mending; an individual food account being kept with each
lodger. The housewife has the beds to make each day for a dozen men,
their clothing to wash and mend, their meals to prepare. In many cases
she has also to buy the food, which necessitates many visits to the
store and separate purchases for each boarder. She has also to carry all
the water used from the hydrant or well, which may be ten or one hundred
yards distant. When the men return from work it is a part of her duties
to help them in their ablutions by scrubbing their backs. There are also
numerous children to care for and scores of other tasks demanding her
attention. Under these conditions the marked untidiness of the immigrant
households is not to be wondered at.”[212]
The second typical method of providing for the single male immigrant,
mentioned above, is coöperative housekeeping on the part of a group of
men, either with or without a female housekeeper. This practice is very
common among many of the newer races of immigrants, as has been
suggested. It is a makeshift to which the foreigner is driven by the
absence of a normal number of women of his own race. In households of
this sort are developed some of the very worst conditions to be found
among our foreign residents.
Under this system, a number of men of a certain foreign race club
together and hire an apartment, consisting of a few rooms in a regular
tenement house, or, very frequently, a large storeroom or warehouse,
which thereupon becomes their home. In order to minimize expense, the
greatest possible number of beds are provided in each room. If the
apartment consists of a storeroom, it is often fitted up with tiers of
bunks along the sides. Such a room may be used by two sets of men, one
during the day and one during the night. If some of the men are
peddlers, the peanut stands or barrows will be kept at night in the
unoccupied spaces in the room. The lack of woman’s care in the upkeep of
such apartments is very manifest.
The meals are either prepared in the apartment or secured at some
near-by restaurant, or the two methods are combined. In the absence of
all semblance of family life, every possible expedient to reduce expense
is adopted, with the unfortunate results that might be expected. The
following description of such a household will give a concrete idea of
the type:
“To-day, in a certain mining town, there are fourteen Slavs, all
unmarried, and with only themselves to support, who rent one large,
formerly abandoned, storeroom. This is taken care of by a housekeeper,
who also prepares the meals for the men. Each man has his own tin plate,
tin knife, fork, and cup; he has his own ham and bread, and a place in
which to keep them. Some things they buy in common, the distribution
being made by the housekeeper. For beds the men sleep on bunks arranged
along the walls and resembling shelves in a grocery store. Each has his
own blanket; each carries it out-of-doors to air when he gets up in the
morning, and back again when he returns from his work at night. The
monthly cost of living to each of these men is not over four dollars.
They spend but little on clothes the year round, contenting themselves
with the cheapest kind of material, and not infrequently wearing
cast-off garments purchased of some second-hand dealer. For fuel they
burn coal from the culm-banks or wood from along the highway, which
costs them nothing but their labor in gathering it.”[213]
That housing conditions such as have been portrayed above should prevail
so generally all over the country is a serious indictment against the
social and industrial organization of the United States. It has been
intimated that these conditions are not in all cases due to the choice
of the immigrant, or to the lack of desire for better things on his
part. Whether they are not, to a large degree, actually due to the
presence of the immigrant in this country is quite another matter, upon
the decision of which must rest much of the final judgment as to the
desirability of immigration under the present system.
Throughout the study of housing conditions among the foreign-born, it
becomes more and more evident that there is a marked distinction not
only between the homes of the native-born and the foreign-born, but
between those of the older and newer immigrants. By whatever test the
standards of each class are measured, there is almost invariably a
decided discrepancy in favor of the older races. As regards the number
of rooms per apartment, the size of households, the number of persons
per room, the number of boarders, the care and upkeep of the apartment,
the English, Scandinavians, Germans, and Irish come much nearer to what
might be considered a reasonable American standard than do the Italians,
either north or south, the Slavs (except perhaps the Bohemians and
Moravians), the Greeks, Syrians, Bulgarians, etc. This distinction is
well brought out in mining localities, where the newer races have
displaced the older within recent years. A graphic comparison is given
by Mr. F. J. Warne in his book, _The Slav Invasion and the Mine
Workers_. He says that, by the time of the coming of the Slavs, the
Irish, English, Welsh, Scotch, and German mine workers had grown
accustomed to a “social life of some dignity and comfort.” The
English-speaking mine worker wanted a home and family. That home was
usually a neat, two-story frame house, with porch and yard. Within were
pictures on the walls, and carpets on the floors of the best rooms. He
wished to have no one as a permanent resident of the house save his own
family, or very near relatives. He desired his wife to be well dressed
and comfortable, and his children to have the benefits of school. His
wants were always just beyond his wages, and always increasing.
