couplePhotograph by HineSlovak Woman and Jewish Man, Ellis Island
Photograph by HineSlovak Woman and Jewish Man, Ellis Island
Photograph by Hine
Slovak Woman and Jewish Man, Ellis Island
sweatCourtesy of The SurveyJewish Girl in a Chicago Sweat-Shop
Courtesy of The SurveyJewish Girl in a Chicago Sweat-Shop
Courtesy of The Survey
Jewish Girl in a Chicago Sweat-Shop
The Jewish leaders admit much truth in the impeachment. One accounts for the bad reputation of his race in the legal profession by pointing out that they entered the tricky branches of it, viz., commercial law and criminal law. Says a high minded lawyer: "If the average American entered law as we have to, without money, connections or adequate professional education, he would be a shyster too." Another observes that the sharp practice of the Russo-Jewish lawyer belongs to the earlier part of his career when he must succeed or starve. As he prospers his sense of responsibility grows. For example, some years ago the Bar Association of New York opposed the promotion of a certain Hebrew lawyer to the bench on the ground of his unprofessionalpractices. But this same lawyer made one of the best judges the city ever had, and when he retired he was banqueted by the Association.
The truth seems to be that the lower class of Jews of eastern Europe reach here moral cripples, their souls warped and dwarfed by iron circumstance. The experience of Russian repression has made them haters of government and corrupters of the police. Life amid a bigoted and hostile population has left them aloof and thick-skinned. A tribal spirit intensified by social isolation prompts them to rush to the rescue of the caught rascal of their own race. Pent within the Talmud and the Pale of Settlement, their interests have become few, and many of them have developed a monstrous and repulsive love of gain. When now, they use their Old-World shove and wile and lie in a society like ours, as unprotected as a snail out of its shell, they rapidly push up into a position of prosperous parasitism, leaving scorn and curses in their wake.
Gradually, however, it dawns upon this twisted soul that here there is no need to be weazel or hedgehog. He finds himself in a new game, the rules of which are made byallthe players. He himself is a part of the state that is weakened by his law-breaking, a member of the profession that is degraded by his sharp practices. So smirk and cringe and trick presently fall away from him, and he stands erect. This is why, in the same profession at the same time, those most active inbreaking down standards are Jews and those most active in raising standards are Jews—of an earlier coming or a later generation. "On the average," says a Jewish leader, "only the third generation feels perfectly at home in American society." This explains the frequent statement that the Jews are "the limit"—among the worst of the worst and among the best of the best.
The Hebrew immigrants usually commit their crimes for gain; and among gainful crimes they lean to gambling, larceny, and the receiving of stolen goods rather than to the more daring crimes of robbery and burglary. The fewness of the Hebrews in prison has been used to spread the impression that they are uncommonly law-abiding. The fact is it is harder to catch and convict criminals of cunning than criminals of violence. The chief of police of any large city will bear emphatic testimony as to the trouble Hebrew law-breakers cause him. Most alarming is the great increase of criminality among Jewish young men and the growth of prostitution among Jewish girls. Says a Jewish ex-assistant attorney-general of the United States in an address before the B'nai B'rith: "Suddenly we find appearing in the life of the large cities the scarlet woman of Jewish birth." "In the women's night court of New York City and on gilded Broadway the majority of street walkers bear Jewish names." "This sudden break in Jewish morality was notnatural. It was a product of cold, calculating, mercenary methods, devised and handled by men of Jewish birth." Says the president of the Conference of American Rabbis: "The Jewish world has been stirred from center to circumference by the recent disclosures of the part Jews have played in the pursuance of the white slave traffic." On May 14, 1911, a Yiddish paper in New York said, editorially:
"It is almost impossible to comprehend the indifference with which the large New York Jewish population hears and reads, day after day, about the thefts and murders that are perpetrated every day by Jewish gangs—real bands of robbers—and no one raises a voice of protest, and no demand is made for the protection of the reputation of the Jews of America and for the life and property of the Jewish citizens."
"A few years ago when Commissioner Bingham came out with a statement about Jewish thieves, the Jews raised a cry of protest that reached the heavens. The main cry was that Bingham exaggerated and overestimated the number of Jewish criminals. But when we hear of the murders, hold-ups and burglaries committed in the Jewish section by Jewish criminals, we must, with heartache, justify Mr. Bingham."
