An Italian Family CrowdedAn Italian Family Crowded in aNew York Tenement
A Striking Example
"A Polish Jew in Chicago, at a time when very few of the Poles were tailors, opened a shop in a Polish neighborhood. He lost money during the time he was teaching the people the trade, but finally was a gainer. Before he opened the shophe studied the neighborhood; he found the very poorest quarters where most of the immigrant Poles lived. He took no one to work except the newly arrived Polish women and girls. The more helpless and dependent they were, the more sure of getting work from him. In speaking about his plans he said: 'It will take these girls years to learn English and to learn how to go about and find work. In that way I will be able to get their labor very cheap.' His theory turned out to be practical. He has since built several tenement-houses."
A Foreign Importation
The cheap tailor business is divided among the Italians, Russians, Poles, and Swedes, Germans and Bohemians. The women and children are made to work, and hours are not carefully counted. Long work, poor food, poor light, foul air, bad sanitation—all make this kind of life far worse than any life which the immigrants knew in Europe. Better physical starvation there than the mental and spiritual blight of these modern conditions here. That so much of hopeful humanity is found in these unwholesome and congested wards proves the quality worth saving and elevating.
Story of a Sweat-shop Girl
Here is an illustration of the resolute spirit which conditions cannot crush. A young Polish girl was brought by her widowed mother to America, in hope of bettering their condition. The mother died soon afterward, leaving theorphan dependent. Then came the disappointments, one after another, and finally, the almost inevitable result in such cases, the fall into the slums and the sweat-shops. By hard work six days in the week, fourteen or more hours a day, this girl of tender age could make $4 a week! She had to get up at half past five every morning and make herself a cup of coffee, which with a bit of bread and sometimes fruit made her breakfast. Listen to her story:
Her Own Story
"The machines go like mad all day, because the faster you work the more money you get. Sometimes in my haste the finger gets caught and the needle goes right through it. We all have accidents like that. Sometimes a finger has to come off.... For the last two winters I have been going to night school. I have learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. I can read quite well in English now, and I look at the newspapers every day. I am going back to night school again this winter. Some of the women in my class are more than forty years of age. Like me, they did not have a chance to learn anything in the old country. It is good to have an education; it makes you feel higher. Ignorant people are all low. People say now that I am clever and fine in conversation. There is a little expense for charity, too. If any worker is injured or sick we all give money to help."[74]
Possibilities
Surely this is good material. A changed and Christian environment would make shining lights out of these poor immigrants, who are kept in the subways of American life, instead of being given a fair chance out in the open air and sunlight of decently paid service.
A Foreign System
Practically all of the work in tenements is carried on by foreign-born men and women, and more than that, by the latest arrivals and the lowest conditioned of the foreign-born. Tenement-house legislation has been practically forced upon New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, whose ports of entry receive the first impact of immigration, by two of the races that have been crowding into the cities—the Italian and Hebrew. The Italian woman, working in her close tenement, has by her cheap labor almost driven out all other nationalities from that class of work still done in the home, the hand sewing on coats and trousers. Of the 20,000 licenses granted by the New York factory inspector for "home finishing" in New York City, ninety-five per cent. are held by Italians. This work has to be done because the husband is not making enough to support the family. These men work mostly as street laborers, hucksters, and peddlers. To make both ends meet not only the wife but children have to work.
A Typical Case
Here is a typical case of this class of worker and the earnings, from an inspector's note-book:"Antonia Scarafino, 235 Mulberry Street; finisher; gets five cents per pair pants, bastes bottoms, puts linings on; one hour to make; two years at this business; four in this country; married, with baby; sister works with her; can both together make $4 per week; husband peddles fish and makes only $1 to $2 a week; got married here; two rooms, $8.50 rent; kitchen 10 x 12; bedroom 8 x 10; gets all the work she wants. No sunlight falls into her squalid rooms, and there is no stopping, from early morning till late at night."