The Slav had no wife and children, and wished none. “He was satisfied to
live in almost any kind of a place, to wear almost anything that would
clothe his nakedness, and to eat any kind of food that would keep body
and soul together.” He was content to live in a one-room hut, built of
driftwood and roofed with tin from old powder cans. In the mining towns
he drifted to the poorer and cheaper sections to live. He did not care
with whom or with how many he lived, provided they were of his own
nationality. When two such standards are brought into competition, it is
inevitable that the higher should yield in some way or other.
This difference in standards is undoubtedly due in part to a difference
in natural instincts and aptitudes for decency and cleanliness between
the common classes of northern and southern Europe, but probably more to
the customary standards to which they have become habituated in their
native land. The effect is the same, whatever the cause. The new
immigrant desires a certain improvement in his standard as a reward for
emigration, but the new standard need not be by any means the equivalent
of that of the immigrant races which have preceded him. As long as we
continue to draw our immigrants from more and more backward and
undeveloped nations and races we may expect to see a progressive
degradation in the customary standard of the working people.
There are many other considerations besides congestion which determine
the character of life in the slums. Many of these have already been
suggested in preceding paragraphs. Prominent among them are ventilation,
sanitary and cooking facilities, light, water supply, healthfulness of
surroundings, and play room for children. The degree in which evils
exist in these particulars, in any locality, depends primarily upon the
stringency of the local tenement and public health laws, and the energy
and faithfulness of their enforcement. Much is being accomplished and
has been accomplished in recent years in the direction of securing
better conditions. Yet there is almost infinite room for improvement.
The futility of relying upon the individual benevolence and humanity of
builders, owners, and agents was demonstrated long ago. Here, of all
places, eternal vigilance on the part of the better classes of society
is the price of safety. Descriptions of the homes of the foreign-born
are full of accounts of dark and absolutely unventilated bedrooms,
houses unprovided with any water supply, filthy outdoor closets and
privy vaults, toilets used by ten or twelve families conjointly,
buildings covering the entire lot, dooryards flooded with stagnant water
and refuse, basements half filled with water, domestic animals sharing
the limited accommodations with the family, and a host of other horrors.
Detailed descriptions of these dwellings are unnecessary. Any one
interested may find them in abundance in the accounts of housing
conditions in the poorer sections of our cities and towns, for, as the
Immigration Commission has amply demonstrated, the slum, wherever found,
is distinctively the home of the foreign-born.[214]
It is almost superfluous to add that there are thousands of immigrants,
even of the newer races, who live in conditions wholly different from
those we have been discussing. Individuals of every race, in large
numbers, have succeeded in raising themselves from the lowly estate of
their compatriots, and establishing homes of culture and refinement,
even of luxury. Examples of this class are prominent, and are frequently
referred to. Yet in spite of this, the slum remains the characteristic
home of the average immigrant to this country, and as such it must be
reckoned with.
The influence of the slum must of necessity be hampering and degrading
to its denizens. No poorer training school for American citizens could
be devised. Not only is the life prejudicial to health and morals, and
destructive of ambition, but it precludes practically all incidental or
unconscious contact with the uplifting influences of American life.
Almost the only actively assimilating agency with which the slum dweller
comes into immediate relationship is the public school, and this lacks
much of its value as an assimilating force in districts which are so
largely foreign that the pupils meet few, if any, children of
native-born parents. Any practical program for solving the immigration
problem must attack the slum boldly. In the words of Mr. Frederic Almy,
“You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and you cannot make an
American citizen out of a tenement slum. The slum must go. If you spare
the slum, you will spoil the child.”[215]
In regard to the housing conditions of the foreign-born outside of the
larger centers of population it is more difficult to make
generalizations. Fortunately, it is also less necessary. Some of the
foremost housing evils are essentially city matters. Particularly is it
true of immigrants who have established themselves in independent
agriculture, that they have made a long step toward Americanization.