Two weeks later the same paper said: "How much more will Jewish hearts bleed when the English press comes out with descriptions of gambling houses packed with Jewish gamblers, of the blind cigar stores where Jewish thievesand murderers are reared, of the gangs that work systematically and fasten like vampires upon the peaceable Jewish population, and of all the other nests of theft, robbery, murder, and lawlessness that have multiplied in our midst."
This startling growth reflects the moral crisis through which many immigrants are passing. Enveloped in the husks of medievalism, the religion of many a Jew perishes in the American environment. The immigrant who loses his religion is worse than the religionless American because his early standards are dropped along with his faith. With his clear brain sharpened in the American school, the egoistic, conscienceless young Jew constitutes a menace. As a Jewish labor leader said to me, "the non-morality of the young Jewish business men is fearful. Socialism inspires an ethics in the heart of the Jewish workingman, but there are many without either the old religion or the new. I am aghast at the consciencelessness of theLuft-proletariatwithout feeling for place, community or nationality."
If the Hebrews are a race certainly one of their traits isintellectuality. In Boston the milk station nurse gets far more result from her explanations to Jewish mothers than from her talks to Irish or Italian mothers. The Jewish parent, however grasping, rarely exploits his children, for he appreciates how schooling will add to theirearning capacity. The young Jews have the foresight to avoid "blind alley" occupations. Between the years of fourteen and seventeen the Irish and Italian boys earn more than the Jewish lads; but after eighteen the Jewish boys will be earning more, for they have selected occupations in which you can work up. The Jew is the easiest man to sell life insurance to, for he catches the idea sooner than any other immigrant. As philanthropist he is the first to appreciate scientific charity. As voter he is the first to repudiate the political leader and rise to a broad outlook. As exploited worker he is the first to find his way to a theory of his hard lot, viz., capitalism. As employer he is quick to respond to the idea of "welfare work." The Jewish patrons of the libraries welcome guidance in their reading and they want always the best; in fiction, Dickens, Tolstoi, Zola; in philosophy, Darwin, Spencer, Haeckel. No other readers are so ready to tackle the heavy-weights in economics and sociology.
From many school principals comes the observation that their Jewish pupils are either very bright or distinctly dull. Among the Russo-Jewish children many fall behind but some distinguish themselves in their studies. The proportion of backward pupils is about the average for school children of non-English-speaking parentage; but the brilliant pupils indicate the presence in Hebrew immigration of a gifted element which scarcely shows itself in other streams of immigration. Teachers report that their Jewish pupils"seem to have hungry minds." They "grasp information as they do everything else, recognizing it as the requisite for success." Says a principal: "Their progress in studies is simply another manifestation of the acquisitiveness of the race." Another thinks their school successes are won more by intense application than by natural superiority, and judges his Irish pupils would do still better if only they would work as many hours.
The Jewish gift for mathematics and chess is well known. They have great imagination, but it is the "combinative" imagination rather than the free poetic fancy of the Celt. They analyze out the factors of a process and mentally put them together in new ways. Their talent for anticipating the course of the market, making fresh combinations in business, diagnosing diseases, and suggesting scientific hypotheses is not questioned. On the other hand, an eminent savant thinks the best Jewish minds are not strong in generalization and deems them clever, acute and industrious rather than able in the highest sense. On the whole, the Russo-Jewish immigration is richer in gray matter than any other recent stream, and it may be richer than any large inflow since the colonial era.
Perhapsabstractnessis another trait of the Jewish mind. To the Hebrew things present themselves not softened by an atmosphere of sentiment, but with the sharp outlines of that desert landscape in which his ancestors wandered.As farmer he is slovenly and does not root in the soil like the German. As poet he shows little feeling for nature. Unlike the German artisan who becomes fond of what he creates, the Jew does not love the concrete for its own sake. What he cares for is thevaluein it. Hence he is rarely a good artisan, and perhaps the reason why he makes his craft a mere stepping-stone to business is that he does not relish his work. The Jew shines in literature, music and acting—the arts of expression—but not often is he an artist in the manipulation of materials. In theology, law and diplomacy—which involve the abstract—the Jewish mind has distinguished itself more than in technology or the study of nature.
