CITY LIFE, CRIME, AND POVERTY
Statistics are considered by many people as dry and uninteresting, and
the fact that a book is statistical is a warning that it should not be
read, or that the statistical paragraphs should be passed over for the
narrative and historical parts. This is a dilettante and lazy attitude
to take, and especially so in the study of social subjects, for in these
subjects it is only statistics that tell us the true proportions and
relative importance of our facts. The study of statistics leads us to a
study of social causes and forces, and when we see that in the year 1790
three per cent of our population lived in cities, and in the year 1900
thirty-three per cent lived in cities of 8000 population and over, we
are aroused to the importance of making a serious inquiry into the
reasons for this growth of cities and the effects of city life on the
future of democracy and the welfare of the nation. More impressive to
the student of race problems becomes the inquiry when we realize that
while one-fifth of our entire population lives in the thirty-eight
cities of over 100,000 population, two-fifths of our foreign-born
population, one-third of our native offspring of foreign parents, and
only one-tenth of our people of native parentage live in such cities.
That is to say, the proportion of the foreign-born in great cities is
four times as great, and the proportion of the children of foreign
parents is three and one-third times as great as that of the colonial
and older native stock. These proportions appear in the accompanying
table and the upper diagram on page 162.
POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND LARGE CITIES: 1900
=======================+===================+===========================
| | IN 38 CITIES OF 100,000
| IN UNITED STATES | POPULATION AND OVER
+-----------+-------+------------+--------------
TOTAL FOR UNITED STATES| | | | Per cent of
| | Per | | total of
| Number | cent | Number | corresponding
| | | | class
-----------------------+-----------+-------+------------+--------------
Population |75,994,575 | 100.0 | 14,208,347 | 18.7
Native white, native | | | |
parents |40,958,216 | 53.9 | 4,245,817 | 10.3
Native white, foreign | | | |
parents |15,637,063 | 20.6 | 5,280,186 | 33.2
Foreign white |10,213,817 | 13.4 | 3,972,324 | 39.7
Negroes | 8,833,994 | 11.6 | 668,324 | 7.6
Indian and Mongolians | 351,385 | .5 | 32,696 | 9.3
-----------------------+-----------+-------+------------+--------------
If we present the matter in another form in order to show the full
extent of foreign influence in our great cities, we have another
diagram, which shows that 59 per cent of the population outside, and
only 30 per cent of the population within these cities is of native
parentage, while 27 per cent of the population outside, and 65 per cent
of the population within these cities is of foreign parentage. The
census enumeration carries us back only to the parents, but if we had
knowledge of the grandparents we should probably find that the
immigrant element of the nineteenth century contributed a goodly portion
of those set down as of native parentage.
[Illustration: DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION: 1900]
[Illustration: PERCENTAGE OF POPULATION IN CITIES: 1900]
[Illustration: CONSTITUENTS OF THE POPULATION OF CITIES OF MORE THAN
100,000 INHABITANTS: 1900]
Still more significant becomes the comparison when we take each of these
cities separately, as is done in the chart reproduced on page 163 from
the Statistical Atlas of the Twelfth Census.
Here it appears that the extreme is reached in the textile manufacturing
city of Fall River, where but 14 per cent of the population is of native
extraction, while in the two greatest cities, New York and Chicago, the
proportion is 21 per cent, and the only large cities with a predominance
of the native element are St. Joseph, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Kansas
City, with Denver equally divided. As already stated, grandparents would
still further diminish the proportion of native element.
If we carry our comparison down to the 160 cities of 25,000 population,
we shall find that in such cities is one-half of the foreign-born
population,[91] and we shall also see marked differences among the
races. At one extreme, three-fourths of those born in Russia, mainly
Jews, live in these principal cities, and at the other extreme,
one-fifth of the Norwegians.
The other Scandinavian countries and the Welsh and Swiss have about
one-third, while the English and Scotch are two-fifths, Germany,
Austria, Bohemia, and Poland, one-half to three-fifths, Ireland and
Italy nearly two-thirds.
