^M ?m: .H*ii;* r ,.,. . ,,¦;;>-•.*;¦>;';¦-'. - , .¦-¦J i^"*"- kJ/v; i.t ¦'/":' s;:;* *^- i.i: W- I :*:»:->'* ? «¦ %:*,:ir- :^ljl ...iJiffi YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE ITALIAN IN AMERICA BY ELIOT LORD, A.M. Special Agent U. S. Tenth Census : Social Statistics JOHN J. D. TRENOR Chairman of Immigration Committee, National Board of Trade, Annual Session, 1904 SAMUEL J. BARROWS Secretary of the Prison Association of New York NEW YORK B. F. BUCK & COMPANY 160 FIFTH AVENUE 1905 COPTHIGHT, 191.1.',, BT BENJ. F. BUCK AU riflht* raervtd ^05 Press of J. t Little * Co. Astor Place, New York y •^ 'fe PREFACE. The design of " The ItaUan in America " is to present clearly the contribution of Italy to American development and citizenship. The work is one of a series reviewing the mflux of the various racial strains and nationalities that are making up the composite American. The authors have in view simply the recital of facts for impartial consideration, for no concern of this country is more momentous and urgent than the national dealing with the problems of immi gration, congestion, distribution and education for American standards of living and citizenship. To exclude what is essentially bad or unfusible from any source — to welcome and utilize what is essentially good and helpful, even if yet im perfectly developed, is in the judgment of the authors the true American policy. CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Flow of Emigration Of Present National Concern— Notable Increase— Record of Influx and Efflux — Population Born in Italy — Distribution of Influx — Proportion of Males to Females — ^Age of Emigrants — Com puted Productive Value — Certificate of Inspector of Royal Emigration Department — ^Alleged Undesirability of Southern Latin Infusion — Grounds of Prejudice — Aim of Present In quiry 1 CHAPTER U The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy Origin and Descent of Italian People — ^Influence of Old Roman Republic and Empire — ^Maintenance of Civilization — The Re naissance in Italy — " The Liberator and Teacher of Modern Europe" — Italian Impress on "Anglo-Saxon" England — Dis tinctive Indebtedness of America — The Uprising of United Italy — Progress of Unification — ^Advancement of Northern and Central Italy — Drawbacks in Southern Italy — General Industrial Development — ^Educational Undertakings — Indis putable Progress of United Italy 20 CHAPTER III The Causes and Regulation of Italian Emigration A Home-loving People — ^Main Cause of Emigration Originally— Lack of Diversification and Development of Industries — ^Land Contents PAGE Monopoly Burdens of Taxation — Financial Condition of Italy — Present Motives of Emigration — ^Depression of Im portant Agricultural Industries — Govemment Regulations Safeguarding Emigration and Colonization — Institution of Royal Enugration Department — Purpose and Operation of Amended Italian Emigration Legislation — Official Restriction of Increase of Emigration 39 CHAPTER rV Italian Settlement in American Cities First Employment at Hand — Classification of Occupations of Immigrants — Proportions of Skilled and Unskilled Labor — Drift of Italian Influx — Early Settlements — Objectionable Congestion — Improvement in Conditions of Living — ^Increase in Property Values — Extension of ItaUan Ownership and In vestments — Computation of Savings and Property Valua tion in New York and Other Cities — Social and Industrial Progress — Advances in New England and the Middle States — Comparative Exhibits in the South and West . . .61 CHAPTER V In Competition and Association Demonstrated Capacity of the Italian Immigrant under Severely Trying Conditions — Improvement of Condition of Unskilled Laborers — Workers in the Clothing Trades — Masons and Stone-cutters — ^Barbara and HairJrossera — Carpenters and Joiners — Sculptors, Painters, Musicians — Professional and Business Men 93 Contents CHAPTER VI In the Mining Fields PAGE Influx from Italy to Our Mining Fields— Effect of Introduction of Machines on Coal Mining — Competition of Lithuanians, Slovaks and Poles — Only a Small Fraction Italian— -Main Objections to Employment of Italians in Coal Mines — ^Labor and Social Conditions in Mining Fields West of the Missis sippi — Italian Miners in Indian Territory, Texas and Colo rado 99 CHAPTER VII On Farm and Plantation Apparent Neglect of Openings for Work and Settlement in Agri cultural Districts — Causes of Adhesion to Cities and Towns — Opportunities in American Market Gardening — Successful Market Gardening by Italians Throughout the United States — Cultivation of Small Fruits — ^Illustrative Strawberry Cul ture at Independence, Louisiana — Extension of Grape and Olive Growing — Noteworthy Italian Vineyards and Wineries — Particular Adaptability for Cotton, Rice and Sugarcane Culture — Illustrative Examples — Comparison with Negro Labor— The Demands of the South 114 CHAPTER VTII Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor Comparative Density of Population of the United States — Open ings for Profitable Employment— Urgent Call from the South for Immigration— Effect of Entry of Unskilled Labor —Decrease in Available Supply of Unskilled Laborers— Contents PAG I Apathetic Attitude of United States — Energetic Encourage ment of Immigration by the Dominion of Canada — Impera tive Needs of Our Northwestern and Southern States — Organization of Immigration and Development Associations — Efficiency and Desirability of Italian Labpf . . . 155 CHAPTER IX The Call for Better Distribution Temporary Occurrences of Congestion Xo Justification for E^x- clusion — The Undertaking of Distribution in New Zealand — Feasible Coiiperation of Our National Government — The CaU for National -Action — Error of the So-Called "Educational Test" — Suece.sHful Attraction and Utilization of Labor Mis- judffod us " Undesirable '' — Imperative Xeed of Provisions for Systematic, Comprehensive and Sustained Distribution — National Apathy Intolerable — A Forecast Which Only In credible Blundering Can Falsify 176 CHAPTER X Pauperism, Disease and Crime A Popular Fallacy — Our Restrictive Immigration Laws — Authori tative Records of Pauperism — High Average Physical Vigor of Italian Immigrants — Their Death Rate in This Country C'oniparativdy Low — Remivrkablo Immunity from Disease Outside of Congested Centres — Exceptional Powers of Re sistance and Recuperation — Comparative Criminality — The Immigrant and " Tho Slum " — Police Department Records — Crimps Attribututile to Intoxication Rare — Lack of Reliable Statistics — Crime R.ite Decreasing Both in Italy and Amer ica — Police Commissioner Mc-\doo'3 NVell-judgcd Resort . . 190 Contents CHAPTER XI Progressive Education and Assimilation Appreciation of American Institutions — Fitne8j_fpr_As8imilation — EnjtiX-iiLAnLerican Politics — Correspondence of Italian and American Political Institutions— ^Does^ Heterogeneity Inevi- i • t tably Retard Aasimilat-ioR-f — The Demonstration of Assimila- '' tion in Massachusetts and New York — ^No License to Neglect Precautions — Noteworthy Racial Characteristic of the Italian Advancing Assimilation — Dread of Alien Intermixture an Ancient Conc'St — Demonstrated Genius of Italian People — Oompet^ce _As_Agricultural Laborers — Poverty No Valid Ground for Exclusion — Intermixture Not Detrimental — Italian Capacity for Education — Extension of Reading — Cer tain Advance to Good Citizenship 221 CHAPTER Xn Privileges aad Duties of Italian-American Citizenship Alleged Lack of Identification with American Interests — Rising Appreciation of Opportunities Open to American Citizens- Privileges and Advantages of Citizenship — Obligations Rest ing on Naturalized Citizens — Fidelity to Oath of Allegiance and Integrity of Republican Institutions— Duty to Exalt Standard of Citizenship by Personal Conduct and Every In fluence at the Command of the Citizen 249 IX THE ITALIAN IN AMERICA CHAPTER I THE FLOW OF EMIGRATION It is only of late years that any study of Italian immi gration, capacity and character has become of any national concern to this country. Long ago there used to be a childish patter in our primary schools : "In 1492 Columbus crossed the ocean blue." Most of the children had in mind that Columbus was born in Italy, and in the upper schools there was some slight tracing of the opening of North America to immigrants through the guidance of the Cabots and Yerrazano. But there was little reckon ing of any contribution of living Italians to American development. Our scholars, at large, were far more at tracted by the memorials of the Old Roman Empire than by the present day problems of Italy. The uncovering of a headless and armless bust was much more interesting than the inspection of an Italian rookery. "We knew in a general way the dreary annals of Italian decadence — of the provincial and civic alienations — of the X The Italian in America regal and oligarchic impositions — of foreign invasions and internecine conflicts— of the greedy extortions of the rul ing classes and the heavy burdens of the toiling masses. We were moved to sympathy with the ardor and struggles of high spirited patriots for the redemption of their father land. Garibaldi, Cavour, Mazzini— all who shared in the labors and perils through which Italy was freed and uni fied—were honored in America perhaps more highly than in any other country in the world, outside of their native land. But we had no thought of any particular appeal of Italy to us or of her entry in force into the pressing problems of our own life and growth. Outside of the passing survey of tourists, the Italian common people were practically known to us only by the sight of a rambling organ-grinder or image-st'Uor. This travesty of the wandering minstrel of romance, twitching his plaintive monkey, and this peddler of plaster casts on a headboard, were the current expositions of Italy in this country for many years, until the common people began to come over in swarms and enlarge our familiar view of the Italian in America. There is a notable peculiarity in the flow of Italian immigration to this country. From the earliest days of the colonization of America up to less than a generation ago, the influx from Italy was barely a trickle, so incon siderable that a microscope is ;dmost needeU as portrayed The Flow of Emigration in the Census plate (No. 17) showing the proportion and advance of leading foreign born nationalities in the closing half of the last century. Only a slight advance in numbers is shown in the plates for the succeeding censuses of 1860 and 1870, though the exact amount of the Italian influx during these decades is not strictly determinable from the lack of reliable records. In 1880 an appreciable increase appears, but the ad vance was even then of comparatively inconsiderable im portance. Though it was more than tripled in the suc ceeding decade from 1880 to 1890, the Italian population in the United States by the record of the census of 1890 is given as only 182,580. The total influx up to this date can scarcely have exceeded 500,000, and the greater part of this total was composed of those making only a tran sient stay. This is plainly determined by the statistics reported by Dr. J. H. Senner, formerly United States Commissioner of Immigration, computing the total num ber of immigrants from Italy between the years 1872 and 1890 as 356,062. With any just allowance for settlement by Italians prior to 1872, it is obvious that more than half of the immigrants within the recorded period had left the United States for their own or other countries, although a progressive increase in the percentage of settlers is noted with probable certainty. The record of immigration for 1890 and subsequent years to date is more exactly traceable. 3 The Italian in America Imhiobation feom Italy to the United Statxb 1890 1S91 1892 18B3 Italy— Continental 51,799 72,704 59,100 71,145 Sicily and Sardinia 294 3,351 2,977 1,771 1894 1895 1890 1897 1888 Italy 43,967 36,961 68,060 59,431 58,613 1899 1900 1901 1908 1903 1904 Italy 77,419 100,135 135,990 178,375 230,622 193,290 This gives a total, from the census year of 1890 up to and including the census year of 1900, of 655,SS8,but this influx only increased the number of resident Italians, ac cording to the last census, to a total of 484,703 in the United States, including aU insular territorira. The aggregate increase of the influx in the four years succeeding the census year of 1890 mounted up to 738,289, but this, as above, does not represent the actual increase of resident population bom in Italy, for this total is diminished by the numbers returning annually, as well as by deaths, so that no correct estimate of the existing addition to our population through immigration from Italy is likely to exceed materially one per cent, of the present population of this country. This exhibi t compiled from official returns suffices to mark the futility of the assumption that the influx from Italy is affecting to any material extent the dominant racial character of our population. How this influx was distributed up to the close of the census year 1900 is officially determined in the record of 4 The Flow of Emigration the last census, marking the apportionment in five com prehensive divisions, and the individual states as foUows : 1900 Population born in Italy. The United States 484,207 North Atlantic Division 352,065 Maine 1,334 New Hampshire 947 Vermont ." 2,154 Massachusetts 28,785 Rhode Island 8,972 Connecticut 19,105 New York 182,248 New Jersey 41,865 Pennsylvania 66,655 South Atlantic Division 10,509 Delaware 1,122 Maryland 2,449 District of Columbia 930 Virginia 781 West Virginia 2,921 North Carolina 201 South Carolina 180 Georgia 218 Florida 1.707 North Central Division 55,085 Ohio \\,Z2\ Indiana 1'^^^ Illinois 23,523 Michigan ^'^'^^ Wisconsin 2,172 5 The Italian in America 190O. Population bora in Italy. Minnesota 2,222 Iowa 1,198 Missouri 4,345 North Dakota 700 South Dakota 360 Nebraska 752 Kansas 987 South Central Division 26,158 Kentucky 679 Tennessee 1 —22 Alabama 862 Mis.-iissippi 845 Louisiana 17,431 Texas 3,9^ Indian Territory 573 Oklahoma 28 Arkansas 576 Western Division 40.210 Montana 2,199 Wyoming 781 Colorado 6,818 New Mexico 661 Arizona 699 Utah 1 ,062 Nevada 1,296 Idaho 779 Washington 2,124 Oregon 1,014 California 22,777 From this table a regrettable lack of a better propor tioned distribution of the influx thus far is evident. 72.7 The Flow of Emigration per cent, of the Italians in this country are clustered in the North Atlantic Division, and 11.4 per cent, in the North Central Division. There is a better average dis tribution in the Western Division, containing 8.3 per cent, of the ItaHan population, though by far the greater part are settled in CaUfornia and Colorado. In the South Central Division there are 5.4 per cent., Louisiana and Texas containing by far the greater proportion of this percentage. The South Atlantic Division has thus far attracted less than a thirtieth part of the number in the North Atlantic Division, and a little more than a fiftieth part of the total of ItaHans in this country, showing a percentage of only 2.2. It is interesting to mark also that the relative contri bution of Italy to the total foreign born population of this country was less than a twentieth at the last census taking, or in exact percentage, 4.7. Although the num ber of ItaHans in the South Central Division was less than a twelfth of the number in the North Atlantic Divi sion, it is noteworthy that the comparative percentage in the former, 7.3, was almost exactly as great as the per centage in the latter division, 7.4. The tendency of the influx to cluster in cities, the more or less congested centres of population, is pronounced, and will be particularly accounted for. Of the total pop ulation born in Italy, in this country — 302,324, consti tuting 62.4 per cent., were resident in the 160 principal 7 The Italian in America cities in 1900. This is considerably less than the percent age of the Russian bom population in the same cities, 74.9, with the exception of the natives of Russian-Poland, showing only a percentage of 62.7; but it is considerably more than the average of the total foreign bom, 49.5. It is worth remarking, however, that the percentage of ItaHans attracted to the cities is almost exactly the same as that of the Irish, 62. per cent, of whom are recorded as residing in these 160 principal cities. In view of the relatively long residence of the Irish in this country, the attraction to the city, so far as it is objectionable, is ap parently more lamentable than in the case of the Italians, though they are far more rarely reproached for the aggra vation of congestion. In twenty-six of the cities noted, the ItaHan bom pop ulation exceeded 1,000, the numerical distribution being in order: 1. New York 145,433 2. Philadelphia 17,830 3. Chicago 16,008 4. Boston 13,738 3. Newark 8,537 0. Providence 6,256 7. New Orleans 5366 8. Pittsburg 5.709 9. Buffalo 5,669 10. New Haven 5,262 11. Paterson 4 '>8g 12. Jersey City 3,832 13. Cleveland 3,085 8 The Flow of Emigration 14. Hoboken 2 360 15. St. Louis 2 227 16. Baltimore 2 042 17. Waterbury 2,007 18. Hartford 1,952 19. Utica 1,661 20. Bridgeport 1,436 21. Trenton 1,337 22. Youngstown 1,331 23. Scranton 1,312 24. Rochester 1,278 25. Syracuse 1,232 26. Kansas City 1,034 Since the date of the census record it is certain that the Italian born population in aU American cities has increased more or less through the influx of immigration, for they have received, as before, the greater part of those com ing over, but the distribution has varied widely in some cases, changing materially the order given in the city record of 1900, and including cities not before mentioned, like Schenectady and Los Angeles, in the stated list. In the computation of the ItaHan population in America it is usual to include the first generation, at least, born here, having one or both parents born in Italy. This enumeration raises the total of the so-caUed Italian pop ulation in America, according to the statistical tables prepared under the direction of the ItaHan Chamber of Commerce, to 748,855 in the year 1900. This number will be slightly reduced if the reckoning is confined to those having an Italian father, in which case the total 9 The ItaUan in America is computed to be 742,197. According to this latter computation, the percentage of Italians residing in American cities is 77.9, or more than three-fourths of the total. The same statistical tables give the Italian population of the State of New York, including children whose fathers were born in Italy, as 272,572 in 1900. The city of New York in that year contained more than two-fifths of the total in the State, or in exact figures, 225,026. The rapid . increase in the State during the last three years is doubt lessly quite accurately marked in the March (1904) Bul letin of the Italian Chamber of Commerce. It is here computed that there were in Greater New York at the end of the year 1903, 382,775 ItaHans, including children whose fathers were bom in Italy, and that the number in the entire State had risen to 486,175. The division of sexes in the total of ItaHan immigration has not been exactly marked, though it is reckoned that the proportion of males to females has been at least four to one, and probably not less than five to one. For the past decade, however, it has been repeatedly noted that the percentage of women among these immigrants has been increasing, indicating a progressive fimmess of set tlement here and a rising intention to reside here perma nently. This tendency was first particularly marked by Dr. J. H. Senner, U. S. Commissioner of Immigration, in his discussion of "Immigration from Italy" in the 10 The Flow of Emigration North American Review for June, 1S9<). He observed that the percentage of women and children in the annual ItaHan immigration to this country was even then steadily rising. This was accompanied by a corresponding de crease in the " birds of passage," and the increasing tend ency of ItaHan immigrants to definite settlement was proved, as he states, " by the systematic statistics kept at the Port of New York since July 1st, 1893, as to numbers of persons arriving to join members of their immediate famUies." Examination showed that from July 1st, 1893, to the end of December, 1895, more than one-third of the immigrants came to join members of their imme diate famiHes ; and in this time the number of outgoing Italians exceeded the number of those who made thsir first entry into the United States by more than 25,000. In the Report of the Industrial Commission on Immi gration (1901, Yol. 15, p. 203), compiled from original figures in the annual reports of the Superintendent of Immigration, 1895-1899, the percentage of male immi grants from Northern Italy is given as 78.19, and the percentage of male immigrants from Southern Italy at 75.50. Subsequent reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration show the percentage of male immigrants to be stHl decHning, and in the latest annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1904, of the total of 193,- 296 immigrants from Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia, 149,363 are entered as males and 43,933 as females, show- 11 The Italian in America ing that more than one-fifth of the immigrants for this last year of record were women and girls. In the same report the number of ItaHan children under 14 years of age arriving during the same fiscal year is given as 24, 528, showing a material increase in the settlement of famiHes here. It appears in the Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for the year ending June 30th, 1903, that of the 233,546 ItaHan imnaigrants arriving during that fiscal year at the ports of the United States and Canada, including those debarred, only 11,246 had reached the age of 45 years and over, and that 197,267 were between the ages of 14 and 45 years. The showing for this year of greatest influx to date is substantially typical, and apparently marks an extraordinary proportionate con tribution of able-bodied persons to the working capital of this country. In view of the official returns, it is difficult to discern any foothold for the assumption of any reckless dumping of the aged and infirm or persons unable to work for their own support in the flow of immigration from Italy. It was calculated with particular elaboration by Fred- -®li5lL?PJ?£Pi_^COTnniiss^^ the State of Jiew York in 1870, jthst. tljifi.Average economic jalue. Plan able-bQdiediaaJfiLiimmgranl over 20 years of age k $1,125. It jsjno J)raotwal_con£er^^ tliis is an over or an under estimate^ Itjsjncontestable that every 13 The Flow of Emigration ^lonest, able, wilHng laborer is a material addition to the jvorking capital — the productive power of an undeveloped country. Unless it canjbe established by evidence that the mass of immigration from Italy is not composed of ^honest, able-bodied, willing laborers, there can be no economic warrant for any arbitrary resort to exclusion. If there are complaints of conges^on, the rational economic resort is betterment of distribution — ^not the choking off of the productive flow. An authoritative witness of the character and capacity of the bulk of the immigration from Italy, Adolfo Rossi, the present Supervisor of the Italian Emigration De partment, has recently given evidence directly to the point in the weekly review of the New York Charity Or ganization Society Charities, pubHshed May 7th, 1904. It is his observation that emigration is taking away from his own country " the flower of our laboring class, which leaves Italy, not to seek a living, but greater com fort. To this, naturally, contributes the selection exer cised by your immigration laws which let in only the good and reject the bad. My government allows the American commission of physicians of your own selection at Italian ports a pretty free hand. They examine the immigrant not only for trachoma, but make a fairly thor ough examination for hernia, for diseases due to senil ity, etc., thus adding a potent artificial selection." " Then I notice that the newspapers write of the influx 13 The Italian in America of a lot of poverty-stricken Italians. Just look at the facts: 84 per cent, of Italians coming here are between 18 and 45 years of age. That means that 84 per cent, of such immigrants belong to the working age. They are, in other words, producers. You get this product with out the expense incurred in its raising-. Every Italian of 18, for instance, costs his country, at the very lowest, $1,000 to bring him up. At 18 he begins to be a pro ducer, but by leaving Italy the $1,000 invested by his country in him is lost. This ' human capital ' of fr^h, strong, young men is the contribution of Europe to the new laud. We spend a thousand dollars to bring up and develop a young man, and then you reap the profits of the investment." In face of the official reports and data here briefly sum marized, there is a declared intention of influential formers of pubHc opinion to urge legislation by Congress inten-' tionally discriminating, in effect if not in form, against the flow of immigration from Italy in a way that will op erate to exclude a great portion of it. In the Review of Special Reports in the Report of the Industrial Commis sion on Immigration to Congress, December 5th, 1901, the practical issue is assumedly brought to a head (p. LVTII) in the words: "The question now uppermost is that of the direct restriction of immigrants who are considered undesirable on general economic and social grounds, and not merely on the ground of contract labor." Unfor- 14 The Flow of Emigration tunately there is a lack of precision in the terms of this statement which opens it inevitably to further question. What is the standard of desirability which can or should be used in practice as a gauge for admission to this coun try, and who are to determine this standard? ^ There is, undoubtedly, a current opinion that the immi grants from Southern and Eastern Europe are relatively less desirable to this country than the immigrants as a body from Northern and Western Europe^ (This, indeed, has been so pronounced and outspoken that the present Commissioner-General of Immigration has apparently been led to set an official stamp of endorsement upon it in his report for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1903 (p. 6). " While some encouragement may be gained from con sideration of the foregoing tabulated statements showing that the ratio of increase in immigration from Northern Europe was greatly in excess of that of the increase from Southern Europe, yet the fact remains that the great bulk of aHens added to our population during the year just passed came from Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia, those three countries alone sending 572,726 of the total number of steerage aliens — more than two-thirds." Nevertheless, it is scarcely credible that anyone will seriously propose that Congress should estabHsh a geo graphical line of exclusion across the centre of Europe, cutting off immigration from Spain, Italy, Austria, South- 15 The Italian in America ern Russia and Greece. Nor is it probable that any avowed discrimination wiU be proposed and enacted to the disad vantage of any particular nation or nations of Europe. It is, however, much less certain that some covert dis crimination will not be advanced by the pressure of preju dice in the form of a restrictive measure, ostensibly bearing uniformly and equaUy on aU nationalities contributing to the stream of immigration. In fact, it is hardly disguised that the proposed "educational test" for admission will have this effect, as it has been expressly pointed out by its advocates that it wUl bear most onerously on the nations of Southern Europe, which their current opinion is disposed to stamp as "undesirable." Thus the issue will not be drawn barely whether it is expedient or just to deny to an honest, wiUing laborer, who is unable to read the Constitution of the United Stat^, permission to live and work for a livelihood in a repubUc exalting the standard of liberty : but there wiU be reliance on the fomented prejudice against the Southern Latin races to urge this measure as a handy expedient of exclusion of great part of the immigrants from Southern Europe, with out seriously affecting the influx from Northern Europe, which is now too strongly intrenched here for attack. In view of this probability, it is of practical concern to examine the grounds of this prejudice so far .is it affects the character and contribution of immigration from Italy, which is the particular objtvt of this sj>ecial inquiry. A 16 The Flow of Emigration pithy, able an.d soberly phrased summary of the grounds of discrimination was made by Representative Samuel W. McCaU of Massachusetts, who introduced in the House, in the Spring of 1896, the " educational test " biU which, he said, was principaUy prepared and speciaUy advocated by the Immigration Restriction League of Boston. He pointed out then that the exclusion effected by the test of iUiteracy would affect chiefly the immigration from the Mediterranean ports, and argued that this exclusion was desirable on the ground that the influx from those ports was "from races not suited to our civUization" because 'Radically different from us in education._Mbitaja£_Hf.e and institutions of government.". Moreover, this objec- _tionable class of immigration, not kindred nor readily , assimilating, did not go " to our unoccupied territory , but_ settled down in our large cities, in our congested districts. They add to the labor problems that are vexing them^ and ^ most of them go into the dangerous slums of our Eastern cities." This objection has been ampHfied and more bluntly and bitterly urged in a current outcry against Italian immi gration. It is urged that the Italian race stock is inferior. _an dd egra ded ; that it wUl not assimilate naturally or read- Uy with .the,preyailing-"Angln-Saxon"-ra.cfi^tQok nf this ^country ; _that. intermixture, if practicable, wUl be detri- mental; that servilityj_ filthy habits of life, and a hope- lesslxdegraded standard of needs and ambitions have been 17 The Italian in America ingra.ined in the Italians by centuries^of o4?pr^on.and "abject poverty; that they-are-">ggE^Me„9lany , adequate appreciation of our free institutions_andjthepriyne^es and d'lti^ol^tizenship^i^^*-^^®'^^^^-'?^'''^ ^^® iUiterate and likely to remain so; that they, aje lowering and vriU inevitablyilower the American stend^ and labor and citkenshipi_that they are crowding out American laborers from avenues of employment; that their labor iTno longer needed here for the development of the coun try; that a large percentage are paupers or on the verge of pauperism, and that the inevitable influence of their influx is pauperizing; that they make the slums in our large cities; that they burden our charitable institutions iind prisons; and that there is no material evidence of progress and prospect of reHef without the enforcement/ of :i wide ranging exclusion. ^___^ "~ ' -y In view of these charges and assumptions it seemed de sirable to investigate the causes and flow of immigration and the advance of Italian settlement in this country by wide ranging correspondence and close personal observa tion. The facts thus gathered with the simple intention of candid inquiry and accurate statement are submitted for consideration in tho foUomng chapters, to which the authors associated in this presentation have contributo*! from their special investigations. They present in suc cession an examination of the ItaHan race stock, existing ItaHan characteristics and conditions of life in Italy, tlie 18 The Flow of Emigration causes and regulation of immigration, its advance in the cities and agricultural districts of this country, its effect upon the standard and opportunities of American labor and the course of national development, its alleged pau perizing and criminal tendencies, and the sum of Italian accomplishment and rational hope of progress here as an integral part of the fusing of stocks in the complex Amer ican. Eliot Lokd. 19 CHAPTER II THE mHEEITANCE AND PEOGRES8 OF ^^^TED rTAiT The poorest Italian that comes to this country is joint- heir to a splendid heritage. Unfortunately for him, it does not fiU his pockets nor better his rating in the returns of official inspectors. But it might justly advance him to higher consideration in the eyes of the American people. Every student of history must know it already, yet it is so rarely held up to view in the midst of current flouts and "Anglo-Saxon" conceits, that I venture to recaU its in effaceable outlines. The far-reaching ancestry of the natives of South and Central Italy runs back to the dawn of the earHest Greek civUization in the peninsula and to the Etruscan, driving bronze chariots and glittering in artful gold when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, and aU the wild men of North ern Europe were muffling their nakedness in the skins of wild beasts, and making their lair in rock caverns or the rudest of huts. In the seat of his forefathers of purest Latin origin was laid the foundation of the traditional kingdom of Romulus and its offspring, the Roman Re public and Empire, outstretching its arms and its glory 20 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy from the German ocean to the deserts of Africa, and from the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates. If SicUy had for centuries no more share in the domi nance of Rome than any other conquered province — and if the greater part of the inhabitants of Italy were de pendent confederates and not Roman citizens — neverthe less, Italy was the homestead of the masterful Republic and Empire, and bore the most signal and lasting impress of their attainments and grandeur. And in the evolution of liberalism, the time came, it wUl be remembered, when aU the free inhabitants of the Empire were declared to be Roman citizens and equal heirs to the glory of Rome. Even when the crumbling Empire succumbed to bar barian invasion and could no longer protect the confines of its homestead, the languishing force of its civiHzation was stUl potent to mould the invaders. Ostrogoth and Visigoth, German and Frank alike, paid homage to the majesty of helpless Rome. Alaric lays greedy hands on the spoUs of the Imperial city, but his successor, Athaulf , yields to the spell of the shadowy sceptre of empire and cloaks his invasion of Spain in the guise of a Roman offi cial, obediently proceeding to the recovery of an old Roman province. Odoacer, chief of the German mercenaries, when the line of Western emperors comes to an end, stUl professes his allegiance to Zeno, head of the reunited Empire by the voice of the Roman Senate, and is content to rule in Italy 21 The Italian in America with no loftier title than the vague investiture of Patri cian. When Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, wrests Italy from Odoacer (489 A.D.), a warrant is sought and obtained in the commission of the same emperor, Zeno. Three centuries later, Pepin, King of the Franks, saves Rome from the threat of the Lombards, and shelters their dominion in Northem Italy. StiU the title of " Patri cian " is aU that he ventures to claim and assert. When Constantine the Sixth is deposed and bHnded in 797 A.D. by his mother Eirene, the unquenched haughtiness of Rome cries out that no woman can be Ca?sar and Augus tus, and makes Karl, son of Pepin, the great Charlemagne of mediaeval romance. Emperor of the Romans. Pope Leo crowns him in the memorable year 800 A.D., and for more than a thousand years thereafter this traditional memorial of the glory of the old empire has been prized as an investiture without a peer, transcending the dignity of kings, and declaring a precedent, even if waiving an avowal of homage. Not only was the imperial name stUl powerful to con jure with when it was no more than the gravecloth^ of the dust of empire, but even though invaders might pro test their utter contempt of the enfeebled Italians and the Roman name, they were assimilated by resistless influ ences. Thus in the twelfth century, as Taine observes, the invading Germans under Frederick Barbarossa, "count- 23 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy ing upon finding in the Lombards men of the same race as themselves, were surprised to find them so Latinized, hav ing discarded the asperities of barbarian rudeness and im bibed from sun and atmosphere something of Roman finesse and gentleness, preserving the elegance of diction and the urbanity of antique customs, and imitating even to their cities and the regulation of public affairs the ability of the ancient Romans."