from a country where there is more idealism to the square inch than in all this country, in spite of its statuary, its music and its aristocracy.
“I’d rather live in Connecticut, the wife of a humble artisan, than here, the ‘consort’ of a Count or Duke.”
“You talk exactly like my father,” she repeated.
“Do I? I’m glad of it. I told you that Puritanism is contagious. Maybe I caught it from your father, and if I were sure that I have caught it, I would be sure of more moral fiber than you will get here, if you stay a hundred years.
“That Puritanism which you despise will make cosmos out of chaos; for in spite of its narrowness, there is in it the passion for humanity. It cries for justice, for freedom, for equality, even if it too often burdens itself with theological dogmas hard to understand and harder to believe.
“After all, the best thing in your country is, not that you give the weaker a chance to grow strong, and the broken the blessing of healing—the best of it is, that those of us who are just what we are, have a chance to help in the doing. It’s the work that a man or woman can do over there that counts.
“Yes, go back, crawl back, if necessary, to sober Connecticut; to its pure women and its undemonstrative men, who do not make meaningless compliments, after the fashion of your Captain; but who will at least think no evil of you and who will treat you with real courtesy, when there is need of courteous action.
“You want art? You fear you will miss it? They are doing something worth while at home, in bronze and marble; but they are doing more wonderful things in human flesh and spirit.
“I have seen wretched Italian children who came from where they make little fairies out of Carrara marble, yet they were crooked without and within; and I have seen them grow tall and beautiful and pure, by the grace of God and the passion of some noble woman. That, after all, is the supreme art.
“Music? You can have Grand Opera in New York composed of all the stars in the operatic firmament; yet I have heard music, sweeter, better and truer, sung by children in the Settlements.
“I have seen a Christmas at Hull House, in Chicago, which surpassed any Grand Opera. I am sure if angels come down to earth and care for our mundane pleasures, they must have struggled for a front seat there.
“Fifty children of nearly all the races under Heaven sang the songs of their home-land, all the way from those they used to sing under the dark pines of Norway’s farthest crag, down to those sung by Sicilian children beneath the palms of their ever sunny land.
“Together they sang those Heaven-born prophecies of ‘Peace on earth, good will to men’; and as I heard the blended voices of Jews, Catholics, and Protestants, Greeks, Italians and Syrians, I felt that the ancient prophecies are being fulfilled, at least in spots, on our then unknown continent.
“Go home. Learn to find pleasure in that classic art of making home. Learn how to find joy in giving children a chance to live and laugh, to look towards manhood and womanhood from a mountain top and not from a cage. Catch the rhythm of that new poetry which is now in the making; which speaks in its sonnets of justice, in its epics of war against all human wrong and in its lyrics of a sublimer and a larger love.”
“There comes my Captain!” said my victim, with a sigh of relief; “and I must go.”
Yes, there he stood; all braid and buttons, or just braid and buttons, a waxed moustache, a waxen smile and clicking spurs.
Gracefully he bowed as he offered his arm, in such a charming manner as could not be easily reproduced by any mere American. Thus they left me to my solemn musings, while the living tide swept by me, each drop in the great current antagonistic to the other. Unbidden there arose before me the ship, laden by human freight, leaving America, carrying representatives of these same races and nationalities alien and hostile to each other: Slavs and Magyars, arch foes of centuries’ standing; Northern and Southern Italians, looking with scorn at one another; Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Bulgarians, Albanians and Montenegrins.
All of them had come out of the chaos wrought by ages of hate and centuries of warfare. But in America, many of them had learned to live together without scorn on the lip or hand on the sword-hilt.
The walls which separated them were weakened, if not broken down, and like blind men they felt for one another in the dark; sometimes missing the larger brotherhood, but often finding it.
The Pentecost of which prophets and seers have dreamt, which is to repair the ruin wrought in the human family by the building of its towers of Babel, cannot be so far away. The cosmos may yet come out of the chaos, and there is no spot of earth on which this creative act can be performed as well as in our America.