Individual cities suggest striking comparisons. In New York,
computations based on the census show 785,035 persons of German
descent, a number nearly equal to the population of Hamburg, and larger
than the native element in New York (737,477). New York has twice as
many Irish (710,510) as Dublin, two and one-half times as many Jews as
Warsaw, half as many Italians as Naples, and 50,000 to 150,000 first and
second generations from Scotland, Hungary, Poland, Austria, and
England.[92] Chicago has nearly as many Germans as Dresden, one-third as
many Bohemians as Prague, one-half as many Irish as Belfast, one-half as
many Scandinavians as Stockholm.[93]
The variety of races, too, is astonishing. New York excels Babel. A
newspaper writer finds in that city sixty-six languages spoken,
forty-nine newspapers published in foreign languages, and one school at
Mulberry Bend with children of twenty-nine nationalities. Several of the
smaller groups live in colonies, like the Syrians, Greeks, and Chinese.
But the colonies of the larger groups are reservoirs perpetually filling
and flowing.[94]
The influx of population to our cities, the most characteristic and
significant movement of the present generation, has additional
significance when we classify it according to the motives of those who
seek the cities, whether industrial or parasitic. The transformation
from agriculture to manufactures and transportation has designated city
occupations as the opportunities for quick and speculative accumulation
of wealth, and in the cities the energetic, ambitious, and educated
classes congregate. From the farms of the American stock the sons leave
a humdrum existence for the uncertain but magnificent rewards of
industrialism. These become the business men, the heads of great
enterprises, and the millionaires whose example hypnotizes the
imagination of the farm lads throughout the land. Many of them find
their level in clerical and professional occupations, but they escape
the manual toil which to them is the token of subordination. These
manual portions are the peculiar province of the foreign immigrant, and
foreign immigration is mainly a movement from the farms of Europe to the
cities of America. The high wages of the industries and occupations
which radiate from American cities are to them the magnet which
fortune-seeking is to the American-born. The cities, too, furnish that
choice of employers and that easy reliance on charitable and friendly
assistance which is so necessary to the indigent laborer looking for
work. Thus it is that those races of immigrants the least self-reliant
or forehanded, like the Irish and the Italians, seek the cities in
greater proportions than those sturdy races like the Scandinavians,
English, Scotch, and Germans. The Jew, also, coming from the cities of
Europe, seeks American cities by the very reason of his racial distaste
for agriculture, and he finds there in his coreligionists the necessary
assistance for a beginning in American livelihood.
At this point we gradually pass over from the industrial motives of city
influx to the parasitic motives. The United Hebrew Charities of New York
have asserted that one-fourth of the Jews of that city are applicants
for charity, and the other charitable societies make similar estimates
for the population at large. These estimates must certainly be
exaggerated, and a careful analysis of their methods of keeping
statistics will surely moderate such startling statements, but we must
accept them as the judgment of those who have the best means of knowing
the conditions of poverty and pauperism in the metropolis. However
exaggerated, they indicate an alarming extent of abject penury brought
on by immigration, for it is mainly the immigrant and the children of
the immigrant who swell the ranks of this indigent element in our great
cities.
Those who are poverty-stricken are not necessarily parasitic, but they
occupy that intermediate stage between the industrial and the parasitic
classes from which either of these classes may be recruited. If through
continued poverty they become truly parasitic, then they pass over to
the ranks of the criminal, the pauper, the vicious, the indolent, and
the vagrant, who, like the industrial class, seek the cities.
The dangerous effects of city life on immigrants and the children of
immigrants cannot be too strongly emphasized. This country can absorb
millions of all races from Europe and can raise them and their
descendants to relatively high standards of American citizenship in so
far as it can find places for them on the farms. "The land has been our
great solvent."[95] But the cities of this country not only do not raise
the immigrants to the same degree of independence, but are themselves
dragged down by the parasitic and dependent conditions which they foster
among the immigrant element.