While every grade of dwelling may be found among foreign-born
agriculturists, from the wretched hovel of the Italian market gardener
to the home of the Swedish farmer of the Northwest which ranks with the
finest in the land, yet the alien who takes up his abode in the country
has, in many respects, removed himself from the general problem of the
immigrant, and his living conditions can, with a reasonable degree of
safety, be left to look after themselves. Yet it has been abundantly
proved that slum conditions can exist even in the country, and in small
towns. This is especially true in mining camps, and in the smaller
manufacturing communities. Some of the worst conditions of the most
crowded sections of the cities are reproduced in the shacks of the
miners or the dwellings of the factory hands. Overcrowding, bad
ventilation, unsanitary toilet facilities, inadequate heating, and filth
are not city monopolies. The taking of boarders is especially common in
these communities, and, in the mining towns, brings a peculiar evil with
it, in addition to all the regular disadvantages. This lies in the
necessity which every mine worker is under of bathing every day after
work. In the absence of bathrooms, ablutions are customarily performed
in a tub set in the kitchen, and in the crowded quarters of the miner’s
cabin, the children of the household are accustomed to the sight of
nudity from their infancy up, to the serious injury of their moral
sense.[216]
It is too often true that the worst conditions prevail in the company
houses. The extreme monotony of these identical rows of ugly dwellings
is in itself sufficiently depressing. But in addition, it appears that
many employers are wholly oblivious to the higher needs of their
employees, and provide the most meager shelter which will suffice to
keep body and soul together, charging therefor exorbitant rates. To say
that these men and women are treated like beasts, is putting the case
too mildly, for no well-to-do person would house a valuable animal as
some of these human workers are housed. The shifting character of the
population and the uncertain duration of a mining camp offer a quasi
justification for some of these evils. Yet a self-respecting nation
should not permit any type of industry to persist which requires its
army of workers to live as do hundreds of thousands of these faithful
toilers.[217]
In regard to the food of our immigrant population, such studies of
individual races as have been made seem to indicate that, while the
dietary of the average foreign family falls far short of what a native
American would consider a satisfactory standard and is very deficient in
variety, yet it is ordinarily sufficient in quantity and in amount of
nourishment. Of course there are countless immigrant families of the
poorer sort, just as there are of natives, who are habitually
undernourished; yet the ordinary immigrant working family or individual
appears not to suffer for lack of sustaining food. This condition is
made possible by a long habitude in European countries to an exceedingly
simple diet, and by a resulting knowledge of cheap and nourishing foods.
The food item in the budget of an immigrant family from southern or
eastern Europe is almost incredible to an American. The average cost of
food for an individual immigrant mine worker in Pennsylvania runs from
about $4 to $10 per month. Among the Italians in Boston, during the
winter months, about a dollar a week will suffice for the food of a man.
The south Italian berry pickers in New Jersey are said to be able to get
along on as little as 25 cents per week, and other races live almost as
cheaply.[218]
There appears to be a considerable difference in this respect between
the different races, even among the newer immigrants. The lowest
standard prevails among the south Italians, Greeks, Syrians, Bravas,
etc. The Slavs are inclined to spend more of their increasing income on
food; particularly is meat a more important part of their diet. The Jews
are said to rank well above the Italians in this regard.
The quality and preparation of food leaves much to be desired. Italian
children are sent to the markets of Boston to gather vegetables which
have been thrown away as unfit for use. A brief walk through the East
Side of New York, with an eye on the push carts, will convince one of
the undesirable quality of some, at least, of the food eaten by the
residents of that section. On the other hand, the Greek laborers on the
railroads of the West are said to live remarkably well, and themselves
complain of the staleness of American food, and object to our practice
of putting everything up in “boxes.”[219] In general, the conclusion of
investigators in regard to the food of our working classes seems to be
that the faults of their dietary lie, not so much in the failure to
spend an adequate amount of money for food, as in wasteful and
ill-judged purchases, unsatisfactory preparation, and improper balance
between the essential food elements (especially lack of sufficient
proteids) and too much fat. It is not unlikely that in this particular
the immigrants fare better than the natives in the same class. It is
certainly probable that, taken on the whole, the standard of food of the
immigrant families in this country is superior to that to which they
were accustomed in their native land.
There is probably no other aspect of life in which the immigrant shows
at least a superficial Americanization more quickly than in the matter
of clothing. It is a matter where imitation is easy, and in fact almost
inevitable. Any purchases of clothing made after the immigrant’s arrival
in this country must, almost of necessity, be American in type. And the
younger generation, at least, are eager to have their exterior
appearance correspond to that of the older residents of their adopted
country,—so eager, often, as to lead them to adopt the most extreme of
the new fashions in cut and fitting, however cheap and flimsy the
materials may be. In fact, this Americanization affects the immigrants
even before they leave their native home. Officials on Ellis Island say
that it is rare nowadays to see groups of immigrants arriving clad in
their picturesque European costumes; the prevailing garb now is of the
American type. It is a strange fact that some writers, apparently
oblivious of the ease of this transition, seem to regard American
clothes as an evidence of real assimilation.
As regards physical adequacy of clothing, the immigrant is probably as
well off on the average as his native fellow-worker. It is not likely
that any large proportion of our working classes actually suffer
physical harm from insufficient clothing, unless it be through lack of
proper protection against dampness, particularly in the matter of
shoes.[220] In respect to cleanliness, and even decency, there is
frequently room for improvement among the immigrants, just as there is
among the native-born. There is, on the other hand, a recognized danger
that the desire for a fashionable appearance, particularly on the part
of the women, may lead to an extreme expenditure for dress, unwarranted
by the family income.[221]