immigrants, while classed as unskilled, have had some experience in
farming or gardening or home industries of some kind. There is a larger
percentage of skilled labor than is commonly supposed, and the list is
interesting. The Annual Report on Immigration for 1905, for example,
gives the distribution by occupation, from which we take some of the
leading classes:
PROFESSIONS, TRADES AND INDUSTRIES OF THE ITALIANS
ADMITTED IN 1905
North South North South
Occupation Italy Italy Italy Italy
Architects 10 10 Carpenters and cabinet
Clergy 52 69 makers 367 1,857
Editors 9 6 Dressmakers 161 615
Electricians 24 20 Gardeners 30 165
Engineers, professional 20 24 Masons 1,374 3,161
Lawyers 12 25 Miners 1,843 492
Literary and scientific Shoemakers 287 4,004
persons 19 15 Stonecutters 409 567
Musicians 38 240 Tailors 239 2,591
Physicians 34 72 Farm laborers 6,181 60,529
Sculptors and artists 116 52 Farmers 1,397 4,814
Teachers 31 45 Manufacturers 14 32
Bakers 201 571 Merchants and dealers 557 1,415
Barbers 82 1,718 Servants 2,752 8,669
Blacksmiths 168 909 Laborers 14,291 56,040
Butchers 65 278 No occupation, including
children under 14 7,632 32,115
[Sidenote: Tendency to Advance]
[Sidenote: Desire for Education]
It will be seen that not all the Italians who come are mere hewers of
wood and drawers of water; while there is a distinct tendency on the
part of those who begin at the bottom of drudgery, in the subways of
American civilization, to advance. The desire for education and
betterment is as manifest as it is hopeful. No parents are more
ambitious for their children, or more devotedly attached to them, than
are the Italian immigrants who have brought over their families, and no
children in our schools are brighter or more attentive. There is good
blood in the Italian strain. They are an art and music-loving people,
and in this respect the southern Italians take the lead. They come from
a land of beauty and fame, song and sunshine, and bring a sunny
temperament not easily soured by hardship or disappointment. Otherwise
the tenement and labor-camp experiences in America would soon spoil
them. With the exception of the money they earn, the change has been for
the worse.
[Sidenote: Amazing Thrift]
The thrift of the Italians is proverbial. To earn and save money they
will live in conditions unsanitary, unhealthy, and degrading. It is not
because they love dirt and degradation, but that they want money so much
that they will put up with anything to get it. They can live and save a
bit where an American family would starve. They have fairly monopolized
for a time certain lines into which they entered--as the small fruit
trade, the bootblacking business, and other pursuits. It is said that
they have made the Americans a fruit-eating people. Supplanted in the
street-vending of fruit by the Greek, the Italian has gone into business
in earnest, and you find the small fruit stands everywhere, with always
a good stock, and by no means a low price. As barbers and tailors, too,
the Italians are becoming known. They have a passion for land, and
acquire property rapidly. Take the increase of their real estate
holdings in New York as an example. Mr. G. Tuoti, a representative
Italian operator in real estate, says that twenty years ago there was
not a single Italian owner of real estate in the districts where such
owners now predominate. He has a list of more than 800 landowners of
Italian descent, whose aggregate holdings in New York are approximately
$15,000,000.[57]
[Illustration: Born in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Greece--Resident
in the United States 1900
Reproduced by special permission from "The Worker's
World." Copyright 1903.]
[Sidenote: Property Holdings]
As to Italian savings and investments in the same city, Mr. Gino C.
Speranza, vice-president of the Society for Italian Immigrants, finds on
computation the Italian investments in the city savings-banks to total
more than $15,000,000. He puts the real estate holdings at 4,000, of the
clear value of $20,000,000. He estimates that 10,000 stores in the city
are owned by Italians, and sets their value at $7,000,000, with a
further investment of as much more in wholesale business. He makes the
total material value of the property of the Italian colony in New York
to be over $60,000,000, and says this value is relatively below that of
the Italian possessions in Saint Louis, Boston, and Chicago. The Italian
Chamber of Commerce has over two hundred members, and has done much to
promote the interests of the immigrants. There is one distinctively
Italian Savings Bank, with an aggregate of deposits approximating
$1,100,000, and about 7,000 open accounts. Sixteen daily and weekly
Italian newspapers in New York alone indicate that the people are
reading, and that not all are illiterates by any means. The Italian
Hospital, the Italian Benevolent Institute, and over 150 Italian
societies for mutual aid and social improvement--all this in New
York--indicate a degree of enterprise and progress. In the smaller
cities the condition of the Italians is in many respects much better
than in the great centers, since the tenement evils are escaped. The
reports from such cities as Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Schenectady,
New York, are most favorable as to the general character of the Italians
as faithful workers and peaceful residents.