[Illustration: DR. ORONHYATEKHA MOHAWK INDIAN, LATE CHIEF OF ORDER OF
FORESTERS]
=Crime.=--This fact is substantiated by a study of criminal and pauper
statistics. Great caution is needed in this line of inquiry, especially
since the eleventh census in 1890 promulgated most erroneous inferences
from the statistics compiled under its direction. It was contended by
the census authorities that for each million of the foreign-born
population there were 1768 prisoners, while for each million of the
native-born there were only 898 prisoners, thus showing a tendency to
criminality of the foreign-born twice as great as that of the white
native-born. This inference was possible through oversight of the
important fact that prisoners are recruited mainly from adults, and that
the proportion of foreign-born adults to the foreign-born population is
much greater than that of the native-born adults to the native
population. If comparison be made of the number of male prisoners with
the number of males of voting age, the proportions are materially
different and more accurate, as follows:--
NUMBER OF MALE PRISONERS PER MILLION OF VOTING POPULATION, 1890 (OMITTING
"UNKNOWN")[96]
Native white, native parents 3,395
Native white, foreign parents 5,886
Native white, total 3,482[97]
Foreign white 3,270
Negro 13,219
Here the foreign-born show actually a lower rate of criminality (3270)
than the total native-born (3482). This inference harmonizes with our
general observations of the immigrants, namely, that they belong to the
industrial classes, and that our immigration laws are designed to
exclude criminals.
But this analysis brings out a fact far more significant than any yet
adverted to; namely, that the native-born children of immigrants show a
proportion of criminality (5886 per million) much greater than that of
the foreign-born themselves (3270 per million), and 70 per cent greater
than that of the children of native parents.
This significant fact is further brought out, and with it the obverse of
the census mistake above referred to, when we examine the census
inferences respecting juvenile criminals. The census calculations show
that there are 250 juvenile offenders for every million of the
native-born population, and only 159 such offenders for every million of
the foreign-born population; but if we remember that the proportion of
foreign-born children is small, and then proceed to compare the number
of boys who are offenders with the number of boys 10 to 19 years of age
rather than with the number of persons of all ages, we shall have the
following results, confining our attention to the North Atlantic states,
where juvenile reformatories are more liberally provided than in other
sections:--
MALE JUVENILE OFFENDERS PER MILLION OF MALE POPULATION TEN TO NINETEEN
YEARS OF AGE, NORTH ATLANTIC STATES, 1890 (OMITTING "UNKNOWN")[98]
Native white, native parents 1,744
Native white, foreign parents 3,923
Foreign white 3,316
Colored 17,915
This table throws a different light on the situation, for it shows that
the tendency towards crime among juveniles, instead of being less for
the foreign-born than for the native-born, is nearly twice as great as
that of the children of American parentage, and that the tendency among
native children of foreign parentage (3923 per million) is more than
twice as great as that among children of American parents (1744 per
million).
This amazing criminality of the children of immigrants is almost wholly
a product of city life, and it follows directly upon the incapacity of
immigrant parents to control their children under city conditions. The
boys, especially, at an early age lose respect for their parents, who
cannot talk the language of the community, and who are ignorant and
helpless in the whirl of the struggle for existence, and are shut up
during the daytime in shops and factories. On the streets and alleys, in
their gangs and in the schools, the children evade parental discipline,
and for them the home is practically non-existent. Says a well-informed
student of race problems in New York,[99] "Example after example might
be given of tenement-house families in which the parents--industrious
peasant laborers--have found themselves disgraced by idle and vicious
grown sons and daughters. Cases taken from the records of charitable
societies almost at random show these facts again and again." Even the
Russian Jew, more devoted and self-sacrificing in the training of his
children than any other race of immigrants, sees them soon earning more
money than their parents and breaking away from the discipline of
centuries.