* Christianity was essentiaUy the reHgion of the Empire after Constantine formaUy professed it in 323 A.D., and was carried by Roman influence even beyond the bound aries of the Imperial Dominion. Roman Law has been the foundation and frame of the Civil Law of Western Europe. The spoken language of Rome is not only the main source of modern ItaHan, but of Spanish, Provencal and French. Even in the land once part of the old Roman province of Dacia, the tongue of the people has the same root, and the inhabitants stiU claim their herit age in their names, Roumans. For more than a thousand years after the days of Caesar Augustus, the only books written in Western Europe were in Latin, and throughout the Middle Ages Latin was everywhere the chosen medium in the observ ances of religion and the preservation of learning. The literature of the Augustan Age has never ceased to be the study and inspiration of the world's scholars, and the * Otho of Freysingen. 23 The Italian in America Latin language and classics have formed an integral part of aU academic education. What the old Roman civilization has been to the world we can faintly conceive, too, in view of the ruins of its cities — mines of treasures, invaluable to the historian and the artist, and marveUous even in their mutilation. Fos terer and perpetuator of so many enHghtening and refin ing arts and pursuits, Roman civUization has made its impress so clear and deep on mediaeval and modem ages that the world at large may weU acknowledge its peculiar debt to the forefathers of modern Italy. The transmission in Italy, moreover, of the Roman civ ilization was less impaired and more progressive, on the whole, than in any other country tUl the close of the six teenth century. Italian coast cities grew to be the chief exemplars of commerce and the originators of banking. AU memorials of ancient art and learning were cherished in museums and libraries. The chiefs of the clergy and the ItaHan nobUity were often liberal patrons of artists. Then, after a sluggish and dolorous period, there sprang up in Italy first the Renaissance — that glorious era of reviving fertility. In the midst of an epoch of pitiless wars and mortal enmities, St. Francis preaches a forgotten gospel of love. Then Greek and Latin antiquity, the By zantine and Saracenic Orient— the Grermanic and Italian middle age — "the entire past, shatteretl, amalgamated and transformed," says Taine, "seems to have been 24 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy melted over anew in the human furnace in order to flow out in fresh form in the hands of the new genius of Giotto, Arnolfo, Brunelleschi and Dante." Soon Italy is to be come " the mother of the new learning— the home of the younger as of the older arts." In the fifteenth century diplomacy had largely taken the place of force. With the coming of more peaceful days the useful arts sprang up Uke new grass after rain. The downtrodden peasant becomes a partner of his land lord, and divides with him the harvest. In Lombardy there is irrigation and rotation of crops. "Marble quar ries," says Taine, "are worked at Carrara, and foundry fires are Hghted in the Maremmes. We find in the cities manufactories of silk, glass, paper, books, flax, wool and hemp; Italy alone produces as much as all Europe, and furnishes to it all its luxuries. " * * * "The Medicis possess sixteen banking houses in Europe; they bind to gether through their business Russia and Spain, Scotland and Syria. * * * They entertain at their court rep resentatives of aU the powers of Europe, and become the counciUors and moderators of all Italy." Then Donatello decorates the Campanile with his statues and Ghiberti casts the two gates of the Baptistery on whose doors PoUaiolo, his pupil, models the marvellous quaU, which " had only to fly." Then Dello and Veroc- chio and Ghirlandaijo, and all the splendid company of goldsmiths and bronze workers and sculptors and fresco 25 The Italian in America painters prepare the way for the perfect flowering of the fine arts of the Renaissance in Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo and Raphael. Thus Italy, in the phrase of HamUton Mabie, became "the Hberator and teacher of modem Europe." "Xo country owes more to her for its impulse than ' Anglo- Saxon ' England," as Mr. Mabie once more recaUs. The foremost early EngHsh poets and dramatists — Chaucer, Wyatt, Surrey, Spencer, Greene, Webster, Ford and Cyril Toumeur — show distinctively the ItaHan molding in }X)etry and drama. Even the master minds of greatest native force and fertiHty, Bacon and Shakespeare, would frankly acknowledge their debt. "Shakespeare's most romantic heroines, JuHet and Desdemona," observes Wil fred Scawen Blunt in Tho Speaker, " were both bor rowed, as wo know, and not without the loss of dignity friiiii r.andeUo's Italian originals." Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Ariosto became English household words through translations and imitations. From the dawn of etirly English art and literature, Italy has been a Mecca for her artists and scholars. The lofty imagination of ^[ilton first expanded in ItaHan air. Here, too, the rest less and embittered heart of Byron sought solace. AU that is mortid of Shelley and Keats lies under the shadow of Jiome. In Florence the genius of Browning reached its zenith, and his memorial tablet in Venice bears the lines of liis poem — "Open my heart and you will see. 26 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy Graved inside of it, ' Italy.' " The influence of the leader, even in decadence, was deathless. And can America forget her distinctive indebtedness ? The New World owes to Italy the debt of the Old and more. May she not weU remember that it was the son of a Genoese wool comber whose unflagging spirit revealed her existence to Europe — that the Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, was her god-father — and that the voyages of the Cabots and Yerrazano first traced the North American coast line and cleared the way for pioneer immigration. There must be a strange lack of memory and of recogni tion of service when prejudice against Southern Latin origin would put up an irrational bar of entry in the face of the countrymen of Columbus. It is true that the Italy of the nineteenth century was very different in its comparative standing from the Italy of the sixteenth century. Then, in the view summarized in Freeman's "General Sketch of History," "it might be caUed the centre of Europe in that it had more to do vdth the rest of the world than any other country. It was the country to which others looked up as being at the head in arts, learning and commerce; and it was the country, too, where, just as in old Greece, there was the greatest political life among the many smaU states." For three centuries past a great part of the country had been standing stiU and large provinces even retrograding. In the gen eral advancement of Europe, unhappy and distracted Italy 27 The Italian in America had been outstripped, her ambitions stifled, and her people of the South, at least, crushed under burdens that sapped their energies and barely left sufferable their struggle for existence. Even her persistent dream of liberty and union had been the mock of the scoffer. The sneer of Met- temich was the more bitterly galling in its near approach to the truth; "Italy is only a geographical expression." Yet, in the face of this jeer. United Italy has uprisen in fact from the medley of jarring and dejected states. Her ideal has overcome foreign domination and internal discords. Her redemption is sure. Her union grows every year more intimate and perfect. Her old divi sional names of Sicilian, NeapoHtan, Tuscan and Lom- bartl are sinking out of sight in the fused Italian. In ancient times, at tho opening of historical record, there were various racial ilivisions in Italy more or less strongly marked; GaUic and Ligurian in the North, Etruscan, Latin and Oscan in the Central Provinces, and Greek probably predominating in Southern Italy and SicUy. Yet aU of these stocks were derived from the primitive Aryan of all the Western nations of Europe and their assimUation under Rome's unifying influences was continually progressive. In modem Italy there is no materially divergent strain of blood except in the Alba nians and the Greeks of the South, and the Arabic ele ments in Sicily and Sardinia. The frequent foreign invasions have not materially af- 28 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy fected this prevalent strain. Existing variations in char acter and habits of life are chiefly attributable to varying political divisions, occupations and climate. Ever since the fall of the Empire until the recent unification, Italy has been merely a medley of jealous states and diverse forms of government, and these governments often mut able, if only in the exchange of one set of oppressors for another. In Central Italy especially there were minute sub-divisions into city states with independent life, policy, customs and social distinctions. Unification for the past thirty years has been graduaUy fusing or obliterating these divisional Hnes, but no such brief term of years could possibly effect their extinction. The first comprehensive advance of unification was the establishment of a single form of central and local govern ments and the application of a single body of laws. The Piedmontese legislation and administration were extended to the whole of Italy to meet the vital need of the preser vation of the union. Thenceforth intelligent public spirit has blocked the formation of any party domination based on sectional division lines. The general plan of education , administration of justice and taxation are based on the like unity of system. One of the most important advances toward fusion has been the extension in every practicable way of a common language — a standard Italian in place of the many provincial dialects. Common school educa tion is effecting this throughout the country; the increased 29 The Italian in America circulation of newspapers and books is promoting it, and there is a powerful impulse toward this unification in the mUitary service of the nation. Conscripts are tanght to speak ItaHan instead of dialects, and to read and write the common medium. Pronounced diversities stUl exist also in provincial dif ferences of occupation and degrees of progre^. The North of Italy has long been the most progressive^section through the comparative freedom of its institutions, Uie diversification oil ts industries and the spirit of its people. This division of the kingdom is notably active, industrious and prospering. The latest exposition at Turin was a signal iUustration of the attainments of Italy in the lead ing industrial arts. Problems of the development of this progressive section are relatively insignificant. It is in Central and Southern Italy that the chief tlragweights are encountered. Compared with the South, Central Itelyjs already hope- fuUy advanced. There is stiU too Httle^variation of indus try, but agriculture, the dominant interest, is prosecuted with high inteUigence. The peasant farmer in Toscanj and largely in aU Central Italy operate on the share or mezzeria system — dix-iding equaUy the products of his fields with his landlord. He comprehends f uUy the atiHtT of the variation of c rops. He raises wheat or other cereds, grapes and oHves on the s;une podere. Ho knows the capacity of his land thoroughly. He has commonly in- 30 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy troduced irrigation where necessary. He is exceedingly capable in the conduct of his piantationTTiid supplements his crop products by keeping pigs and poultry^'breedrng calves and sometimes rearing silkworms. The women of his famUy usuaUy add to his income by spinning and plait- Jng; straw. In Southern Italy the diversification of industry is, as yet, scarcely attempted and feeble at best. Agriculture is practicaUy the sole reliance outside of the noxious sulphur mines of Sicily. The prevailing system of operation of the land is of large estates cultivated by hired labor. These properties are usuaUy minutely subdivided and sub let. In the greater part of this region wheat is almost the only product. Rent and taxation are very burdensome. Resort to modern improvements is very rarely undertaken by landlords. The lot of both regular and irregular day laborers is miserable, and is often rendered appaUing by the failure of the prevailing wheat crop or by the ravages of insects, disease or blight in the vineyards and olive groves. Under such conditions no rapid advance can be looked for. Yet, despite aU drawbacks, agriculture throughout Italy has been making certain progress. The use of arti ficial fertiUzers is increasing. Variation and rotation of crops are extending. The export of agricultural products is advancing, though the temporary shock to the agri- cutural industry through the enactment of French protec tive tariffs was greatly depressing. 31 The ItaUan in America Nearly two million acres of malarious marsh lands have been cleared and rendered productive. An annual "Arbor Day " has been instituted, and the government is moving vigorously for the protection and increase of the forests maintaining the essential water supplies. For the pres ervation of the vineyards from the ravages of the phyl loxera, grafting from the immune grape stocks of CaU fornia is now largely prosecuted. Thus drought and dis ease are now intelligently combated, and reHef has even been obtained from the scourge of hail, so often detractive to the crops of Northern Italy, by prodigious discharges of pyrite powder, converting the freezing drops to fine snow or sleet. The remarkable advance of all manufacturing industries in Northern Italy is moreover enriching and stimulating to the kingdom as a whole. It is expanding the home market for agricultural produce and promoting its diver sification. The range of manufacturing establishments is also further progressing down the peninsula into Central and even Southern Italy. In the past eighteen years the sUk production of the kingdom has doubled and the weav ing is now done at home instead of abroad. The cotton industry has ad\anced still more remarkably, expanding more than six fold in the last thirty years. WooUen man ufactures are also profitably progressing, and surprising attainments have been reached in the development of iron and steel industries and the extension of electric plants of 33 CAV. A. SBARBORO A Founder of the Italian-.Swiss Colony, Asti, California The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy all kinds. For the production and application of the new world's force, electricity, the available water powers of ItaHan rivers have already done much to offset the lack of coal fields. No line of development is more congenial to Italian genius or commands more ready public appre ciation. Italy was among the first in Europe to undertake the construction and operation of electric raUways. The Lugano Hne was operated with electrical equipment over part of its route as early as 1890. Now two other roads, tiie Lecco raUway and the Varese raUway, use electricity for their regular service, and other electric lines are in course of construction. The application to the movement of heavy traffic is particularly favored, and it is reason able to expect progressive advances along this line of transportation. Decadent shipbuilding is now again actively prosecuted also. The steamers operated as ItaHan Hnes have more than doubled in number within the past ten years, and aU the vessels for these Hnes are now built in ItaHan ports. Genoa is already the second port of the Mediterranean in commercial importance, and with the opening of the Simplon Tunnel it is Hkely to become the chief port and surpass even its ancient commercial prestige. The development of the mineral wealth of the kingdom is beginning to keep pace with the advances of its manu factures and commerce. Sardinia and Elba, from the 33 The Italian in America days of the old Roman Empire, have been known to be rich in iron, lead and zinc, and the sulphur mines of SicUy and the Romagna have been worked from time immemorial. The province of (Trosseto has large deposits of iron ore and cinnabar, and the known occurrences of copper, manganese and antimony in various parts of the country point to the practicabiHty of extending develop ments. More than fifteen hundred mines are now in active operation, tripling the number reported in the first census after the unification of the kingdom, and the value of their annual output has risen to over ^15,000,000. The total value of the paid-uji capital of raUways, ship ping companies, commercial and manufacturing estab lishments in the year 1904 is reckonetl to be approximately four hundred miUion dollars, showing that this aggregate capital has doubled since the unification of the kingdom. The standards of living have risen, too, throughout the country; wages have advanced on an average, at least. one-third; food is more i)lentiful; clothes are better, and both food and clothing are cheaper. The poverty of the people has not been a measure of their thrift, but of their opportunities. This is clearly demonstrated in the re markable exjiansion of savings banks, and the so-called people's or small shareholders' banks. The tirst s;wings bank in Italy was opened in 18l'_*, but it is only within the last twenty years that its multiplication was largely prac ticable. In IDUO tho Italian savings banlcs, inclading 34 The Inheritance and Progress of United Italy those of the Post Office, numbered over five thousand. — the aggregate deposits were roundly four hundred miUion joU'ars, and the annuaHncrease of late years has been over _ten miUion doUars. The number of depositors in 1900" was five million, three hundred thousand. In addition to these are the people's banks, loaning money at low rates of interest to their shareholders, chiefly small business and peasant proprietors. These numbered 7200 in 1897, and their total of deposits was nearly seventy-five million dollars. Co-operative, mutual aid and insurance societies have .also multipHed very rapidly in the past two decades, and their obvious benefits have been a great stimulus to the extension of like societies among the Italians in Ammca, _a most substantial guarantee against the burdening of our public^charitable institjotions. General education has advanced also notably, though in parts of the kingdom this is still regretably backward. StUl the percentage of ilHt- eracy had fallen from fifty-seven per cent, in 1871 to thirty-seven per cent, in 1896. There were in 1900 over fifty thousand communal and nine thousand private schools. The elementary schools, as a body, are as yet far below a satisfactory standard; the school buUdings are poor and cramped, and the teachers iU paid. But in the extension of her technical and industrial schools Italy has a right to take pride. More than twenty years ago the govern- 35 Tlic Italian in America ment appointed a commission to study educational meth ods in detaU. The commission reported that a broad and Hberal support of industrial education on the part of the State would be the most effective means of advancing the interests of the country and raising the general condition of the people. It has lately been oljserved by United States Commercial Agent Harris that there is perhaps no country in the w^orld to-day which has more extended home industries than Italy, and in the preparation of the government scheme of industrial education the house in dustries were particularly cunsiderevince in which the agent was stationed, and any further delegation of powers to assist emigration was prohibited. ''^No agent or sub-agent could promote, in any way, the collection of emigrants outside of the district in which he was authorized to act, and it was expressly provided that it should not devolve upon the emigrant to pay the agent or sub-agent for any services whatever, except to reimburse them for the actual sumsy expended on his account. For determining identity and compHance with the r^u- lation and prohibitions of the law, a contract in triplicate must be made in every case between the agent, sub-agent y and emigrant, or, if the latter was a minor, his guardian. » One copy of this contract must be given to the emigrant and one to tho captain of the port, the agent retaining the^ third, /it any emigrant should be unable to write his 50 The Causes and Regulation of Italian Emigration name, this contract must be signed by the mayor or by "^ an authority of pubHc security. \ This contract must specify the name, age, profession and last residence of the emigrant. The date of his discharge from the army or the permis sion of the Minister of War. The place of departure and the place or port of desti nation. The time of departure. The name of the transporting vessel and the post as signed to the emigrant, with the express prescription of the space assigned to him in conformity with the regula tion of the law of 1879. The period of stoppage at intermediate ports, when the voyage was not made directly, and in case of change, the name and character of the new vessel. The total or partial price of .the expenses of subsistence on board, with the proviso that this stipulation must in no case be inferior to the ration established by the law of 1879. The quantity of baggage which the emigrant was aUowed to take with him./^ Explicit provision was made in the law to protect the emigrant from any imposition or abuse on the part of any concerned in his passage to any foreign country ; and any agent, owner, captain, master or charterer of trans porting vessels were subject to a penalty, both of fine and 51 The Italian in America imprisonment, for receiving emigrants on board with out the contract and permit above noted^ Any infraction of the main regulations of the law by the agent or sub-agent of emigration was punishable with a Hke penalty. For further security the regulations for the execution of this law constrained the procurement of the vis6 of the poHce authorities of the port of embarkation in order to make the contract valid as a passport for emigration, and these authorities were instructed to limit the passports in every case to the regulated capacity of the transporting '''^Agente were expressly prohibited, also, from furnishing passage to persons who were not aUowed to enter the foreign country to which they proposed to go, and were J bound to conform to all rules laid down by the Ministry for the protection of emigrants, auxUiary to the regu lations adopted by the governments of foreign countries receiving the immigration. /'^ To direct and control, as far as practicable, the flow of emigration, correspondence was opened by special ar rangement between the Ministry of the Interior and the p Italian consular service. The consuls were odled upon to re-examine carefuUy the basis of their former reports on immigration to the ilinistry of Foreign Affairs, and to forward as complete additional information as possible, covering: 63 The Causes and Regulation of Italian Emigration 1. The physical, hygienic and agricultural conditions of the districts in which they were stationed, and all other conditions having relation to colonization and population. 2. The number of ItaHan immigrants already located in each district. 3. The industries, trades and occupations in which the immigrants were generaUy engaged. 4. The laws enacted concerning these immigrants and the relations sustained by them to the authorities, land holders and contractors. 5. The pay which they receive and the prices of pro visions. 6. Whether the means of communication were good and whether there were good markets in the neighborhood for the sale of their productions. 7. Whether there were any immigration companies or any such in course of formation. 8. Whether land was granted to immigrants desiring to found a colony on it, and if so, on what terms; also whether land was sold to immigrants on easy terms, and if so, on what terms. 9. Whether the immigrants when they desired to re turn home met with obstacles in communication with the seaboard, or in their immigration or labor contract, or in the local laws and ordinances,.^ In this requisition from the Minister of the Interior, consuls were enjoined to send in regularly, twice a year 53 The Italian in America thereafter, reports covering aU these matters of inquiry and detailing any changes of note occurring in the con ditions affecting immigration. They were particularly requested to give clear and accurate statements of the con dition of immigrants, whether good or bad, vrithout con cealing anything out of regard to foreign governments. In the use or pubHcation of the information received in the interest of the pubHc, the Ministry undertook to main tain the greatest reserve compatible with the best interests of immigrants to avoid disclosure of its sources of infor mation. Twelve years later, after the provisions of this law had been thoroughly tested, supplementary legislation was enacted in the passage of the law of January 31, 1901. The design of this law was to remedy any defects noted in the operation of existing legislation, to institute the best feasible<^safeguards for the protection and guidance of emigrants, and especiaUy to suppress any artificial promotion of emigration. , As an effective instrument of its purpose, it created a Government Board of Emigration by the institution of the Royal Emigration Department of lt;dy. This con sists of a Commissariat and Council. The Commissariat is composed of a Commissioner-General and three Associate Commissioners, with a suitable provision of executive clerks. In co-operative and advisory association a council or Board of Iilmigration was established, consisting of 54 The Causes and Regulation of Italian Emigration the Commissioner-General; five delegates, representing the Departments of the Interior, Treasury, Navy, Public Instruction and Agriculture; three members appointed by royal decree from such persons as shaU have made the science of geography, statistics and economy their special study; and two additional members — one nominated by the National League of Italian Co-operative Societies, and the other by leading Mutual Aid Societies of the chief towns of the kingdom. The headquarters of this department were established at Rome with three main branches at Genoa, Naples and Palermo. 'In every municipality there is also an Advisory Committee, under the law, composed of the Syndic, the local justice, a physician, a representative of the clergy, and one of a trades organization or agricultural society. The duty of each committee is to advise and protect emigrants. /The central body issues a special bulletin and circulars of instruction to these local committees. The bulletin and circulars contain the information sent in by the consuls abroad and by the TraveUing Emigration In spectors regarding emigration matters. In a communication formally addressed by Adolfo Rossi, Visiting Inspector of this department, in the spring of 1904, to the President of the American Society for the Protection of ItaHan Immigrants, the purpose and opera tion of this amended ItaHan emigration legislation and its conduct under the supervision of the Royal Emigration 55 The Italian in America Department are defined with the weight of official author ity. WhUe the kw of 1901, as Signor Rossi not^, does not question the right of expatriation and emigration, it hedges this right around with such special saf^^uards " that it may weU be called a restrictive law." Accord ing to the inteUigent view of Senator Bodio, the head of the Royal Emigration Department, as reported by Signor Rossi, " Legislatures and governments can neither create nor direct migratory currents, but only discipHne. These are like the great marine currents which go to warm and improve distant lands, flowing in one direction until some natural change turus their flow elsewhere." The main provisions of this discipline of regulation are thus summarized by Signor Rossi: ' ' First. It prohibits all steamship Hnes from using any metliods of publicity calculated to encourage emigration. Whoever advertises by circulars, handbiUs, or other no tices, matters tending to encourage emigration, or dis tributes the same, is subject to a heavy fine and imprison ment." " Secondly. No steamer carrying immigrants can be enroUed as an emigrant ship under the law unless a Special Commission of Examiners issues a permit. Such permit can only be granted when the steamship company has complied with aU the regulations fixed by the law regarding hygiene, safety, speed, and the aUotment of proper space for berths. Even the quality and quantity 66 \i The Causes and Regulation of Italian Emigration of food is fixed by the law. Furthermore, no steamer can saU without undergoing two examinations, medical and administrative, to ascertain whether every provision of the law has been complied with." "At the ports of Genoa, Naples and Palermo our officers inspect all lodging houses and immigrant hotels to see that the hygienic rules are obeyed, and that the law is obeyed regarding rates, food and lodging, which expenses for the two days preceding departure are payable by the steamship companies. Special officers meet the immi grants at the various raUroad stations at the ports of departure, and escort them to the piers or lodging houses. ' ' "Thirdly. Every steamship company must pay the expenses and salary of a Government Commissioner (gen eraUy a surgeon of the royal navy), who sails with each boat carrying immigrants, and whose duty is to look after hygienic conditions and the observance of the immigra tion law." "Fourthly. No navigation company is allowed to sell tickets in Italy without previously filing a bond with the State, conditioned upon the compliance of the law." " There is furthermore a tax of 8 f. which the steamship companies must pay on each ticket sold. All such taxes constitute a fund to be used exclusively for the benefit of immigrants. We see, therefore, that the law has imposed / many burdens and expenses upon the navigation com-j panics. To prevent too great an increase in ticket rates, 57 The Italian in America or the formation of pooHng agreements, it is provided that the Immigration Department shaU fix the maximum of transportation rates every four months." " The law also gives the right to the govemment to/ suspend immigration to any given country when special/ circumstances to the detriment of the immigrant arise.