The land is vast enough and rich enough; no barrier of language divides the East from the West; the North and the South are almost one, after an internecine war; and in spite of our melting of metals and slaughter of cattle and growing of corn—in spite of souls made hard and unresponsive to anything but money—like the
GENERAL AND MRS. RICIOTTO GARIBALDI AT THE FOOT OF HIS FATHER’S MONUMENT IN ROME
“It is just like you Americans—you go to work to make your dreams come true.”
cash register we have invented; in spite of my Puritan rebel and her numerous company—in spite of all that, our land is still full of dreamers of dreams, who yet are awake and practical enough to make their dreams come true.
“It is just like you Americans,” said General Riciotto Garibaldi, to my “boys,” as they stood together at the foot of his father’s monument in Rome; while he listened to the story of their journeyings in the immigrants’ land, living in their huts in Hungary, Poland and Italy, learning their language and their ways, that they may know how to minister to their needs over here, and bind us to them and them to us. “It is just like you Americans. We Italians think about those things and make poetry; you go to work at a great dream to make it true.”
My faith in the dreams of the great dreamers has never wavered. I knew that the prophet’s vision was not a Fata Morgana, and that the words of the Son of Man came straight from the fountain of truth. Believing in them and believing in American manhood and womanhood, in their altruism and in their faith, and believing in the essential humanity of our crowding alien host—I believe that cosmos is being created and that chaos will disappear.
Finally, what we teach the immigrant by precept or by example, he will become. He will bequeath our virtues or our vices, not only to the next generation which will spring with virgin strength from his loins; but through thousands of invisible channels, he will send these blessings or curses to the ends of the earth.
The issues of the Kingdom of God in this generation are with America.
APPENDIX I
CLASSIFICATION OF THE NEW IMMIGRANT GROUPS
THE new Immigrant groups which are more difficult to classify according to race, nationality and religion:
APPENDIX II
NET IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
1899-1908
THERE is much misapprehension in the popular mind, both as to the number of immigrants arriving in the United States, and those remaining for permanent residence.
Until 1907, all aliens arriving were enumerated; but of those departing, no record was kept.
The Commissioner General of Immigration arrived at the figures of net immigration given below, by estimating the departures according to figures obtained during four months in 1907, when the returning tide of immigration was normal.
The year 1908 shows an abnormally small increase, due to the industrial depression in that year, when the returning tide of immigration was very strong. The following tables show that a large number return every year, and I am inclined to believe that the estimated figures of the net increase are too high, and that the permanent increase of the foreign-born population cannot be calculated from this insufficient data.
The net gain in our foreign born population in the last ten years is estimated as 5,240,200 which is 68% of the total immigration.
| Alien arrivals. | |||||||
| Year. | Accepted immigration figures. |
Other alien arrivals. |
Total alien arrivals. |
Total alien departures estimated. |
Net immigration estimated. |
Ratio estimated net immigration accepted immigration figure. | |
| 1899 | 311,715 | [7]45,000 | 356,715 | 172,837 | 183,878 | 59 | per cent. |
| 1900 | 448,572 | 65,635 | 514,207 | 206,351 | 307,856 | 69 | " |
| 1901 | 487,918 | 74,950 | 562,868 | 209,318 | 353,550 | 72 | " |
| 1902 | 648,743 | 82,055 | 730,798 | 220,103 | 510,695 | 79 | " |
| 1903 | 857,046 | 64,269 | 921,315 | 247,559 | 673,756 | 79 | " |
| 1904 | 812,870 | 27,844 | 840,714 | 332,019 | 508,695 | 63 | " |
| 1905 | 1,026,499 | 33,256 | 1,059,755 | 385,111 | 674,644 | 66 | " |
| 1906 | 1,100,735 | 65,618 | 1,166,353 | 356,257 | 810,096 | 74 | " |
| 1907 | 1,285,349 | 153,120 | 1,433,469 | 431,306 | 1,007,163 | 78 | " |
| 1908 | 782,870 | 141,825 | 924,695 | [8]714,828 | [8]209,867 | 27 | " |
| Total | 7,762,317 | 753,572 | 8,510,889 | 3,275,689 | 5,240,200 | ||
APPENDIX III
INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSION AND IMMIGRATION
THE following table, giving the number of immigrant aliens admitted from June 30, 1907 to June 30, 1908, is of special interest, because it shows marked decrease during that period of industrial depression.