The Naturalization Evil
Illegal and fraudulent naturalization is another evil to which the foreigner in the city becomes a party, although the blame belongs chiefly to the ward politicians who make him aparticeps criminis. The recognized managers of the foreign vote of various nationalities—almost always saloonkeepers—hold citizenship cheap, perjury undiscovered as good as truth, and every vote a clear gain for the party and themselves. So the naturalization mills are kept running night and day preceding a national or municipal election. Describing this process, ex-United States Senator Chandler says that in New York during a single month just before election about seven thousand naturalization papers were issued, nearly all by one judge, who examined each applicant andwitnesses to his satisfaction, and signed his orders at the rate of two per minute, and as many as 618 in one day. Many classes of frauds were committed. Witnesses were professional perjurers, each swearing in hundreds of cases, testifying to a five years' residence when they had first met the applicants only a few hours before. During the past year some of these professional perjurers and political manipulators were tried and sent to the penitentiary; but the frauds will go on. Here is an illustration:
Making Citizens
"Patrick Hefferman, of a given street in New York, was twenty-one years old September 2, 1891, and came to this country August 1, 1888. He was naturalized October 20, 1891. On that day he was introduced by Thomas Keeler to a stranger, who went with him to court and signed a paper; they both went before the judge, who asked the stranger something. Hefferman signed nothing, said nothing, but kissed a book and came out a citizen, having taken no oath except that of renunciation and allegiance."
Fraud Abundant
Thus are the sacred rights of citizenship obtained by thousands upon thousands, not in New York alone, but in all our cities. More than that, fraudulent use is freely made of naturalization papers. The Italian immigrant, for example, finds his vote is wanted, and obtains a false paper. He returns to Italy to spend his earnings, and there is offered a sum of money for the useof his papers. These are given to an emigrant who probably could not pass the examination at Ellis Island, but who as a naturalized citizen, if he is not detected in the fraud, cannot be shut out. Then he sends the papers back to Italy. It is admitted that there is a regular traffic in naturalization papers. In every way the alien is put on the wrong track, and his American experiences are such as would naturally make him lawless and criminal rather than a good citizen. He needs nothing more than protection against corrupting and venal agencies, which find their origin in politics and the saloon.
The Saloon and the Immigrant
The foreign element furnishes the saloons with victims. In his graphic book describing tenement life in New York Mr. Riis shows the rapid multiplication of the saloons in the slums where the foreigners are crowded into tenements, nine per cent. more densely packed than the most densely populated districts of London. In the chapter, "The Reign of Rum,"[75]he says:
Testimony of Riis
"'Where God builds a church the devil builds next door a saloon' is an old saying that has lost its point in New York. Either the devil was on the ground first, or he has been doing a good deal more in the way of building. I tried once to find out how the account stood, and counted to 111 Protestant churches, chapels, and places of worship of every kind below Fourteenth Street,4,065 saloons. The worst half of the tenement population lives down there, and it has to this day the worst half of the saloons. Up town the account stands a little better, but there are easily ten saloons to every church to-day.
Hunting for an American
"As to the motley character of the tenement population, when I asked the agent of a notorious Fourth Ward alley how many people might be living in it, I was told: One hundred and forty families—one hundred Irish, thirty-eight Italian, and two that spoke the German tongue. Barring the agent herself, there was not a native-born individual in the court. The answer was characteristic of the cosmopolitan character of lower New York, very nearly so of the whole of it, wherever it runs to alleys and courts. One may find for the asking an Italian, German, French, African, Spanish, Bohemian, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish, and Chinese colony. The one thing you shall ask for in vain in the chief city of America is a distinctively American community."
The Peril of Poverty
The immigrant is nearly always poor, and is thrust into the poverty of the city. We must distinguish between pauperism and poverty. As Mr. Hunter points out, in his stirring chapter on this subject,[76]"pauperism is dependence without shame, poverty is to live miserable we know not why, to have the dread of hunger, to worksore and yet gain nothing." Fear of pauperism, of the necessity of accepting charity, drives the self-respecting poor insane and to suicide. It is to be said that the majority of the immigrants are not paupers, but self-respecting poor. Moreover, the new immigration is not nearly so ready to accept pauperism as are the Irish, who make up the largest percentage of this class, as already shown. But the poor immigrants are compelled, by circumstances, to come in contact with, if not to dwell directly among this pauper element, lost to sense of degradation. The paupers make up the slums. And because the rents are cheaper in the miserable old rookeries that still defy public decency, the Italians especially crowd into these pestilential quarters, which are the hotbeds of disease, physical and moral filth, drunkenness, and crime. Thus pauperism and poverty dwell too closely together.
