Aliens or Americans? Part 16

_VII. Other Nationalities_

[Sidenote: Croatians and Dalmatians]

We can only mention the remaining nationalities of the Slavic group. The Croatians and Dalmatians, unable to make a living at home, are fleeing from starvation and mismanagement, and seeking work in America. Croatia is a kingdom of Austria-Hungary. Dalmatia is the seacoast province of Austria.

[Sidenote: Slovenians]

The Slovenians come from the provinces northwest of Croatia. The three nationalities have probably sent between 200,000 and 300,000 persons to America. Dalmatians are oyster fishermen at New Orleans, make staves in Mississippi, are wine dealers in San Francisco, and vine growers and miners in other parts of California. The Slovenians are chiefly found in the Pennsylvania mines and other mining regions. The Croatians are mostly in the same regions and work, although in New York there are about 15,000 of them engaged as longsh.o.r.emen and mechanics, and a small number are farmers out West. They are Roman Catholic, largely illiterate and unskilled. The Catholics do little for them, and the Protestant denominations have undertaken no specific work in their behalf.

[Sidenote: A Needy Group]

The Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Bulgarians, Servians, and Montenegrins are just beginning to come in appreciable numbers. They represent much the same home conditions as the nationalities mentioned more in detail.

Catholicism, Greek or Roman, has cast them pretty much in the same mold.

Ignorant, semi-civilized many of them, they have everything to get and learn in their new home, and afford still larger opportunity for Protestant Christianity in its mighty work of making and keeping America the land of righteousness and progress.

[Sidenote: A Hopeful View]

An interesting series of articles appeared in 1906 in a magazine devoted to social betterment,[68] the writer having spent a year in studying conditions in the Slav districts of Austria-Hungary. Living among the people, she has become profoundly interested in them, and takes a most hopeful view of their possibilities in America. She says the life from which the peasants mostly come to us is the old peasant life, but a little way removed from feudalism and serfdom. Each little village is a tiny world in itself, with its own traditions and ways, its own dress, perhaps even its own dialect. The amazing gift of the Slav for color and music permeates the whole home life with poetry. The Slav immigrants have the virtues and faults of their primitive world. They come to America to make money. The majority come with intent to earn money to take back home, rather than with expectation to settle here permanently.

Unenterprising, unlettered, they are at the same time hardy, thrifty and shrewd, honest and pious. They are undoubtedly highly endowed with gifts of imagination and artistic expression for which in their American conditions they find little or no outlet.

[Sidenote: Necessity of Christian Environment]

And here again is the point we are constantly having impressed upon us.

What the immigrant shall become, for good or ill, depends chiefly upon what conditions are made for him, and whether he is given a chance to express his best self in this country. Grinding monopoly, harsh treatment, prejudice that drives into clannishness and race hatred--these will make of the Slavs a peril. A genuinely Christian environment and treatment will find them receptive and ready for Americanization through evangelization.

_VIII. The Russian Jews_

[Sidenote: An Interesting Group]

In some respects the most interesting immigrants from the Slav countries are the Jews from Russia and Roumania. The German Jew and the Russian Jew must not be confounded; they are as distinct as any two races in the entire immigrant group. The German Jew came to America to make more money, and is making it. The Russian Jew, who comes from persecution, is rigidly orthodox, and regards the commercial German cla.s.s as apostate.

He forms a picturesque, vigorous, _sui generis_ member of the alien procession.

[Sidenote: Coming Rapidly]

Since the year 1881 not less than 750,000 Jewish immigrants have arrived at the port of New York alone. On Manhattan Island more than every fourth person you meet is a Jew. The Jews admitted at Ellis Island during the past five years outnumbered all the communicants in the Protestant churches in Greater New York.

[Sidenote: Where they Come from]

Of the 106,000 Jews admitted in 1904, a large proportion of whom settled in New York, 77,000 came from the Russian Empire, 20,000 from Austria-Hungary, and 6,000 from Roumania. Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe are all one people.

[Sidenote: Occupation]

They show a larger proportion with skilled, professional and commercial training and experience than do any of the other newer immigrants except the Finns. Nearly twenty per cent. of the Hebrew immigrants are tailors, nearly five per cent. mechanics, merchants, or clerks, and almost one per cent. follow the professions. Of the remainder a very considerable proportion, though not a majority, are skilled workers such as bakers, tobacco workers, carpenters, painters, and butchers. The garment trades, to which they find themselves adapted, and for which New York is the world center, engages perhaps 100,000 of them, men, women, and children, many of them in the sweat-shops, which they created. For the first time in their history, the Jews have built up a great industrial cla.s.s, this being an American development. According to a Jewish authority,[69] the "unspeakable evils of the tenements and sweat-shops" of the ghetto are undermining their physical and moral health.