> For example, two years ago, when it was ascertained that on account of the crisis in coffee plantations, the condition of ItaHan immigrants in San Paulo, BrazU, was critical, the government withdrew the permission given to BrazU for the free importation of Italians to the farms and plan tations in that country, xhe law also provides special / regulations regarding children and women, such as the ^ prohibition of sending minore out of the country except ) under certain circumstances, ete. " " In three years' existence the department has not en couraged immigration toward an}^ definite place. Indeed it has often been objected that the Immigration Depart ment discourages immigrants from going to this and that country for this or that reason, and does not point out where they can go. If aU immigrants were to foUow its advice, they would all stay at home. There could be no higher definition of the poHcy of the department than this — which indeed proves that it is not an emplojTuent agency ,A)ut an institution seeking to prevent forced orl artificial immigration, and to protect the immigrants from' those who exploit them." / The Causes and Regulation of Italian Emigration "When foreign governments or foreign contractors stSnd us requests for Italian laborers, our Immigration Department refuses such request unless the wages offered are equal to the prevaiHng rate of wages of the demanding government or its contractors for such laborers. Our department is opposed to the use of ItaHan labor as a method of reducing prevaUing rates abroad. Here are two examples: In 1902 the government of Cape Colony asked permission to import 500 ItaHan peasant famUies, offering 2 l/2s. a day wages, besides house, ground and wood." " Such request was refused because I reported as the result of an investigation in Cape Colony that white farm laborers there earned more than the amount offered. Again in January, 1903, some mining companies of Jo hannesburg (Transvaal) asked for 1,000 ItaHan miners at 6s. per day. This also was refused, it having been ascer tained that although negro miners received less than the amount offered, white miners received more. A few months ago, the same companies, needing foremen, sent a mining engineer to Italy, and our department granted the permit for them, after securing a written contract by which the companies bound themselves to pay such fore men 20s. a day, the wages paid to English foremen at Johannesburg. ' ' "In conclusion let me say that the department which I have the honor of representing not only does not en- 59 The Italian in ^imcrica courage immigration, but does everything in its power to fight those who would force its increase. The most recent example is this: Our law aUowed steamship com panies to have an agent in every commune in the kinfrdom, but by an amendment of January 4, l'.»n4, the number of such agents is reduced to one for each company, and only one for every group of twenty or thirty municipaUties. " EuoT LoED. fiO CHAPTER IV rrALIAN SETTLEMENT IN AMEEICAN CITIES The first employment at hand for the average Ttalian on landing in this country is offered in the cities of the Northern Atlantic coast or on the raUway lines — steam I and electric — linking the cities and towns. He cannot speak EngHsh and understands barelyji f ew wordSj_^ifany ; at aU. He has only a few doUars in his pocket, and must > have immediate paying occupation for his support. This j, he secures, through friends or agents of contractors^ as I a common laborer on roads, docks, trenches, basements | and other public and private work. Padroni have driven hard bargains with him, taking advantage of his neces- . sities. Many are no doubt stiU imposed upon, though a contractor's agent is entitled to a reasonable fee for his ', service, like any other broker. The immigrant has no more claim to free service than the client of any domestic labor agency. I The massof the immigrants are classed as unskilled \ uaborers, or without defined training. This classifica- tion is passably correct, but it should be borne in mind ,, that the great majority of the immigrants from Italy have \_ 61 The Italian in America had some experience in gardening, farming, or home in- . dustries of some kind. The line is not so sharply drawn | as in our country between the artisan and^ farm hand. \ Many of the working men in the towns have Httle fields or market gardens outside which they cultivate in off hours. Most of the farm hands live in towns, trudging often long distances to and from the lands they cultivate, and working at odd jobs in town when not othervrise employed. Even the workers in industries engaging their services without a break, Hke the miners and quarrymen, have usually smaU tracts of land for crops, vines or fruit raising. It is chiefly in Northern Italy that factory in dustries like ours have grown up, and workers are trained to the subdivision of labor and single specific employ ment. There is a larger percentage of ItaHan skUled labor i coming to this country than is popularly supposed, and ; more than is marked in the official returns of our Immi- \ gration Department, though the recortl of a single year, \ which may be taken as typical, shows a widely varied ' range of occupation. In the Annual Report of the Com missioner-General of Immigration for the fiscal year end ing June 30, 1903, the occupations of aliens arriving during the year are classified. By this table it appears that 2,">3 were entered from nort^lern Italy as having professional occupations and r>;!2 from Southern Italy. The distribu tion by professions was^ foUows: 62 Italian Settlement in American Cities •^ From North- Prom South ern Italy. ern Italy. Actor3 13 4 Clergy 18 42 Editors 7 3 Engineers 42 23 Lawyers 4 5 Musicians 32 273 Physicians 17 24 Sculptors and artists 81 65 Teachers 18 51 Not specified 16 42 Total 253 532 In the various trades and industries the distribution was, viz. : Northern Italy. Southern Italy. Bakers 182 605 Barbers and hairdressers 2,057 2,088 i/ Blacksmiths 236 913 Brewers 15 4 Butchers 51 265 Carpenters and joiners 396 2,583 U' Clerks and accountants 175 292 Engravers 5 7 Gardeners 62 262 Ironworkers 19 233 Jewellers 9 85 Locksmiths 13 9 Machinists 48 58 Mariners 259 1,790 y- Masons 1,251 2,9''5 *- Mechanics (not speeifled) 82 257 Millers 23 165 Miners 2,169 351 Painters and glaziers 63 15 63 The ItaUan in America Northern Italy. Soatbem Italy. Plumbers 4 1 Printers 13 62 Saddlers and harness makers 5 ^ / Seamstresses and dressmakers 222 2,398 *' Shipwrights 3 y Shoemakers 326 4,836 / Stone-cutters 436 542 Tailors 206 3,258 / Tanners and curriers 11 37 Tinners 15 77 Tobacco manufacturers 15 Watch and cloekmakers 15 43 Weavers and spinners -26 348 Wheelwrights 3 16 Not specified 131 241 Total 6,760 24,895 Agents or factors 7 9 Jiankcrs 1 2 Farmers 200 678 Farm labonrs 8,402 32^1 Hotel keepori 12 17 Laborers 15,022 85,682 Merchant dealers and grocers 422 872 Personal and domestic servants 1,956 6,606 Not stated 160 1,045 Total 24,848 127,302 Ml8CELL.\NE0US. No occupations (including women and children) ! 5,562 43,388 Grand Total 37.429 196,117 In the Report of the Industrial Commission on Immi gration — 1901 — a digest was printed of the industrial 64 'A ItaUan Settlement in American Cities statistics of the census of 1890, showing, among other records, the percentage of total numbers of males em ployed of each nationaHty in the principal industries en tered by them. In this table Italy figures as foUows: Per cent. ITALY 100.00 Laborers not specified 34.I5 Steam railroad employes 10.56 ^-^ Miners and quarrymen g.gi Merchants and dealers 6.53 Agricultural laborers .T 3.92 Hucksters and peddlers 2.96 Barbers and hairdressers 2.91 Boot and shoemakers 2.80 Tailors I.99 Farmers and planters 1.89 The nationalities showing the largest percentage of unskilled labor in this compUation were respectively, Italy (34.15^), Hungary (32.44^), Ireland (25.16^, and French Canada (16.43^). What is reckoned as unskUled labor is speciaUy in de mand for heavy outdoor or manufacturing work of the crudest kind, because the ambitious American-born work man has risen above this level and does not care to com pete on it. The ItaHan immigrant is now perforce content to do it for the time untU he has gained a better foothold in the country, but his chUdren born here wUl not engage in it, and educated working men generally will not stoop to it. Among the Italian laborers on our street and raU- 65 The Italian in America ways are some clerks and artisans, and even professional men. „Their jgnorance^f_our language constrains thein_ to hard labor untU they are able to make their service otherwise valuable to Ajnerican employers. In such work they can be readUy directed by ItaHan foremen, and the average immigrant shrinks from exposing his ignorance to any but his own countrymen. He has reason for this j in the common lack of patience with his supposed dullness' and blunders. I have heard Americans, otherwise ap parently rational, shout at ItaHans as if beUowing would make spoken EngHsh more inteUigible, and swear at them as if ignorance of English was an unspeakable offence. The ItaHan is sensitive to ridicule, and feels the injustice of abuse keenly whether he resents it openly or not. Hence he is slow to venture alone in a strange community or to seek employment on a farm where hewiU be isolated until he is able to speak English with considerable fluency, and has become woU acquainted with American ways and_re- quirements. The clustering in cities, so often complaioed ' of, is attributable not only to his fondness for social life and lack of means to enter the country, but to the lack of invitation withany assurance of patience or sympathy. In tho early years of the Italian influx the newcomers were ready to take up any occupation which promised them a living. In the wastes of an American city they saw an opportunity. They multiplietl the number of rag pickers and refuse sortoi-s. They extended the fruit mar- 00 ItaUan Settlement in American Cities kets and cut down the cost to the ordinary buyer by selling from handcarts and stands in every part of the city. The popular taste for fruit grew with its fuUer display and convenience of purchase. So the number of street fruit dealers very greatly increased. The persistence of the Italian and his care in handling his stock gave him prac tically the control of this business until the competition of the Greek immigrants shook his monopoly. He can stiU contend on equal terms, but he has no special bent for peddling, and is disposed to engage in more active and laborious occupations, unless he can acquire a permanent paying stand, or a fruit store, or a green grocery. Thus the Greek has been pushing the Italian off the street and increasing the number of smaU fruit and grocery stores. Bootblacking is tiresome and grimy work, and steady, sinewy, patient workers like the Italians excel in it, as is shown by the ItaHan occupation of stands in aU suitable locations. ItaHan barber shops have become numerous also, and attract general custom. Italian taUors, men^ and women, compete successfuUy in the larger workshops and in their rooms in lodging houses. In a recent canvass of a representative block in the ItaHan quarter in Phila delphia, housing 358 ItaHan families, the occupations of the heads of famUies Hsted according to the number en gaged in each from the highest down were: common out door laborers, shopkeepers, rag pickers or rag dealers, taUors, peddlers and vendors, unskiUed employees in 67 The ItaUan in America factories and stores, barbers, street cleaners, cobblers, shoemakers and musicians. This marks the drift of the greater part of the Italian influx into the cities of the East in the early years of its settlement. The advance of settlement in the cities is substantiaUy aUke in all cases. If ItaHans are employed in manufac turing establishments, they seek lodgings near their work- shopsto^ave carfare or long walk^if they can, and there may be^cluf^^lgf ItaHan tenements ToFthis reason in widely separated quarters of a city. But they are at tracted first ordinarUy to some particular precinct, ward or ([uarter from its cheap accommodation and their natural disposition to flock together in spite of their provincial prejudices. If laborers on raUways or other works near a city are not lodged in temporary camps on the ground, they lire likely to seek lodgings in the neighboring city and overcrowd for the time the ItaHan tenements. Natives of the same community or district at home wiU prefer the same Hving associations here, if they can con trive to renew them. Hence a little new colony in a city is often composed almost exclusively of immigrants from the same district, and a larger settlement is made up of different district colonies. For years these colonies are likely to retain their distinctive habits and clannishness, but as their children grow up under fusing school influences and become Americanized, the original divisions fade away. In spite of the jeiUousy of the Irish at the intrusion and 68 Italian Settlement in American Cities their free-spoken jibes at the " Dago, '^ the first cluster of Italians in adtyha^s commonly been in tenements where the Irish are thickest. They may divide a tenement, at first, but the Irish vacate it sooner or later. There is less clashing between the two nationaHties than might be ex pected. This is largely attributable, probably, to the essential good nature of both. The common religion is also a bond of union, and Italians are usuaUy attracted to Irish- American churches and parish schools while they are too few or too poor to establish churches of their own. The influences of a CathoHc church organization are stead fastly bent against racial antagonisms, and for the pro motion of the Christian feUowship of its followers. Its chief directors and many of its priests of aU nationalities have been trained in ItaHan seminaries or have visited Italy more or less frequently, and aU look to Rome as the prime seat of their church. Their knowledge of ItaHan foundations, customs and often of the language, and their sympathy with the people have made them greatly influ ential in the religious and broadly moral guidance of the immigrants. Hence, it has been a natural sequence for the Italians to follow the Irish into their churches, as into their tenements, and with the increase in their num bers to acquire the churches Hke the tenements. >.^ Thus in JSTew York, for example, the old Church of the Transfiguration on Mott Street, in a parish established in 1827, has passed from the Irish- Americans to the Ital- 69 The Italian in America ians. So, too, with the Church of our Lady of Pompeii in Bleecker Street, the successor of the Church of St. Benedict. Another prominent instance is the Church of St. Anthony in SuUivan Street, dedicated in 1866, when the congregation was mainly Irish- Americans, but trans ferred to the Italians through the spread of their settle ment. This procedure has been so common in the course of ItaHan estabHshment that it is popularly remarked that the Irish buUd but the ItaHans inherit. _ There is a weU-grounded complaint of ItaHan city set tlements that their tenemente are insufferably packed. (The average density of population in the ItaHan quarter of the ><'orth End of Boston was 1.41 to a room when tiie toncment:liouso census was taken in 1891, andjthere was little noted reHef from the pressure at the end of tlic century. Conditions in PhUadelphia were even worse and are still unrelieved. The latest census statistics show that the Second, Third and Fourth Wards, where nearly aU the Italians live, contain more than one-sixteenth of tho total population of the city in less than one one-hun- dretl-and-fiftieth of the area. ~ In XcAv York City tbe Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Twelfth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth and tho Nineteenth Wards now contain by far the greater jmrt of the Italian tenement-house population, though thousands of ItaHan families are distributotl through other wards, chiefly from tho Fifth to the Twenty -second, inclusive. 70 Italian Settlement in American Cities The largest percentage of the entire ItaHan tenement- house population is shown in Wards Six and Fourteen. In the first-named 2,036 families of Italian parentage constitute 61.01 per cent, of the tenement-house popula tion. In Ward Fourteen, extending from Broadway to the Bowery and from Canal to East Houston Street, there were 4,856 ItaHan tenement famUies, out of a total of 5,631, according to the recent report of the Tenement House Department; a percentage of 86.24. This is the highest percentage given for any ward in the city, though Ward Twelve exceeds all others in its number of ItaHan tenement famiHes, according to the same official report. Here the ItaHan famUies number 5,220, but they consti tute only 6.12 per cent, of the total tenement-house pop ulation. Block 1,442 in the Fourteenth Ward has the unenviable distinction of being the most densely populated in the ward, and containing the largest number of families of ItaHan parentage in the city. In this block 492 ItaHan famiHes are lodged in the area extending north from Prince Street, between Mott and Elizabeth Streets. In the city at large there were 29,623 families of Italian parentage, as the official report records, or slightly more than half the number of famUies (56,885), whose heads were American. In the total number of Italian resident famUies in tenements and other houses. Ward Twelve leads with a reported number of 6,121 in 1903, and Ward Fourteen is second with 5,641. This enumeration reck- 71 The Italian in America oned that the heads of famiHes constituted 7.57 per cent. of the total of the heads of famiHes in the city. /\ The evUs of congestion and wretehed honsingloave been graphicaUy set forth by Jacob Riis, Kate Holladay Claghorn, Emily Wayland Dinwiddle and other expert observers. The shameful construction of tenements under lax municipal regulations and oversight is chiefly respons ible for the intolerable conditions stiU existing in New York and other large cities. Certainly the ItaHan immi grant did not buUd such breeders of disease, death and crime as are still tolerated in our larger cities. ('One row ntributions of resident Italians, the Columbus Hospital was founded in 1892, and is doing remarkably elfective service in proportion to its available means. It is reeognized as an Itidian foundation dis tinctively, yet there is not the slightest prejudice of na tionality ill its ecmduct, as is apparent in the organization i>i its medicid and surgieal stall", for not one of its twenty- three i)hysitians is an Italian. Another really admirable Bi) Italian Settlement in American Cities foundation for charitable purposes is the ItaHan Be nevolent Institute at 165-167 Houston Street, and con tributors have the certain assurance that every dollar is most prudently and fitly expended. The organization for self or co-operative help is now widespread, and there are over one hundred and fifty ItaHan Societies for mutual aid and social improvement ends of one sort or another in Manhattan alone. The traditional eminence of Italy in art is maintained in the choice of the late ItaHan Director of the Metro- poHtan Museum of Art, and the certainty of the develop ment of the Italian genius for art works is manifest in the proficiency of ItaHan- American children in all primary schools of drawng and design. Already the ItaHans of New York have contributed three monuments to the city and they are now raising funds to build a school in honor of Yerdi. _ The love of music is practicaUy universal. Almost aU ItaHans have correct ears, if not trained voices, „and the humblest bootblack is more Hkely to mark flaws in execution than the average opera-house goer. The works of the favorite composers aigjamiHar to the masses. and the operas of BeUini, Donizetti, Verdi, Mascagni and others never faU to draw large Italian audiences in New _York, if the leading_^ singers are Italian. In the smaUer American cities of the Eastern States the comparative advance and condition of the ItaUan influx are commonly better in essential points than in New 81 The Italian in America York, Philadelphia and Boston. The foremost in these cities are not as wealthy as the leading ItaHan busings men of New York, but the average Hving is more health ful and desirable. There are rarely any big, dark tene ments to invite congestion and disease. The lodging houses are often shabby and dingy, but they are quite commonly old residence houses with fairly spacious rooms, and the poorest are usuaUy open to sunlight and fresh air. House and room rents are lower, and there is less pressure of applicants. There is stiU a tendency to over crowding, but no approach to actual indecency. There aio convenient places for the chUdren to play without risking their lives and becoming a nuisance in congested streets. Social influences generaUy are more upHfting, and the children especially show the improvement. All these points I have noted in close personal investi gation in the cities of New England and the Middle States chiefly attracting Italian immigration. Bridgeport is one^ of the most progressive of the smaUer cities on the Atlantic coast, and it assuredly makes a remarkable exhibit of the utilization and value of diversified immigration. A common prejudice against immigration springs from the assumption that it is filHng the openings for employment here to the exclusion of American workmen. The actual effect — on the contrary — is marked in the development of Bridgeport. From the reckoning of the Board of Trade it appears that there are more expert mechanics in this ti3 Italian Settlement in American Cities city than in any other in the State, and that the influx of immigrants has operated to extend greatly the demand for skilled labor, which is drawn from New England and the Middle States. Thus the labor of American workmen ( has not been displaced, but attracted. It is estimated that the population of this city of Italian descent is now approximately 3,500. _In view of the fact that the bulk of the Italian immigration has been of com- mon laborerSj doing the crudest and heaviest outdoor work „jiit^_tlie.Jowest wages of unskilled labgrjthdr persistent _, thrift and advance as a body are remarkable. There are practicaUy no drones nor beggars among them, andonly a small percentage is driven by sickness to the almshouse or receives any support from charitable associations. It is found, too, in Bridgeport, as elsewhere in New England, that temporary help usuaUy suffices to render appHcants _self-supporting. A considerable number of the working men have put their savings into Httle shops, and in the extension of the fruit business they have been notably successful — two of them having become the leading dealers of the city. One has founded and is successfully conducting a progressive Italian newspaper, II Sole, pubHshed semi-weekly, and circulating widely beyond Bridgeport. They have or ganized a church society and recently dedicated a repre sentative church, and their settlement is now firmly estab lished. It is reckoned that they now own property in 83 The Italian in America the city to the extent of fuUy $800,000, and they have shown themselves heartily appreciative of^the advantages and opportunities of American citizenship. They are law-abiding, remarkably temperate, devoted to their fam-,. iUes and very anxious to give their chUdren the advantage^. of the education that has not been open jto them in the country of their birth. The Italian women are exemplary in their chastity and famUy relations. The mayor of Bridgeport, the city clerk and represen tatives of leading savings banks have given special tes timonials to the good character, industry, thrift and loyal American citizenship of the ItaHan settlement in Bridge port. Mayor MulvihiU observed that: '"The Italians are a religious and law-abiding people, and wiU compare favorably with any equal portion of .American citizens whether native or adopted." City Clerk Buckingham stated: "There is no doubt that at the present time the standard of ItaHan citizenship is of a higher grade in this country than ever before, and what is true of the country in general is true of Bridgeport in particular. * * * To-day we find the Italian taking a prominent part in all tho pathsof Jife^ jn_prof^sions as weU as in business. All ])rofessions are open to him, and to-day Bridgeport can point with pride to her bright and intelligent ItaHan doctors, lawyers, ministers and business men." The rep resentatives of the leading sayings banks report that the ItaHans are largely depositors, and that their deposits are HI Italian Settlement in American Cities ^steadily increasing. Their promptness in meeting obli gations and their trustworthiness in general are particu larly commended. The influx of Italian immigrants found employment at first chiefly in city and railway improve ments. As their occupatipns_became_more. varied and their famUiarity with the conditions of living here ad vanced, their homes have been scattered throughout the city and their assimilation has been more rapid. Throughout New York State the general reports were hardly less favorable. The mayors of Schenectady and Syracuse, among others caUed upon for information, were particularly emphatic in their certification of the service, progress and general good citizenship of the Italians in their cities. Mayor Eisenmenger of Schenectady, which has been advancing industriaUy of late years more rapidly than any other city in the State, is strongly impressed by the working service and faculty of self support of the Italians. They are not disposed, he says, to jar with other nation alities, and the Italian is rarely the aggressor in any such dispute. They found employment originaUy chiefly in railway grading and city road work, but many are now smaU and apparently prospering tradesmen, and are ac quiring homes of their own in and near the city. They appear to be almost uniformly anxious to urge the educa tion of their children, and he has seen no reason to ques tion their progressive assimilation. 85 The Italian in America Mayor Alan C. Fobes of Syracuse considers that the Italians are of indispensable service in filling the demand for laborers for railway buUding and grading, and for state and city pubHc works. He regards them as excep- tionaUy rcHable and persistent in their work when they are given employment, and beHeves that they constitute now an essential part of the working community in Syra cuse. He would consider any move to displace them or discourage their coming by prejudiced legislation as de cidedly unvrise, and sees no reason to question the certain assimUation of their chUdren, at least, in the American stock without any depreciation of its average quality. Mr. (riles II. Stilwell, President of the Board of Edu cation in Syracuse, substantially confirms the view of Ma\'or Fobes — writing in response to an inquiry — "We have quite a good many ItaHans and Austrians here, but they seem to be weU disposed to work, are continuaUy employed, and, instead of being a charge on the city, are generaUy, to all appearances, saving money, and many of them sending it back to the countries from which they came. There is no complaint here that they are not be coming Americanized." In Utica the enterprising ItaHans have built an attrac tive theatre or opera house of their own. I was present one Saturday evening when nearly every seat was fiUed by an audience that was entertained by a performance of Monte Cristo. The performers were a weU-balanced stock 86 Italian Settlement in American Cities company of eighteen members, uncommonly versatile artists, as the offer for the following Monday was the opera of CavaUeria Rusticana. The stage properties were nothing to brag of, but the acting was sympathetic and often vivid. The play was foUowed with a rapt attention that would greatly flatter American stock actors, but the Italians took the tribute of courtesy as a matter of course. This undertaking may not be a business success, for its ItaHan patrons are poor and there has been as yet no con siderable attraction of American theatre-goers. But the enterprise is a signal evidence of ItaHan progress in America and of comparative refinement of taste, for or dinary vaudeviUe shows in this theatre and outside failed to attract Italian patronage. There is a chUdish gratifica tion in the marionette shows in New York and other cities, but whenever an ItaHan theatre of any standing is opened, like the theatre Drammatico Nazionale of the Bowery or the new theatre in Utica, the plays that draw are plays of merit. In the cities of the South and West the comparative prosperity of the Italians is even more pronounced, for the demand for their labor is keener than in more thickly settled communities. There are between thirteen and fourteen thousand, ac cording to the latest enumeration, in the ItaHan colony in New Orleans: 93 per cent, of them are SicUians. Their industry and orderHness confute the prejudice which stiU 87 The Italian in America lingers against the immigrants from the southern ItaHan provinces. Under fair conditions, as in this city, there are no widespread disturbances nor any ground for com plaints against the mass of the townspeople. The leading business men are now planning to establish an Italian Chamber of Commerce, and it is probable that a labor bureau wiU be organized by this chamber to provide for meeting the great demand for labor coming from the in terior of Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and Indian Territory, for which region New Orleans is now the main centre of supply of Italian immi grant labor. An Italian foundation, especially com mended b}' Signor Rossi after his recent inspection, is the Sacred Heart Mission which has established dependent elementary schools, a kindergarten and orphanage. In these schools, as Signor Rossi reports, thousands of Italian chUdren learn ItaHan and EngHsh; many orphans of im migrants are fed, clothed, lodged and educated, and several hundred ItaHan immigrants yearly receive help of essen tial service. The conditions in the smaller cities and towns are. as a rule, more favorable for the quick advance and inde pendence of the immigrant colonists, for whom opportun ities are open as artisans, small shopkeepers and cultivators of market gardens or outlying farms. There is no evi dence in these communities of any aversion to agricultural occupations, for most of the new comers are eager to seek 88 Italian Settlement in American Cities employment upon the suburban truck farms, and to un dertake farming on the " half share " system, or by pur chase of land when they are able to do so. This is signally evident in the notable Italian colony at Bryan, Texas, which is of peculiar interest as an object lesson for the instruction and advantage of the mass of Italian immigrants to this country. Here a settlement of SiciHans, numbering about twenty-four hundred, has been prospering for several years. The families are spread over the neighborhood to a distance of eighteen miles from the town, and are, for the most part, proprietors of lands chiefly sown with Indian corn and cotton. The families that rent lands generally pay $3.00 a year per acre, and it is reported by Signor Rossi that the fam iHes of the owners and tenants save from $100 to $1,000 yearly, according as they are more or less numerous and economical, and as the crops are more or less abundant. The greater part of these famiHes came originally from Trapani in the neighborhood of Palermo, and in point of industry, thrift, good conduct and prosperity, they need not shun comparison with the immigrants from any other part of Italy or from any other country. Two years ago the parish priest of Bryan raised, in a few days, the con tribution of $1,100 from his parishioners to pay for the construction of the local CathoHc church, now ornamented with altar cloths embroidered in gold and other costly embelHshments. AU who came to greet Signor Rossi last 2^he Italian in America year at the home of the parish priest gave evidence of their happy Hving and good prospects. All the chief food suppHes are here abundant and cheap, meat seUing at five cents a pound. Taxation was said to be exceedingly light. The cHmate was judged to be fuUy as good as that of SicUy. There is much fertUe land to be obtained for cultivation, and the owners give the use of the land without charge for two years to the farmer who clears it. The settlers cut down the trees, selling the wood at $2.00 per cord, and harvest Indian com in the first year and cotton in the second. In others of the smaU Texas towns the experience of Italian colonization in Bryan has been substantiaUy du- pHcated, and the recent inspection of Signor Rossi has demonstrated that there is not a single city or town in Texas that has received immigration from Italy in which the newcomers are not as a body thrifty and compara tively well-to-do. The like is reported of the Italian set tlers in Salt Lake City, and, after crossing the Sierras, the exhibit of ItaHan prosperity in the Califomian cities and towns is stUl more noteworthy. Doubtiess other parts of our country will prove as attractive to ItaHan immi gration, and the opportunities for money making existing to-day in other sections may be even greater, as the most pressing demand for labor in this great Pacific coast state continues only for a part of the year, in the season of harvest; but Itidian settlement in this state began with 90 Italian Settlement in American Cities the earliest period of any considerable immigration, and the progress attained is naturaUy more pronounced and gratifying to the pride of the settlers. In Los Angeles and the neighborhood there are now about four thousand Italians, chiefly coming to this country from Northern Italy, principaUy occupied as mer chants and farmers, and Signor Rossi reports that all are industrious. " Not a few," he says," are rich owners of houses, farms and business properties." The ItaHans in San Francisco are no less thrifty. In the neighborhood of the city there are about two hundred and fifty truck farms cultivated by Italian owners, chiefly Genoese, as Signor Rossi observes, "who obtain the manure from the stables in the city gratis and transform into fertile lands the original sand dunes." In this city also there is the noteworthy estabHshment of the Cali fornia Fruit Growers' Association, in which are employed several hundred Italians, chiefly women, in the canning of asparagus, apricots and other vegetables and fruit. These employees work by the day, earning daUy wages of from 75 cents to $2.00. The general superintendent of the association is an Italian, Signor Marco J. Fontana, "an interesting type of the self-made man," as Signor Rossi has lately remarked. There is, however, no desire on the part of the leading Italians of the city to induce any influx of immigration to seek employment within the city Hmits, as the organized labor unions practically con- 91 The Italian in America trol the trades and are jealous of anj' intrusion of non union labor, and the directors of the Royal Italian Emigration Department advise the immigrants to avoid as far as practicable any conflict with American labor unions. Instead of promoting immigration in the face of such antagonism, as Signor Rossi shrewdly observes, "It is better to aUow it to develop slowly and spon taneously, as it has up to the present time." Outside of the famous vineyards, described in a fol lowing chapter, perhaps the most flourishing establishment of ItaHans in California is at San Jose, the principal centre of the fruit production of the Santa Clara vaUey. Here from three to four thousand Italians are profitably occu pied as laborers, truck farmers and workers in the fruit- canning factories. In the beautiful vaUey surrounding the city not less than two hundred and fifty ItaHans are reported to be owners of smaU fruit farms. The comparative progress and condition of the Italians in the American cities and towns in which openings for employment in market-gardening, fruit and vegetable handHng and closely alHed occupations are most abundant, clearly indicate the lines of advance to be preferred by Italian immigrants to this country. Eliot Lord. 92 CHAPTER V IN COMPETITION AND ASSOCIATION ^he capacity of the ItaHan immigrant to make headway in this hustUng country often against the keenest compe- tjtion has^_been^^bundantly demonstrated. Unless he is grossly misplaced and handicapped, he will contrive to earn a Hving and save money with which to better his condition. Even the poorest and most dependent un skUled laborer saved some money, as a rule, in the early years of immigration when the labor conditions of this country were little known to the mass of Italians, and an immigrant was likely to come over under contract with some padrone. If the padrone acted as a manufacturer's or contractor's agent, he would contrive to get commissions and other profits both from the buyer and the seUer of labor at the expense of the immigrants, for aU these exactions were deducted, in the long run, from the market rates for labor. If the padrone was only a greedy speculator, as was often the case, he would pay transportation expenses and as little more as he could possibly bargain for, and use or seU the labor in ways most profitable to himself. 