Far different is it with those foreigners who settle in country
districts where their children are under their constant oversight, and
while the youngsters are learning the ways of America they are also held
by their parents to industrious habits. Children of such immigrants
become substantial citizens, while children of the same race brought up
in the cities become a recruiting constituency for hoodlums, vagabonds,
and criminals.
The reader must have observed in the preceding statistical estimates
the startling preeminence of the negro in the ranks of criminals. His
proportion of prisoners for adult males (13,219 per million) seems to be
four times as great as that of the native stock, and more than twice as
great as that of foreign parentage, while for boys his portion in the
North Atlantic states (17,915 per million) is ten times as great as that
of the corresponding native stock, and four times as great as that of
foreign parentage.
The negro perhaps suffers by way of discrimination in the number of
arrests and convictions compared with the whites, yet it is significant
that in proportion to total numbers the negro prisoners in the Northern
states are nearly twice as many as in the Southern states. Here, again,
city life works its degenerating effects, for the Northern negroes are
congregated mainly in towns and cities, while the Southern negroes
remain in the country.
Did space permit, it would prove an interesting quest to follow the
several races through the various classes of crime, noticing the
relative seriousness of their offences, and paying attention to the
female offenders. Only one class of offences can here be noted in
detail; namely, that of public intoxication. Although classed as a
crime, this offence borders on pauperism and the mental diseases, and
its extreme prevalence indicates that the race in question is not
overcoming the degenerating effects of competition and city life.
Statistics from Massachusetts seem to show that drunkenness prevails to
the greatest extent in the order of preeminence among the Irish, Welsh,
English, and Scotch, and least among the Portuguese, Italians, Germans,
Poles, and Jews. The Italians owe their prominence in the lists of
prisoners to their crimes of violence, and very slightly to
intoxication, though the latter is increasing among them. In the
Southern states the ravages of drink among the negroes have been so
severe and accompanied with such outbreaks of violence that the policy
of prohibition of the liquor traffic has been carried farther than in
any other section of the country. Probably three-fourths of the Southern
negroes live in prohibition counties, and were it not for the paternal
restrictions imposed by such laws, the downward course of the negro race
would doubtless have outrun considerably the speed it has actually
attained.
Besides the crimes which spring from racial tendencies, there is a
peculiar class of crimes springing largely from race prejudice and
hatred. These are lynchings and mob violence. The United States presents
the paradox of a nation where respect for law and constitutional forms
has won most signal triumphs, yet where concerted violations of law have
been most widespread. By a queer inversion of thought, a crime committed
jointly by many is not a crime, but a vindication of justice, just as a
crime committed by authority of a nation is not a crime, but a virtue.
Such crimes have not been continuous, but have arisen at times out of
acute racial antagonisms. The Knownothing agitation of 1850 to 1855,
which prevailed among religious and patriotic Americans, was directed
against the newly arrived flood of immigrants from Europe and Asia, and
was marked by a state of lawlessness and mob rule such as had never
before existed, especially in the cities of Boston, New York, Pittsburg,
Cincinnati, Louisville, and Baltimore.[100] These subsided or changed
their object under the oncoming slavery crisis, and the Civil War itself
was a grand resort to violence by the South on a question of race
domination. Beginning again with the Kuklux and White-cap uprisings in
the seventies, mob rule drove the negroes back to a condition of
subordination, but the lawless spirit then engendered has continued to
show itself in the annual lynching of fifty to one hundred and fifty
negroes suspected or convicted of the more heinous crimes.[101] Nor has
this crime of the mob been restricted to the South, but it has spread to
the North, and has become almost the accepted code of procedure
throughout the land wherever negroes are heinously accused. In the
Northern instances this vengeance of the mob is sometimes wreaked on the
entire race, for in the North the negro is more assertive, and defends
his accused brother. But in the South the mob usually, though not
always, stops with vengeance on the individual guilty, or supposedly
guilty, since the race in general is already cowed.