Some Causes of Poverty
Upon the unskilled masses the weight of want is constantly pressing. Unemployment, sickness, the least stoppage of the scant income, means distress. It is estimated that in our country not less than 4,000,000 persons are dependents or paupers, and not less than 10,000,000 are in poverty. This means that they cannot earn enough regularly to maintain the standard of life that means the highest efficiency, and that at some time they are liable to need aid. Mr. Riis has shown that about one third of the peopleof New York City were dependent upon charity at some time during the eight years previous to 1890. The report of the United Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows similar conditions existing among the Jewish population of New York. Pauperism is a peril, and poverty is a source of apathy and despair. The unskilled immigrant tends to increase the poverty by creating a surplus of cheap labor, and also falls under the blight of the evil he increases.
Pauperism and Immigration
Treating of this subject, the Charities Association of Boston reports that it is hopeless to attempt to relieve pauperism so long as its ranks are increased by the great hosts coming into the country, with only a few dollars to depend upon, and no certain work. The statistics of the public almshouses show that the proportion of foreign-born is greatly in excess of the native-born. The pathetic feature of this condition is that what is wanted is not charity but employment at living wages. Greatly is it to the credit of the immigrants from southeastern Europe that they are eager for work and reluctant to accept charity. The danger is that, if allowed to come and then left without opportunity to work, they will of necessity fall into the careless, shiftless, vicious class, already so large and dangerous.
Peril of the "Great White Plague"
The immigrants in the city tenements are especially exposed to consumption, that "Great WhitePlague" which yearly kills its tens of thousands. In New York City alone ten thousand die annually of tuberculosis; and this is the result largely of tenement conditions. Statisticians estimate that the annual money loss in the United States from tuberculosis, counting the cost of nursing, food, medicines, and attendance, as well as the loss of productive labor, is $330,000,000. Mr. Hunter instances a case where an entire family was wiped out by this disease within two years and a half. In spite of his efforts to get the father, who was the first one infected with the disease, to go to a hospital, he refused, saying that as he had to die, he was going to die with his family. The Health Board said it had no authority forcibly to compel the man to go to a hospital; and the result was that the whole family died with him. This plague "is the result of our weakness, our ignorance, our selfishness, and our vices; there is no need of its existence, and it is the duty of the state to stamp it out." That is Mr. Hunter's conclusion, with which we heartily agree.
Peril of Child Neglect
Another peril of the city, and of the entire country as well, that comes through the foreigners is child neglect and labor; which means illiteracy, stunted body and mind, and often wreckage of life. Every foreign neighborhood is fullof children, and sad enough is the average child of poverty. What makes the tenement district of the great city so terrible to you as you go into it is the sight of the throngs of children, who know little of home as you know it, have irregular and scanty meals, and surroundings of intemperance, dirt, foul atmosphere and speech, disease and vice. No wonder the police in these districts say that their worst trouble arises from the boys and the gangs of young "toughs." There is every reason for this unwholesome product. Mr. Hunter says there are not less than half a million children in Greater New York whose only playground is the street. Result, the street gang; and this gang is the really vital influence in the life of most boys in the large cities. It is this life, which develops, as Mr. Riis says, "dislike of regular work, physical incapability of sustained effort, gambling propensities, absence of energy, and carelessness of the happiness of others." The great homeless, yardless tenement, where the children of the immigrants are condemned to live, is the nursery of sickness and crime. The child is left for good influence to the school, the settlement, or the mission. For the enormous amount of juvenile crime in the city, which it requires a special court to deal with, the conditions are more responsible than the children, or even than the parents, who are unable to maintain home life, and who, throughthe pinch of poverty or the impulse of avarice, give over the education of the children to school or street. Here is a picture of the life on its darker side:
Street Life of Children
"Crowded in the tenements where the bedrooms are small and often dark, where the living room is also a kitchen, a laundry, and often a garment-making shop, are the growing children whose bodies cry out for exercise and play. They are often an irritant to the busy mother, and likely as not the object of her carping and scolding. The teeming tenements open their doors, and out into the dark passageways and courts, through foul alleys and over broken sidewalks, flow ever renewed streams of playing children. Under the feet of passing horses, under the wheels of passing street-cars, jostled about by the pedestrian, driven on by the policeman, they annoy everyone. They crowd about the music or drunken brawls in the saloons, they play hide-and-seek about the garbage boxes, they shoot 'craps' in the alleys, they seek always and everywhere activity, movement, life."[77]
Imprisoned Childhood
But worse than this picture is that of childhood in the sweat-shop, the factory, the mine, and other places of employment. Mr. Hunter has written a chapter on "The Child"[78]that should be studied by every lover of humanity. Its facts ring out a clarion call for reform. This touchesour subject most closely because, as he says, "These evils of child life are doubly dangerous and serious because the mass of people in poverty in our cities are immigrants. The children of immigrants are a remarkable race of little ones."