93 The Italian in America The most outrageous impositions were through the se curing of children as servitors of the padrone untU this, as well as the contract labor practice, was squelched by the laws and the vigilance of prosecution. Yet even under these intolerable exactions, the poorest immigrants continued to struggle along and reach inde pendence sooner or later. Many of the most prospering and worthy ItaHan- American citizens to-day began their life in this country as bootblacks, newsboys or strolling musicians in the grip of padrones. This distressful ex perience is no longer imposed — or, if continued, the viola tion of law is covert and rare. The padrone now survives only in the tolerable form of an employment agent and boarding-house keeper, and his chances of profit are van ishing yearly with the increasing information and self- reliance of the immigrant as the numbers of his country men increase in this country. There can be no possible question that the average con dition and earnings of the common unskiUed ItaHan laborer are materiaUy better in this country to-day than they were twenty years ago. This advance is due to his better guidance and equipment for competition, and it is prac ticaUy certain that the market value of his labor wiU continue to rise with the rising appreciation of his capacity and the growing reluctance of competing laborers to do the crudest, most fatiguing and least profitable work. In view of his present employment in road making, rail- 9-1 In Competition and Association way grading, track laying, cargo handHng and other pubHc and private works, it is not likely that he has any competition to fear. In more advanced industrial employment his competing , capacity is no less evident. In some occupations it has been strained to excess through his eagerness to earn money, or under the pressure of actual want. It may be unfortunate for him if the anticipation of the Industrial Commission of 1901 is realized, " that the future clothing workers of the country are not Hkely to be the Jews but the Italians." Yet it is certainly remarkable that the Italian peasants who come to this country so soon learn to turn their hands to the making of clothing and other manufactures in which they have had no prior experience. The number of immigrants formaUy entered as " tailors " is assuredly very much less than the number engaged in the making of clothing in our American cities. This facUity is explained in the report of the Industrial Commission, no doubt correctly. " The Italian, like the Jew, has a very elastic character. He can easily change habits and modes of work and adapt himself to different conditions; he is energetic and thrifty, and wUl work hard with little regard for the number of hours. It is quite usual for an Italian cloak-maker, Hke the Jew, after he has worked 10 hours in the shops with his wife, to take a bundle of work home at night. But, unlike the Jew, he not only does the work at home himself, but he is assisted 95 The Italian in America by the women in his family, and often leaves a part of the work for them to do during the day." "If the Italian and the Pole are compared, it wUl be found that it is the PoUsh women who enter the sewing trade, whereas the former Polish farmer cHngs to com mon work requiring hard labor. The Italian is able on account of his national characteristics, artistic abUity, etc., to control such work as the manufacture of clothing, sUk weaving, hat making and other trades where taste and a fine sense of touch are essential for a successful perform ance of the work. The PoHsh farmer can succ^isfuUy compete in factory work where hard automatic labor is necessary; but the Italian dislikes mechanical work and is better adapted to diversified pursuits where manipula tion is required." " Notwithstanding the competing power of PoHsh women " (due to their unequalled endurance), " they can probably be exceUed by Italian women. WhUe a great many Polish women have entered the trade, they have not yet developed great speetl nor been able to work in factories producing the best grades of work, whUe ItaHan women are almost perfect imitators. The ItaHan women can ilevelop speed and can work with skiU. Like the Poles, they also are obedient to orders." In the i-oconl of the distribution of Italian immigrants by trades and industries for the fiscal year ending June 30, l'.Ui;i, it is noteworthy that the immigrant masons 90 s -T m ¦x ¦^ ;-; r-*, — -H 7- <1 . In Competition and Association outnumber the artisans attached to any other single in dustry or trade. 4,226 entered in this year, and the aUied branch of stonecutters contributed an additional 978. This is a significant exhibit of the demand in this country for workers in occupations in which the ItaHan is an acknowl edged expert. It is unquestionable that there would be a much greater influx of these valuable artisans, if avail able openings for employment were better determined and reported, and if the antagonism of the labor unions to any outside competition was not so pronounced. Ex- pertness in quarrying and stone cutting, as weU as in plastering and moulding, has been a transmitted acquire ment for more than two thousand years in Italy, and the skiUed ItaHan workman in these Hnes of industry, ascend ing to the pinnacle of the fine arts of sculpture and cameo cutting, dreads no competition. This infiux is not now artificiaUy stimulated in any way through the agency of contractors, and its distribution is now so widespread and scattering that it does not appear to arouse any special antagonism. Immigrant barbers and hair-dressers come next to the masons in numbers according to the same year's record, showing a total of 4,145. Their competence and conduct are certainly not below the average in this country as the multipHcation of their shops bears witness, even in quarters where there are few if any Italian customers. Tailors stand third in the same list, numbering 3,464, and 97 The Italian in America carpenters and joiners make a close fourth with a total of 2,'.j79. ItaHan cabinet makers, picture-frame joiners and gUders and other artistic wood workers are often very deft, and the average workman is likely to hold his own in any ordinary competition. It is interesting to note a contribution in this single year of 14(3 " sculptors and artists " and 305 " musicians," showing that the fine arts in this country are absorbing an increasing supply of ItaHan talent or genius. The handiwork of naturaHzed ItaHans as well as of their chU dren born in this country may be seen in pictures and statuary and mural decorations adorning many fine resi dences in America. Although the great mass of the immigrants has been made up of the poor, Ul-educated, cafoni and fami laborers, it is noteworthy how surely the innate artistic powers of this stock come to Hght and expand in the attainments of their children under the culturing influences of our schools of design. y The professional and business men who have come to this country from Italy and those who have been reared here of ItaHan parentage are not, as yet, sufficient in number to make any considerable coUective impress, ex cept in a few cities Hke New York and San Francisco, but their talents and character and the innate courtesy that marks their people from peasant to sovereign have already won deserved reeognition and cordial acceptance for them as a fine type of Americans. John J. D. Trknor. ^ 98 CHAPTER VI IN THE MINING FIELDS The number of Italian immigrants giving their occupa tion as miners, as reported in the official returns, is by no means an accurate gauge of the influx into our mining fields, for the greater part of the workers in the coal fields, at least, are not trained miners, but are drawn from the ranks of common laborers who are employed in surface work of the simplest kinds, where their lack of experience is not a final disquaHfication. The record of the entry of ItaHan " miners," however, shows clearly enough the beginning of any considerable intrusion into our coal-mining fields. From 1875 to 1880 inclusive the average yearly entry of ItaHan immigrant miners was only 37. In 1881 this average was nearly quadrupled, and in the foUowing year the number enter ing was nearly ten times the former average. This influx ' continued during the next ten years without materially | increasing the record of 1882 except in 1889, when the unprecedented number of 767 is recorded. In the closing years of the decade ending with 1900 the average rose materiaUy, the influx reaching 863 in 1899 and 1,260 in 99 The Italian in America 1900. Three years later the record for the year was 2,520, showing a stUl more noteworthy increase. By far the greater part of this immigration came from Northern Italy to our mining fields, the proportion in 1899 being more than 7 to 1 from Southern Italy, and in 1900 being almost exactly like that of the previous year. Presumably most of the immigrants recording them selves as miners have had some previous training, at least, in mining work at home, and the fact will not be disputed that many ItaHans included in the record lists are expert operators, but, as before noted, these workmen constitute only a fraction of the number seeking employment in the coal fields. Such employment, especially in the anthracite fields, has been one of the least desirable and satisfactory occu pations of the Italian in this country. Mining is arduous and dangerous at best, and it has been prosecuted in our coal fields under lax mining laws, hampered and unsound administration and labor conditions often intolerable. The entry of the ItaHans into the mining fields of this country corresponded closely with the introduction of machines for coal mining. In the words of the Report of the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics for ISSS: '< A mining machine not only reverses the customary methods of work but changes equaUy the system of wages. The coal miner proper was accustomed to take his own tools into the pit and to 100 In the Mining Fields deHver from the waU of mineral before him certain tons of coal ready every morning for a certain sum per ton. He mined, drUled, blasted and loaded his own coal, tim bered his own roof, took care of his own tools, and was responsible mainly to himself for his personal safety in the amount of his output." "In the machine mine some seven or eight men are required to perform these functions. In the mine, as in the mill, the machine has become the master and the men are its servitors. The operator and the mechanism simply direct its energies when the motive power is given to it, and the coal is under cut or mined. A blaster follows with tools and explosives, loosening the mass ; the loaders reduce it and shovel it into pit cars ; the timber men fol low and prop the roof which no longer has the mineral to rest upon. Labor is assisted in every process and a machinist is retained for repairs. Each one does his own certain portion of the work and no more, and doubtless does it better as weU as faster by reason of the greater skiU thus acquired. Herein lies the chief value of the ma chine to the mine owner. It relieves him for the most part of skiUed labor and of all the restraint which that impHes. It opens to him the whole labor market from which to recruit his force; it enables him to concentrate the work of the mine at given points, and it admits of the graduation of wages to specific work and of the pay ment of wages by the day." 101 The Italian in America " The results of this introduction of machinery consist not only in the greater execution of the machine, but in the subdivision of labor which it involves, and the greater per capita efficiency of the force thus secured. The gain is consequently to the employer rather than to the men. The mining machine is, in fact, the natural enemy of the coal-miner: it destroys the value of his skUl and experience, obliterates his trade, and reduces him to the rank of a common laborer or machine driver if he remains where he is." Statistics taken from average mining establishments show that the expert cutters and blasters who take the places of the miners in a hand mine — not exceeding eight jier cent, of tho total number emploj'ed in a machine mine — receive higher wages per day than the miners dis placed. It is reckoned that this increase amounts to an advance of about 22^ in wages, but the certain imme diate effect of the introduction of machines in mining is to reduce very greatly the number of skilled miners form erly employed, displacing, on the average, 60 by a few Ital ian peasants under the leadership of one of their ovm countrymen, who deserves an enduring memorial. This was the ChevaUer Secchi de Casale, a disciple of Mazzini and a comrade of Garibaldi in his gaUant fight for the in dependence of Italy. In 1 s4'.t, when the struggle for free dom had failed for the time being, Signor de Casale fled to New York with some companions and made his home for a time on Staten Island in the VUlage of Stapleton. He soon estabUshed the first ItaHan newspaper in New York, L'Eco d'ltalia, reaching with unflagging good cheer the sparsely sprinkled refugees of his nation in the United States, Canada and Mexico. He was an ever helpful coun sellor and guardian to the poorest immigrant appealing to him for guidance and help. He was the first, too, to interpose signally for the protection of the poor Httie ItaHan street musicians who had been brought over and exploited for years by unscrupulous padroni. By the aid of the Italian consular and diplomatic representatives in this country he secured in ls74 the passage of an act by the Italian Parliament to abate this evU, and his efforts were seconded also by corresponding legislation in this country. He was very fitly knightetl by King Victor Em manuel in recognition of his services, and no Italian since the days of Columbus and the Cabots has been more worthy of commemoration for the keen-sighted inteUigence and devotion of his services to the Italian in America. 130 On Farm and Plantation He was the first to recognize actively here the importance of diverting the stream of Italian immigration to rural districts at the very outset of the rising of its flow. If he had been able to secure any wide-ranging co-operation, it is practically certain that he would have succeeded in the solution of the so-caUed "Italian problem" in this country. He was fortunate, however, in obtaining a sig nal demonstration of this fact through the hearty sym pathy of one large American landowner, Mr. Charles Landis of LandisvUle, N. J. This pubHc-spirited Ameri can put considerable tracts of land in Vineland and the neighborhood at the disposal of Signor de Casale for the development of his colonization scheme. This apparently weak little colony reached self-support and success within three years from its start. The ItaHans of Vineland were able to produce and market wine from their own planta tions in 1881, and some wine is stiU made in this colony, though the efforts of the colonists have since been largely diverted to the more profitable occupation of truck farm ing and especiaUy to the cultivation of sweet potatoes, a crop that has proved particularly desirable. The workers on these plantations, as a body, are unquestionably con tented and prospering, and their success is sufficient proof of what might have been achieved by many Hke colonies elsewhere, if a like intelligent co-operation had been ex tended to them by American landowners. Alessandro Mastro-Valerio is another patriotic Italian 131 The Italian in America who has carried Italian colonization onward with signal success in this country along the Hnes first deeply marked by Chevalier de Casale. The agricultural colonies which he estabUshed in succession, in the years 1890 and ls93, at Daphne and Lamberth, Alabama, are of peculiar in terest in their pointing to the successful development of the South by Italian colonization. The foundation of the colony at Daphne was laid by him in the heart of an invigorating pine forest by the settlement of twenty Italian famUies on land bought at from $1.50 to $5. no per acre. The allotment for each famUy was from 25 to 50 acres. The growth of pines was cleared away by degrees, and the colonists used the lumber which they cut from their own trees to build their houses, ilr. Mastro-Valerio was then conducting experiments for the United States De partment of Agriculture, and the "Alabama State Ex periment Station," and was able to give to the colonists aU needed instruction in the planting and care of the vine yards which he planned for them. From the outset he inspired their efforts unflaggingly and made it ijossiblefor them to overcome the inevitable difficulties and endure the trying privations of pioneer colonization. The vines and fruit trees, expertly laid out in a neatiy onlei-ed system of rows and stakes, have thrived remarkably, .and their fruit is brought to an unusuaUy early maturity so that the vintage is ended by the 10th of July, and uncrushed grapes can be shipped to the Xorthorn market where they l:!3 On Farm and Plantation command a price as high as 15 cents a pound. The de mand for this shipment has been such that some choice varieties of European vines producing grapes for the table have been grafted on native stock, and this hybrid product has proved very attractive and appetizing. The sale of these grapes is constantly extending, and wine of excellent quality has already been made in quantity for market, and both demand and product are surely extending. While awaiting the maturing of the vineyards and fruit trees, the same inteUigent director pushed forward from the start the production of vegetables marketable from the end of the first season for the HveHhood of the col onists. The soil of Daphne is sandy, with a red or yellow subsoU, and has the advantage of being easily worked, a very important feature to colonists with little capital and simple tools of husbandry. It is not fertile, and would hardly warrant cultivation without the use of artificial fertilizers, but this was foreseen by the promoter of the colony and the needed fertilization was determined and provided. On the cleared lands wheat, corn, rice, to bacco, cotton, oats, peanuts, Irish and sweet potatoes and other vegetables were successfully grown, and the whole district is now luxuriantly productive, sometimes yielding two crops in a year. These colonist families are, without exception, contented and thrifty. The climate is remarkably healthy. The ozone and aroma of the pines are delightful and invigorat- 133 The Italian in America ing. Winter snows rarely faU on this favored land, and the summer heat is tempered by the constant breeze from the Gulf of Mexico. Occasional frost is the only plague which colonists have to fear, and its bUght is expertly avoided in the coldest nights of March by ranges of open- air fires consuming Httle hUlocks of damp leaves and grass sprinkled with petroleum. The colony now possesses a school and church of its own, and its noteworthy thrift and success have been repeatedly remarked by interested visitors and the representative newspapers of Daphne and MobUe. The colony of Lamberth was estabUshed to meet the selection of Italians who wished to settle along the Hue of the MobUe and Ohio Railway in MobUe County. This colony has now more than a dozen famiHes of very pros- ])erous people, successfuUy engaged in viticulture and in truck farming. They have buUt a church and school and secured a railway station at their plantation. Their de velopment has been so closely correspondent to that of the larger colony of Daphne under the same direction tluit it is unnecessary to particularize its methods of pr( )^ress. Tho success of these typical colonies unquestionably shows what might be effected without much difficulty through this jilan of distribution if it could be prosecuted on a great scale with ellicient co-operation, but this, un fortunately, cannot bo assured, aiul it is, therefore, of more 134 On Farm and Plantation immediate practical interest to note what has been effected thus far by an almost unaided movement of distribution. This appears in the thriving vineyards of the wine belt of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio where ItaHan labor is now largely employed and where the advance of ItaHan ownership is steadily if not rapidly progressing. Here the object-lesson doesn't require the provision of special means for its extension, the ItaUan beginning as a hired laborer under appreciative employers and gradually ad-^ vancing to the self -supported assertion of independence. The advance of the Italians in the agricultural settle ments of California suffices to show the prospect that is open to such a laborer under favoring conditions. In view of his unhappy experience at home it will be gener aUy easier also to induce the Italian cafoni who land here as immigrants to go upon the land with the certainty of fixed wages at the outset, a weekly return in cash which they can see and handle, than to hold up to them the less tangible prospects of profit sharing on a co-operative basis or the promise of land with indefinite burdens to be assumed before its ownership is secured to them. This was notably demonstrated in the planting of the now famous colony of Asti in Sonoma County, California. Here the organizers were chiefly enterprising Italians of San Francisco who were able to command sufficient means for the estabHshment of a promising colony. They raised a capital of $10,000, and then appointed a committee of 135 The Italian in America three directors to select the most desirable location for a vineyard. The prime motive of this undertaking was distinctly phUanthropic, as its originators were not look ing for personal profit but were moved by the d^are of providing a good HveHhood and prospects for the poor Italians in San Francisco who were finding it difficult to obtain steady employment. After an exhaustive exam ination the committee selected a tract of fifteen hundred acres of roUing hiU land not subject to drought and ex cellently weU adapted for viticulture, and accessible by raUway at a distance of a little more than a hundred mUes from San Francisco. They named the chosen spot Asti in memory of the ancient Asti in Piedmont, whose product of wine has been for centuries a source of pride to its citizens. The first cost of the land to the Association was $25,(m:i0, and to secure clear title its members were obliged to pay down at once the subscription in their treasury and raise an additional $15,000 at the rate of $1,000 a month for fifteen months thereafter. This they did, and then further capital was needed and provided to clear the sheep range, which they had bought, of immense oak trees and roots, and prepare the land for setting out grape cuttings. In the By-Laws of the Association preference for per manent employment was given to Italian-Swiss persons who were either citizens of the United States or had declared their intention to become citizens. This article 136 On Farm and Plantation was intended to secure permanence of settlement and benefit to the laborers. Provision was made for the pay ment of wages ranging from $30 to $40 per month in addition to sleeping quarters, good board and as much wine as they cared to drink. This proposal was on its face attractive enough for any Italian laborer in the city, and there would not have been the least difficulty in filling up the possible quota of laborers to the limit had it not been coupled with a proviso requiring each laborer to subscribe to at least five shares of stock in the Associa tion, in payment for which a deduction of $5.00 per month would be withheld from his wages. He would thus be interested in the profits of the enterprise and on a relatively equal footing of dignity and control with the leading proprietors or share owners. Moreover, this subscription, if he so desired, when the land became fruitful, would entitle him to receive a number of acres to own and develop independently. To any American laborer this requirement would, of course, seem at the worst an inconsiderable drawback, even if its prospective benefits were not keenly appreciated. But the poor Ital ians, one and all, failed to understand it or were suspi cious of a possible cheat or perilous liability in it. Hence it is a matter of record that not a single laborer could be induced to go to work under the compulsion to take even a share of stock in the Association. Thus the organizers were obHged to dispose of this allotment of stock to other 137 The Italian in America subscribers and to pay their laborers whoUy in cash, thereby defeating at the outset the cherished aim of the Associ ation for the improvement of the condition of the laborer. It must be conceded, however, that for a number of years the actual progress and returns of the undertaking seemed to justify the scepticism of the laborers. The preparation of the soU was steadily continued and choice grape cuttings were imported from Italy, France, Hun gary and the valley of the Rhine through an interested co- operator, Dr. G. Olino of Asti, Italy. These cuttings were received in good condition and set out on the land of the company under the direction of an expert. When the vines came into prolific bearing, however, the Asso ciation was obHged to face a grave disappointment. At the time of the organization of the Association the market price of grapes from California was $30.00 per ton, a rate that was a certain guarantee of very large profits. But when the grapes from the Association were ready for marketing, the price had fallen to $8.00 per ton, a retum which didn't even meet the cost of growing the product. Hence it was necessary to suspend operations, or else to extend the plan of production by undertaking the man ufacture of wine on the ground. Meanwhile the required monthly payment had been continued for five years, and every shareholder had been obliged to pay $60.00 a share for his stock, raising the capital invested thus far to $150,000. The call for the building of a stone winery of 138 On Farm and Plantation adequate capacity then entaUed a further assessment of $10.00 per share, with which the needed establishment was buUt and wine produced for market. Even then, at the outset, the undertaking seemed doomed to failure. The best price that could be obtained for the wine from dealers in California was only 7 cents per gallon, a re turn below the cost of production, and if the energetic directors of the Association had not persisted in seeking a better price by shipping their product in quantity to dealers in New Orleans, Chicago, New York and other principal markets, their venture would have coUapsed in evitably. Fortunately their faith and persistence were justified by the judgment of the leading dealers of the country and the appreciation of consumers. They suc ceeded in selHng their product at prices ranging from 30 to 50 cents per gaUon, according to quality, and a steady and profitable demand was thenceforth assured. Moreover, the able controllers of the Association had the exceptional patience and judgment requisite to con duct their business with the view primarily of perfecting their product to the farthest attainable point without sac rificing its quality for the sake of immediate cash returns. They continued to seU, year by year, only enough of their product to pay running expenses and the enlargements essential for the development of the business. The bal ance of the wines was stored in their vaults and expertly matured. It was only after sixteen years of this patient 139 The Italian in America perfecting that the Association began for the first time to pay a dividend to its stockholders, but subsequent re turns have richly rewarded their patience. A continuous succession of large dividends has been paid, and these returns and the known value of the property have raised the value of the shares to three times their original cost to the investors. The Association has now the larg^ dry wine vineyard in California and a great winery com pletely fitted with the best modern equipment. The best wine-producing grapes are perfected, including the lead ing ItaHan varieties, such as the Freisa, Grignolino, Ba- rolo, Barbera and Chianti. In this winery for two months in the year 300 tons of grapes are pressed daUy. Immense glass vats, each holding 120,000 Htres, receive the product, and there are never less than from 6,000 to 7,000 barrels in the warehouses. Here the principal ItaHan wines and the red and white wines of France and Germany are now produced, besides sweet wines in great variety and extra dry champagnes for the American market. It is also producing what is reported to be a very superior quaUty of brandy and cog nac, including the favorite Grappa of the Italian people, which is said to be identical in flavor and taste with that made in the mother country. For the past ten years the estabHshment has been employing more than two hun dred laborers daily, and at the time of the harvest, which lasts two months, many hundreds more are engaged. The 140 On Farm and Plantation colony has long been a most thriving settlement with many famiHes and happy homes, a well-built and weU- conducted school and complete post office, telephone and telegraphic communications. Its carefully matured prod uct of wines is now shipped daily to aU parts of Central and South America, China and Japan, and in very con siderable quantity to England, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, and even to the ports of Southern France where it bears favorable comparison, it is said, with the standard French wines. There is an extraordinary resemblance of the hiUs of Asti to those of the historic Asti in Italy, from which it takes its name. Its beauty strikes the eye of every visi tor, and the artistic vUlas on its hUlsides, chiefly owned by members of the Italian- Swiss Association, are among the most charming residences in California. Three of the leading members are particularly distinguished in the report of Signor Rossi. Cav. A. Sbarboro, native of Genoa, came here as a boy and laid the foundation of his fortune in the promotion of the colony by establishing co-opera tive banks. Through this undertaking, by the contribu tion for investment of a small sum monthly, resident families obtained loans to build houses and for other enter prises. Cav. Pietro C. Rossi, a distinguished pharmacist and graduate of the University of Turin, was first engaged in business in America in the drug line. Dr. De Vecchi entered the Italian-Swiss Colony at its most critical period 141 The Italian in America and began the practice of his profession in San Francisco as a surgeon in issQ. His competence was so pronounced that from the start his income was very large, and in the third year of his practice it reached the amount of $34,000. A large extension of the estabHshments of the same Association has been made at Madera in Southern CaU fornia, one hundred and eighty-four mUes from San Fran cisco. Here 2,000 acres of rich soU are now producing about five mUHon pounds of grapes annually, and there is another completely equipped winery where port, sherry Muscat and Angelica and other sweet wines of high quaUty are made as well as a considerable amount of brandy. The Madera establishment has been connected by a special raU way branch with the town, four mUes distant, and is reported to possess machinery for grape-crushing and brandy-making unexceUed by any in the world. At harvest time two hundred persons are employed, according to Signor Rossi's latest report. In the other months of the year from forty to fifty Italians do the requisite Avork, receiving on an average wages of from !?1.'25 to ^1.50 per day in addition to lodging and food. The meals are said to be very abundant, the workmen getting three a day in which meat, bread, eggs, vegetables and wine are served. There is no limitation to the amount of wine aUowed, but any workman who gets drunk is dis charged, though this happens very rarelj'. In the vast ceUars of this establishment there ai"e casks of a capacity 110 On Farm and Plantation of 150,000 litres. Outside its own grapes, the society makes wine from many others bought from its neighbors. At the time of its foundation the Association owning this great estabHshment was called The ItaUan-Swiss because among its stockholders there were some Swiss of the Can ton Ticino. To-day it is entirely ItaHan. Its director, a native of Piedmont, is reported to be undoubtedly a most competent speciaUst not only in the cultivation of the vines but also in the production and maturing of wine. The remarkable success of this Association is of far- reaching influence and value in its demonstration of the feasibUity of producing wines of high quality in this country on a great scale, and of extending a great field of employment for which the ItaHan immigrant labor is particularly adapted. Other undertakings of the same kind with which Italians have been more or less f uUy iden tified have achieved an almost equaUy gratifying measure of success. Perhaps more than any other State in the Union, California resembles Italy in cHmate and soil, and it is natural that the vineyard developments there should first have been pushed on a great scale by Italian labor. There is not a CaUf ornian vaUey to-day where there is not a dozen or more ItaHan farms, fruit orchards or vineyards, and large numbers of ItaHans are now employed and pre ferred by American farmers. The truck farmers around the Californian cities are mostly Italian, and their suc- 143 The Italian in America cess in every variety of farming employment in that State is now indisputable. The reckoning of the number of Italians who, with scarcely an exception, are thriving in the State, which was prepared by the ItaHan Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco in 1897, is greatly in excess of the latest national census returns, as all persons of Italian descent born in this country are included. This report states that -15,t;L'5 Italians were then Hving in the 56 counties of California, and that almost aU of them were engaged in agriculture, a convincing proof that the drift to the towns and to other pursuits was not uncontrollable. They were credited with owning 2,7:i»; farms, orchards, vineyards, ranches, ete., and there were in addition 837 ItaHan busi ness concerns with a capital of $17,908,300. The particular adaptability of the Italians to the rising requirements for labor in the cotton, rice and sugar-cane districts is becoming more generally recognized. Already there is a marked preference for ItaHan in place of negro labor on the sugar-cane plantations of Louisiana and Mis sissippi. The system of employment is, in the main, ex cellent. The plantations are often divided into separate tracts, each assigned to a sepai-ate family for cultivation. A fixed rent is placed on the land and the necessary ani mals and tools for cultivation are provided by the pro prietor, who furnishes also, when required, an advance of provisions for the season or the guarantee of credit to 144 NEW GROUND COTTON On Farm and Plantation the necessary extent at the nearest supply store. At the end of the season he buys the sugar cane at market rates and pays over the price to the laborers, having first de ducted his rent and advances. This is an incitement to the best feasible production and seems preferable on the whole to the metayer or half- share system, as the laborer is thus assured of obtaining aU that he earns if the ac counting is fair, and this is well guaranteed by the com petition for labor and the desire to hold a good cane- grower continuously. Thousands of Italians are now going yearly from our Central and Northern States, as weU as directly from Italy, to these plantations in the season for cane-cutting to assist the cultivators in the harvest and returning in spring to other employment in the Northern States. Most of these ItaHans come from Sicily or Southern Italy, and nothing seriously objectionable is noted in their character and work. In fact, they have proved themselves to be excep tionally reUable in their engagements and industry, and their services have practically become indispensable. In a previous chapter it has been shown that the growth of cotton in Southern Italy has been largely advancing of late years. A^oteworthy