Other races suffer at the hands of mobs, such as the Chinese in Wyoming
and California at the hands of American mine workers, Italians in
Louisiana and California at the hands of citizens and laborers, Slovaks
and Poles in Latimer, Pennsylvania, at the hands of a mob militia. With
the rise of organized labor these race riots and militia shootings
increased in number, often growing out of the efforts of older races of
workmen to drive newer and backward races from their jobs, or the
efforts of employers to destroy newly formed unions of these immigrant
races. Many strikes are accompanied by an incipient race war where
employers are endeavoring to make substitution, one race for another, of
Irish, Germans, native whites, Italians, negroes, Poles, and so on. Even
the long series of crimes against the Indians, to which the term "A
Century of Dishonor" seems to have attached itself without protest, must
be looked upon as the mob spirit of a superior race bent on despoiling a
despised and inferior race. That the frenzied spirit of the mob, whether
in strikes, panicky militia, Indian slaughter, or civil war, should so
often have blackened the face of a nation sincerely dedicated to law and
order is one of the penalties paid for experimenting on a problem of
political and economic equality with material marked by extreme racial
inequality.
=Poverty and Pauperism.=--Prior to year 1875 the laws of the United States
imposed no prohibition upon the immigration of paupers from foreign
countries, and not until the federal government took from the states
the administration of the law in 1891 did the prohibitions of the
existing law become reasonably effective. Since that year there have
been annually debarred, as likely to become public charges, 431 to 7898
arrivals, the latter number being debarred in the year 1905. In addition
to those debarred at landing, there have been annually returned within
one to three years after landing, 177 to 845 immigrants, many of whom
had meantime become public charges. From these statements it will be
seen that, prior to 1891, it was possible and quite probable that many
thousand paupers and prospective paupers were admitted by the
immigration authorities, and consequently the proportion of paupers
among the foreign-born should appear larger than it would in later
years. In the earlier years systematic arrangements were in force in
foreign countries, especially Great Britain, to assist in the
deportation of paupers to the United States, and therefore it is not
surprising that, apart from race characteristics, there should have come
to this country larger numbers of Irish paupers than those from any
other nationality. Since these exportations have been stopped, it is not
so much the actual pauper as the prospective pauper who gets admission.
96 per cent of the paupers in almshouses have been in this country ten
years or more, showing that the exclusion laws are still defective, in
that large numbers of poor physique are admitted. Taking the census
reports for 1904, and confining our attention to the North Atlantic
states, where children are generally provided for in separate
establishments, we are able to compute the following as the relative
extent of pauperism among males:--
MALE PAUPERS IN ALMSHOUSES PER MILLION VOTING POPULATION, NORTH ATLANTIC
STATES, 1904.
Native white, native parents 2,360
Native white, foreign parents 2,252
Foreign white 5,119
Colored 4,056
Here we see the counterpart of the estimates on crime, for the natives
of foreign parentage show a smaller proportion of paupers than the
natives of native parentage, while the foreign-born themselves show more
than double the relative amount of pauperism of the native element, and
the colored paupers are nearly twice the native stock.
The census bureau also furnishes computations showing the contributions
of the different races and nationalities to the insane asylums and
benevolent institutions.[102] In general it appears that the
foreign-born and the negroes exceed the native classes in their burden
on the public. A report of the Department of Labor of great value and
significance, incidentally bearing on this subject, shows for the
Italians in Chicago their industrial and social conditions. According to
this report the average earnings of Italians in that city in 1896 while
at work were $6.41 per week for men and $2.11 per week for women, and
the average time unemployed by the wage-earning element was over seven
months. In another report of the Department of Labor it appears that the
slum population of the cities of Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and
Philadelphia in 1893 was unemployed three months each year. With wages
one dollar a day, and employment only five months during the year, it is
marvellous that the Italians of Chicago, during the late period of
depression, were not thrown in great numbers upon public relief. Yet,
with the strict administration of the exclusion laws leading to the
deportation of over 2000 Italians a year as liable to become public
charges, it is likely that the immigrants of that race, although low in
physique, poverty, and standards of living, are fairly well screened of
actual paupers.