Happy Childhood
Indeed they are, and they give you the bright side of the picture, in spite of all the evil conditions in which they live. The present writer stood recently opposite the entrance to a public school in the congested East Side, where not one of all the thousand or more of scholars was of native stock. As the crowds of little girls poured out at noontime their faces made a fascinating study. The conspicuous thing about them was the smile and fun and brightness. The dress was of every description, and one of the merriest-faced of all had on one shoe and one rubber in place of the second shoe; but from the faces you would never suspect into what kind of places these children were about to go for all they know of home. The hope lies in the children, and the schools are their great blessing and outlet, even if as Mrs. Betts says, many of them of certain classes do not think so. Mr. Hunter says:
What Kind of Americans?
"They are to become Americans, and through them, more than through any other agency, their own parents are being led into a knowledge of American ways and customs. All the statistics available prove that vice and crime are far more common among the children of immigrants thanamong the children of native parentage, and this is due no less to the yardless tenement and street playground than to widespread poverty. In a mass of cases the father and mother both work in that feverish, restless way of the new arrival, ambitious to get ahead. To overcome poverty they must neglect their children. Turned out of the small tenement into the street, the child learns the street. Nothing escapes his sharp eyes, and almost in the briefest conceivable time, he is an American ready to make his way by every known means, good and bad. To the child everything American is good and right. There comes a time when the parents cannot guide him or instruct him; he knows more than they; he looks upon their advice as of no value. If ever there was a self-made man, that man is the son of the immigrant. But the street and the street gang have a great responsibility; they are making the children of a hundred various languages from every part of the world into American citizens."
A Plain Duty
How long will American Christianity allow this process of degeneracy to go on, before realizing the peril of it, and providing the counteracting agencies of good? That is the question the young people ought to consider and help answer.
Child Labor
But far worse than all else, "the nation is engaged in a traffic for the labor of children." In this country over 1,700,000 children under fifteen are compelled to work in the factories,mines, workshops, and fields. These figures may mean little, for as Margaret McMillan has said, "You cannot put tired eyes, pallid cheeks, and languid little limbs into statistics." But we believe that if our Christian people could be brought for one moment to realize what the inhumanity of this child labor is, there would be such an avalanche of public opinion as would put a stop to it. This evil is a new one in America, begotten of greed for money. This greed is shared jointly by the capitalist employer and the parents, but the greater responsibility rests upon the former, who creates the possibility and fosters the evil.
Alien Victims
The immigrants furnish the parents willing to sell their children into child slavery in the factory, or the worse mill or mine—prisons all, and for the innocent. Into these prisons gather "tens of thousands of children, strong and happy, or weak, underfed, and miserable. Stop their play once for all, and put them out to labor for so many cents a day or night, and pace them with a tireless, lifeless piece of mechanism, for ten or twelve hours at a stretch, and you will have a present-day picture of child labor." But there is yet one thing which must be added to the picture. Give the child-slave worker a tenement for a home in the filthy streets of an ordinary factory city, with open spaces covered with tin cans, bottles, old shoes, garbage, and other waste, the gutters running sewers, and the air foul withodors and black with factory smoke, and the picture is fairly complete. It is a dark picture, but hardly so dark as the reality, and if one were to describe "back of the yards" in Chicago, or certain mill towns or mining districts, the picture would be even darker than the one given.