Ulustration of the adaptabiUty of the Southern HaUan^to this_branch,of agriculture and . of the natural mgtkQilJby.wiiicliJie-jnay-be-diyerted-to4t is given in the founding of the colony of Bryan in Braz;^ County, Texas, before" described. About twenty-five 145 The Italian in America years ago some Sicilians were hired to work on the main branch of the Houston and Texas Railroad. When the work to which they had been called had been finished they were induced to buy some land on the Brazos River, which was sold cheaply because it was subject to inunda tion, though otherwise desirable. Their undertaking was profitable almost from the outset, and in subsequent years the addition of relatives and friends has sweUed the numbers in the colony to over two thousand, cultivating both cotton and corn with signal success. In the neighborhood of GreenvUle, Mississippi, on the line of the lUinois Central Railroad, there is another group of cotton plantations and truck farms aU owned and success fully ojterated by Italians, now numbering from seventy to eiglity families. In the late report of Inspector Rossi all these settlera were credited with " noteworthy gains," and all were said to enjoy good health, "except for the inconvenience of some malarial fever to which thej' were subject in the months of August and September." This local and temporary fever is the only noted drawback to settlemen t in the Yazoo Delta, ' ' that most spacious vaUey " ' of two miUions of acres lying between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers which, as the official inspector reports, " is truly of extraordinary fertUity." It is indeed probable that this delta contains the richest undeveloped agricultural territory in the world, and its certain yield Avhen cultivated is becoming so widely ap- 146 On Farm and Plantation preciaied that land now purchasable at from ten to fifteen doUars per acre wUl before long be quadrupled in market value at least. The "inconvenience of fever" can be successfuUy overcome by simple precautions which expe rienced settlers now take and which should be insistently urged upon aU newcomers, especiaUy the Italians, who are apt to be imprudently neglectful of the first principles of healthful Hving. This was particularly observed by an intelligent Italian settler on the great plantation orig inaUy founded by Austin Corbinand Prince Ruspoli, then Mayor of Rome, at Sunnyside on the banks of the Mis sissippi, some twenty miles below GreenviUe. "Our countrymen settled here," he stated to the inspector, " do not take hygienic precautions of any kind. They will not boil their drinking water, and in the morning they walk barefooted in the dew." It does not seem credible that this recklessness should be stubbornly persisted in if the Italian settlers and newcomers are properly warned and impressed, and it would be a grievous error if the grand opening in this virgin field should be stupidly passed by through any ill-grounded prejudice or apprehension. The attraction of this region for ItaHan colonization and its assurance of success are demonstrated in particular, upon the Sessions plantation in Coahoma County, Miss issippi, about eighty miles from Memphis. Here a dozen Italian families have been residing for years who are cul tivating cotton fields on "half shares." The heads of 147 The Italian in 'America these famiHes reported to Inspector Rossi that they were weU contented, but that, in general, after some years of experience with the "half -share" system, the Italian preferred to acquire lands to cultivate for his OAvn account. This is natural and usuaUy feasible. The lack of school faculties and the high cost of medical aid owing to the distance of the plantation from the nearest to\vn were the only noted complaints here, both of which may readily be remedied through the wiUingness of the owner of the plantation to take immediately two hundred Italian fam ilies on half shares. He greatly preferred Italian labor from his ex]ierience to that of the negro. The largest settlement of ItaHans in this region on the notable Austin Corbin plantation at Sunnyside is of pecu liar interest in the opp( )rtunity that it affords for the direct comparison of the efficiency of Italian and negro labor working under absolutely equal conditions on the same plantation. This plantation is now operated under lease from the Corbin estate by Mr. C. B. Crittenden and Mr. Leroy Percy of Greenville, Mississippi. There are about ll.oiwi acres in the plantation, nearly half of which are in cultivation for the production of cotton. The cotton fields are worked by about ninety Italian famiHes, and substantiaUy the same number of negro families. The greater part of the Italian famiHes are natives of the Marches in Italy, and form a colony numbering about five hundred in aU. A young priest from the Marclies 148 On Farm and Plantation came to the colony last year as curate in response to a request from the Bishop of Arkansas to the Bishop of Simgaglia. It was reported to Signor Rossi by Mr. Crittenden that, with a single exception, every family on the plantation was working successfully. The plan of operation is substantiaUy as follows: At the beginning of the season an account is opened with each tenant at the plantation store. He is first charged up with $7.00 per acre rental for as many acres as the family judge they can cultivate. For each mule supplied to the tenant a rental of $25 per year is charged, and there is a small additional rental for the use of machinery. If a bill for medical attendance has been incurred during the year that is also charged in the account, and aU sup plies necessary for the house and barn are included. At the end of the season cotton is purchased by the planters, and if the cotton crop amounts to more than is shown on the ledger account for advances, the tenant gets a check on the bank for the difference. The foUowing figures are taken direct from the ledger showing the net return to eight separate ItaHan famiHes for the year 1903: One family that worked 20 acres in cotton received a check for $517 00 Another family that worked 19 acres in cotton received a check for 714 59 Another family that worked 33 acres in cotton received a check for 1'21136 Another family that worked 30 acres in cotton received a checkfor 57960 149 The Italian in America Another family that worked 14 acres in cotton received a check for f512 98 Another family that worked 17 acres in cotton received a check for 738 15 Another family that worked 30 acres in cotton received a, check for 1,142 05 Another family that worked 3.5 acres in cotton received a check for 1,358 63 One of the managers of this plantation, Mr. Leroy Percy, reports in the Southern Farm Magazine (May, 1904) that some of the ItaHans have been upon the plan tation for years, and that the number is increasing yearly. The managers ' ' advanced to the Italians upon the prop erty during the past year $4,000 or 85,000, with which thoy brought over their friends and relatives from Italy, and aU of which was paid back by them out of the past crop. "As gi'owers of cotton they are in every respect superior to the negro. They are industrious and thrifty, though the present generation avUI not develop the land-owning instinct ; they all dream of returning to Sunny Italy. The property is worked about one-half by negroes and one- half by Italians. There doesn't seem to be any race antag onism between them and no race mixture. ' ' The Italians make a profit of $5. 00 out of a crop where the negro makes $1.00, and yet the negro seems to be j)erfectly satisfied with his returns. No spirit of emula tion's excited b}' the superior work or prosperity of his Italian neighbor. We had one c)f them recently return to Italy with more than $8,U(io in cash, never having 100 On Farm and Plantation worked more than thirty acres of land, leaving behind him a family to work the land and with sufficient money to provide themselves for another year." The increase of the negroes in the South at large, Mr. Percy states, " is entirely insufficient to meet the increased demands upon them created by the double tracking and improving of roads, the increase in oil miUs, saw mills, and simUar enterprises, and the increasing demand for labor to clear up the land, greatly stimulated as this is by the present prices of cotton." The problem that must be solved in the Mississippi delta, in his view, "is the obtaining of some other labor to do what the present race of negroes is unable to do. The only practical solution to the problem that offers itself to my mind is the encouragement of the immigration of ItaHans. ' ' In conclusion, he affirms again with emphasis : "If the immigration of these people is encouraged, they wiU gradually take the place of the negro without there being any such violent change as to paralyze for a gen eration the prosperity of the country." Probably the most acute investigation and forecast of ItaHan labor in the cotton fields of the South has been made by Alfred Holt Stone, who reports his conclusions in a recent number of the South Atlantic Quarterly under the caption, "The Italian Cotton Grower; The Negro's Problem." It might fairly be assumed that in no section of the South is negro labor more firmly en- 151 The Italian in America trenched than in the riparian lands of the Mississippi and its tributaries, in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Here the negroes outnumber the whites in the proportion of from three or four to one to more than fifteen to one. " Every condition of climate, soU and economic condition tended," as Mr. Stone observes, " to render absolute the hold of the negro agriculturist. "_ Yet ItaHan cotton growers have already entered this field of negro monopoly, and their assured advance has already demonstrated the marked superiority of Italian labor. In the course of a year or two ^Ir. Stone reports that they become more in telligent cultivators than the negroes. They work more carefuUy and constantly. Tenants,_Hke the negroes, they keep the fields and premises in so much better condition that a passerby may see at a glance whether the occupant is an Italian or a negro. The fields of the latter are half cultivated, his fences broken down, his garden choked with weeds. From his personal experience in the cultivation of plantations in which he is interested as an owner, he says that it seems hopeless to try to induce negro tenants t( ) keep the premises in good order and repair. Of ItaHan labor, on the other hand, on these and the like plantations, Mr. Stone bears expert witness. " From the gai'den spot which the negro allows to grow up in weeds, the Italian wUl supply his family from earlj' spring untU late fall, and also market enough largely to civrry him through tho winter. I have seen the ceilings of their 153 On Farm and Plantation houses HteraUy covered with strings of dried butter beans, peppers, okra and other garden products, whUe the waUs would be hung with corn, sun-cured in the roasting ear stage. In the rear of a weU-kept house would be erected a woodshed, and in it could be seen enough firewood, sawed and ready for use, to run the family through the "t!^ winter months. These people didn't wait tiU half frozen feet compeUed attention to the question of fuel and then 'Ntear down a fence to supply their wants. Nor would they be lound drifting about near the close of each season in an aimless effort to satisfy an unreasoned desire to ' move, ' ^ to make the next crop somewhere else." ^ In his own relatively thickly settled country, where ^ the land suitable for cultivation has been so rigidly monopolized and so grudgingly yielded to smaU proprie tors, the ItaHan has been forced by the experience of centuries to make the most of every inch of his ground,' and this inured habit persists in his practice in this coun- _^try. What is too smaU for the plow he "cultivates with a'" hoe. He sows down to the water's edge. Mr. Stone has seen ItaHans "make more cotton per acre than the negro on the adjoining cut, gather it from two to four weeks earlier, and then put in the extra time in earning money by picking in the negro's field." " The adaptabUity of the Italian to work in the rice fields __is no less certain than his desirability to meet the demands of the sugar cane andjoottonjlanters. Many ItaHans are 153 The Italian in America now engaged in the culture of rice, in the rice fields of South-eastern Texas, and the extension of encouragement in feasible ways is aU that is required to attract Italians very largely to the opportunities open in this and other Southern states. Of course any large displacing of negro labor or consid erable infiux of ItaHan immigrants into the " black belts " of the South wUl be necessarUy the outeome of years of im migration, if effected at aU. The industrious negro need have no fear that his labor wiU be supplanted by any possible influx in a way to threaten his employment or jirogress. It wUl be a positive advantage, on the other hand, to the hard working negro as well as to the white planters of the South, if the lazy and shiftless negro should be forced by such competition to steadier work and to habits of economy and rational prudence. As a matter of fact, the uncultivated area lying open for entry and prof itable production is stiU so vast, and the demand for the products of the South so far outruns the supply that there is no likelihood of any ])ressure of competition from the influx of Italian or other immigrant labor, for years to come, sufficient to effect any material regeneration in the industry or life of the negro. The most that can sanely bo hoped for is the reHef of the South from entire de pendence on the shaky and insufficient prop of negro labor and the mingling of sufficient white settlers to dissipate si^mewhat the hanging cloud of negro dominance and assure a progress otherwise unattainable. Eliot Lord. 164 CHAPTER VIII RISING DEMAND FOE ITALIAN IMMIGEANT LABOE In view of the proven adaptabiUty of the ItaHan here, even under adverse conditions, for varied occupations and specially for intensive fanning, there can be no question ing of a rising demand for his labor except upon the baldly jealous assumption that the labor supply of the country exceeds its demand and that any importation of labor Avill necessarily displace American laborers now employed and narrow the opportunities of those seeking employment. This assumption is often a bitter contention of labor unions, but it cannot bear submission to the opposition of facts. Let it simply be recalled that Httle Belgium in propor tion to its area is supporting now a population to the square mile twenty-five times as large as the United States, with out groaning audibly under the pressure. The Lone Star State alone, in this country, has double the area of Italy, yet it is maintaining a population to-day only one-tenth as great. To extend the comparison broadly, it may be noted that the average density of population in the United States is only one-fourteenth of the density of population per square mile in Italy. Yet Italy is now complaining of 155 The Italian in America the drain of its working force by immigration, though in natural resources and means of development it cannot bear comparison for a moment to our own prolific and wealthy country. Temporarily strained and distressful conditions and the existence of a few congested centres offer no substantial grounds for any contention of over population or an overplus of labor in our country at large. The sanely economic remedy for these local and occasional evils assuredly lies in the perfecting of a better distribu tion — not in the choking off of the productive flow of labor for our national development. If the existence of open ground for this distribution and profitable employment is still questionable in the mind of anybody, let him examine as a single object lesson the proportion of unimproved to improved land in the South. This was lately emphasized with striking force in the speech of Hon. Wyatt Aiken of South CaroHna in the House of Representatives, April 22, 1904, in support of his bill (H. R. 14833) authorizing the Commissioner- General of Immigration to establish an information bureau on Ellis Island " for the better enlightenment of immi grants and for their better distribution throughout tlii^ land." " The land area of the South," he observed, " is 585,310,000 acres." " In 1900 the total farm acreage W!is 387,690,426 acres. The total improved acreage was only 145,185,591). This leaves about 242,000,000 acres of farm lands to be put into profitable cultivation." 156 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor " The unimproved farm lands of the South give a greater area for settlement and cultivation than the total area of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas combined. Over 110,000,000 acres of this land lies east of the Mississippi River, and there is comparatively a small amount of it which is not available for crops of some kind. For diver sity, quantity, and quality of productions the Southern States are unsurpassed. Mr. Wilson, Secretary of Agri culture, after touring the South, said : ' No section of the world offers such inducements for diversified fanning; ' and he predicted a future for that section such as has not been witnessed before in this country." " That our people grow cotton almost exclusively is due to the fact that at prevailing prices it is the most profit- ' able and merchantable crop that is planted. Where the farmer turns his attention to diversified crops, the results compare favorably with the best efforts of farmers with out this region." As to the character of immigration desired or the nation alities particularly adaptable to the needs of the South, Mr. Aiken further remarked, " until lately, considerable prejudice existed against the Italian, but vnth most favor able testimony in his behalf from Georgia, Louisiana, and a number of other Southern States, our people look with a great deal more favor on these hardy, industrious agri culturists." If it be conceded that undeniable statistics demonstrate 157 The Italian in America the relative paucity of population to the square mile in this country and the vast extent of lands, yet unimproved and open for development, it may stiU be urged that the influx of immigration in recent years exceeds our capacity to handle and distribute. This is indeed a common conten tion of alarmists, who seemingly prefer sensation to facts. A single punch, such as the one lately given by the "Phila delphia Record," is sufficient to smash the hollow shell of contention. The " Record " observes editorially (.June 21, 1904), " whether from mere carelessness or from de sign, tlie most exaggerated and false assertions are made cunccrning the great flood of immigration, as if the like had never before been witnessed in the history of this country. During the years 1880, ISSl, 1882 and 1883 the total immigration to the United States amounted to 2,519,- 202 persons. During the last four years the total number of immigrant arrivals was 2,442,270. " Twenty years ago the population of the United States amount.ed to 50,000,000, and noAv it is about 80,000,000, exclusive of the PhiUppines. So the immigration rela tively is not nearly so great now as it was in the former period. But this is not all. Twenty years ago compara tively few immigrants returned to their native land be cause of the time and cost of the voyage. Now they are swiftly carried back in great numbers by every European steamer, some to stay, and some for a longer or shorter visit. When the balance comes to be struck, the annual 158 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor increase of immigrant population is very small compared with that of former years." A noted fluctuation ranging only from one year to another is not usually of any material account as a measure of the flow of immigration, but, in view of any possible swell of apprehension, without examination of facts, it may be well to note the marked falling off of immigration to this country and the increase in emigration in compara tive records of the first six months of 1904 and 1903. The official bulletin of the North Atlantic Steamship Con ference shows that between January 1st and June 17 of the latter year, 118,484 fewer passengers came here in the steerage of the various lines than for the same period last year. There was further a noted increase of 31,538 steer age passengers sailing from the port of New York during the same period. Thus exact examination demonstrates that there was really more cause to apprehend a compara tive dearth of immigration than an overflow. In face of these facts there remains only the rickety prop of contention, that, whether the influx be great or small, it is no longer wanted in this country. This has been pushed even to the utter disregard of the character of the influx by influential voices of opinion. One of the most able and dignified of these may be cited as typical. The well known president of the United Mine Workers, Mr. John Mitchell, has declared in a recent address, " No uiatter how decent and self-respecting and hard working 159 The Italian in America the aUens who are flooding this country may be, they are invading the land of Americans, and whether they know it or not, are helping to take the bread out of their mouths. America for Americans should be the motto of every citi zen, whether he be a working man or a capitalist. There are already too many aliens in this country. There is not enough work for the many milUons of unskilled laborers, and there is no need for the added miUions who are press ing into our cities and towns to compete with the skiUed American in his various trades and occupations. While the majority of the immigrants are not skilled workmen, they rapidly become so, and their competition is not of a stimulating order." * Tills strain of exclusion sounds cracked in the mouth of the son of an immigrant. The policy that he advocates would have shut out his father and precluded his own birth in this country and the possibility of his objection to the sharing of its opportunities. Moreover, careful examina tion shows that his assiunptions are incorrect. The entry of unskilled labor does not diminish the opportunities open to American skilled labor. On the contrary, it greatly expands them. The most progressive manufacturing and commercial cities in the East are those w^hich have received the great est influx of immigration comparatively in recent years. Instead of taldng away the jol^ and reducing the number * New York Times, January 17, 1904. 160 ifarkrl Day at Tiulepeinlem-e, Louisiana. A Tluiviiig Itali.ui Scttleiiieiii Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor of American native workmen employed, there is not a single instance in which the influx has not operated to en- ^1^^??.*^® demand for American skilled labor and increase the number of skilled American workmen actually em- _ployed. The reliable provision of a supply of unskilled labor has directly led to the establishment of handlers and converters of raw materials, thus affording a securer basis for the supply and development of manufactures in which skilled labor constitutes the chief percentage of cost. yi^ide ranging investigation demonstrates that the mass of immigrant labor in recent years has not yet been raised to competition with skilled operatives and that their em ployment is affording an essential basis for the expansion and maintenance of the manufactures of advanced labor products. The application of " raw " immigrant labor, too, in raU way grading and extensions and in public works of all kinds necessarily leads to the expansion of industry, em ploying laborers in numbers far exceeding the total of pioneer labor employed. The planning and execution of railway development, for example, depend materiaUy on the estimated cost of materials and labor and the certainty of the supply of both. The influx of immigrant labor affords the only substantial assurance of the maintenance of this supply, and the stoppage of this influx would assur edly curtail railway building, road improvements and State and municipal public works throughout this country. 161 The Italian in America It is not difficult to account for the fact that immigrants of late years have been coining chiefly from the Southern rather than from the Northern countries of Europe. The more complete the educational system of any country, the greater the number of skiUed laborers that is produced and the fewer the number of unskilled laborers. In the United States, at present, the number of unskiUed laborers is constantly and rapidly decreasing and the like may be said of Germany, France, Great Britain and the Scandin avian countries. Hence, the common laborers required for the unskilled labor supply of this country are drawn naturally from those countries whose systems of education are less complete or where racial discrimination exists, and the influx necessarily rises in proportion to the withdrawal of Americans and the northem races of Europe from the lower grades of labor. The ambitious and educated Amer ican will not do the low grade work. The English, Ger mans and Scandinavians, and of late years even the Irish, have risen or are rising above it. It is therefore inevit able that we must look for an adequate supply of unskilled labor to tho countries whose inhabitants are willing to fill the demand with the prospect before them of steady em- j)]oyment and certain advancement for themselves and their children. Ill practical confirmation of this position, it is to be noted, too, that Uiere has never been a period in the history of this country when the urgency of the call for labor 162 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor for the development of our resources has been so out spoken and pronounced. There has been heretofore sur prisingly little organized or artificial encouragement of immigration to this country. " The truth is," as Dr. Ed ward Everett Hale observed pointedly, ten years ago, in a contribution to " The Social Economist," " that the wave of immigration has come without our asking for it ; it has enriched us without our care, and, speaking for organiza tions, whether of churches, or of States, we have let it alone with a sublime indifference which would hardly be conceived possible, if it were not everywhere apparent." In face of this apparent listlessness, the Dominion of Canada has, of late years, been putting up an object lesson in the organization and determination of its efforts for the attraction of immigration. The Canadian Commissioner of Immigration reported in 1903 that up to October 1st, 122,141 immigrants settled in Manitoba alone in the pre ceding nine months, more than double the number of in comers during the same period in 1902. It was antici pated in that year that the influx into the Canadian West and Northwest would be doubled, at least, in 1903, and this expectation was fully realized. Yet, not content with this influx, the Dominion Govern ment has been more energetic than ever in its efforts to attract immigration. It widely advertised in 1903 that 257,410,000 acres avaUable for settlement stiU remained at the disposal of the Government and other land agencies 163 The Italian in America in Assiniboia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Athabasca. To this should be added the 74,000,000 acres available in Manitoba, and it wiU be seen at a glance how vast an area north of our boundary line is now readily open and even clamoring for settlement. Lists of Dominion agents and sub-agents in Western Canada have been scattered broad cast, and in most of our own Northern States there are specially engaged agents who are expected to circulate the Govemment publications and other advertisements for settlers and to promote in every feasible way by their per sonal effort an influx of immigration across the Hne. On the 1st of May in 1904 the reported number of these regularly commissioned agents actively employed in the United States was seventy-five. In adcUtion to this foree there were several hundred sub-agents, receiving a per capita fee on the emigrants booked for Canada of $3 for each adult male, $2 for each adult female and $1 for evi'ry child under 12 years of age. There were further employed by the Govemment about 3r>0 agents in tJre-.it Britain, receiving $1.08 for every adult and S4 cents for every child booked for Canada. The total expenditure by the Canadian Government in 1903 to promote iuuuigra- tion was stated to be $642,913. This disbursement may be contrasted instructively with the outlay by our own government of not a sini;jle dollar for this purpose, and the fact that even the expenses for the exi-lnsion of undesir able immigrants are wholly defrayed by tbe entering im- 164 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor migrants, without imposing the charge of a cent upon the government or people of this country. Under the pointed head lines: "Canada Out-Hustles Uncle Sam." — " Draws More Immigrants from United Kingdom this Year than U. S.," the watchful " New York Sun " noted the first fruits of this outlay in a despateh from its London correspondent, dated May 8, 1904. " For the first time on record the emigration from the United Kingdom to Canada bids fair this year to exceed that to the United States. Last year, says W. T. R. Preston, the Canadian Commissioner of Emigration here, 57,000 persons emigrated from this country to Canada, while to the United States there went 67,000. Thus far this year the number of emigrants who have left these shores for Canada is in excess of that for a like period last year, and in the summer it is expected the ratio of in crease will be much greater. " While Uncle Sam does nothing to attract emigrants from this country Canada is hustHng to get them, and meeting with such success that other colonies of the empire have been moved to envy and are bestirring themselves to follow her example and copy her methods." " ' England,' said Mr. Preston to the writer, ' is the only European country possessing colonies that devotes neither efforts nor money to encouraging emigration to them. What England won't do for us Canada is doing for her self. It costs something, of course, but it is the best pay- 165 The Italian in America ing investment that Canada ever made. Last year we expended $300,000 in working up emigration from this country to Canada. We distributed 1,500,000 pamphlets, kept a lot of agents on the jump and spent a pUe of money in advertising. But not a doUar went in the shape of pas sage money. We are not sending any deadheads to Canada.' " ******** " Situated in Charing Cross, in one of the broadest thoroughfares of London, the Canadian Government emi gration offices are admirably located to attract attention, and the most is made of the opportunities. Besides the big London offices, Canadian agencies are established in Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow, DubUn, Belfast and Cardiff. Advertising is done on a large scale and effect ively, the alluring promise of ' Free Farms for WUling Workers ' often extending across the whole front page of a newspaper." The progress of this propaganda and a somewhat pre tentious formation at St. Paul, Minnesota, of the Western Canada Immigration Association, for the purpose of stim ulating American immigration to the prairie wheat fields fif Canada, have seriously alarmed our own wheat produc ing States at the drain of settlers, ilinnesota has already taken steps to rebut this drain and stimulate immigration by the lioliling of a representative convention whicJi adopted resolutions constituting itself a State Immigration 166 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor Society and appealing for the estabHshment of a State Bureau of Immigration. In the able discussions of the sit uation, a strong presentation was made of the present im perative needs of Minnesota for the further development of her farm lands and the extension of the diversification of her agricultural industries. It was pointed out that in fruit production in the last decade, Minnesota made the greatest progress of any State in the Union, according to the last census, and that no other State afforded better opportunities for the possible engagement of capital and labor in this line of development. The amount of potatoes and other vegetables grown in the State was also increas ing annually and the most confident anticipation was ex pressed of the great feasible increase of this product. The call for the development of Minnesota's dairy pro ducts was even more emphatically marked. " A great empire in Northem Minnesota," said W. W. P. McConnell, State Dairy and Food Commissioner, "is sending out a Macedonian cry and pleading for our best friend, the dairy cow." He noted that the average Min nesota cow produced 81 pounds of butter annually 12 years ago; in 1902 the average was 166 pounds. There are now nearly one milHon cows in Minnesota and 679 creameries producing 75,000,000 pounds of butter annually, having the approximate value of $15,000,000. This was a grati fying showing; yet the Commissioner observed that Min nesota should eventually produce dairy products worth 167 The Italian in America $100,000,000, if her readily available sources were devel oped. This pronounced movement in Minnesota for the attrac tion of labor and further development is scarcely less marked in the other Northem agricultural States, and it is noteworthy that the urged diversification of industries appeals particularly to the possible services of the immi grant ItaHan accustomed to intensive farming and pecul iarly adaptable to the production of fruit and vegetables and dair\' work. To the South, also, the attraction of emigration from the Northern States to Canada is of serious consequence in it.s competition with Southern efforts to draw desirable settlers from the North. No other section of our country ha.s been so slightly affected by foreign emigration. Most sharply is the contrast pointed in the " New York Sun " that, " in all the eleven States of the old Southern Con federacy there were in 1900 less than one-half as many foreign born as there were in the city of New York alone, and, of the number, more than one-half were in the single State of Texas, and even there the foreign born popula tion was not six per cent, of the whole." Yet, no other part of our country is now so ardent in its appeal for settlers and no other is apparently so gravelv in need of an influx of emigrant labor. The time has gone by when tiie South was too poor to advance its own development rapidly with outside capital. Its industries within tlie 168 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor past decade have been flourishing as never before. Its rice crop increased from 115,000,000 pounds in 1898 to 400,000,000 pounds in 1903, and its cotton and tobacco crops have advanced to proportions beyond all anticipa tions. In 1893 the cotton crop of the United States was 6,717,142 bales. The cotton crop of 1903 was 10,727,- 559 bales, marking an increase in 10 years of nearly two- thirds. The census report of 1900 shows an increase in the acreage of the tobacco crop in the preceding decade of 58.4 per cent, and an increased production of 77.8 per cent. Yet the demand in both cases has run far ahead of the supply. Its manufacturing industrial enterprises and establish ments have expanded even more phenomenaUy and, in every avenue, its effective capacity for production has far outstripped its available labor supply. This has been recognized for years past by the energetic managers of its railway Hnes and its more enterprising landowners, and remarkable efforts have been put forth for the attrac tion of settlement and the development of its resources. It is only within recent years, however, that the value to the South of the direct attraction of foreign emigration has been largely appreciated. The promotion of settlement from the native contribution from our Northem States was preferred and hundreds of inquiries recently ad dressed by me to leading landowners and the active man- 169 The ItaUan in America agers of immigration and development associations marked the continuance of this preference. It is now largely recognized, however, that it is hope less to expect any adequate meeting of the demands from the South for labor from any available sources in other States of the Union. A determined resolution is manifest therefore to break down any lingering prejudice against foreign immigration and to promote its distribution through the South by organized effort. The possession of a certain amount of capital is no longer regarded as an almost indispensable requisite. For the poorest immi grant as well as for the estabUshed settler in the North the .issuranco of a welcome and a profitable opening are even now provided in many sections, and this attraction will soon be multiplied. Already a most noteworthy recognition of the pecuHar adaptability of the Italian to the labor conditions of the South ihas been accorded in Southern journals of fore most influence and standing. An authoritative attestation of his services in the Raleigh (N. C.) " Observer," Novem ber 6, 1904, is particularly comprehensive and pithy. " ITALIAN IMMIGRATION IN THE SOUTH " ' ^^ -^ "^'ll. *''^' labor problem grows more serious for the Southern farmer. " The negro has idways constituted the South's prin- 170 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor _5i2?l laboring contingent. But his increasing deficiency makes it necessary for additional help to be found. With out detracting from what is being done by the better class of negro workers, it is evident that the negro race cannot wholly meet in quantity or quality the demands for service that must be made on it for proper development of this great section of the country. " In a small way, a number of experiments in other kinds of lal?or have recently been tried in Eastern North CaroHna. Finns, Poles, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarians and ItaHans have all been introduced as laborers. The Italians have come in the largest numbers, and though often working under unfavorable conditions, have gen erally made satisfactory workers. In railroad building at Newborn, saw-miUing at Dover, contract_ work at Kin- ston, fishing at Wilmington, oyster-canning at Beaufort and truck farming at various points, they have done so weU that many are^ beginning to regard their judicious introduction here as the solution of the labor problem. " In other sections of the South, where it has been ex tensively tried, ItaHan labor has proved itself well-nigh indispensable in the cultivation of the immense planta tions. Notably in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, it is an estabUshed fact that the Italian workman is sought for and appreciated, because he has demonstrated his worth as a laborer. "^f~tiie successof Italfan immigration to Louisiana, 171 The Italian in America some idea may be gained from the followmg letter written last July by C. L. Buck, of Independence, La. : " ' Twenty years ago land could be bou^t in and around the town for $1 to $5 per acre that is now seUing readUy at $25 to $100 per acre. One tract here of 1,500 acres sold twenty-five years ago for $1,600, and only a few weeks ago the purchaser sold 200 acres for $10,400. The assessed value of lands in this parish has been doubled in the past four years. " ' (Due will ask wIEaFwas the principal cause of the de velopment. The answer must be the Italian immigra tion that has come here and improved the conditions in respect to production. The majority of farmers have done away w\{\\ negro labor. Why? Because they are a s-hiftless, worthless sort, whereas the Italian laborer is a success. Ills sole object is to make money, and he knows it must come out of the ground; therefore, he is always at work when his work is needed. " 'The question of his desirability as a citizen is often asked. I can say that thus far in our twelve or fifteen years' exjierionce with them, they have given no trouble to any one. They are prompt to pay their debts at the stores, meet their paper at the banks when due, and often before. I do not think there is a case on record in this parish where tiie State has Iniii to prosecute them for a crime or misdemeanor, and that is saying a great deal when we consider tiiat there arc l.