The figures are from the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration.
The increase in the number of those from Roumania is probably in Jewish immigration, following a period of renewed anti-Semitic disorders.
Should a change occur in the political status of the Russian Jews, a large decrease of that group of immigrants may be expected. While it is not likely to occur soon, Jewish immigration will also be retarded by the fact that the economic conditions in the Russian empire are growing better.
The greatest decrease may be expected from Austria-Hungary, where drastic emigration laws have been passed, and are rigorously enforced; especially against the Slavs, whose withdrawal in large numbers has imperilled agricultural and industrial enterprises in Hungary.
Immigrant Aliens Admitted, Fiscal Years Ended June 30, 1907 and 1908, Showing Increase and Decrease for Each Country.
| Country of last permanent residence. | 1907. | 1908. | Increase (+) or decrease (-) |
| Austria-Hungary | 338,452 | 168,509 | -169,943 |
| Belgium | 6,396 | 4,162 | - 2,234 |
| Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro | 11,359 | 10,827 | - 532 |
| Denmark | 7,243 | 4,954 | - 2,289 |
| France, including Corsica | 9,731 | 8,788 | - 943 |
| German Empire | 37,807 | 32,309 | - 5,498 |
| Greece | 36,580 | 21,489 | - 15,091 |
| Italy, including Sicily and Sardinia | 285,731 | 128,503 | -157,228 |
| Netherlands | 6,637 | 5,946 | - 691 |
| Norway | 22,133 | 12,412 | - 9,721 |
| Portugal, including Cape Verde and Azore islands | 9,608 | 7,307 | - 2,301 |
| Roumania | 4,384 | 5,228 | + 844 |
| Russian Empire and Finland | 258,943 | 156,711 | -102,232 |
| Spain, including Canary and Balearic islands | 5,784 | 3,899 | - 1,885 |
| Sweden | 20,589 | 12,809 | - 7,780 |
| Switzerland | 3,748 | 3,281 | - 467 |
| Turkey in Europe | 20,767 | 11,290 | - 9,477 |
| United Kingdom: | |||
| England | 56,637 | 47,031 | - 9,606 |
| Ireland | 34,530 | 30,556 | - 3,974 |
| Scotland | 19,740 | 13,506 | - 6,234 |
| Wales | 2,660 | 2,287 | - 373 |
| Other Europe | 107 | 97 | - 10 |
| Total Europe | 1,199,566 | 691,901 | -509,353 |
APPENDIX IV
SUGGESTED CHANGES IN IMMIGRATION LAWS
I. The examination of all emigrants at the port of embarkation.
Objections
(a) The maintenance of an expensive machinery which will be hard to direct and control.
(b) The possible objections of the governments concerned.
(c) The prospective emigrant will necessarily have taken the most serious steps; and rejection at the port of entry will not be a much greater misfortune than rejection at the port of embarkation.
(d) That it will be practically impossible for political offenders to leave their country.
II. “That in addition to the restriction imposed by the laws at present in force, the head tax of four dollars now collected, should be increased to ten.”[9]
Objection
This would increase the number of immigrants who come here without their families, and consequently would react upon the United States both morally and financially.
Suggestion
That the ten dollar head tax be collected from adults, and that the present tax of four dollars remain in force for children and possibly for mothers.
III. “That each immigrant, unless he be a political refugee, should bring with him not less than twenty-five dollars, in addition to the amount required to pay transportation to the point where he expects to find employment.”
There is no valid objection to this demand—and the vast majority of immigrants are able to meet it.
IV. “That immigrants between the ages of fourteen and fifty years should be able to read a section of the Constitution of the United States, either in our language, in their own language, or in the language of the country from which they come.”
Objection
The demand for such a test is not unreasonable, and is humane in that it exempts the young and the aged; but it does not take account of the fact that in most immigrant groups, the education of the woman has been neglected—and that the enforcement of such a law would have the same effect as that which relates to the increase in the head tax.