The Shame of the Century
Think of it, young people of Christian America! In the twentieth century, in the country we like to think the most enlightened in the world, after all our boasted advancements in civilization, child slavery—more pitiful in some respects than African slavery ever was—has its grip on the nation's childhood.
An Appalling Record
The record is amazing to one who has never thought about this subject. Easily a hundred thousand children at work in New York, in all sorts of employments unsuitable and injurious. Try to realize these totals, taken from Mr. Hunter, of children under fifteen, compelled to work in employments generally recognized as injurious: Over 7,000 in this country in laundries; nearly 2,000 in bakeshops; 367 in saloons as bartenders and other ways; over 138,000 at work as waiters and servants in hotels and restaurants, with long hours and conditions morally bad; 42,000 employed as messengers, with work hours often unlimited and temptations leading to immorality and vice; 20,000 in stores; 2,500 on the railroads; over 24,000 in mines and quarries; over 5,000 in glass factories; about 10,000 insawmills and the wood-working industries; over 7,500 in iron and steel mills; over 11,000 in cigar and tobacco factories; and over 80,000 in the silk and cotton and other textile mills.
Soul Murder for Money
Now, all of these industries are physically injurious to childhood. But more than this, schooling has been made impossible, and immorality, disease, and death reap a rich harvest from this seed-sowing. And why are these helpless children thus engaged and enslaved, stunted, crippled, and corrupted, deprived of education and a fair chance in life? Simply because their labor is cheap. Mr. Hunter speaks none too strongly when he calls this "murder, cannibalism, destruction of soul and body." And it is the children of the immigrants who are thus sacrificed to Mammon, the pitiless god of greed. Shall our Christian young people have no voice in righting this wrong? Within a generation they can put an end to it, if they will. Here is home missionary work at hand, calling for highest endeavors.
I.Foreigners in Cities.
1. What are the chief causes of the following: (1) the rapid growth of great cities; (2) the existence of slums; (3) the settling of immigrants in colonies?2. Is your knowledge of the lives of the poor sufficient to move you to work for their redemption? Are any of those persons, about whom we have studied, your neighbors?3. Is the prevailing tone of New York and other cities American or Foreign? Give illustrations.4. What is the prevailing tone in city government? Is there any connection between the answers of these last two questions?
1. What are the chief causes of the following: (1) the rapid growth of great cities; (2) the existence of slums; (3) the settling of immigrants in colonies?
2. Is your knowledge of the lives of the poor sufficient to move you to work for their redemption? Are any of those persons, about whom we have studied, your neighbors?
3. Is the prevailing tone of New York and other cities American or Foreign? Give illustrations.
4. What is the prevailing tone in city government? Is there any connection between the answers of these last two questions?
II.Tenement-House Evils.
5. Where do most of the foreigners settle first in the United States? Of what races is the mass chiefly composed?6. Describe the conditions under which they live. Do they find them so or make them so?7. What remedies can be applied to tenement-house conditions? What do the workers among them think of the needs and prospects?8. What can be done toward improvement by the family? the school? the city government?
5. Where do most of the foreigners settle first in the United States? Of what races is the mass chiefly composed?
6. Describe the conditions under which they live. Do they find them so or make them so?
7. What remedies can be applied to tenement-house conditions? What do the workers among them think of the needs and prospects?
8. What can be done toward improvement by the family? the school? the city government?
III.Prevalent Abuses.
9. Do the slum conditions tend to contaminate new arrivals? Do they actually deteriorate?10. What is the worst industrial feature of the tenement-house districts? Describe its workings. Tell of some typical sweat-shop workers.11. What political evils flourish in the congested districts?12. What moral and social evils flourish in the congested districts?
9. Do the slum conditions tend to contaminate new arrivals? Do they actually deteriorate?
10. What is the worst industrial feature of the tenement-house districts? Describe its workings. Tell of some typical sweat-shop workers.
11. What political evils flourish in the congested districts?
12. What moral and social evils flourish in the congested districts?
IV.Effects upon the Poor and the Children.
13. What relation does immigration hold to pauperism and poverty? To conditions of health?14. Name some of the principal authorities for the preceding answers? How would you answer those who disputed their statements?15. Can you give any facts as to child labor? What do you think of the policy of employing children?16. * Does this chapter convince you that Christians have a duty in these matters, and if so, what is it?