[Sidenote: Increasing Land Values]
In the cities and on the small farms of the South and West the
prosperity of the Italians is marked. They take unproductive land and
make it fertile soil for truck-gardening, and have increased the value
of surrounding lands in Louisiana and other states by showing what can
be done. If they can be distributed properly, and gotten out of the
congested city wards, there is unquestionably a future of prosperity for
them. A Texas colony described by Signor Rossi, who recently
investigated conditions with view to securing a better distribution by
informing intending emigrants as to the openings for them in
agricultural sections, illustrates the success of the Italians as
gardeners and farmers.
[Sidenote: Successful Truck Farmers]
In the neighborhood of San Francisco Italians have cultivated about 250
truck farms. They "obtain the manure from the city stables gratis, and
transform into fertile farms the original sand dunes." Nearly all our
cities where Italians have settled are receiving vegetables and fruit as
the product of Italian labor, and the Italian is first in the market.
They are found on Long Island and Staten Island, in New Jersey and
Delaware, in Virginia, and in all the New England states. Near Memphis,
Tennessee, there is a large and noted colony of truck farmers, and they
have done much to remove the prejudice formerly existing against Italian
labor in the South.[58] In this connection we give hearty second to the
statesmanlike proposition made by a Christian worker who has been
brought into close touch with the Italians and other foreign peoples in
Brooklyn:[59]
[Sidenote: A Good Proposition]
"Pure philanthropy could not find a better field for the investment of a
few hundred thousand dollars than in the organization of farm and
garden colonies a few miles out from our great city. On Long Island
there are many thousands of acres of light, arable land perfectly
adapted to the raising of small fruits and garden products. Irrigation
plants could be provided at moderate cost, insuring generous crops. The
Italian is prepared by nature, and by training in his own home land, for
the cultivation of the soil. In a small way he has demonstrated his
ability in the land of his adoption to do the very things here
suggested. What he needs is a fair chance.
[Sidenote: Strong Guiding Hand Needed]
[Sidenote: The Crucial Point]
"What is needed is the guiding hand of 'philanthropy and five per cent.'
to lead out of the congested and squalid tenement districts thousands of
these poor yet industrious people who could make our deserts of Long
Island sand and scrub oak blossom as the rose. Let the modern method
find illustration here. Let our philanthropist choose for himself a
board of trustees to whom should be delegated the management of a
generous fund toward the end proposed. Keen-minded and great-hearted
business men there are who would delight to give time and care to so
worthy an object; and within five years a colony of 25,000 Italians
could be transported and translated from the ghettos and filthy, crowded
tenement districts of our great city into God's open country, there to
be speedily transformed into industrious, self-supporting American
citizens. Having studied this problem for years, I believe it is
entirely feasible. Brain and heart, time and talent, land and water,
enlarging markets demanding produce, men, women, and children begging
for an opportunity to earn a decent living--all these are ready and
waiting for use and service. All that is lacking is an adequate supply
of good money to set the enterprise in motion. We have millions invested
at Coney Island, at Gravesend racing track, and at the new Belmont Park,
to beguile and hypnotize the masses. God must have in his keeping
somewhere millions to uplift and redeem the masses. There is unspeakable
need that they be ministered unto in the spirit of the Master."
[Sidenote: Opportunity of Wealth]
These are weighty and practical words, and some day Christian men of
wealth will see the wisdom of them. How could American prosperity better
insure itself and all it represents for the future?