The Jew haslittle feeling for the particular. He cares little for pets. He loves man rather than men, and from Isaiah to Karl Marx he holds the record in projects of social amelioration. The Jew loves without romance and fights without hatred. He is loyal to his purposes rather than to persons. He finds general principles for whatever he wants to do. As circumstances change he will make up with his worst enemy or part company with his closest ally. Hence his wonderful adaptability. Flexible and rational the Jewish mind cannot be bound by conventions. The good will of a Southern gentleman takes set forms such as courtesy and attentions, while the kindly Jew is ready with any form of help that may be needed. So the South looked askance atthe Jews as "no gentlemen." Nor have the Irish with their strong personal loyalty or hostility liked the Jews. On the other hand the Yankees have for the Jews a cousinly feeling. Puritanism was a kind of Hebraism and throve most in the parts of England where, centuries before, the Jews had been thickest. With his rationalism, his shrewdness, his inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness, the Yankee can meet the Jew on his own ground.
runnerJewish Runner Soliciting Immigrants for the Steamship Company
Jewish Runner Soliciting Immigrants for the Steamship Company
Jewish Runner Soliciting Immigrants for the Steamship Company
Like all races that survive the sepsis of civilization, the Hebrews show greattenacity of purpose. Their constancy has worn out their persecutors and won them the epithet of "stiff-necked." In their religious ideas our Jewish immigrants are so stubborn that the Protestant churches despair of making proselytes among them. The sky-rocket careers leading from the peddler's pack to the banker's desk or the professor's chair testify to rare singleness of purpose. Whatever his goal—money, scholarship, or recognition—the true Israelite never loses sight of it, cannot be distracted, presses steadily on, and in the end masters circumstance instead of being dominated by it. As strikers the Jewish wage earners will starve rather than yield. The Jewish reader in the libraries sticks indomitably to the course of reading he has entered on. No other policy holder is so reliable as the Jew in keeping up his premiums. The Jewish canvasser, bill collector, insurance solicitor, or commercial traveler takes no rebuff, returns brazenlyagain and again, and will risk being kicked down stairs rather than lose his man. During the Civil War General Grant wrote to the war department regarding the Jewish cotton traders who pressed into the South with the northern armies: "I have instructed the commanding officer to refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently had them expelled from the department, but they come in with their carpet sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it." Charity agents say that although their Hebrew cases are few, they cost them more than other cases in the end because of the unblushing persistence of the applicant. Some chiefs of police will not tolerate the Hebrew prostitute in their city because they find it impossible to subject her to any regulations.
In New York the line is drawn against the Jews in hotels, resorts, clubs, and private schools, and constantly this line hardens and extends. They cry "Bigotry" but bigotry has little or nothing to do with it. What is disliked in the Jews is not their religion but certain ways and manners. Moreover, the Gentile resents being obliged to engage in a humiliating and undignified scramble in order to keep his trade or his clients against the Jewish invader. The line is not yet rigid, for the genial editor ofVorwaerts, Mr. Abram Cahan, tells me that he and his literary brethren from the Pale have never encountered Anti-Semitismin the Americans they meet. Not the socialist Jews but the vulgar upstart parvenus are made to feel the discrimination.
This cruel prejudice—for all lump condemnations are cruel—is no importation, no hang-over from the past. It appears to spring out of contemporary experience and is invading circle after circle of broad-minded. People who give their lives to befriending immigrants shake their heads over the Galician Hebrews. It is astonishing how much of the sympathy that twenty years ago went out to the fugitives from Russian massacres has turned sour. Through fear of retaliation little criticism gets into print; in the open the Philo-semites have it all their way. The situation is: Honey above, gall beneath. If the Czar, by keeping up the pressure which has already rid him of two million undesired subjects, should succeed in driving the bulk of his six million Jews to the United States, we shall see the rise of a Jewish question here, perhaps riots and anti-Jewish legislation. No doubt thirty or forty thousand Hebrews from eastern Europe might be absorbed by this country each year without any marked growth of race prejudice; but when they come in two or three or even four times as fast, the lump outgrows the leaven, and there will be trouble.
America is probably the strongest solvent Jewish separatism has ever encountered. It is not only that here the Jew finds himself a free man and a citizen. That has occurred before, withoutcausing the Jew to merge into the general population. It is that here more than anywhere else in the worldthe future is expected to be in all respects better than the past. No civilized people ever so belittled the past in the face of the future as we do. This is why tradition withers and dies in our air; and the dogma that the Jews are a "peculiar people" and must shun intermarriage with the Gentiles is only a tradition. The Jewish dietary laws are rapidly going. In New York only one-fourth of the two hundred thousand Jewish workmen keep their Sabbath and only one-fifth of the Jews belong to the synagogue. The neglect of the synagogue is as marked as the falling away of non-Jews from the church. Mixed marriages, although by no means numerous in the centers, are on the increase, and in 1909 the Central Conference of Jewish Rabbis resolved that such marriages "are contrary to the tradition of the Jewish religion and should therefore be discouraged by the American Rabbinate." Certainly every mixed marriage is, as one rabbi puts it, "a nail in the coffin of Judaism," and free mixing would in time end the Jews as a distinct ethnic strain.