13. What relation does immigration hold to pauperism and poverty? To conditions of health?
14. Name some of the principal authorities for the preceding answers? How would you answer those who disputed their statements?
15. Can you give any facts as to child labor? What do you think of the policy of employing children?
16. * Does this chapter convince you that Christians have a duty in these matters, and if so, what is it?
I.New York Slums and Foreign Quarters.Study especially the Ghetto, Little Italy, Little Hungary, et al. and find out whether similar conditions exist in cities of your section.For New York, consultUniversity Settlement Studies, Vol. I, Nos. 3 and 4.Riis: How the Other Half Lives, X, XII.For Chicago, consultHull House Papers.For Boston, consultWood: Americans in Process, III, IV.II.Measures for Relief of Slum Population.Riis: The Battle With the Slum, V-XV.Riis: How the Other Half Lives, VI, VII, XXIV.III.Connection between a Dense Foreign Population and Corruption in Politics.Wood: Americans in Process, VI.IV.Checks Put upon Industrial Oppression and Poverty.Riis: The Peril and the Preservation of the Home.V.Problems of Poverty and Childhood as Affected by Immigration.Hunter: Poverty, I, V, VI.Riis: How the Other Half Lives, XV, XVII, XXI.
I.New York Slums and Foreign Quarters.
Study especially the Ghetto, Little Italy, Little Hungary, et al. and find out whether similar conditions exist in cities of your section.
For New York, consultUniversity Settlement Studies, Vol. I, Nos. 3 and 4.Riis: How the Other Half Lives, X, XII.For Chicago, consultHull House Papers.For Boston, consultWood: Americans in Process, III, IV.
II.Measures for Relief of Slum Population.
Riis: The Battle With the Slum, V-XV.Riis: How the Other Half Lives, VI, VII, XXIV.
III.Connection between a Dense Foreign Population and Corruption in Politics.
Wood: Americans in Process, VI.
IV.Checks Put upon Industrial Oppression and Poverty.
Riis: The Peril and the Preservation of the Home.
V.Problems of Poverty and Childhood as Affected by Immigration.
Hunter: Poverty, I, V, VI.Riis: How the Other Half Lives, XV, XVII, XXI.
"To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely," said Burke. If there is to be patriotism, it must be a matter of pride to say, "Americanus sum"—I am an American.—Professor Mayo-Smith.
"To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely," said Burke. If there is to be patriotism, it must be a matter of pride to say, "Americanus sum"—I am an American.—Professor Mayo-Smith.
If that man who careth not for his own household is worse than an infidel, the nation which permits its institutions to be endangered by any cause that can fairly be removed, is guilty, not less in Christian than in natural law. Charity begins at home; and while the people of the United States have gladly offered an asylum to millions upon millions of the distressed and unfortunate of other lands and climes, they have no right to carry their hospitality one step beyond the line where American institutions, the American rate of wages, the American standard of living are brought into serious peril.Our highest duty to charity and to humanity is to make this great experiment here, of free laws and educated labor, the most triumphant success that can possibly be attained.In this way we shall do far more for Europe than by allowing its slums and its vast stagnant reservoirs of degraded peasantry to be drained off upon our soil.—General Francis A. Walker.
If the hope which this country holds out to the human race of permanent and stable government is to be impaired by the enormous and unregulated inroad of poverty and ignorance, which changed conditions of transportation have brought upon us, then for the sake of Europe, as well as for the sake of America, the coming of these people should be checked and regulated until we can handle the problems that are already facing us.—Phillips Brooks.
There are certain fundamentals in every system, to destroy which destroys the system itself. Our institutions have grown up with us and are adapted to our national character and needs. To change them at the demand of agitators knowing nothing of that character and those needs would be absurd and destructive.—Professor Mayo-Smith.
The Larger Race Problem
Immigration is a radically different problem from that of slavery, but not less vital to the Republic. It is a marvelous opportunity for a Christian nation, awake; but an unarmed invasion signifying destruction to the ideals and institutions of a free and nominally Christian nation, asleep. "The wise man's eyes are in his head," says Solomon, "but the fool walketh in darkness." In other words, the difference between the wise and otherwise is one of sight. While Americans are walking in the darkness of indifferentism and of an optimism born not of faith but ignorance, immigration is steadily changing the character of our civilization. We are face to face with the larger race problem—that of assimilating sixty nationalities and races. The problem will never be solved by minimizing or deriding or misunderstanding it.