[Sidenote: Favorable Conclusion]
What, then, is the conclusion of our study? On the whole, decidedly
favorable to the Italian, while recognizing the vicious and undesirable
element that forms a comparatively small part of the whole. The Italian
in general is approachable, receptive to American ideas, not criminal by
nature more than other races, not difficult to adapt himself to new
environment, and eager to earn and learn. He furnishes excellent raw
material for American citizenship, if he does not come too rapidly to be
Americanized. But what he will mean to America, for good or ill,
depends almost wholly upon what America does for and with and through
him. Thus far, there has been too much of prejudice and neglect. Better
acquaintance is the first step toward the transformation of the Italian
alien into the Italian-American.
[Sidenote: Roman Catholic Testimony]
As for the religious side, here is testimony from a Roman Catholic
source. Mrs. Betts says:[60]
"The relation between the Roman Catholic Church and the mass of the
Italians in this country is a source of grief. Reluctantly the writer
has to blame the ignorance and bigotry of the immigrant priests who set
themselves against American influence; men who too often lend themselves
to the purposes of the ward heeler, the district leader in controlling
the people, who too often keep silence when the poor are the victims of
the shrewd Italians who have grown rich on the ignorance of their
countrymen. One man made $8,000 by supplying 1,000 laborers to a
railroad. He collected $5 from each man as a railroad fare, though
transportation was given by the road, and $3 from each man for the
material to build a house. The men supposed it was to be a home for
their families. They found as a home the wretched shelters provided by
contractors, with which we are all familiar. This transaction, when
known, did not disturb the Church or social relations of the offender,
but it increased his political power, for it showed what he could do. He
is recognized to-day as the Mayor of---- street; his influence is met
everywhere."
[Sidenote: Accessible to Evangelism]
There is no doubt that the Italians are accessible to evangelical
Christianity. Thousands of them appreciate the true character of the
Church that tried to prevent Italian unity and liberty, and they are
peculiarly open to the truths of democracy and the gospel. The home
missionary finds among them a fruitful field. Dr. Lee expresses the
conclusions of many observers, and indicates also a gate of personal
opportunity to serve, when he says, as a result of personal observation
and effort:
[Sidenote: Exceptionally Open-minded]
"Incident to the general recoil from the papal control, an enormous
number of the Italians coming to this country are out of the old Church;
they are without religion, yet are in a way groping after one. As a
consequence the Italian is exceptionally open-minded. You can talk with
him. He is not suspicious--not apprehensive lest you mislead him. He may
have no respect for any kind of religion, but he is not afraid that you
will lure him into forbidden paths. He is beginning to think--a
privilege which he has been denied in the past. This open-mindedness is
readiness to accept the spirit and theories of American life; for
open-mindedness is an American characteristic."
And open-mindedness toward the gospel is the vestibule to conversion.
QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER IV
AIM: TO CONSIDER THE DESIRABILITY OF THE ITALIANS AS IMMIGRANTS, AND
THE OPPORTUNITY FOR CHRISTIAN WORK AMONG THEM.
I. _Contrast the Old and New Immigration._
1. What is the New Immigration?
2. What has become of the earlier immigrants? Was their coming a
benefit to the United States?
3. Would your judgment concerning it have been the same when they
were coming?
4. What races have gained and what have lost in their respective
proportions?
II. _The Italians._
5. What are the leading types at present? What are they likely to
be in the future?
6. Mention opposing opinions as to the Italians? Which seem to you
nearer the truth?
7. What differences are there between Italians from different parts
of Italy?
8. From what class come most of the Italians now arriving? Of what
sex? What age? What skill?
9. How has Italian immigration grown in numbers? How has it been
distributed?
10. What proportion go West and South? Are efforts being made to
attract them anywhere?
III. _Are the Italians a Desirable Class of Immigrants_?
11. How do they compare with the early Irish immigrants? With other
nationalities?
12. What is the record of Italians in this country; as to work,
citizenship, self-support, crime, temperance, thrift, care for
education, financial ability?
13. Have many Italians taken to farming? Do they succeed? What sort
of farming?
14. What efforts are being made to direct and distribute the
Italian immigrants?
IV. _What is the Opportunity of the Christian Church Among Them_?
15. Do you know of any specific effort to uplift them through
Christian influences?
16. Does this chapter make you feel that the churches can do more
for them? How?
REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.--CHAPTER IV
I. _Further Study of Contrasts Between Different Types of Italians._
Lord, et al: The Italian in America, I, III, V.
Brandenburg: Imported Americans, IV, VI, XII.