The "hard shell" leaders are urging the Jews in America to cherish their distinctive traditions and to refrain from mingling their blood with Gentiles. But the liberal and radical leaders insist that in this new, ultra-modern environment nothing is gained by holding the Jews within the wall of Orthodox Judaism. As a prominent Hebrewlabor leader said to me: "By blending with the American the Jew will gain in physique, and this with its attendant participation in normal labor, sports, athletics, outdoor life, and the like, will lessen the hyper-sensibility and the sensuality of the Jew and make him less vain, unscrupulous and pleasure-loving."
It is too soon yet to foretell whether or not this vast and growing body of Jews from eastern Europe is to melt and disappear in the American population just as numbers of Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French Jews in our early days became blent with the rest of the people. In any case the immigrant Jews are being assimilated outwardly. The long coat, side curls, beard and fringes, the "Wandering Jew" figure, the furtive manner, the stoop, the hunted look, and the martyr air disappear as if by magic after a brief taste of American life. It would seem as if the experience of Russia and America in assimilating the Jews is happily illustrated by the old story of the rivalry of the wind and the sun in trying to strip the traveler of his cloak.
The immigration question is a live wire and whoever handles it may look for tingling surprises. One is a bit startled on realizing that through the "Bravas" from the Cape Verde Islands we are getting a new dash of black from the Senegambian tar-brush. How few are aware that a third of Sicily, from which so many immigrants come, is chiefly Saracen in stock, so that the heredity of the Bedouin tribes of Mohamet's time is to be blent with the heredity of our pioneering breed! Who reflects that, with Chinese and Japanese, Finns and Magyars, Bulgars and Turks, about a half a million more or less Mongolian in blood have cast in their lot with us and will leave their race stamp upon the American people of the future?
Our 130,000 immigrants from Finland should be counted to the Finno-Tartar branch of the Mongolian race, although since the dawn of history the western Finns have intermingled with the Swedes until their blondness and cast of countenance bespeak the North European. Nevertheless, here and there among the Finns one noticesthat inward and downward slant of the eyes which proclaims the Asiatic.
Ever since the heavy paw of the Russian bear descended on Finland, these people have been seeping into the United States. They come for liberty's sake, bring their families and expect to remain. Lovers of wood and water, they keep to the North and the Northwest and are willing to tackle the roughest land in order to become independent. As farmers they are thrifty but, if left to themselves, not particularly skillful or progressive. Among them survive Old-World ways, such as reaping by handfuls with a sickle and hauling hay from the field on a sleigh. With a sharp ax in his hand the Finn turns artist and will hew out a log house so beautiful as to put an American pioneer to the blush. One of the first things he builds is an air-tight bath-house in which he may steam himself by dashing water on hot stones.
Practically all these immigrants are literate and they are eager patrons of night schools. In acquiring English they are rather slow. Their native ability is good, but is not considered to be equal to that of the Swedes. They are quiet and law-abiding, but litigious. With his grim intensity of character the Finn cannot bear to compromise his wrongs, but insists on all he thinks is due him. It is needless to add that a man with so much iron in his blood is honest.
Like the drunken Magyar or Lithuanian the "loaded" Finn is a terrible fellow. Liquor seems to let loose in him fell and destructive impulseswhich had been held in the leash by moral ideas. The immigrants realize their danger and the total abstinence movement is very strong amongst them. A rival current is Socialism for, strange to say, thousands of Finns, since coming to this country, have utterly lost faith in the existing social order. The mining company praises the "temperance" Finns but makes haste to get rid of the Socialists, although they are earnest people of a peaceable temper.
Such movements reveal a thinking mood. Thanks to the long struggle with Russia, the Finnish mind is awake and open to ideas. Our Finns have a real thirst for education and, besides supporting the best of public schools, they maintain near Duluth a college of their own of 1,200 students. In all their discussions the women take an equal share with the men and, when the Northwest adopts equal suffrage, the wives of the Finns will be among the first to vote. The Finns are prompt to acquire citizenship and they do not abuse the ballot. They will not vote for a fellow countryman unless he is the fittest candidate for the office.