The Two Sides
All through this study we have sought to remember that there are two sides to every question, and two to every phase of this great immigration question. Especially is this true when we come to estimating effects upon character, for here we are in the domain of inference and of reasoning from necessarily limited knowledge. Here, too, temperament and bias play their part. One person learns that of every five persons you meet in New York four are of foreign birth or parentage, notes the change in personality, customs, and manners, and wonders how long our free institutions can stand this test of unrestricted immigration. Another answers that the foreigners are not so bad as they are often painted, and that the immorality in the most foreign parts of New York is less than in other parts.
Different Opinions
A third says it is not fair to count the children of foreign-born parents as foreign; that they are in fact much stronger Americans in general than the native children of native parentage; and instances the flag-drills in the schools, in which the foreign children take the keenest delight, as they do in the study of American history. But a fourth says, with Professor Boyesen, that it takes generations of intelligent, self-restrained, and self-respecting persons to make a man fit to govern himself, and that if the ordinary tests of intelligence and morality amount to anything, it certainly would take three or four generations to educate these newcomers up to the level of American citizenship.
Conflicting Views
One observer of present conditions says there is a lowered moral and political tone by reason of immigration; and another agrees with a leader in settlement work who recently said to the writer that he sees no reason to restrict immigration, that wages will take care of themselves and the foreigner steadily improve, and that there is in the younger foreign element a needed dynamic, a consciousness of Americanism, an interest in everything American in refreshing contrast to thelaissez-fairetype of native young person now so common. His conclusion, from contact with both types, is that the intenseness and enthusiasm of the foreign element will make the native element bestir itself or go under.
Mean between Extremes
So opinions run, pro and con. There must be a mean between the two extremes—the one, that God is in a peculiar sense responsible for the future of the United States, and cannot afford to let our experiment of self-government fail, however foolish and reckless the people may be; and the other, that unless Congress speedily passes restrictive laws the destiny of our country will be imperiled beyond remedy. We find such a mean in that Americanization which includes evangelization as an essential part of the assimilating process.
Four NationalitiesFour Nationalities
Foreigners Everywhere
As to the ubiquity of the foreigner all will agree. "Any foreigners in your neighborhood?" asked the writer of a friend in a remote countryhamlet. "O, yes," was the reply, "we have a colony of Italians." Of all such questions asked during months past not one has been answered in the negative. Go where you will, from Atlantic to Pacific Coast, the immigrant is there. In nineteen of the northern states of our Republic the number of the foreign-born and their immediate descendants exceeds the number of the native-born. In the largest cities the number is two thirds, and even three quarters. There are more Cohens than Smiths in the New York directory. Two thirds of the laborers in our factories are foreign-born or of foreign parentage. New England is no longer Puritan but foreign. So is it in the Middle and the Central West, and not only in city and town but hamlet and valley. The farms sanctified by many a Puritan prayer are occupied to-day by French-Canadian and Italian aliens. Foreigners are running our factories, working our mines, building our railways, boring our tunnels, doing the hard manual labor in all the great constructive enterprises of the nation. They are also entering all the avenues of trade, and few other than foreign names can be seen on the business signs in our cities large or small.
Foreignism Preserved
Not only do you find the foreigner, of one race or another, everywhere, but wherever you find him in any numbers you note that the most distinctive feature is the foreignism. The immigrant readily catches the spirit of independence and makes the most of liberty. He is insistent upon his rights, but not always so careful about the rights of others. He is imitative, and absorbs the spirit of selfishness as quickly as do the native-born. He is often unkempt, uncultured, dirty, and disagreeable. He is also impressionable and changeable, responsive to kindness as he is resentful of contempt. He follows his own customs both on Sundays and week days. He knows as little about American ideas as Americans know about him. He is commonly apt to learn, and very much depends upon the kind of teaching he falls under. Much of it, unfortunately, has not been of the kind to make the American ideas and ways seem preferable to his own. Made to feel like an alien, he is likely to remain at heart an alien; whereas the very safety and welfare and Christian civilization of our country depend in no small degree upon transforming him into a true American. For upon this change hangs the answer to the question, which influence is to be strongest—ours upon the foreigner or the foreigner's upon us.