[Sidenote: Location]

The newly arrived Russian Jew is kept in the ghetto of the larger cities--New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston--not only by his poverty and ignorance but by his orthodoxy. In this district the rules of his religion can more certainly be followed. Here can be found the lawful food, here the orthodox places of worship, here neighbors and friends can be visited within "a sabbath day's journey." The young people, however, rapidly shake off such trammels, and in the endeavor to be like Americans urge their parents to move away from this "foreign"

district. When they succeed, the Americanizing process may be considered well under way. Concerning the religious change that comes over the young Jew after he reaches this country, a writer says:[70]

[Sidenote: Become Estranged from Judaism]

"Many a young man, who was firm in his religious convictions in his native village, having heard of the religious laxity prevalent in America, had fully made up his mind not to be misled by the temptation and allurements of the free country, but he succ.u.mbed in his struggle and renounced his Judaism when first submitting his chin to the barber's razor, at the entreaties and persuasions of his Americanized friends and relatives. Religion then appeared to him not only distinct from life, but antagonistic to it, and since it was life, a free, full, undisturbed life he sought in coming here, he felt compelled to divorce himself from all the religious ties that had hitherto encompa.s.sed him.

Thus it is that the immigrant Jewish youth, even those faithful and loyal to the inst.i.tutions of old and who desired to conduct their lives in accordance with the precepts of their religion, became estranged from Judaism and suffered themselves to be swept along by the tide. Thus the immigrant Jew in America has frequently become callous and indifferent, and sometimes cynical and antagonistic to everything pertaining to Judaism." While they are thus lost to Judaism they are not won to Christianity, but they ought to be. The older people become reconciled with difficulty to this irreligious att.i.tude and "the old Jewess still curses Columbus for his great transgression in discovering America, where her children have lost their religion."

[Sidenote: Ambitious for Wealth and Education]

The Russian Jews usually come in great poverty, but do not stay poor very long. In New York's East Side many tenements in Jewish quarters are owned by persons who formerly lived in crowded corners of others like them; and from this population comes many a Broadway merchant, and professional men in plenty. It is certain that the adult Hebrew immigrant has definite aspirations toward social, economic, and educational advancement. The poorest among them will make all possible sacrifices to keep his children in school; and one of the most striking social phenomena in New York City is the way in which the Jews have taken possession of the public schools, in the highest as well as lowest grades. The city college is practically filled with Jewish pupils. In the lower schools Jewish children are the delight of their teachers for cleverness at their books, obedience, and general good conduct; and the vacation schools, night schools, social settlements, libraries, bathing places, parks, and playgrounds of the East Side are fairly besieged with Jewish children. Jewish boys are especially ambitious to enter professions or go into business. For example, the head of one of the largest inst.i.tutions of the East Side tells a story of a long interview with a cla.s.s of boys in which all spoke of the work they intended to do.

Law, medicine, journalism, and teaching came first. There were even some who intended to become engineers. A smaller number were going into business, and not one intended to learn any manual trade. Some were going in for music, and occasionally one is found who intends to make his living by art. But above all, the young Jew is ambitious and intends to rise. This is true in all cities.

[Sidenote: Worthy Qualities]

The strong good qualities of the Jews are absence of the drink evil, love of home, desire to preserve the purity of the family, and remarkable eagerness for self-improvement. They easily adapt themselves to the new environment and a.s.similate the customs and language of the new country. This leads to the danger of readily falling in with the vices found in the tenement districts--the children showing this in the large numbers of them that appear in the Juvenile Court. The remedy is removal, and this the Jewish parents seek as soon as they are able.

[Sidenote: Good Citizens, but Poor Americans]

With decent environment and a fair chance, the Russian Jew promises to become a good citizen, intellectually keen, commercially shrewd, professionally bound to shine. But that he will ever, except in rare instances, imbibe the real American spirit or understand the American ideals is a question. At the same time, the Jews are believers in the principle of democracy, and in case of an issue arising on the separation of Church and State, would be found standing with American Protestantism for the religious liberties of the American people.

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER V

AIM: TO CONSIDER THE DESIRABILITY OF THE SLAVS AS IMMIGRANTS.

I. _The Slavic People as a Whole._

1. What nationalities are generally included under the term Slavs?

Are they numerous in population? Are they strictly of one race?

2. What grounds are there to justify popular prejudice against them? Or to show it to be ill founded?

3. When did they begin to come in large numbers?

4. Where have they largely settled, and with what results?

II. _Racial Divisions of the Slavic Immigrants._

5. What can you tell about the Bohemians, as to their religious history, political sufferings, and coming to America? What are their conditions here? Their accessibility? Their location?

6. Tell about the Poles in the same way.

7. Tell about the Slovaks in the same way.

8. Tell about the Magyars in the same way.

9. Who and what are the Lithuanians?