Their civic attitude is revealed by an incident that occurred at the outbreak of the Spanish-American war. A community of agricultural Finns near Carlton, Minnesota, who had settled there in the eighties, came together after the call for volunteers and considered what they ought to do. After deliberation they concluded that in token of their gratitude for their good fortuneunder the stars and stripes they ought to send one of their number to the war. So they picked out as their representative a stalwart, comely farm lad of twenty-three and he served through the Cuban campaign as Finnish champion of American institutions!
magyarMagyar
Magyar
Magyar
croatianCroatian
Croatian
Croatian
roumanianRoumanian
Roumanian
Roumanian
In the school of Western civilization the Finns and the Magyars sit nearer the front than any other people of Mongol speech and blood. In progressiveness the quarter of a million Magyars in our midst are as American as any immigrants we receive. A thousand years ago the Magyars, invading from Asia, conquered the Slavs in Hungary and settled down as a dominant race. Although a minority in the land, they have remained masters and rulers. Hence the Magyar immigrant, however poverty-pinched, feels the constant prick of the spur of race pride. His sense of honor is high. He will not seek charity unless he really needs it. In a Magyar quarter squalor and degeneration are not to be seen. The grass and flowers about the cottages, the clean yard and the clean children proclaim the presence of a race that cannot bear to be looked down on.
While the Magyars have been political and military leaders in Hungary, the masses are familiar with the struggle for existence. They are exploited in many ways by the Jews, who in Hungary have been treated more liberally than anywhere else in Europe. It is not surprising, then,that few immigrants land here with so little money as the Magyars. Lacking the means to acquire land, they are little known in agriculture. They go straight into the industries and four-fifths of them are to be found in the workplaces of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and New Jersey. They constitute a floating labor supply shifting constantly back and forth between Fiume and New York. In recent years four Magyars have departed for every five that arrived.
Their illiteracy is 11.4 per cent., a better showing than is made by any immigrants from eastern or southern Europe, save their cousins the Finns. They bring more industrial skill than the average Slav and their earning power is greater than that of most of the Slavic nationalities. They are loth to remain renters and in their endeavor to acquire a home they will assume burdens heavier than they can carry. Their race pride plays into the hands of the hurry-up American bosses with the result that, more than other immigrants, the Magyars injure themselves by overwork.
In the Magyar stream the men are nearly three times as numerous as the women and two out of five of the men have left wives in the old country. This means boarding-house life, shocking congestion and a rich harvest for saloon and bawdy house. The Pittsburgh Magyar who earns $1.80 a day will spend ten cents of it for lodging, forty cents for food, and thirty cents for beer. The Magyars are a wine-drinking people and the immigrants come from the farms and know nothingof the corrosion of cities. Being high-spirited, however, they want to become American quickly, with the result that often they acquire our vices before they acquire our virtues. In the mill towns they learn to guzzle beer, carouse and leave their earnings with the caterers to appetite.
Their crime record is bad. No alien is more dreaded by the police than a vengeful or drink-maddened Magyar. The proportion of alien Magyar prisoners who have been committed for murder is 35.6 per cent., higher than of any other nationality save the Russians. Their hot-headed and quarrelsome disposition causes personal violence to bulk very large in their crime. In offenses against chastity their showing is bad, but their bent for gainful crime is slight.
Most Magyars come to America with the expectation of returning eventually to Hungary to live. For this reason few have acquired citizenship and scarcely any immigrants from southeastern Europe show less interest in the ballot. After a trip or two home and a vain effort to settle down to life in the old country, many return to America reconciled, to the prospect of ending their days here.
Mongrelism and social decay have hurt the southwest of Europe even more than the Turk has hurt the southeast. This is why the 60,000 Portuguese in the United States are, in point of culture, behind even the Servians and the Macedonians.In the growing army of foreign born illiterates they constitute the van. Not even the Turks, Syrians or East Indians can vie with them. On arrival not a third are able to read and write. As we find them in the cotton mills 55 per cent. of them cannot speak English. Even after ten years or more in our midst two Portuguese out of five cannot manage the speech of the country.