A Question for Patriots
Surely this is a question to engage the attention of Christian patriots—the influence of this vast mass of undigested if not indigestible immigration upon the national character and life. Amost scholarly and valuable treatment of this subject is found in the discriminating work by Professor Mayo-Smith, one of the very best books written on the subject. The figures are out of date, but the principles so clearly enunciated are permanent, and the conclusions sane and sound. This is the way he opens up the subject we are now considering:
The Marks of a High Civilization
"The whole life of a nation is not covered by its politics and its economics. Civilization does not consist merely of free political institutions and material prosperity. The morality of a community, its observance of law and order, its freedom from vice, its intelligence, its rate of mortality and morbidity, its thrift, cleanliness, and freedom from a degrading pauperism, its observance of family ties and obligations, its humanitarian disposition and charity, and finally its social ideals and habits are just as much indices of its civilization as the trial by jury or a high rate of wages. These things are, in fact, the flower and fruit of civilization—in them consists the successful 'pursuit of happiness' which our ancestors coupled with life and liberty as the inalienable rights of a man worthy of the name.
"In order that we may take a pride in our nationality and be willing to make sacrifices for our country, it is necessary that it should satisfy in some measure our ideal of what a nation ought to be. What now are the characteristics ofAmerican state and social life which we desire to see preserved? Among the most obvious are the following:
American Ideals
"(1) The free political constitution and the ability to govern ourselves in the ordinary affairs of life, which we have inherited from England and so surprisingly developed in our own history;"(2) The social morality of the Puritan settlers of New England, which the spirit of equality and the absence of privileged classes have enabled us to maintain;"(3) The economic well-being of the mass of the community, which affords our working classes a degree of comfort distinguishing them sharply from the artisans and peasants of Europe;"(4) Certain social habits which are distinctively American or are, at least, present in greater degree among our people than elsewhere in the world. Such are love of law and order, ready acquiescence in the will of the majority, a generally humane spirit, displaying itself in respect for women and care for children and helpless persons, a willingness to help others, a sense of humor, a good nature and a kindly manner, a national patriotism, and confidence in the future of the country.
"(1) The free political constitution and the ability to govern ourselves in the ordinary affairs of life, which we have inherited from England and so surprisingly developed in our own history;
"(2) The social morality of the Puritan settlers of New England, which the spirit of equality and the absence of privileged classes have enabled us to maintain;
"(3) The economic well-being of the mass of the community, which affords our working classes a degree of comfort distinguishing them sharply from the artisans and peasants of Europe;
"(4) Certain social habits which are distinctively American or are, at least, present in greater degree among our people than elsewhere in the world. Such are love of law and order, ready acquiescence in the will of the majority, a generally humane spirit, displaying itself in respect for women and care for children and helpless persons, a willingness to help others, a sense of humor, a good nature and a kindly manner, a national patriotism, and confidence in the future of the country.
"All these are desirable traits; and as we look forward to the future of our commonwealth we should wish to see them preserved, and should deprecate influences tending to destroy the conditions under which they exist. Any such phenomenon as immigration, exerting wide and lasting influence, should be examined with greatcare to see what its effect on these things will be."[79]
Protestant Religion Vital
We should add to this thoughtful statement a clause concerning religion. A vital thing to be maintained and extended is the Protestant faith which formed the basis of our colonial and national life. No part of the subject should receive more careful scrutiny than the effect of immigration upon Protestant America. Whatever would make this country less distinctively Protestant in religion tends to destroy all the other social and civil characteristics which, it is well said, we wish to preserve.
American Life Changing
When immigration began in the early years of the nineteenth century, the American people possessed a distinctive life and character of their own, differing in many respects from that of any other people. The easy amalgamation of the races that formed the colonial stock—English, Huguenot, Scotch, Dutch—had produced an American stock distinct from any in the Old World. The nation was practically homogeneous, and its social, religious, and political ideals and aims were distinct. That great changes have taken place in the past century no one will deny. The material expansion and development have not been more marked than the changes social and religious.