^O to 250 famUies Hv- 173 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor ing here, and every berry season there are probably 500 or more who come to assist in harvesting the crops. " ' I can speak from experience, and say that thus far IJiave found them good neighbors and good tenants. They are frugal and industrious, and when working as tenants they are always willing to do their part, and I find it a great improvement and cheaper than the negro labor ..of to-day, that wants a doUar per day for a half doUar's worth of work. As tenants they never take up more at the store than will be reaHzed from the crops, as is often the case with the negro. ' " ' After they are here awhile they become more or less Americanized, and live better and spend more money as their means justify. They are, generaUy speaking, cleanly about their houses. They are capable of improvement in many ways, which is not the case with the negro; and as far as I know here, they have conducted themselves in a moral, law-abiding way. I am of course speaking of the past and present experience we have had with them. " ' As fruit and truck growers they will be hard to beat, and I see no reason why they cannot be used to advantage for other sorts of farming. They soon make fair to good plough hands, though at first they are green about hand ling a horse. " They are not hard to teach, as a rule. They want to make money, which is their sole object, and they try to follow instructions, and it is inevitable that if they make 173 The ItaUan in America any, the landlord wUl, too. This immediate section would never have been what it is in so short a time without the ItaHan labor. T^e price of land is no object if they want it and can see their way clear to make a Hving on it. If they think they can make a living on 10 acres of land and have $1,000, they will try it, and not think it too much. " ' They reason that it is that much invested from which they can derive a livelihood and have a home be sides. Numbers of them have settled here on 10-acre plots and made a living and saved up money, notwith standing the fact that the family was of large size. So far, we find them peaceful, law-abiding citizens vrithout the dreaded stiletto. This is giving a general history of them as I know it. Of course, some are more prosperous than others. ' " " In Mississippi thousands of ItaHans have been estab lished in colonies, recently visited by Lee J. Langley, sjiecial correspondent of the ' Manufacturers' Record,' who says they already" 'Own their lands, are buUding their houses and becoming equal to every independent citizen of this country. ' " From correspondence and press reports in hand the facts stated in the " Observer " appear to be beyond seri ous dispute. The following extract from a letter dated Nov. 14, 1904, addressed to Mr. John J. D. Trenor by Andrew Carnegie, in response to his inquiry, wUl be recognized as exceptionally authoritative: 174 Rising Demand for Italian Immigrant Labor " As the result of experience, I rate the Italian highly and consider him a most desirable immigrant. It is to him I look with hope to settle more and more in our Southern States and finally to grow more cotton, which is already needed to supply the world's wants. " As long as we can keep out the immigrants who are assisted to pay their passage, I think the danger from im migration largely imaginary. " I want no better proof that a man is to be a valuable citizen than the fact that in Italy or in any European country he has succeeded in saving enough to bring him self and his family to the land of promise." It may safely be anticipated that the demand for Ital ian labor in the South is certain to expand with the spread ing knowledge of Italian character, industry and endur ance. In view of the watehful guardianship of the ItaHan Emigration Department, however, and the imper ative need of holding as well as attracting immigration, the promoters of settlement must operate with good judg ment and treat the Italian immigrants with scrupulous fairness, or there will certainly be no influx to brag of. In the latest report of Adolfo Rossi, Chief Inspector of the Royal Emigration Department, this conclusion is em phasized in a way that should warn every State in our Union not to fail to protect the Italian in America from harsh treatment and greedy impositions. Eliot Lokd. 175 CHAPTER JX THE CALL FOK BETTEB DISTHIBUTIOII It must be clearly borne in mind that the existence of certain inconveniences or even evils now attending the flow of the euiTcnt of immigration does not warrant, necessarily, the corrective of exclusion. The swoUen cur rent of a stream may overflow the limits of its bed, delug ing the border lands with the spread of swamps, but this overflow does not prove that the flood is necessarily a burden on tiie surrounding country nor that a stoppage of the flow of water is the right prescription. Along the Pacific slope vast stretches of barren ground are now blossoming and bearing fruit by the diversion of freshets into myriad channels of irrigation, and the hope of the arid plains beneath the Rocky Mounteins chain is centred in the like distribution of the water now run ning to waste. Here it is patent to the dullest mind that the proper treatment of an enriching overflow is not to choke it off, but to divert it intelligently for the service of the land that needs it. Can it be contended that the analogy is unfounded — that the flow of productive water is indeed a good thing 176 Luxuriant Field of Corn, near Titnuielle, Mobile (.'o., Alabama. Produei of Italian e'ultivatioii The Call for Better Distribution for the country but the entry of productive labor is some thing to be dreaded and forbidden? Will this be main tained in view of the nation which has sprung from the loins of the immigrant and grown in greatness and pros perity so marvellously with the swelling tide of immigra tion in the last century? L Who will venture to question that a healthy, honest, willing laborer in any field of employment is an addition to the working capital and productive power of a nation? Has our growth reached the Hmit of expansion, or pos sible utilization of working capital and productive force? If not, why should we shun now what so many countries have~yainly sought — the attraction to our shores of new workers to develop our resources ? Little_Belgium is not groaning under the burden of a population of producers fully twenty-five times as great as ours in proportion to the national territory, yet we hear querulous protests from time to time that our big country is overcrowded with laborers — ^that there is not work enough in sight to employ the hands already outstretched and that immi grants only come in to take away the jobs of our own workmen. If this country should be moved to confess that it is disposed to reject and exclude an influx of work ing capital because it sees no way to employ it and can devise none, it might study with profit the economy of New Zealand. There the estabUshed Department of Labor, prac- 177 The Italian in America tically in charge of its permanent head, Mr. Edward Tre- gear, has regarded as its first and chief duty — " its vital duty," he calls it — " the practical task of finding where labor was wanted and depositing there the labor running elsewhere to waste." ..." The means employed by Mr. Trcgear," as noted by Henry Demarest Lloyd, " are the maintenance of a widely extended system of agencies for bringing workers and work together, a strict decentraliza tion of the unemployed by scattering them through the colony, and a refusal to give anything. Aid is furnished by sending the worker to private employment or, if to public works, only to such as were necessary and repro- iluctive " Two features have characterized this policy from the bcffinning; the men were given nothing but a chance, and no -work was made for the sake of making work. Nothing was undertaken that was not necessary and would not be protitable to the community. . . . The man had to paj' ultimately for everything — for the raUroad ticket taking him and his famUy to their new home, for the food and shelter they had on their way, for the tools he found ready for him, for the tents, for everything. " The experience of New Zealand does not sustain the idea so jirevalent that city people and artisans cannot make a living ou the land. Some of the most successful settlers have been men brought up as taUors or shoe- 178 The Call for Better Distribution makers and workers in other trades in the city of London. Sailors and day laborers have been successful too." It may be a novel function of government to undertake the distribution of labor, but it is none the less more rational than an edict of exclusion would be, or the toler ance of congestion and slmns now is. If there is a con servative shrinking from the resolute grip of New Zea land in handHng the labor problem as a national concern vitally affecting the public welfare, there should be, at least, no hesitation in according some co-operation with state, civic and individual organizations for the better distribution and utilization of the influx of working cap ital in the person of the immigrant. Certainly our government might go as far as this, not only with entire propriety but without any straining of precedent. In the Act of 1864 expressly to encourage immigration, provision was made for the collection and dissemination of information in various languages to pro mote the choice and distribution of settlement. In pre senting the bUl then enacted, Senator Sherman said : " If official documents, prepared from official sources, could be furnished to foreigners desiring to come to this country, giving them accurate information as to the needs of labor in this country, there is no doubt that it would encourage a great deal of immigration." The expense of this pro vision, as Senator Sherman observed, would be practically inconsiderable in comparison with its certain benefit to 179 The Italian in America the country. The misjudged repeal of this Act, in a fit of shortsighted economy four years later, prevented the proper development of its benefits but it did not contra vene the sagacious judgment and foresight of Senator Sherman. Objection to any such provision to-day on the score of expense would not be tenable for a moment in view of the rolling up of the " Immigrant Fund " through the institution and increase of the head-tax; as any outlay for this purpose would be wholly defrayed by the enforced contribution of the immigrants themselves for the over sight and regulation of their entiy into this country. Even if it is no longer desired to encourage immigration, in view of the present influx, it would be none the less iiilvis:ible to make some rational provision for the better distribution of thc> incoming labor seeking openings for enqjlovmcnt in the development of the country. Through the stretch of enactments for the prohibition of the entry of immigrants under contract, the transport ing agencies have been debarrc'd even from the circula tion of ordinary guide books for immigrants, presenting accurately the industrial conditions here and the actual openings for settlement and employment. It is incontest able that the congestion so much complained of along the Atlantic seaboard lias been largely due to the lack of cor rect information and channels of distribution that might readily be opened through a bureau of correspondence. 180 The Call for Better Distribution If private and even State agencies cannot be trusted to prepare such information and open such channels, there can be no question of the right of Congress to make such provisions under its constitutional authorization to oper ate for the national welfare. The call for this undertaking has been repeatedly em phasized by our Commissioners of Immigration, and is indeed expressly set forth in the latest reports of the pres ent Commissioner General. The lack of this simple pre caution for the avoidance and reUef of congestion has been remarked with surprise for years by expert observers of the flow of immigTation and its effects. Ten years ago, Edward Everett Hale made particular note of it in a con tribution to "The Social Economist." "When Mr. George Jacob Holyoake was in this country some years ago, he called my attention to the absolute indifference of the general government to the great tide of foreign immigration. He said that the general government might, without much difficulty, provide a convenient manual which should tell the ignorant European where he wanted to go. If he wanted to raise wheat, it could direct him to a wheat country; if he wanted to raise oranges, it could direct him; if he wanted to skate or cut ice, it could instruct him as well." Dr. Hale goes on to say that he has repeatedly but in effectually sought to draw attention to this appeal. " The truth is," he observes pointedly, " that the wave of immi- 181 The Italian in America gration has come without our asking for it ; it has enriched us without our care, and speaking for organizations, whether of churches or of states, we have let it alone with a sublime indifference which would hardly be conceived j)ossible if it were not everywhere apparent." The only marked exception to this indifference to-day has been in the concentration of attention upon the filter ing of the flow of immigration. We have enacted and enforced every rational precaution, and overstrained some to prevent the entry of objectionable immigrants and the imjxirtation of any by contract or, even, the assur ance of employment; but the distribution and occupation of the checked and filtered flow have been almost utterly nco;lccted as if they were of no concern to the national wi'lfarc. The chief remedy for congestion proposed in bills be fore Congress is a further exclusion of immigration, by enacting- a so-called "educational test" of desirabUity. An immigrant may be a skilled artisan; he may be an ex perienced farmer, honest, industrious, thrifty, able at once to contribute to the national productiveness and to rear a family of ambitious, patriotic young Americans — in the eye of common sense and reason a desirable settler — ^yet he will bo barred out if he is unable to read from twenty to twenty-five words of the Constitution of the United States. A requirement, rational if appHed to an appHcant for the voting franchise, is irrationally imposed ISa The Call for Better Distribution to restrict the opportunity of using a spade or an axe or a pick in the development of this country and to debar the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness here. Hundreds of thousands of illiterate immigrants have been pioneers of civUization here, piercing the pathless woods, opening the mines of ore and transforming the wastes to harvest lands. If tihe soil of America is to be re served for scholars, Columbus should have been notified not to discover it with an illiterate crew. In spite of the " ilHterate " influx, the American stand ard of labor and Hving, broadly or nationally viewed, has been advancing persistently from decade to decade — as indisputable statistics prove. Until this demonstration of assimUation and progress can be upset by evidence that will bear examination, there is neither reason nor justice nor expediency in excluding honest, able-bodied men and women, who are seeking to escape from distressful con ditions in the Old World, and denying them education, advancement, or even security for Hfe. The New South is already giving object lessons to the country at large in the successful attraction and utiliza tion of the influx so heedlessly reckoned as " undesirable." The Four States Immigration League, composed of rep resentatives of business organizations in Alabama, Louis iana, Mississippi and Texas, was chiefly incorporated for the purpose of devising ways and means for securing desirable immigrants for the several States represented. 183 The ItaUan in America " It was keenly realized," observed the Chattanooga " Tunes," in October, 1903, " that of the enormous in flow from the old country during the past twelve months, the number seeking homes in the South was ridiculously small and out of aU proportion to the importance of the country and the inducements our productive fields hold out to (home seekers." In substantial recognition of this fact, an Immigration Bureau was established by the city of Chattanooga on its own account, and similar organizations in extension of the aims of the Four States League to other Stetes have been perfected and are fast multiplying throughout the South ern States. South CaroHna and several other States have now fully organized, active departments of agriculture and unmigration, and the vigorous co-operation of aU the leading railway lines has been certainly assured. The peculiar adaptabUity of ItaHan immigrant labor to the requirements of the South has already been demon strated beyond question, as noted in a preceding chapter, by many working and successful iUustrations, and the South is fast awaking to the desirabihty of attracting the laborers of this nationaHty. They are more quickly in ured to tiie climate than the immigrants from Nortiiern Europe ; they soon become adept in the cultivation of the crops of the South, and they have no rooted prejudice to competition with negro labor. Intermixture witii negro labor can usually be obviated by the division of employ- 184 The Call for Better Distribution ment on plantations and any necessary association of the ItaHan whites with the blacks is not precluded by any race animosity. The officials at Ellis Island, who are called upon to give counsel or directions to many thousands of immigrants yearly, have been pelted with letters during the past year from Southern railroads, real estate companies, and plan tations asking for immigrant help. One railroad company alone gave notice that it wanted 10,000 families on its land, and would give away homesteads to any who would settle permanently along its lines. In the competition of these improvement associations for labor, a number of applicants deposited in New York banks special funds to be drawn upon to pay the travelling expenses of immi grants who were unable to pay their own expenses. Advantage was taken of this pressure of application last year in the relief of distress in the detention rooms, when 21 immigrants, so poor that they would otherwise be Hable to become public charges, were forwarded to an applicant at Memphis, Tennessee. The message accom panying this application was typical. " The famUies would be obliged to work with me one year in order to finish the cotton crop; otherwise it would be an entire loss to me : We cannot pick up hands every day. I con sider this part of the United States (ClarkviUe, Miss.) the best for a poor man. If emigrants object to work side by side with negroes, I can say that is not necessary ; each 185 The Italian in America man has the land to himseK and comes in contact with only the land-owner. I have no particular desire for any nationality, only parties that have been Hving on farms and are used to farm work. If I could be successful in this move, there could come more than 10,000 famiHes and all find good homes. In case you can get any fam iHes, no matter how many at a time, send them on. The money for transportation is at the National Bank of Com merce for you to draw on as you need it." The particular immigrants transported were of Ger man nativity and sent on, after consultation, with the ap proval of the German Consulate in New York. There can be no question that Italian immigrants are soon Hkely to profit largely by this pressure from the South and the extension of its provisions for distribution and settlement There can he no doubt, either, that intelHgently directed efforts for the promotion of this supply of labor would meet a ready response from Italians already settled here in congested districts. It is by these and like means now certainly extending that the only really pressing problem of immigration, the betterment of distribution, is approach ing its solution. Thus far, however, there has been no substantial pro vision for any systematic, comprehensive and sustained distribution. The efforts to promote it are chiefly im portant in their demonstration of needs and openings and the assurance of co-operation, when it is resolutely under- 186 The Call for Better Distribution taken, as it should be, by our national govemment. It is patently the view of the present Commissioner General of Immigration, that further delay in grappling vrith this problem is intolerable. In his latest report he enforces " the imperative, the immediately impending and rapidly augmenting necessity, both on the score of humanity and self-defence, of attempting a distribution of the ever in flowing tide of aliens." He recognizes the call for distribution in " the millions of untilled acres and the unsatisfied demand for agricul tural and other manual labor," but the main stress of his appeal for action is laid on the burdens and evils arising from the congestion of the influx. This undertaking may be properly tentative, at first, beginning, perhaps, with no more than bureaus of reliable information and the registration of applications for labor and employment in our principal ports of entry, but the extension of service may follow as rapidly as its evolution is justified by weU- considered experiments. The chief blocks in the way of success are likely to be the conservative questioning of any novel exercise of power by the national government, the jealousy and rivalry of States and districts competing for labor supply, the risk of conflict with labor unions, the ignorance and prejudice of the immigrants and the dread cf the promo tion of immigration by any effective provision for its dis tribution. The undertaking may be opposed, too, by 187 The Italian in America those who measure the thrift and capacity of an immi grant by the extent of his cash in hand and set their faces stubbornly against " assisted immigration," in the teeth of the fact that a great proportion of the immigrants com ing here during the last half century have been " assisted" covertly, if not openly, without any damage to this country comparable with the value of their labor, and the further fact that no statutory prohibition of '' a-iu-tance " can possibly be enforced. The extraordinary recent advance of Canadian popula tion and industries carries a warning, too, that our na tional apathy in regard to immigration may no longer be continued with prudence. Canadian government and other agencies are now energetically encouraging, receiv ing and distributing immigration, as l>efore noted, and making a mock of our dilatory and fumbling procedure. It surely behooves a nation that has grown great through immigration not to revei-se its traditional policy of wel come, and resort to carping complaints and foolish bars as a confession of inability to grapple with any local per plexity of congestion. The London " Saturday Review " has never been sus pected of cherishing any disposition to over-rate America or Americans, but a recent issue of this critical journal contains a rect^nition which every patriotic American may weU prize, and a forecast which only our incredible blundering in regard to immigration can falsify. 188 The Call for Better Distribution "the independence of the united states " More than any other country of the present time, with the possible exception of the Russian Empire, the United States may be regarded as a complete, homogene ous, economic entity. It is able to grow all the corn it requires; it can raise all the live stock that it needs; its cotton plantations are sufficient to supply all its require ments; its mineral resources, both of base and precious metals, are extensive, and its coal mines are inexhaustible. " Add to this every year enormous accessions by immi gration of carefuUy selected, adult, able-bodied and skilled workmen to assist in the development of these very varied resources. The development of that country is probably due in large degree to these causes. The policy of pro tection, which it has extended to industries, has only hastened the natural and inevitable growth of the coun try. We may be sure that, in the future, it wUl become more and more independent of all other countries." * Eliot Lokd. * Quotation of "The Saturday Review" in "The New York Sun," New York, October 19, 1904. 189 CHAPTER X PAUPEEISM, DISEASE AND CBIME A cartoon appearing not long ago in one of our Amer ican city newspapers was a graphic exhibit of a popular fallacy. It represented a prodigious steamship stretehmg through the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic from Italy to New York. At the stern of this vessel, on the Italian coast, a mammoth poorhouse rose in view, from which a procession of paupers was pouring over the decks of the ship in unbroken ranks into another mammoth poor house on the American shore. In fervid colors also our country has often been painted as an abject dumping ground for beggars and cripples and criminals of every stripe— the spew of the slums of the Old World, voiding the lame, diseased and blind, evicted jaU birds and notor ious rascals, the burdens and pests of society, on our long- suffering RepubHc. One sample extract from a New York newspaper condenses this tirade. " The floodgates are open. The bars are down. The sally-ports are unguarded. The dam is washed away. The sewer is unchoked. Europe is vomiting! In oUier words, the scum of immigration is viseeratiug upon our shores. 