There are two centers of Portuguese distribution—southeastern New England and central California. California has 23,000 Portuguese immigrants, Massachusetts 26,000, Rhode Island 6,000. In Boston are 1,225, in Cambridge 2,000, in Providence 2,200, in Lowell 2,200, in New Bedford 4,000, in Fall River 14,000. We understand why Portuguese should settle in California but what brings these olive-skinned people to chilly New England? The answer takes us into the realm of Chance. In the beginning of a stream of immigration there is often romance. Then, if ever, accident counts and the venturesome individual. Just as a fallen tree on the Continental Divide may turn certain snow waters from the Pacific to the Gulf, so a practice of New Bedford whalers a lifetime ago caused the crowded Azores to overflow into Massachusetts instead of Brazil. In the old days the whalers, after a summer cruise, touched at the Azores and took on each from 25 to 35 natives. When after two or three years of whaling they returned to New Bedford, some of these Azoreans remained and a settlement grewup. To-day their quarter of New Bedford, known as "Fayal," is very prosperous.
celebratingCourtesy of The SurveyCroatians Celebrating their Going Home to the "Old Country"
Courtesy of The SurveyCroatians Celebrating their Going Home to the "Old Country"
Courtesy of The Survey
Croatians Celebrating their Going Home to the "Old Country"
galaRoumanian Couple in Gala Attire, Youngstown, O.
Roumanian Couple in Gala Attire, Youngstown, O.
Roumanian Couple in Gala Attire, Youngstown, O.
All down Cape Cod these fishermen have well nigh replaced the sea-faring Yankees. Provincetown, the spot where the Pilgrims first landed and which was settled by the purest English, seems to-day a South European town. Handsome dark-skinned Azoreans man the fishing boats, Correa, Silva, Cabral, and Manta are the names on the shops and the Roman Catholics outnumber those of any other denomination.
When the bottom fell out of whaling the New Bedford Portuguese went into the cotton mills and their countrymen began coming in larger numbers. Besides the "White Portuguese" have come in multitudes of "Black Portuguese" from the Cape Verde islands. Three thousand of them work during the season in the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts and all other pickers flee before them. They are obviously negroid, lack foresight and are so stupid they cannot follow a straight line.
The real Portuguese immigrate in families and show very little money on landing. At home 70 per cent. of them were farmers or farm laborers. They know sea and soil but bring no industrial skill. If they cannot farm or fish they become day laborers, mill hands, dockers, teamsters, draymen, stationary engineers or firemen. Many of their women are in the needle trades.
In the mills the Portuguese do not shine. The men earn $8.00 a week, while the rest of the foreignborn average $12.00. Their sons and daughters earn $9.50, whereas the second generation of other immigrants average $14.00. They put wife and daughters into the mill and stay out of labor unions. In eight cases out of nine they sleep three or more in a room. In Lowell, according to the government investigator, "The standard of living of the Portuguese, as judged by the number of persons per apartment, room and sleeping room, is much lower than that of any other race."
In Boston, "Among the Portuguese poverty is greater and more hopeless than it is among the Jews and Italians, although there are no Portuguese in the almshouses. Few of the Portuguese are really well to do while many are partially dependent because the labor of the women, who are often obliged to support the family, is too unremunerative to ensure their independence. Portuguese women who have shown their low moral sense by rearing a family of fatherless children exhibit their courage and industry by sewing early and late to gain a meager living for their little ones."
Although unskilled, ignorant and segregated, the Portuguese commit very little crime. Nevertheless, their moral standard is in some respects exceedingly low. Says Dr. Bushee: "The idea of family morality among them is almost primitive, resembling that of the negroes of the South. Not only are elopements made and repaid in kind without involving further complications, but also what anthropologists call 'sexual hospitality' isnot unknown among the Portuguese." They "are not free from drunkenness and thieving, but these faults are more carefully concealed among them and fewer arrests result than would be the case with other nationalities. Many of the Portuguese men are idle and thriftless, and some of the women are suspected of having been public women in the Azore Islands from which they come."
In California the Portuguese live like the Italians, but while the Italians coöperate in leasing land, the Portuguese are so individualistic that they seldom rent or own land in partnership. This has handicapped them in agricultural competition with the Italians and the Japanese.
Their interest in education is of the feeblest. In the mill towns the percentage of Portuguese children at home is much larger than that of the English; although in this respect the showing of the Fall River Poles is much worse. No other mill people have so large a proportion of their children in the primary grades. The retardation of Portuguese school children is high. In California their children are taken out of school early and the few who go on are sent to "business college" rather than to high school.
No immigrants care so little for citizenship as the Portuguese. Of the men whose term of residence entitles them to claim citizenship only 3.2 per cent. have become naturalized. At New Bedford only one in twenty entitled to citizenship has sought it; whereas, of the other foreign born,over half have taken steps to gain citizenship. The Portuguese farmers of California, although prosperous, care nothing for public affairs and not half of them take a newspaper. They are interested only in making money, saving, and buying land.
