The first incentive to organization among all the groups seems to have
been the precarious economic situation during the years of effort to
get a foothold here. The first association of the newly arrived
immigrant is one of mutual aid. "Benefit" will be found as the basis
of the important foreign-born organizations, no matter what new
purposes may have been taken on with the establishment and progress of
the group as a whole.
[Illustration: WHO WILL WELCOME THEM?]
In the interviews we have had with the leaders among the groups the
point has been repeatedly emphasized that Americans can never
appreciate the situation of immigrants during their first ten years in
this country. The strangeness, the poverty, the pressure to send money
home, the inadequate, irregular income, the restriction to the
low-skilled job--"there is in America, at first, nothing for an
immigrant but the shovel"--the lack of knowledge of money values and
ignorance of American domestic and social practices--these
conditions drive the immigrants into co-operative effort. The appeal
sent out by a Russian national society organized in 1912 begins with
some such words as these:
While we are in this country we are doing the lowest kind of
work, and many accidents happen to us; if we do not belong to
an organization we are without help.... The purpose of our
brotherhood is to help our brethren in a strange country.
Not even in associated effort can they always find security, however.
One of the reasons now being given very often by immigrants seeking
passage back to Europe is their feeling of uncertainty about their
future here. They say that America is all right so long as a man is
young and strong enough to do the hard work in the industries, but
they cannot see what is in store for them as they grow older, for they
cannot save enough to provide for themselves; in Europe, a little land
and a cottage are assurance of the necessities for old age.
There are, of course, many cases in which there is failure within the
group as there is neglect without. Exploitation of immigrants by their
fellow countrymen, and the evils of fraudulent banks, steamship
companies, "tally-men," are well known. At the same time there is a
great mass of neighborly service and of kindness of the poor to the
poor, and of the stranger to the more recent comer.
Benefit societies based either on neighborhood associations here or on
village association in Europe, soon grow up. These are usually
self-assessment societies, in which each member pays a small sum each
month, often only 25 cents. Out of the funds thus raised, a sick
benefit of from $3 to $5 a week is paid. On the death of a member an
assessment of from 50 cents to $1 is laid on the surviving members,
and the resulting sum is paid to the bereaved family, helping to meet
the funeral expenses.
Such societies are not incorporated, their officers are usually
without business training, and they are often unstable. They include,
however, a considerable proportion of the more recent immigrants, who,
through fear of falling into distress and dread of charity, are
influenced to keep up the membership. In addition to the money
benefit, these neighborhood societies often mean friendly interest and
help in nursing, in the care of the children, and in household work.
As the fees are low and as provision for the sick benefit seems very
important, a person often belongs to several such societies.
Owing to the instability of these organizations the effort is often
made to combine them and to establish them on a sound financial basis
as national fraternal insurance societies. These societies substitute
fraternal insurance for the sick and death benefit. As the immigrant
family gains a foothold in the new community the members are likely
to join a national fraternal insurance society or, in the second
generation, an organization of the type of the Catholic Order of
Foresters, Knights and Ladies of Security, Tribe of Ben Hur, or
Woodmen of the World.
The national fraternal insurance society is, among the Slavs, highly
organized. Often in one national group as many as three flourishing
societies will be found, with membership determined by religious or
political preferences. As they exist now, these societies are all much
alike, differing in the elaborateness of their organization in
accordance with the period covered by the immigration of the group or
with the strength of its cohesion in America. Leaders who wish to
communicate directly with the great body of their co-nationals in
America, do so through the channels provided by these organizations.
As the group develops a feeling of confidence, the insurance function
becomes less urgent. In fact, officers of the national societies
predict that the societies will gradually abandon the field of
insurance and develop along other lines. Many societies already admit
a considerable number of uninsured persons, who join in order to share
in other enterprises. It would be neither possible nor profitable to
describe all the groups, but the organization of a Croatian society
and the relation of women to certain societies in the Polish and
Lithuanian groups will be briefly discussed.