190 Pauperism, Disease and Crime The horde of $9.60 steerage slime is being siphoned upon us from Continental mud tanks." In view of the grossness of this misrepresentation, no serious rejoinder would be called for were it not for the possible impress of the persistence of this vituperation. Where there is so much smoke, it may be inferred, there must be some flame. The simple presentation of facts beyond contravention will suffice to show how grotesquely the truth has been distorted. The gigantic poorhouse or system of poorhouses of the American bugbear does not exist in Italy. There is no poor law in the kingdom, and no one has a legal claim for maintenance at the expense of the State unless he be in firm, insane or an infant. There are many charitable foundations endowed by private beneficence, but there are comparatively few asylums for the poor. A certain amount of begging is allowed, and there are still, no doubt, many beggars in Italy, especially in the Southern Prov inces — ^but there are few beggars among the sturdy laborers who have the enterprise and the wiU to seek for work in a country so distant and intolerant of drones. Our restrictive immigration laws, moreover, specifically exclude professional beggars, paupers and persons likely to become a public charge, as well as all idiots, lunatics, epileptics, persons afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, persons convicted of a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, prosti- 191 The Italian in America tutes, polygamists and anarchists. The official papers, which every immigrant to this country from Italy must procure, and the strict examination here, practicaUy bar the entry of any considerable number of the classes now justly excluded by law. No current misapprehension nor calumny can rebut this conclusion. This is pithUy affirmed in the official report of the United States Commisioner General of Immigration for the year 1895-9C, for example : " It is gratifying to me to be again able to report to you that I know of no immi grant landed in this country within the last year who is now a burden upon any public or private institution. " With some exceptions, the physical characteristics of the year's immigration were that of a hardy, sound, laboring class, accustomed and apparently well able to earn a livelihood wherever capable and industrious labor can secure employment." If Italian beggars were to be found anywhere in this country they would be proportionately most numerous in Greater New York, for the mass of immigrants land here, usually with only a few doUars in their pockets, and their poverty has greatiy retarded their spreading throughout the country. Yet, even in this most trving situation, the Italian can point with pride to the records of his compar ative standing. On common beggary in New York City, Jacob Riis writes with conceded authority in " How the Other Half 193 Vineyard Scene Xear Humboldt. Tenne^sei Italian \'iiie (Growers Pauperism, Disease and Crime Lives ": " It is curious to find preconceived notions quite upset in a review of the nationaHties that go to make up this squad of street beggars. The Irish lead the Hst with fifteen per cent, and the native American is only a Httie way behind with twelve per cent., while the Italian has less than two per cent. Eight per cent, were Germans. The relative prevalence of the races in our population does not account for this showing. Various causes oper ate, no doubt, to produce it. Chief among them is, I think, the tenement itself. It has no power to corrupt the Italian, who comes here in almost every instance to work. No beggars would ever emigrate from anywhere unless forced to do so." Another authoritative record giving an exact exhibit of pauperism in New York City and its distribution by nationaHties is presented in the Thirty-fifth Annual Re port of the State Board of Charities of New York, con taining the proceedings of the New York State Confer ence of Charities and Correction at the Second Annual Session held in New York City, November 19, 20, 21 and 22, 1901. At this Conference an address on " The Problems of the Almshouse " was given by Hon. John W. Keller, President of the Department of Public Charities of the City of New York. He defined the almshouse referred to in his discussion as foUows : " In the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, the Almshouse is that group of buildings on Blackwell's Island where the helpless and 193 The Italian in America friendless, destitute citizens of these two Boroughs are cared for at the pubUc expense. In the Borough of Brooklyn there is a similar institution at Flatbush, and in the Borough there is a Poor Farm." In the course of his discussion the following tables were presented: Table " A " (showing the nativity of persons admitted to the Almshouse in 1900) : Male. Female. Total Tnited States 355 199 554 Ireland 808 809 1,617 England and Wales Ill 87 198 Scotland 25 14 39 France 19 2 21 Germany 290 84 374 Nonvoy, Sweden and Denm-ark 22 6 28 Italy 15 4 19 Other countries 50 36 86 Total 1,695 1,241 2,936 " Out of a total of 2,936 only 554 were born in the United States; 2,382 were foreign-born, and of this num ber 1,017 were bom in Ireland alone." Table " B " (showing nativity of those admitted to the Incurable Hospital during the year 1900) : Male. Female. Total. Uniteeople broke every bond that fettered her aspiration. \ Is the marking of class divisions or distinctions of rank deeper in Itely than elsewhere in Europe, making an im press which even free America can hardly efface? Let William Dean Howells, surely a competent and candid observer, respond to this point. "I do not think," he writes in " Venetian Life," " there is ever showTi among Italians either the aggressive pride or the abject mean ness which marks the intercourse of peoples and nobles elsewhere in Europe; and I have not seen the distinction of rich and poor made so brutally in Italy as sometimes in our o\\ n soi-disant democratic society at home. There is, indeed, that equ;dity in ItaHan fibre which I beUeve fits the nation for democratic institutions better than any other, and which is perhaps partly the result of their ancient civiHzation." Tho same observer in his ' ' Italian Journeys ' ' notes a curious resemblance which may be reassuring to those w^ho are prone to conjure up the bugbear of Italian inca pacity for progressive assimilation with Americ;vns and 2':3 Progressive Education and Assimilation Americanism. In the head of Pompey he marked the "resemblance to American poHticians which I had noted in aU the Roman statues." "Pompey," he continued, "was Hke the picture of so many Southern congressmen. " If it be rejoined gravely that the head of Pompey is not in the scale to-day but the heads of his countrymen nearly two thousand years after he served as a model, perhaps the observation of Gladstone may be more con vincing. On the 18th of February, 1861, the first Parlia ment of United Italy met at Turin. From the very open ing of this exacting test was there any lack shown of capacity for good government? On the contrary, for Mr. Gladstone wrote to a correspondent, Sir James Lacaita, at the end of 1862, " My confidence in the Ital ian Parliament and people increases from day to day. Their self-command, moderation, patience, firmness and forethought reaching far into the future, are reaUy be yond all praise." Apparently this representative infant would bear comparison even with our latest exhibit of Congress. jThe^innate bent of the Italian for poHtics is, in truth, strongly marked and nowhere is this more plainly shown than in America, in spite of the common handicaps of unfamiUarity with our language and the absorbing de mands of his struggle to earn a Hving. He is quick to comprehend the use and possible force of his baUot here and is eager to become naturalized as soon as he makes 383 The ItaUan in America up his mind to make this country hisboine. This is sig nally shown in the extraordinary percentage of natural ized ItaHans in comparison with the total number of ItaHan birth in New York City. The carefuUy prepared records of the commission established by the Italian Cham ber of Commerce show that 191,289 of the 225,026 f>er- sons of ItaHan parentage living in the city in 1900 were born or naturalized Americans, comprehending 83.4 per cent, of the total ItaHan population. The Italian is keen, too, in the study of his advantage in poHtical affiliations and in local, state and national party contests. The more influential soon win their own following and swing organizations with as much dex terity as any other district leaders. There is^ no device of^ America,n ppHtics which they cannot reatUh' master, and they are already a force which no party can afford to neglect in any closely divided district, citn* or State. There is nothing surprising in this ready appreciation and adaptability in view of the natural quickness of mind of the Latin races and the correspondence now existing between Italian and American poHtical institutions. Like the American, the present Italian institutions are mainly derived from English models, though the ItaHan are a closer copy of the English to-day, in spite of their being a French translation. In Italy, as in England and Amer ica, " individual Hberty, the inviolability of property and of domicUe, freedom of the press, of speech and of a^o- 234 Bird'^-liye View of Truck l^'armiuf; District, near liuuilioldt. Tcnnes Cultivated by Tlirifty Italian Colonists Progressive Education and Assimilation ciation, are guaranteed." In the eye of the law " equal rights and Hberties are granted to aU citizens," says Luigi ViUari. Usually the franchise is restricted to the payers of direct taxes, or of farm or house rent, at or over a fixed minimum. The proportion of voters to the total population is stated by ViUari to be seven per cent., but this percentage is advancing steadily with the rising abUity to read and write, another requirement for the franchise. Even if an ItaHan has not acquired the right to vote in his own country, he is likely to press for it the more urgently here because his poorest neighbor may now excel him in privilege, power and pride. A further objection is raised to Italian immigration that its influx is adding to the heterogeneous character of our population and inevitably rendering the problem of assimUation more difficult of solution. It it claimed that the immigration from Northern Europe has been chiefly our kinsfolk, begotten from common stock, whence sprang our Anglo-Saxon institutions, and sharing our aims and ambitions. It is remarked that the assimilation of this stock has naturally been easy and rapid, and that in the second generation there were no hyphenated Ameri cans. "And why not? Because these immigrants were our racial cousins and brothers, taking their places in our national home as naturaUy as though born under the same roof-tree, since the difference was one in fact, not of birth blood, but of birthplace." 235 The Italian in America This happy condition has been gravely disturbed, it is said, by the advent of immigration from Italy and in gen eral from Southern Europe of aUen racial stocks " which have not known the ancestral ties and associations and sentiments and trend of the old stock as the earUer immi- grants knew and shared them." It is claimed that these differing strains of blood are essentiaUy antagonistic to our own and can only be assimUated with great difficolty and delay, and possibly never. There is an obvious assumption, to start with, that the gravity of the problem of assimUation advances with the number of the races to be assimUated, and that heterogen eity is in itself a ground of valid objection. It is easier to assert than to maintain this by any convincing proof. It is urged in opposition by close students of the subject, whose examinations are entitied to careful consideration, that heterogeneity under certain conditions, and espe ciaUy under those existing in America, inevitably operates to advance assimUation instead of retarding it. " When one race enters the home of another," as one observer remarks, "racial prejudice and racial vanity wiU cause comparisons that are bitter and dangerous, as they are when two individuals are compared. When there are several races in the field of comparison, iU-feeling cannot be so easily aroused. You may teU Mr. Jones that Mr. Smith is the most inteUigent man in the street and Mr. Jones will show no irritetion at this comparison 22G Progressive Education and Assimilation of Mr. Smith with himself and others. But teU Mr. Jones that Mr. Smith is more inteUigent than he is and you wiU straightway observe some symptoms of wounded vanity. " While there are many races of immigrants to Amer ica, they may be greeted with prejudice, but it cannot be as bitterly shown and cannot continue as long as it would if there were only two elements concerned. One race wiU not continue to strut before aU the others, and it is not Hkely that any two or three wUl unite in strong prejudice against the rest. When prejudice and bigotry are eliminated, different races will readily associate and assimUation wiU be rapid. ' "As the number of immigrant races has taken the bit terness from prejudice against immigration, so also the estabHshment of the Jews has done away with the Ul- feeUng that existed between CathoUcs and Protestants in America. A reHgious body will not attack two others with the virulence that it can show toward a single rival, and it would be absurd for two religious elements to quarrel whUe there is a third in the field to laugh at the contestants. The Jewish immigration has been a bless ing for this very reason, and the heterogeneous character of immigration is as great a blessing, since it has reUeved us of the danger of racial movements in the United States." A striking example of undeniable assimilation is the one cited by the editor of the " McKeesport News," No- 227 The Italian in America vember 11, 1903, in his inteUigent discussion of " The Immigration Problem." "Massachusetts, so often caUed the cradle of Hberty and the cornerstone of the American government, now has a population of 2,806,346, one-third of which is for eign bom, whUe considerably more than half of the whole number have foreign-bom parente. This large proportion of the foreign element is exceeded by that of only two other stetes in the Union, and the old Bay State can no longer be looked upon as the exclusive home of the Yankee. " But nothing proves more conclusively the viriHty of the native New England stock than the fact that despite this preponderance of foreign born and foreign blood within her borders, Massachusette stUl remains distinct ively American. The old-time ideas and customs con tinue, and there has been no change either in the laws or institutions in order to adapt the State to ite new inhabi- tents. The standard of pure Americanism seems to be as securely planted as it ever was. Massachusette is per forming her duty of absorbing the many diverse nation alities which have come under her dominion, and is gradu ally welding the combined product into a citizenship which is an improvement in some respecte over the unemotional remnants of our ancestral race who never came west, but stayed to ossify or decay along the inhospitable and barren interior of old New England. 228 Progressive Education and Assimilation " The people who are now taking possession of Massa chusetts are Canadian, Irish, EngHsh, Swedish, Scotch, German, Russian, ItaHan, Polish and Portuguese. Ire land has given the greatest number of immigrants, with Canada next in order. Other countries are far in the rear of these two as contributors to the population. " The success with which Massachusetts has met the im migration problem indicates that we have little to fear from healthy, law-abiding aliens coming from Europe to start Hfe anew in a more promising land. America is so firmly wedded to its customs, language and religious be liefs; its institutions, laws and principles of government are so securely estabUshed and are all so Hberal, well- directed and beneficent that the foreigner in the course of a few years' residence becomes so thoroughly Ameri canized that he assists rather than impedes the progress of the country towards its inevitable continental sov ereignty and glorious destiny." These points appear to be well taken, and the view in general is confirmed by the attested rapidity of assimUa tion in this country and particularly in New York City, where the variety and divergencies of racial types are probably greater than in any city in the world. In an interesting discussion of this subject in his lecture on "The Key to the Twentieth Century," Dr. Thomas Green has characterized the abiHty of the United States to absorb and Americanize foreign elements as one of the most 229 The Italian in America wonderful achievements of the nation, and the most hope ful sign of its stabUity. He notes how after •&, year or two in the pubUc schools the chUdren of foreign birth or descent " come trooping down the steps of the schooLhoose with Httle flags in their right hands and singing ' My Country, 'Tis of Thee.' " They are just as good Ameri cans in his eye as though their forefathers had been here before the Revolution. The certainty of this remarkable progress toward assim Uation by no means conveys, of course, any Hcense to neglect tho precautions assuring Americanization. There are grave exceptions and shorteomings in this progress, particularly in the coal-mining districte, which urgently need attention and remedy. But it is absurd to deny or distrust the assimilating powers of this country because of the scandalous lack in certein locaHties of proper sani- tery and educational provisions as weU as of any active sympathy and co-operation with the struggling immi- grante. Rabbi Fleischer has conspicuously punctured the claim, too, that the older immigrants were essentiaUy of the material whereof to make ' ' an Anglo-American aUiance. ' " " If the Irish feel somewhat related to the English," he said in a discussion at a meeting in Boston in the winter of 1903-04, " they feel it very disagreeably, and the Jews, so dominant in New York to-day, certainly are not related to the English." Progressive Education and dissimilation There 5,s substantial reason for holding that the rapidity of assimilation is more largely dependent on social con ditions, th^ intimacy of distribution, the fusion of classes and the common education and language than upon any approximation of racial strains. Particular encourage ment for this view may be drawn from a racial charac teristic of the Italian, such as was claimed for the Greek( in the famous funeral oration put by Thucidides in thei' mouth of Pericles. This is a distinguishing faculty of adaptation — Eutrapelos — " a happy and gracious flexibil ity," as Matthew Arnold translates it. This conforming faculty is not only obvious in the issue of intermarriages, but in the very plain Americanization of the chUdren born in America of native Italian parents. Howells and other observers, too, have particularly noted the readiness with which almost aU ItaHans learn English and their quick appreciation of American progressiveness and in partic- iflar of the necessity of the American standard of educa- tion for the advancement of their children. Furthermore, the fear lest the purity of the "Anglo- Saxon strain " be defiled by the alien influx from South ern Europe is only a conceit in grave clothes, which has been too often resurrected. .Daniel Defoe flayed it alive two hundred years ago, but its corpse has often been paraded in this country and elsewhere, in spite of its ancient and fishlike smeU. When alarmists in England took offence at the entry of the Dutch with WiUiam of 331 The Italian in America Orange at the EngHsh Revolution, Defoe wrote keenly, in spite of the rudeness of his satire, in the " Tme-Bom EngHshman" : " For Englisihmen to boast of generation Cancels their knowledge and lampoons the nation A true-born Englishman's a contradiction. In speech an irony, in fact a fiction. These arc the heroes that despise the Dutch, And rail at nowcome foreigners so much. Forgetting that themselves are all derived From the most scoundrel race that ever lived; A horrid crowd of gambling thieves and drones. Who ransacked kingdoms and dispeopled towns; The Pict and painted Briton, treacherous Scot, Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes, Whoso red-haired offspring everywhere remains; W'ho, joined with Norman French, compound the breed From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed." Moreover, upon what examination worthy of the name has the Southern Latin stock, as exhibited in Italyj for example, been stamped as "undesirable?" Is it unde sirable to perpetuate the blood, the memorials and tradi tions of the greatest empire of antiquity, which spread the Hght of ite civiHzation from the Mediterranean to the North Sea and the Baltic ? Does a stigma recaU that this stock was the fountein head of the Renaissance that dispelled the gloom of the Middle Ages? What author ity proscribes the land that gave birth to GaHleo, the 233 Progressive Education and Assimilation jnost forceful demonstrator of the earth's motion and orbit, and to Columbus and the Cabots, who brought the New World to Hght " to redress the balance of the Old ? " How strange is this flaunt of prejudice in the faces of JDante and Tasso and Petrarch — of Raphael and Michael Angelo and Canova — of Verdi and Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti — of Ristori and Duse and Salvini and Rossi — of Alfieri and Giacometti — of Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi ! What freak of conceit ignores historians like Carlo Botta and Pasquale ViUari, romancists Hke Manzoni and D'An- nunzio, masters of language like Bartelli and De Amicis, and overlooks astronomers like SchiapareUi and elec tricians Hke Ferraris and Marconi, on the loftiest ranges of appHed science ? In the field of railway engineering there are no more extraordinary memorials than the three grand passageways of the Mt. Cenis, St. Gothard and Simplon tunnels, the enduring monuments of "Southern Latin " engineers and constructors; and the superb Turin Exposition in its exhibit of the advances of Italian arti ficers of every kind is an ample rejoinder to any question ing of the capacity of ItaUan artisans measured by any existing standard of progress. It may be rejoined that this stamp of disparagement was not reaUy meant to apply to the Italian artist and artisan, but only to the mass of immigration from the agri cultural districts. Is there then any better reason for the proscription of the Italian farm hand, grape grower 333 The Italian in America or market gardener ? H their competence as agricultural laborers is in question, there is abundant witness to their efficiency, even under the handicap of primitive tools and methods. A recent observer of unquestioned independ ence, stending and opportunity for thorough observation, P. D. Fischer, has written to this effect in his able survey "ItaUen und die ItaUener am Schlusse des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts: " "Perhaps the greatest advantage of ItaUan agriculture Hes in the character of the men who practice it. He who has seen with his own eyes the peasant at work wiU cease talking about ItaUan indolence. Notwithstanding his ignorance, this peasant is the very best kind of material. If inferior in physical strength to tho Swiss, German or English laborer, he is the equal of the representetive of any other nation whatever in native inteUigence and persistent application to business; while he certeinly surpasses them aU in thrift, sobriety and good temper." A sufficient reason noted by Hen- Fischer for the relative lack of advance and prosperity of the ItaHan agriculturist is the fundamental and thus far insuperable obstacle of land monopoly in Italy. Does their poverty unfit them for America? The piti ful meagreness of the Hving of masses of people in the de pressed districts is unquestioned. There is just compas sion for the wretched Hves of the charcoal burners of the Maremma, for the women toUing on the rice lands of the Romagna from dawn to sunset, for the thousands of weary 284 Progressive Education and Assimilation straw plaiters, sometimes earning no more than twenty centesimi or four cents a day, and for those even more miserable, like the sufferers making dwelHngs of holes in the rocks at Grotta Rossa, who may be seen at any time beside a spring or rivulet, dipping in the water a handful of leaves or a few fresh bean pods to be eaten as a salad with their dry, hard bread. One may fail to see, however, anything in this dejec tion of living that can be brought up as a cause for ex clusion in view of the door held open heretofore without any disastrous effect to the poorest peasants of the north of Europe, and especiaUy to the famine-stricken people of Ireland. There is nothing in the condition of any part of Italy more wretched and depressing than was seen in Ireland during the rising tide of immigration to this coun try. "I remember," writes a German traveller in Ire-; land at the time of the famine, "when I saw the poor Letts in Livonia, I used to pity them for having to livej in huts buUt of the unhewn logs of trees, the crevices being stopped with moss. . . . WeU, Heaven pardon myi ignorance! Now that I have seen Ireland, it seems toj me that the Letts, the Esthonians and the Finlanders lead ' a life of comparative comfort, and poor Paddy would feel like a king with their house, their habUiments and their,' daUy fare. ... A French author, Beaumont, who' had seen the Irish peasant in his cabin and the North American Indian in his wigwam, has assured us that the 235 The Italian in America savage is better provided for than the poor man in Ire land. . . . "A Russian peasant, no doubt, is the slave of a harder master, but stiU he is fed and housed to his content and no trace of mendicancy is to be seen in him. The Hun garians are certainly not among the best-used people in the world, stUl what wheat and bread and what wine has even the humblest among them for his daily fare ! . . . Servia and Bosnia are reckoned among the most wretehed countries of Europe, but, at least, the people, if badly housed, are weU clad. "In Ireland beggary or abject poverty is the prevailing rule. ... It seems as if wretchedness had prevaUed there from time immemorial — as if rags had succeeded rags, bog formed over bog, ruins given birth to ruins and beggars had begotten beggars for a long series of cen turies." Outside of the comparatively smaU number of poHtical refugees and others driven from their native land by in tentional persecution, the masses that have come over from Europe have crossed the ocean intentionaUy to better their condition and uplift their so-caUed "stendard of living. " The existence of lower standards in Europe with scarcely an exception has faUed to depress the American standard of living, which has indeed risen progressively in spite of the low standard bugbear. If iuimigrante were contented they would not have cut all their home ties to 236 Progressive Education and Assimilation come to this country, and there is no ground for assum ing that the Italians are backward in lifting themselves to the American standard. Is their blood of so lowly an extraction that it is Hkely to impair the fluid that has been transmitted from our PUgrim forefathers or the first families of Virginia, or the Dutch patroons or other stocks expecting homage? Without pausing to examine the actual mixtures in the veins of our early colonists, which the late Senator Hoar and others have particularly noted, it is probably sufficient to observe that any dread of defilement may be relieved by the assurance of Charles Kingsley : "The physical and inteUectual superiority of the high born is only preserved as it was in the old Norman times by the continual practical abnegation of the very caste He on which they pride themselves, by contin ual renovation of their race by intermarriage with the ranks below them. The blood of Odin flowed in the, veins of Norman WiUiam ; true — and so did the tanner's of Falaise." Even without the benefit of the infusion of rich old American blood, there appears to be much promise in the offspring of the poorest ItaHan stocks where the nurturing conditions are even sHghtly favor able. In the closing year of our Civil War WiUiam Dean HoweUs examined the work of the " Protestant Ragged Schools" at Naples only a few years after they were 237 The ItaUan in America "established by the wise phUanthropy of the Protestant residente." The foundation of these schools was not older " than the union of Naples with the Kingdom of Italy (in 1860) when toleration of Protestantism was decreed by law." In spite of the declaration of the Protestant character of the schools and the fact that the Protestant Bible was placed in the hands of the children to be studied and understood, " the parents of the chUdren were so anxious to secure them the benefite of education that they wiU- ingly ran the risk of their becoming heretics." These parents were principaUy "people of the lower classes — laborers, hackmen, fishermen, domestics and very smaU shop keepers." The first undertaking of the teachers of these schools was to wash the chUdren, educating them " corporeally first of aU. " Then they set about " cleans ing them moraUy," and next began to educate them in various branches of learning. The good effecte of the training were felt almost imme diately. When Mr. HoweUs visited the schools, he saw that the text-books were kept neat and clean, as were the hands and faces of the chUdren. He attended a regular exercise of the reading class of girls and was strongly impressed by the exceptional average of proficiency. All the girls in the class "seemed to have a Hvely under standing of what they read," — and he "never heard American chUdren of their age read nearly so weU." 238 Progressive Education and Assimilation There was " not a clouded countenance — nor a dirty hand among them." "We should have great hopes for a na tion of which the chUdren can be taught to wash them selves." The boys in the upper classes, he reports, were "weU up in their studies." Their drawing books were "prodigies of neatness, and betrayed that aptness for form and facility of execution which are natural to the ItaHan." The feasibiUty of carrying children of even the most ignorant people in Italy far above the range of elementary education was demonstrated in these schools in the extension of studies to higher mathematics, linear drawing, the French language and courses in Italian and ancient history. Under the depressing influences of their surroundings and a lack of any stimulus of competition and distinct prospect of advancement, it is not to be wondered at that there was a noticeable flagging in attendance and appli cation after the majority had acquired an elementary education, but the demonstration of their teachableness was incontestable. "Up to a certain point," indeed, as Mr. HoweUs observes, "the NeapoHtan chUdren learn so rapidly and willingly that it can be hardly other than a pleasure to teach them." "Just and consistent usage," he noted further, " has the best influence upon them, and one boy was pointed out as quite docUe and manageable whose parents had given him up as incorrigible before he entered the school." He observed too that " the boys of 239 The Italian in America these schools never played truant and are never severely beaten in school." It was remarkable also that these "heretic schools" excited so Httle animosity and interference. Only one isolated attempt to hamper the progress of these schools on the part of any of the NeapoHten clergy was noted, and the young scholars had no plaguing to fear from the mass of the street children. This is largely attributeble, as Mr. Howells thought, to the "peaceful, uncombative nature of Italian boys, who get on with much less way laying and thumping and buUj'ing than boys of North ern blood." Whatever the reason, none of them were "molested by their companions who stiU Hved the wUd life of the streete." These observations of Mr. HoweUs are fuUy confirmed by the results of my own wide-ranging personal investi gations and inquiries. The appreciation of education here appears to be intensified by the Hmitation or denial of ite privileges under the conditions existing in Italy before unification. Even_the most ignorant who have come here are quick to see how essential it is to progress, and they are determined that their children shaU not be hampered for lack of it like themselves. " In aU grades of the New York City schools," as ^Ir. Lawrence Franklin has noteil, " teachers agree in com mending the inteUigence and studiousness of Italian chU dren, for next to the Jews they are the best scholars in 210 \'ineyard and Winery of the Italian-Swiss Colonv, Asti, Sonimui Co., California Progressive Education and Assimilation the matter of application. The boys are especially clever in drawing, modeUing and manual work which requires delicate fingers. The girls are better in languages and history. One has only to pay a visit to the Baxter Street school and observe the number of neat, bright looking ItaHan chUdren there to reaHze how unjust we have been in treating this race as outcasts and aliens." Jacob A. Riis attests the same teachableness of the ItaHan children and the effect of their education extend ing to their homes and parents. After remarking the original doubts or prejudice of their instructors here, he notes the disappearance of their distrust and how " to day the Italian children are gladly welcomed. Their sunny temper, which no hovel is dreary enough, no hard ship has power to cloud, has made them universal favor ites, and the discovery has been made by their teachers that, as the crowds pressed harder, their school rooms have marvelously expanded, untU they embraced within their waUs an unsuspected multitude, even many a slum tene ment itself, ceUar, stoop, attic and aU. Every lesson of cleanliness, of order, and of English taught at the school is reflected into some wretched home and rehearsed there as far as the limited opportunity wiU allow." The assimilating effect of contact and education here is also particularly remarked by Dr. J. H. Senner, for many years Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York. " The common opinion," he writes, " as to 241 The Italian in America the inability of ItaHan immigrante to assimilate, is, I am frank to state, not shared by me. The acquirement of EngHsh is no more difficult to mature Italians than to other non-EngHsh speaking immigrants; chUdren bom in this country of ItaHan parents can scarcely be distin guished by their speech or their habite from the chUdren of native Americans. The pubHc schools of New York bear testimony to this stetement. The Rev. Bonaventure Piscopo, of the Church of the Most Precious Blood (the largest Italian Roman CathoHc Parish in the United States), is my authority for the stetement that aU the Italian prieste, in their religious services, their Sunday school and even in their confessionals, are obliged to use the English if they hope to be understood at aU by the second generation." The expert observation of Jacob Riis further assures the certainty of assimUation and progi-ess even under the most unfavorable conditions. Of the advance of the Nea poHtan immigrant he says: "Starting thus, below the bottom as it were (in the congested heart of New York City), he has an uphUl journey before him to work out of the slums, and the promise, to put it mUdly, is not good. He does it aU the same, or if not he, his boy. It is not an Italian sediment that breeds the tough. Parental authority has a strong enough grip on the lad in Mulberry Street to inaJce him work and that is his salvation. ' In seventeen yeai-s,' s:iid the teacher of the oldest Italian 243 Progressive Education and Assimilation ragged school in the city, that day and night takes in quite six hundred, ' I have seen my boys work up into decent mechanics and useful citizens almost to a man, and of my girls only two I know of have gone astray. ' I have ob served the process often enough myself to know that she was right. It is to be remembered, furthermore, that her school is in the very heart of the Five Points district, and takes in always the worst and the dirtiest crowd of chU dren." This expert evidence of the teachableness of the children is confirmed by hundred of reports which I obtained from teachers and others in intimate contact with the Italian children in all American States where Italians are now living in considerable numbers. It is impracticable to do more than summarize this mass of testimony here, but a sample report received from Mr. L. H. Lancaster, Sec retary of the Lafourche Progressive Union, Thibodaux, Louisiana, is quoted in part, as the Italian immigration tt) Louisiana has been mainly of the class that has been accounted most ignorant and unprogressive. " The class with which I have come in contact," writes Mr. Lancaster, "is not what would be considered desir able, being entirely of the SicUian type. While the orig inal infusion was of a low class, Uliterate and tending to be unruly and used only for hard manual labor, having had no training nor education and not being adaptable for scientific pursuits nor for diversified or intensified agri- 243 The Italian in America cultural pursuits without close attention — ^yet I can say that their offspring are the brightest and most ambitious and quickest of perception that we have in the pubHc schools. Moreover, they are of a very amiable and poHte disposition." From hundreds of avaUable instances also of excep tional proficiency, I may quote one recorded in the " Roch ester (N. Y.) Times" of July 6, 1904, as follows: " That the immigration danger is not the bugaboo that many folks are inclined to consider it is evidenced in the fact that two of the five free scholarships in the Depart ment of Mechanic Arts at the Mechanics Institute this year go to foreign youths, one a Russian-German who was unable to speak English four years ago when he ar rived in this country, and the other, the son of an Italian laborer. These scholarships entitle the holder to three years' instruction in a mechanical, architectural or en gineering course and are worth $225 each. They were won in brisk competition, the examinations dealing with the subjecte, arithmetic, geography, grammar and Amer ican history. ' ' Israel Bernhardt and Dominic Lucca give promise of being successful men and a credit to their race as weU as to the proud country of their adoption." Kate HoUiday Claghorn, Assistant Registrar of Rec ords of the "Tenement House Departinent" of New York City, further meete the point of complaint which 214 Progressive Education and Assimilation has been brought against Italian parents with seeming injustice. " The Italians have been reproached," she writes, "with denying advantages to their chUdren for the sake of the money to be got by the children's labor, but a special investigation, made some years ago by a com mittee of sociological specialists, shows that the charge, when made a general one, is without foundation. The committee testified in the plainest terms to the fact that the Italian family, even in circumstances of the greatest destitution, showed at least the normal amount of inter est in the education of their chUdren, and in many cases made special sacrifices to secure it." As a matter of course, assimUation is slower in the case of the adult immigrant than in that of his chUdren, but there is no reason to question a more or less steady and hopeful progress of the mass of the immigrants, both women and men, in proportion to their opportunities for advance and the years of their