Owing to their extreme clannishness assimilation is slow. In the city they live in a quarter by themselves; in the country they form a colony. They have their church life apart and their societies center about their church. Although the thriving farmers are improving their housing and standard of living, they are "inclined to be clannish, partly because Americans do not care for their society." The chief agents of assimilation are the children. Having mingled with other children in the public schools, the young people are taken into fraternal orders and share the social life of the community. Moreover, the parents unconsciously raise their standard of living through their efforts to gratify the wants inspired in their children by contact with schoolmates coming from better homes. If the second generation are soon to be segregated in parochial schools, as are the children of the Poles and the French Canadians, this happy assimilation of the Portuguese through their children will be checked.
Practically all our 150,000 Greeks have joined us in the course of a decade and a half. The immigrantsare mostly young men and the proportion of females is negligible. Fugitives from oppression always bring their families; so that this stream almost without women is the clearest proof that the immigration from Hellas is purely economic. The Hellenic Government is democratic and popular, military service is slight and there is no religious or political oppression. What has happened is that the huge American orb has swum within the ken of a little people about as numerous as the population of New Jersey and the larger mass is exerting its solar attraction. The peasant living on greens boiled in olive oil, who eats meat three times a year and keeps without noticing it the 150 fasting days in the Greek calendar, has sniffed the flesh pots of America. Hence a wild-fire exodus which has devastated whole villages and threatens to deplete the labor force of the kingdom.
Says the emigrant when questioned as to his motive: "It is hard to make a living here. America is rich, I can make more money there. It is the money." "Money" is the keynote of Greek immigration. Flashy strangers have gone about talking with the peasant in his furrow and the shepherd on the hillside, exciting their imagination as to the wonders of America and smoothing out the difficulties in the way of migrating. In the earlier days of the movement one man made $50,000 a year from his network of agencies selling tickets and advancing passage money on a mortgage. The letter to thehome folks, written by the Greek who has found footing in Lowell or Chicago and which is read by or to every one in the village, has been seized upon by money-lenders and they have lost no opportunity to encourage both the writing and the wide circulation of such epistles. The result is that, in the words of Professor Fairchild the closest student of this immigration, "The whole Greek world may be said to be in a fever of emigration. From the highlands and the lowlands of the Morea, from Attica, Thessaly and Euboea, from Macedonia, Asia Minor and the Islands, the strong young men with one accord are severing home ties, leaving behind wives and sweethearts and thronging to the shores of America in search of opportunity and fortune." "America is a household word in almost every Greek family." "Greek immigrants know to just what place in the United States they are going and have a very definite idea of what work they are going to do."
Although there are 10,000 Greek mill hands in Lowell, there is a strong tendency for the Greeks in America to take to certain lines of business, such as candy-kitchens and confectionery stores, ice-cream parlors, fruit carts, stands and stores, florist shops and boot-blacking establishments. This is due to the fact that this catering to the minor wants of the public admits of being started on the curb with little capital and no experience. Once his foot is on the first rung, the saving and commercial-minded Greek climbs. From curb to stand, from stand to store, from little store to bigstore, to the chain of stores, and to branch stores in other cities—such are the stages in his upward path. As the Greeks prosper, they do not venture out into untried lines, but scatter into the smaller cities and towns in order to follow there the few businesses in which they have become expert.
apronMagyar Peasant WomanNote own embroidery on apron: "If I am pure and good, I expect to be honored"
Magyar Peasant WomanNote own embroidery on apron: "If I am pure and good, I expect to be honored"
Magyar Peasant Woman
Note own embroidery on apron: "If I am pure and good, I expect to be honored"
molokanMolokan from RussiaFrom a semi-wild tribe, members of which eat no meat
Molokan from RussiaFrom a semi-wild tribe, members of which eat no meat
Molokan from RussiaFrom a semi-wild tribe, members of which eat no meat
If the immigration from Hellas keeps up, in twenty years the Greeks will own the candy trade of the country, the soda fountains and perhaps the fruit business. Born epicures and cooks the Greeks are going into the catering of food. In Atlanta they have 35 restaurants, in St. Louis 26, in Pittsburgh 25, in Birmingham 12 hotels and 14 restaurants.
Although Greeks are very rarely farmers, we hear of them as fruit raisers in California, miners in Utah, laborers on the railroads and fishers on both our coasts. In the cotton mills the Greeks are on a level with the more backward nationalities. They show little mechanical ability and few have reached responsible posts. They are sober and amenable to discipline, but some employers find them too excitable and unsteady to be good workers.