Holt: Undistinguished Americans, III.
II. _Illiteracy Among the Northern and Southern Italians._
(1) Its bearing on their desirability as immigrants.
Brandenburg: Imported Americans, IV, XII, XX.
Hall: Immigration, 54-58, 80-83.
(2) Its relation to the probable effect of a reading
test for admission.
Lord, et al: The Italian in America, VIII, XI.
Hall: Immigration, 262-280.
(3) Its bearing on their accessibility to the gospel.
McLanahan: Our People of Foreign Speech, 69-74.
Wood: Americans in Process, IX.
III. _Location of Italians After Their Arrival and Length of Their
Stay._
Brandenburg: Imported Americans, II, XIX, XXII.
Lord, et al: The Italian in America, VI, VII, IX.
IV. _The Italians in New York City and State._
Benefits and dangers arising from their presence,
and efforts made to help them.
Riis: How the Other Half Lives, V, XXIV.
University Settlement Studies, Vol. I, Numbers
3 and 4, issue January, 1906.
Reports of the Society for Italian Immigrants, 17
Pearl Street, New York City.
_Yesterday the Slav was a pauper immigrant; to-day he is what the
English, Welsh, Irish, and German miner was a quarter of a century
ago--on the way to becoming an American citizen. What sort of a
citizen he will be will depend upon the influences brought to bear
upon him._--F. J. Warne.
V
THE EASTERN INVASION
My people do not live in America. They live underneath America. America
goes on over their heads.--_Paul Tymkevich, a Ruthenian Priest._
"My people do not love America. Why should they, from what they see of
it?" This is the profoundly suggestive question of a Ruthenian
Greek-Catholic priest, of Yonkers, N. Y., who says his people do not
come in contact with the better classes of Americans, but do come in
contact with everyone who hopes to exploit them.
The subject of immigration is the most far-reaching in importance of all
those with which this government has to deal. The history of the world
offers no precedent for our guidance, since no such peaceful invasion of
alien peoples has ever before occurred. It must have great and largely
unforeseen effects upon our form of civilization, our social and
political institutions, and, above all, upon the physical, mental, and
moral characteristics of our people. Can such a subject be considered
too seriously or too minutely? I cannot think it possible. The danger
lies in the opposite direction.--_F. P. Sargent._
It must not be forgotten that the Slav immigrants, and especially their
descendants, are impressionable and adaptable; that forces are at work
which have already done much for them, and will do more. The results of
the public school are sure though slow. The full-grown individual must
be brought under the influence of a yet more powerful agency, one which
makes also for civilization and for Americanism in the best sense.--_F.
J. Warne._
V
THE EASTERN INVASION
[Sidenote: Mistaken Opinion]
Least known, least liked, and least assimilable of all the alien races
migrating to America are the Slavs. That expresses the general opinion,
based on ignorance and dislike. To the common view they seem to combine
all the undesirable elements--low living, low intelligence, low
morality, low capacity, low everything, including wages--this explaining
in large measure their presence. The very name Slav excites prejudice.
If an exclusion act of any kind were to be passed it would probably be
easier to aim it at the Slavs than any other class of immigrants. We are
now to submit this common opinion to the test of investigation, and see
whether it is warranted in fact. Nowhere is discrimination based on
knowledge more necessary than in dealing with this Slavic race division.
First let us learn who the Slavs are. The following table shows this,
and also how many of them entered our ports in 1905:
Poles 102,437 Servians, Bulgarians, and
Slovaks 52,368 Montenegrins 5,823
Croatians and Slovenians 35,104 Dalmatians, Bosnians, and
Lithuanians 18,604 Herzegovinians 2,639
Ruthenians 14,473 Bohemians and Moravians 11,757
Roumanians 7,818 Russians proper 3,746
Magyars 46,030 Russian Jews[61] 92,388
[Sidenote: A Large Element in Europe]
The Slavs proper number about 125,000,000, or more than one twelfth of
the total population of the world. They have been concentrated, until
the recent migration began, in the eastern and larger part of Europe.