settlement. Their educa tion by contact and observation goes on irresistibly, and the extent of their enlightenment through newspapers and books is not ordinarily reaUzed. ItaHans who can read are commonly fond of reading and those who have not learned to read wiU Hsten eagerly to any reading they can understand. The number and circulation of the ItaHan newspapers in this country show the rising appreciation of the news of the day on the part of the newcomers unable as yet to read the papers printed 245 The Italian in America in EngHsh. Yet the stated number of copies printed by any ItaHan publisher is far below the actual circulation, for the copies pass from hand to hand and reach a num ber of readers far in excess of the subscribers or buyers. The practice of reading aloud from a paper to a circle of acquaintances eager to hear the news or miscellany or editorial appeals or advertisements vastly expands also the nominal range of these mediums. The recent inquiry of a reporter for the New York "Sun" brought out also very clearly the extent of another prac tice, the borrowing of books which the readers are too poor to buy. One book peddlar told the reporter that for the first privUege of reading an uncut book he charged about a third of the market price. " The next half dozen readers paid about 2(> cente on the doUar. FinaUy it ran down by stages as low as 10 cente or even 5 for a week's use, and then the boys on the ferry boate and the Uke get their turn at it. "'And where do you get your books,' the walking library was asked. " ' At the banker's,' was the rejilv. " Nobody can teU just why all the ItaHan bookseUers in New York except the newspaper publishers are bank ers, but they are. Not aU the ItaHan bankers are book sellers, but every bookseller is a banker. " There are from a dozen to twenty of them, at least one or two in each Italian center, and some of them do 346 Progressive Education and Assimilation a very large trade. Many thousands of volumes are im ported by them every year, chiefly from Milan, Florence and Rome, and besides their local sales one or two of them send out consignments of books to other parts of the coun try where there are large ItaHan settlements. "Some idea of the extent of the Italian book trade in New York may be formed from the fact that one banker- bookseUer, one of the largest, publishes a copiously iUus- trated book catalogue of 176 pages, with a fancy cover representing the United States as a handsome female figure aU spangled over with stars, twining one arm about a pretty ItaHan woman with a child, while with the other hand she points to the setting sun, against which the Statue of Liberty and an ocean steamship are sUhouetted. " The books embraced in the catalogue cover the whole educational field to begin with. Books for the study of EngHsh and ItaHan are numerous ; dictionaries and gram mars take up more than a page. Works of reHgious in struction, ItaHan and general history are well covered. The decorative arts and sciences, abstract and applied, fiU many pages." The representative heads of the cities chiefly attracting ItaHan immigration and settlement are among the most positive in their conviction of the feasibility of assimilation, and their attestation of the industry, thrift, good conduct and certain advance to good citizenship of the mass of the ItaHan immigrants. In general accord with this view too 247 The Italian in America are the most active members of the Board of Education, city school teachers, pubUc and private, and the clergy coming most closely in contact with the immigrante and their chUdren. The present Mayor of New York, George B. McClellan, has been particularly observant of the Italian character and progress, even under conditions must unfavorable to hopeful development, and has repeatedly emphasized his belief in their certain advance to good citizenship. In a notably incisive discussion of the relation of education to immigration, reported by Mr. James CreeHnan in " The New York World," May 22nd, 1904, the Mayor summed up his view pithUy in closing. "Already we are beginning to feel the good effect of our schools upon our foreign-born population. Take the ItaHans, for instance. They are being assimilated very swiftly. The number of them who take out citizenship papers increases every year. They make good citizens. So I find with other nationaHties. The schools are grad ually turning aU the elemente that come to this great clearing port of the American Continent into a common and admirable civic type — American to the core." Eliot Lokd. 248 CHAPTER XII PRIVILEGES AND DUTIES OF ITALIAN-AMEKICAN CITIZENSHIP A common objection has been raised to the entry of the mass of ItaHan immigration to this country, on the score that it has been too largely attracted by the narrow consideration of money -making and not with any purpose of identifying the ItaHan with American home interests and citizenship. In other words, the mass of immigrants have been reputed to be so-called "birds of passage," coming here for the sake of the high wages of the Amer ican labor market, and scrimping their standard of liv ing in order to accumulate savings sufficient to enable them to return home and lift themselves above the level of their former condition. There is an offset, not always recognized, to this objec tion in the fact^that the supply of labor thus obtained is flexible, adjusting itself readUy to the demands of the labor market. Hence the pressure in times of depression is reUeved more easUy than in cases where the immigrants have estabUshed homes which they can hardly leave with out costly sacrifices, if at all. So in times of great in dustrial activity labor flows in like the advance of the 249 The Italian in America tide, receding as naturaUy with the faUing off of the de mand in periods of stagnation or industrial collapse. So far, therefore, as the influx is viewed in strict rela tion to its effects on the labor market, it may be con ceded that the freedom from attachment of immigrant labor is of material value in its elastic response to the operation of the laws of supply and demand. The reUef afforded to the American workman by the return of labor ers across the ocean in times of stringency is greater than could have been effected if their settlement had been more stable. Nevertheless T have no desire to minimize the force of the objection to any influence that tends to retard assim ilation and impairs the identification of workingmen here with American interests and citizenship. Any temporary relief from the strain of competition would be too dearly secured if the permanent national welfare of the country was sacrificed. It is unquestionably to the interest of this country that the mass of ite working population shaU be moved by higher considerations than the bare pecun iary incentive which temporary employment affords. We want American workingmen generaUy to look upon this country as their country, to realize their identifica tion with its free institutions, its aims and ite future, and to be intimately fused in association as feUow American citizens, and not to be held aloof as sojourners and aHens. It does not appear, however, that any novel restrictions 250 Privileges, etc., of Italian-American Citizenship are necessary to effect this assimUation. The flow and return of labor will doubtless proceed in years to come as in the past, but there is no reason to apprehend any in crease in its percentage in comparison with the volume of population. The actual amount of this floating labor has never exceeded one per cent, of our population, a num ber relatively inconsiderable in view of the vast majority that have taken and wUl continue to take a permanent residence and part in the advance of our republic. If there is any force in the reproach that the Italians in particular have looked upon this country as a place for money-making rather than as a home, the edge of this reproach is becoming more blunt year after year with the changing views of the immigrants and the rising ap preciation of the opportunities open to the Italian in America and the reasons why he should prize a home and citizenship here. The percentage of ItaHan women, mothers, wives and daughters coming to this country has been steadUy increasing with the rising number of immi grants bringing their famiHes with them or caUing them over as soon as the men have secured homes to receive them. Thus far the marriages of Italian women have been almost whoUy with the men of their own nationality or descent, but a large percentage of the men have inter married with other nationalities, and this percentage is further expanded by the marriage of the American-born sons of the immigrants. 251 The Italian in America The advancing attachment to America is further marked, too, by the greater stabiUty of settlement and ac quisition of property. Even the city tenement quarters now occupied by Italians are largely passing into the hands of ItaHan owners, as has been before noted, and the progress of naturalization is extending throughout the country with the advance of permanent settlement. It would appear to be no longer necessary to urge upon the ItaHan residente of New York City, for example, the ad vantages of naturalization, for a recent examination has shown that 111,696 out of a total of 145,433 of persons born in Italy of ItaHan parentage were naturalized in 1900. The percentage of appHcante for citizenship is naturaUy not so large in the newer and more infirm settlemente, but there nowhere appears any reason to question that Italians as a body seek citizenship as zealously as the immigrante of any other nationaHty. They are quick to see that it places them on an equal footing of righte and privUeges with the native American or naturaHzed associate of any na tionaHty. It is the stamp that marks their entire and loyal identification with the American people in the main tenance and advance of a repubUc in which aU citizens are fellow partners. It gives them a representetive voice in the framing of the laws that govern and in the choice of their magistrates. It assures to them the respect that is accorded inevitably to fellow citizens and qualified voters. It opens to them the offices in the gift of American citizens or of 252 Privileges, etc., of Italian-American Citizenship the men of their election, by ballot, appointment, or civil service examination. It gives access to any reservations of employment or privUege for the exclusive benefit of American citizens. It serves to break down irresistibly the lingering bars of aversion or distrust or indifference that separate the alien from the citizen. They see in it, too, a bulwark of protection against any imposition and a certificate of power to compel the fair recognition that rival poHtical parties must give to the foreign-born citizens of any nation aHty in this country when the determination of political control may be dependent upon their votes. In short, the privUeges and advantages of American citizenship are so material and so manifest that the Ital ian-American wiU indeed be duU-witted if he does not seek to acquire them when the opportunity is offered. It is, however, of prime importance to him and to his adopted country that he should appreciate its duties no less fully than its opportunities. No Italian has the right legally or moraUy to apply for American citizenship unless he comprehends to the letter the oath that he takes and is absolutely resolved to be faithful to that oath without a moment of wavering or repining. The American repub lic asks no appHcant for citizenship to forget his father land or any of its inspiring memories. It seeks rather to draw the bonds more closely that serve to unite aU nations in international fellowship and untroubled peace. 253 The Italian in America But the Italian, who has not finaUy made up his mind, whatever natural regrets he may cherish, to sever his former aUegiance and transfer to his adopted country the full measure of loyalty and duty that was due to his native land, is not qualified for admission to American citizenship. If home stiU means to him his dear birth place and he stUl hopes to retum not simply as a welcome visitor, but as an adventurer who has fiUed his pockete with American gold, he is not entitled to the citizenship which he has sought only as a means to this end. If, on the contrary, with aU due reverence for his orig inal fealty, he surrenders it with a true heart to take up the new loyalty and obUgations imposed by his shift of citizenship, he wnll be truly welcome to American feUow ship. Henceforth the Stars and Stripes wiU be his flag as surely as it is the flag of any native-born citizen, and he must foUow it, whether he be rich or poor, to the death, if need be, when he is oaUed upon by his adopted country to prove his fidelity. Before he appHes for citizenship, the Italian who comes to this country must take to heart, too, that American citizenship is a trust that he must hold sacred — that its duties and responsibiUties are confided to his honor — that he must shrink from any proposal to prostitute it as he would from a known lure of the devU in any guise. There wiU be traps set for his feet as soon as he has won the 254 Privileges, etc., of Italian- American Citizenship right to vote and before— offers to pay the fee for citizen ship papers and other inducements for the promise of his support at the poUs— bids for his vote on Election Day by unscrupulous partisans — or the more covert and dangerous appeals to his prejudice or personal favoritism. The temp tations thus set in the way of a poor man are too often triumphant. They should brand with shame the face of the tempters, but the tempted cannot take the stain off their honor by any excuse for yielding to shameful induce ments. AU who sell their votes under any pretence vio late their oath of citizenship, break the law against such venality, make themselves liable to arrest, trial, convic tion and imprisonment, and disgrace not only themselves but the nationality which is obliged to own them as fellow countrymen. There has unfortunately been ground for the charge that some Italian- Americans have taken their oath of aUegiance too lightly and have been wiUing to seU or barter their votes as if they were trinkets on which they set Uttle value. It should be needless to point out that this reckless and shameful abuse of citizenship must be rooted out by every means at the command of good citizenship as a foul blot on the face of our republic and a cancer that may eat to the heart of the integrity of re publican institutions. It is the duty of all Italian- American citizens and ap pHcants for citizenship to inform themselves in every feas ible way in regard to the questions of public concern 355 The Italian in America whose settlement may be affected by their influence or votes. If they cannot read or understand EngHsh readUy, they may study the presentation of these questions in Italian- American journals, and may caU on their own best in formed countrymen in America or others upon whose honesty and fairness they can rely for the needed explan ation. Every meeting for such discussion is helpful if sincerely conducted. No one should be content with biased or one-sided presentations. Let both sides have an impartial hearing and let the statemente and evidence submitted by both be carefuUy and fairly considered. Let the decision in every case be in accordance with every man's conviction of duty to himself, his family and his country. Then, even if mistaken, the determination wiU be right and one of which no citizen need be ashamed. It is the duty further of every applicant for citizenship to exalt the standard of American citizenship in his per sonal conduct and by every influence at his command. He should be sober, truthful, honest, law-abiding, indus trious, thrifty and ambitious for the advance of himself and his chUdren. He should prize the free thought, free press, free school and free government of America as a treasure beyond price. He should leurn to rely with con fidence on American laws, juries and judges for justice and indemnity for wrongs and not to seek redress by lawless violence. He should never forget that prejudice can most 250 Jireeting Flnnie to Finnish Eleetrie Power to the Italian-Swiss Colonv. Asti, California Privileges, etc., of Italian-American Citizenship surely be confounded by conduct that may defy the barbs of slander, and that any falUng off from this standard of duty wUl lower not only himself but the reputation of his feUow countrymen in the esteem of America. Let it be his pride to keep ever at heart " I was an Italian. I am an American. 1 am not conscious that I have done any thing to sully the honor of either name." John J. D. Teenok. 257 INDEX Agriculture, Italian, 30-32, 41-48; 233, 234; Italian in America, 88-92, 112-153, 170-174. Aiken, Hon. Wyatt, advocates better distribution of immigra tion, 156, 157. Alabama, Italians in, 6; agricul tural development and settle ment of, by Italians, 132-134. Alderson, Indian Territory, Ital ian miners in, 108. "American Journal of Sociology,'' on comparative criminality, 204. "Americans in Process," socio logical publication, 73, 202. Archibald, Indian Territory, Ital ian miners in, 108. Arizona, Italians in, 6. Arkansas, Italians in, 6; on plan tations, 148-153. " Associated Charities " of Bos ton, 23d Annual Report of, 195- 197. Asti, Cal., prosperous Italian col ony of, 135-142. B Baltimore, Italians in, 9. Belgium, population of in propor tion to area, 155. Boston, Italians in, 8; improve ment of Italian lodgings, 73; report of " Associated Char ities " of, 195-197; condition of Italians in, 201-203; compar ative temperance of Italians in, 214. Bridgeport, Conn., Italian settle ment in, 84, 85. Brindisi, Rocco, M.D., on compar ative diseases and mortality, 199-201, 203. Bryan, Texas, Italian settlement in, 89, 90. Buck, C. L., reports on " Italian Labor in the South," 172-174. Buckingham, City Clerk of Bridgeport, reports on Italian citizenship, 84. California, Italian-bom popula tion of, 6; cities of, condition of Italians in, 90-92; attracts immigration, 115; Italian agri cultural settlements in, 135- 144. " California Fruit Growers Asso ciation," 91. Canada, Dominion of, promotes immigration, 163-166, 188; as similation of immigrants from, 228, 229. 359 Index Canastota, N. Y., Italian settle ment at, 125-127. Carnegie, Andrew, estimate of Italian immigrant, 174, 175. Casale de, Chevalier Secchi, foun der of Italian colonies in Amer ica, 130-132. Chattanooga " Times,'' on de mand for immigration for development of the South, 184. Chattanooga Immigration Bur eau, 184. Cliicago, Italians in, 8. Claghorn, Kate Holladay, As.'jist- ant Registrar, New York Tene ment-House Department, 72; on education of Italian chil dren, 244, 245. Cleveland, Ohio, Italians in, 8. Colgate, Indian Territory, Italian miners in, 108. Colorado, Italians in, 0. Columbus Hospital, 81, Connecticut, Italians in, 5, Corbfn, Austin, founder of Ital ian colony, 147; plantation of, 148-151. Creelman, James, reports Mayor McClellan's view of Italiana, 248. Crime, comparative showing of native and foreign-bom popu lation, 203-220; comparative percentage, Italian, 206, 209- 220. Crittenden, C. P., employer of Italian labor, 148. Daphne, Alabama, Italian settle ment in, 132-134. Defoe, Daniel, on the " True- Bom Englishman," 231, 232. Delano, Hon. Milton, report of, 126, 127. Delaware, Italians in, 5. De Vecchi, Dr., distinguished Ital ian surgeon and member of Italian-Swiss Association, 141, 142. Dinwiddle, Emily Wayland, re ports on congestion of tene ment lodgings in Philadelphia, 72, 73. Disease, statislici of, regarding immigrants from Italy, 198- 203. District of Columbia, Italians in. E Education and Assimilation, 221- 248. " Educational Test " of Immigra tion, 16, 17, 182, 183. Eisenmenger, Mayor of Schenec tady, reports on Italian labor and eharaeter, 85. Ellis Island, applications to offi cials at, 185. Emigiution, flow of from Italy, 1-18; distribution of in the United States. 4-9; causes And regulation of Italian, 39-60. (See Iiiuuigration.) 380 Index England and Wales, proportion of immigrants from, in char itable institutions of New York City, 194, 195; comparative temperance of immigrants from, 212. F Fassino Brothers, progressive Italian operators, 108. Fischer, P. D., on Italian agricul turists, 234. Fleischer, Rabbi, on racial diver gence, 230. Florida, Italians in, 5. Fobes, Alan C, Mayor of Syra cuse, reports on Italian labor and character, 85. Fontana, Signor Marco, J., super intendent California Fruit- Growers' Association, 91. " Four States Immigration League," 183, 184. Franklin, Lawrence, on Italian teachableness, 240, 241. French Canada, percentage of un skilled labor furnished by, 65; assimilation of immigrants from, 228, 229. Georgia, Italians in, 5. Germany, proportion of immi grants from charitable institu tions of New York City, 194- 195; comparative temperance of immigrants from, 212. Gladstone, William E., on Italian capacity, 223. Gordon, F, B., President of Georgia Industrial Association, address of, 116, 117. Green, Dr. Thomas, " Key to the Twentieth Century," 229-230. Greenville, Miss., Italian farms and plantations at, 146. H Hale, Edward Everett, discusses immigration, 163; appeals for distribution, 181-182. Harris, U. S. Commercial Agent, report of, 36. Hart, Hastings H., on compara tive criminality of foreign and native-born jiopulationi, 204, 205. Hartford, Oonn., Italians in, 9. Hartshorne, Indian Territory, Italian miners in, 108. Heingartner, Alexander, U. S. Consul at Catania, report of, 47. Hoboken, N. J., Italians in, 9. Holyoke, George Jacob, remarks on apathy of American govem ment touching direction of im migration, 181. Howells, William Dean, on Ital ian democracy, 222, 223; on " Ragged Schools " of Naples, 237-240. Hungary, percentage of unskilled labor furnished by, 65. Idaho, Italians in, 6. 261 Index Illinois, Bureau of Labor Statis tics, report of, 100-102. Illinois, Italians in, 5. "Immigrant Fund," 180. Immigration, of Italians to United States, 1-18; to United States from Italy discussed by Dr. T. H. Senner, 10; report of U. S. Commissioner General of Immigration for year ending June 30, 1903, 12; report of Commissioner for the State of Xew York, 12; discussed by Inspector of Royal Emigration Department of Italy, 13, 14; restriction of considered in Re port of Industrial Commission, 14; comparative ratio of in crease of, 15; "educational (est ' for, 16, 17; objections to, l.'^; causes and regulation of, from Italy, 36-60 ; into the coal mining fields, 99-113; into the aprieultural districts, 114-1.54; rising demand for Italian, 155- 175; need of better distribution of, 17til89, Immigration Restriction League, advocates "educational test," 16; reports on criminal record of Italians, 212. Independence, La., Italian settle ment and strawberry culture in, 127-129. Indiana, Italians in, 5. Indian Territory, Italians in, 6, 88, 107-110. Industrial Commiseion, on Im migration, calculates percent ages of immigration from Italy by sexes, 11, 12; considers re striction, 14; records percent age of males employed in prin cipal industries, 64, 65; report* advance of Italians as makers of clothing, 95, 96; gives per centages of pauperism for na tionalities, 197; presents com parative criminality, 205. Iowa, Italians in, 6. Ireland, percentage of unskilled labor furnished by, 65; de pressed condition of during famine, 235, 236. Irish, percentage residing in American cities, 8; association with Italians, 69, 70; in mining fields, 106, 107; percentage of pauperism, 193, 197; in charit able institutions of the United States, 198; intejnperance of, 212; in Massachusetts, 229; re lation to English, 230. Italian, infiux of immigration to the United States, 1-4; popula tion in the United States, 5. 9; population in American cities, S, 9 ; population in the State of X'cw York, 10; population in Greater New York, 10; immi gration with distinction of sex, 10-12; immigration with distinction of ages, 12: immi gration, per capita value of, 12, 13; immigration, desirabil ity of, 12-17; immigration, ob- 262 Index jections to, 17, 18; inheritance and progress, 20-38; emigra tion, causes and regulation of, 39-60; settlement in American cities, 61-92; skilled and un skilled labor, 61-66; occupa tions in cities, 65-68; charae- teristicSj_ 68; relations with Irish, 69, 70; congestion in cities, 70-73; tenancy and ownership increase property values, 73-78; savings and in vestments in New York City, 78, 79; business enterprises and charitable foundations, 80, 81; devotion to the fine arts, 81; comparative advance in smaller cities, 81-92; in competition and association, 93-98; in the mining fields, 99-113; on farm and plantation, 116-153; pau perism, disease and crime, 190- 220; progressive education and assimilation, 221-248; advanee to American citizenship, 249- 257. "Italian Benevolent Institute," &l. Italy, emigration from, to the United States, 1-18; inherit ance and progress of, 20-38; population of, 40; industrial condition of, 40-48. Jersey City, N. J., Italians in, 8. Jew, the, in competition with Italian clothing worker, 95; in charitable institutions in the United States, 198; establish ment of, in United States, 227; not related to English, 230; in public schools, 240, K Kansas City, Mo., Italians in, 9. Kansas, Italians in, 6, Keller, Hon. John W., reports on pauperism in New York City, 193-195. Kentucky, Italians in, 6. Krebs, Indian Territory, Italian miners in, 108-110. La Colonia Alessandrina di Memphis, 124. La Societa di Muttuo Soccorso dei Giardinieri Italiani di Memphis, 124. La Tribuna Italiana, 118. Lamberth, Ala., Italian settle ment in, 132, 134. Lancaster, L. H., on education of Italian children, 243, 244. Landis, Charles, promotes Italian colonization, 131. LandisviUe, N. J., Italian settle ment in, 131. Langley, Lee J., reports on Ital ians in the South, 174. Lithuanians, in the mining fie'ds, 103-106. Lloyd, Henry Demarest, reports on New Zealand's distribution of labor, 177-179. 263 Index Louisiana, Italians in, 6; condi tion and character of, 87, 88; Italians in agricultural dis tricts of, 127-129, 144, 146, 152, 172-174, 243, 244. M Mabie, Hamilton, notes influence of Italy on Europe, 26. Madera, Cal., Italian colony at, 142, 143. Maine, Italians in, 5. Maryland, Italiana in, 5. Massachusetts, Italians in, 5, 8, 73, 196-197; condition of Ital ians in, 201, 203; criminal record of Italians in, 212, 213. Mastro-Valerio, Alessandro, ed itor and founder of colonies, 118, 119, 1311,34. McAdoo, Police Commissioner, on organization of " Italian De partment," 219, 220. McAlister, Indian Territory, Ital ian miners in, 108, 109. McClellan, Geo. B., view of Ital ian immigration, 248. McConnell, W. W. P., Dairy and Food Commissioner for Minne sota, report of, 167, 168. McKeesport " News," " The Im migration Problem," 227-229. Memphis, Tenn., Italian suburban settlement, 124; application for labor from, 185, 186. Michigan, Italians in, 5. Miners, Italian immigrant, 99, 100; number Italian, in anthra cite region, 103; Lithuanian, Slovak and Polish, 103; perils of, 104; jealousy and dissen sions of, 105; improved condi tion of, 106; number of Ital ian, in Indian Territory, 108; satisfactory condition of, in Indian Territory and Texas, 108-112; in Colorado, 113. Minnesota, Italians in, 6; need of further development, 166- 168. Mississippi, Italians in, 6; on sugar cane plantations, 144- 154; Italian labor in, 174. Missouri, Italians in, 6. Mitchell, John, President United Mine Workers, opposes immi gration, 159-160. Montana, Italians in, 6. MulvihiU, Mayor of Bridgeport, reports on Italian character, 84. N Naturalization, of ItaHans, 224, 252, 263. Nebraska, Italians in, 6. Nevada, Italians in, 6. Newark, N. J., Italians in, 8. New Hampshire, Italiana in, 5. New Haven, Conn. Italians in, 8, 121-123. New Jersey, Italians in, 5. New Mexico, Italians in, 6. New Orleans, Italian settlement in, 87, 88. New York City, Itolios-bora pop ulation of, 8; Italian settle ment in, 69-72, 74-81, 120. 864 Index New York "Evening Post," dis cusses Italian settlement in American cities, 114, 115. New York State, Italians in, 5; condition of, 85-87; Italian market -gardening in, 124-127. New York State Board of Char ities, report on pauperism, 193- 195, New York " Sun " on emigration to Canada, 165, 166; on emigra tion to the South, 168; on Ital ian book readers, 246-248. New York "Times," reports statement of John Mitchell, 159, 160. New York "World" reports Mayor Geo. B. McClellan, 248. New Zealand, Department of Labor, 177-179. " North American Review,'' art icle on " Immigration from Italy," 11. North Carolina, Italians in, 5. North Dakota, Italians in, 6. 0 Ohio, Italians in, 5. Oklahoma, Italians in, 6. Olino, Dr. G., promoter of viti culture, 138. Oregon, Italians in, 6. Pantaleone, Prof., on taxation in lUly, 41, 42. Paterson, Italians in, 8, Pauperism, in Italy, 191; in New York City, 192-195; in Boston, 195-197; general distribution of, by nationalities in the United States, 197, 198. Percy, Leroy, planter, 148; re ports on Italian labor, 150, 151. Petrosini, Police Sergeant, heads "Italian Department," 219, Philadelphia, Italians in, 8. "Philadelphia Record" discusses immigration, 158, 159. Philips, Indian Territory, Italian miners in, 108. Piedmont, miners from, 108-110. Pittsburg, Italians in, 8. Pole, the, in competition with Italian clothing-maker, 96; in the mining fields, 103. Population, Italian, born in the United States, 5; percentage of Italian bom in American cities, 8, 9; computed total of Italian descent in the United States, 9; percentage of Russian born in American cities, 10; percent age of Irish born in American cities, 10; total of Italian des cent in New York State, 10; in Greater New York, 10. Preston, W. T. R., Canadian Commissioner, reports on emi gration to Canada, 165, 166. Providence, R. I., Italians in, 8. R Raleigh (N. 0.) "Observer," on " Italian Immigration to the South," 170-174. 265 Index Reich, Emil, discusses " The Fut ure of the Latin Races," 37, 38. Rhode Island, Italians in, 5. Riis, .Jacob, sets forth evils of congestion, 72; on beggary in New York City, 192, 193; on eradication of the slum, 206- 209; teachableness of Italian children, 241; assimilation and progress of Italian immigrants, 242, 243. Rochester, N. Y., Italians in, 9. Rochester (N. Y.) "Times," on Italian and Russian competi tion, 244. Rossi, Adolpho, Inspector of Royal Emigration Department of Italy, discusses character of Italian emigration to America, 13, 14; notes increase of wages in Italy, 46, 46; presents main provisions of Italian official regulation of emigration, 56- 00; reports on Italian settle ment in New Orleans, 87, 88; in Bryan and other towns in Texas, 89, 90; in Salt Lake City, 90; in San Francisco and other cities in California, 90- 92; reports on Italian miners in Indian Territory, Texas and C'olorado, 107-113; inspects settlements in Tennessee, 124; in Louisiana, 128, 129; in Cali fornia, 140-143; in Texas, 145, 146; in Mississippi, 146, 147; in Arkansas, 148, 149. Rossi, Pietro C, distinguished pharmacist, and member of Italian-Swiss Association, 141. Koyal Emigration Department of Italy, organization of, 54, 35; policy of, 56-60. Russia, percentage of population Ru.ssian-bom in American dtics, 8. Russian-Poland, percentage of population in American cities, 8. Sacred Heart, missionary sisters of, 80, 88. San Francisco, Italian-bom pop ulation of, 8; Italian settle ment in, 91, 92. San Jose, California, Italian set tlement in, 92. " Saturday Review," London, on independence of United States, 189. St. Joseph Protective Assoda- lion, 219. St. Louis, Mo., Italians in, 0. Sbarboro, Oav. A., a founder of Asti, Cal., 141. Schenectady, N. Y., Italian set tlement in, 85. Scranton, Pa., Italians in, 9. Senner, Dr. J. H., discusses " Im migration from Italy," 10, 11; on assimilation of Italian im migrants, 241, 242. Sex, division of, in Italian immi gration to the United States, 10-12. Index Sicilians, in New Orleans, 87, 88; at Bryan, Texas, 89, 90; at Independence, La., 127-129; pro gressive children of, 243-244. Slavs, in mining fields, 103-106. Slovaks, in coal mining region, 103. " Social Economist, the," extracts on immigration, 163, 183. " South Atlantic Quarterly," "The Italian Cotton Grower," 151-153. South Carolina, Italians in, 5; law of, restricting immigration, 117. " Southern Farm Magazine," re port on Italian labor, 150-151. South McAlister, Indian Terri tory, Italian miners in, 108. Speranza, Gino C, presents in dustrial and financial progress of Italy, 45; computes Italian savings and investments in New York City, 78, 79. Stella, Antonio, M.D., on preval ence of consumption, 202, 203. Stilwell, Giles H., President of Syracuse Board of Education, reports on immigrants in Syra cuse, 86. Stone, Alfred Holt, discusses "The Italian Cotton Grower," 151-153. Syracuse, Italian settlement in, 9, 86. T Tennessee, Italians in, 6; condi tion of, 124. Texas, Italians in, 6, 88-90, 110- 113. Texas and Pacific Coal Company, 111-113. Thurber, Texas, Italian miners in, 110-113. Tosti, Dr. G., discusses "The Financial and Industrial Out look of Italy," 47. Tregear, Edward, head of New Zealand Department of Labor, 177-179. Trenton, N. J., Italians in, 9. U "United Italy," inheritance and progress of, 20-38. United Mine Workers of Amer ica, intervention of, in Texas, 112. U. S. Commissioner-General of Immigration, report of for year ending June 30, 1903, 12; gives comparative ratio of increase of immigration, 15; report on pauperism, 192; statistics of aliens in charitable institutions of United States, 197, 198. U. S. Industrial Commission. (See Industrial Commission). Utah, Italians in, 6. Utica, Italian settlement in, 9, 86, 87. V Vermont, Italians in, 5. Villari, Luigi, discusses emigra tion from Italy, 39, 40; on tax- 267 Index ation in Italy, 42, 43; on Ital ian institutions, 225. Villari, Pasquale, examines pres ent day problems in Italy, 44, 45. Vineland N. J., Italian settle ment in, 129-131. Virginia, Italians in, 3. W Warne, Frank Julian, author of " The Slav Invasion," 106. Washington, Italians in, 6. Waterbury, Conn., Italians in, 9. "West End House," 201. Western Canada Immigration .^sociation, 166. West Virginia, Italians in, 5. Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, on opportunities for agricul tural development of the South, 157. Woods, Robert A., on Italian diet, 201. Wyoming, Italians in, 6. Yazoo Delta, 146, 147. Youngstown, Pa., Italians in, 9. PUBLICATIONS OF SPECIAL NOTE Recently Issued by B. F. BUCK & COMPANY The Diamond Mines of South Africa By GARDNER F. WILLIAMS, M.A. General Manager^ De Beers Consolidated Mines^ Limited Kitnberly^ South A/rica This superb work, in two volumes, contains over five hundred illustrations specially procured by the author. It has been recognized by the leading journals of Europe, South Africa and the United States as the standard authority on the history of the diamond from earliest tradition — the marvelous development of the South African craters — and the contributions of Cecil Rhodes and his associates to the uplifting of the "Dark Continent." Tbe Empire, London. Times, London. 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