The ugliest thistle patch we owe to Old-World seed is the serfdom of thousands of Greek boys in the shoe-shining parlors that have sprung up everywhere. In some parts of Greece the peasant sets his children early to work in order that their earnings may leave him free to loaf the livelong day in a coffee-house. Upon them, too, he saddles the burden of providing dowries fortheir sisters. Accordingly, in certain districts, the poor send away their boys to the cities of Greece and Turkey, where they are hired out to peddlers, grocers and restaurant keepers, who treat them badly and work them unconscionably long hours. From such parents the Greek in America has no difficulty in recruiting boys whom he exploits under conditions that savor of slavery.
In thousands of Greek shoe-shining shops are working bound boys who are miserably fed and lodged by their masters, paid $3.00 or $4.00 a week and required to turn over all tips. Often the tips alone cover the boy's wages and keep, so that his labor costs the master nothing. Seeing that from each boy thepadronemakes from $100 to $200 a year, a chain of such establishments yields him a princely income. No wonder the negro bootblack and the Italian bootblack have been forced to the wall.
The bound boys are on duty 15 or 16 hours a day and work every day in the year. They get in their eating and sleeping as best they can. They know no recreation. Late at night, completely exhausted, they drop with their clothes on into a bed that must suffice for four or five. Boys who have been in a city several years may learn nothing of it save the shop, their living quarters and the streets between. Since thepadrone'sgame is to keep his boys dumb and blind, they are not allowed to talk freely with Greek customers. The moment a customer talks with a boy, "trusties"crowd round to listen. No truth can be gotten from the boys, concerning their age, their work or their pay. To avoid the arm of the truant officer, no Greek bound boy confesses to less than seventeen years. They are ignorant of the rights and rewards of labor in this country and are told that, if they leave their work, they will be arrested. Even their letters home are read and censored.
The effects of this servitude on the boys are shocking. They miss all schooling and years may elapse before they get their eyes open. The study of English is the first step towards emancipation; but where work is constant they miss even this chance and young men will be found who have been shining shoes for years and feel no ambition for anything else. The physical ravages of such work and confinement are appalling. In their memorial to the Immigration Commission the Greek physicians of Chicago say:
"Young immigrants laboring in shoeshining places for a period of upwards of two years become afflicted with chronic gastritis and hepatitis. These diseases undermine their constitutions, so that if they continue longer at the same work they become afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis. Being too ignorant to take precautionary measures, the disease is communicated to others by contagion."
"Young immigrants laboring in shoeshining places for a period of upwards of two years become afflicted with chronic gastritis and hepatitis. These diseases undermine their constitutions, so that if they continue longer at the same work they become afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis. Being too ignorant to take precautionary measures, the disease is communicated to others by contagion."
They go on to ask the Government not to allow such bound boys to land.
Through this peep hole we glimpse one secret of the immigrant's sky-rocket commercial rise.Behold Stephanos, who landed ten years ago without a drachma and now draws a cool thousand a month from his business and is one of our solid men! "Wonderful!" exclaims the innocent American. "What stuff there must be in him! Shows, too, that the country is still full of good chances." The fact is the worthy Stephanos lolls on the backs of a hundred unseen bootblacks who are being ruined that he may prosper. When one considers how mercilessly the immigrant landlord, banker, saloon keeper, contractor or employment agent hoodwinks and fleeces his helpless fellow countrymen, certain of the "successes" one hears of do not seem so remarkable after all.
One hundred thousand immigrants from Asiatic Turkey introduce us to certain very marked differences between the European civilization and the Asiatic. In general, these Syrians, Armenians, Arabs and Turks eschew alcohol, shun violence and give little trouble to the police. They are thrifty, acquisitive and self supporting. Their women folk are hedged and virtuous. Their native intelligence is beyond question, they respect learning and they appreciate educational opportunities for their children.
On the other hand, they tend to crowd, their standards of cleanliness are low and they are greatly afflicted withtrachoma, an excludable eye disease. Their narrow range of interests throws out in ugly relief their lust of gain, especially gainwithout sweat. The Oriental attitude toward females shows itself in a great difference between the sexes in illiteracy, and in the betrothal of young girls to mature men whom they scarcely know. These people love trade, particularly the individual bargain, which offers scope for what is amiably called "a contest of wits" but is really the ensnaring of the unsuspecting by the spider type. At a time when our retail commerce has happily come to the "one-price" system, the lustrous-eyed peddlers from the Levant bring in again the odious haggling trade with its deceit and trickery.