They make up the bulk of Russia, the great Slav power (numbering about
70,000,000), and of the Balkan States, and form nearly half of the
population of Austria-Hungary. The various Slavic languages and dialects
are closely related but differ as do German and Swedish, so that the
different races cannot understand each other.[62]
[Illustration: COUNTRIES FROM WHICH THE SLAVS COME]
[Sidenote: The Slavs in the Mines]
The Slav immigration is of comparatively recent date. Before 1880 it was
unnoticeable. A small number of Bohemians and Poles had come, settling
in the larger cities. But suddenly the thousands began to pour in.
Demand for cheap labor in the coal fields of Pennsylvania drew this
class, and presently the American, Canadian, English, Welsh, Irish,
Scotch, and German mine-workers found themselves being supplanted by the
men from Austria-Hungary and Russia--men who were mostly single and
alone, who could live on little, eat any sort of food, wear any kind
of clothes, and sleep in a hut or store-house, fourteen in a room. Of
course the home of the English-speaking miner, with its carpet on the
best room, its pictures and comforts, had to go, as did the miner and
his wife and children, also the school and the church--for how could
these stay when the Slav, homeless and familyless, could bunk in with a
crowd anywhere, or build himself a hillside hut out of driftwood, and
subsist on from four to ten dollars a month. The one conspicuous thing
about the Slav was his ability to save money. Dr. Warne gives a graphic
and pathetic picture of the struggle caused by the introduction of the
Slavs into Pennsylvania, and his investigations may profitably be
studied.[63]
[Sidenote: Slav domination]
The results in Pennsylvania thus far are the reverse of satisfactory.
The cheap labor has become dear in more senses than one. Where in 1880
the English-speaking foreign-born composed nearly ninety-four per cent.
of the mine workers, in 1900 they were less than fifty-two per cent.,
and to-day are much less still. The Slavs dominate in the mines. Strikes
are not less frequent, but more difficult to control, and the necessity
of frequent state control by militia, the riots and bloodshed, mark the
failure to Americanize this growing class of aliens. A striking
illustration of non-assimilation and the attendant perils may be found
in Pennsylvania. Fortunately all the Slavs do not go to the mines, and
those who follow agriculture or trades afford a pleasanter study. The
census of 1900 gave a million and a quarter of foreign-born Slavs and
the number has been largely increased. In 1903 221,000 came, not
counting the 67,000 Russian and Roumanian Jews. Since these peoples are
all prolific, with an oversupply at home, there is every prospect that
immigration will increase, unless some check is put upon it. The Slavs
will have to be reckoned with, most assuredly, as an element in our
civilization.
[Illustration: SLAV DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES]
The maps here given, by the courtesy of _Charities_, show the sections
from which the Slavs come and how they disperse in this country.
[Sidenote: Chiefly Unskilled and Illiterate]
An analysis of the official statistics shows that, with the exception of
the Bohemians, these newest immigrants are mainly unskilled, illiterate
peasants from country districts, and with little money in their pockets
when they land. Of the Bohemians and Moravians forty-four per cent. are
skilled laborers, and only 1.50 per cent. over fourteen are unable to
read and write; but of the Poles eighty-five per cent. are unskilled,
and thirty per cent. can neither read nor write; and this represents the
average. We are getting in an illiterate mass, therefore, and the amount
of money they bring per capita averages about $10. But on this point a
writer says, speaking from a wide observation:[64]
[Sidenote: A Hopeful View]
"This does not necessarily mean that they are undesirable immigrants.
The illiterate, unskilled immigrant may be, in fact, more desirable than
the better educated skilled laborer, or the still better educated
professional or business man. There may be a great demand here for
unskilled labor. Again, the moral qualities of the untaught but
industrious, simple-minded, unspoiled countryman may be far more
wholesome for the communities to which he comes than those of the
educated, town-bred, unsuccessful business or professional man, the
misfit skilled laborer, or the actual loafer and sharper of the cities,
who comes over here when home gets too hot for him. As to illiteracy,
moreover, the peasant is improving. The great mass of this unskilled
labor pushes directly through the great gateway of New York, where
unfortunately so many other races stop. They go to the eastern, middle,
and northern states, mainly into our coal and iron mines, and our steel
mills, but also to the farming regions, where they work patiently and
thriftily, first as farm laborers, then as owners of abandoned farming
lands or cut-over timber lands, reclaiming and making them fertile to
the great advantage of the markets they supply."