Suggestion
That the literacy test be not applied to the wives of immigrants.
INDEX
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, P, R, S, T, V, W, Y.
Albania, 300, 302, 305-307
Amerikansky Schtore, 108
Anarchist, 291, 322
Anti-Semitism, 286
Armenia, 351
Austria, 287
Bacon, Judge, 283
Baldwin, 302, 305-306, 309
Beisel, Conrad, 232
“Bessie,” 170 ff.
Black Hand, 291
Calabria, 174
Campagna, 176
Cattero, Boche de, 248
Chautauqua, 305, 309
Chicago, 86, 87
Chorvat, Jan, 130 ff.
Columbus, 244
Connecticut, 200, 353
Connellsville, 192, 331, 341, 344
Constitution of United States, 323
Cracow, description of, 112;
hatred of Germany in, 113;
Jews in, 113;
political condition in, 114
Criminals, 322
Czechs, 212
Dalmatia, conditions in, 138;
government, 139;
America a blessing to, 147
Dowie, Charles A., 89
Edwards, R. H., 334, 336, 345
Ellis Island, 170
Emigrants, views of Americans, 82 ff.;
effect of return of, 72-75
Fansher, Guy J., 308
Gabriel, 256 ff.
Garibaldi, 357
“Gemeinschaft,” 222
Greensburg, Pa., 344
Grose, Howard N., 317
Harrisburg, 343
Hartford, 315, 349, 351
Harvard, 264-266, 340
Hazleton, 353 ff.
Hungary, 260, 287, 295
Huss, 209
Hussite movement, 221
Introduction, letters of, 112
Italy, church of, 177;
dark side of emigration from, 173;
effect of emigration on Italy, 166;
on wages, 174;
on education, 175;
on religion, 176;
on women, 178;
on economic conditions, 179;
on purchase of land in, 174
Italians, bad, 195
Jamestown, 306-307, 310
Japanese question, 194
Jew, the, prevalence of persecution of, 260;
Jewish feeling of superiority, 261;
religious feeling alone does not account for prejudice, 262;
Prof. Shaler’s comparison of Jewish and Gentile students, 264;
Jewish incapacities, 267;
the Orthodox, 272;
nowhere indigenous, 275;
characteristics, 279 ff.
Kisheneff, 277
Kopaniczari, meaning of word, 93;
savage appearance, 94;
view of fires, 94; of cameras, 95;
of medicine, 96
Kortia, 310
Lewis, H. S., 282
London County Council, 283
Lo Perfido, Luigi, 177
Luther, Martin, 210, 221
Matera, 177
Mayflower, The, 341
Medical science in Trenczin, 96, 97
Methodist Church, 176
Molocani, 187
Monastir, 307
Montenegro, Prince of, 153;
minister of exterior of, 152;
festivities of, 154;
emigration from, 155;
neighbours of, 156, 164;
legend of origin, 158;
national dress of, 160
Passover, Feast of, 262
Pennsylvania, 334, 342
Pietor, Ambrosius, 223
Pittston, Pa., 320, 345
Poland, best type of, 116;
in miniature, 117;
federation of, 122
Police, American, 49;
Indianapolis, 251;
Moscow, 250;
St. Petersburg, 250
Polish labourer in America, 65
Polish nobleman, a, 119
Polish peasantry, American influence on, 118
Postal Savings Bank, 193
Ragusa, guslar of, 142, 149 ff.;
returned emigrants in, 143;
and Coney Island, 144;
an evening in, 145
Roberts, Peter, 318
Rohacek, 134
Roosevelt, 297
Ross, Prof., 335
Rousseau, 241
Roy Sisters, the, 132
Ruskin, 241
Ruthenians, 78, 190, 207
Scanderberg, 306
Scharosh, 329, 339
Scranton, 163, 192, 200, 331, 341, 344
Shaler, Prof. N., 262, 266-267
Sicilians, 339
Skutari, 301, 305
Slavs, progress in social scale, 23;
slow to emigrate, 93;
lack of initiative, 118;
future of, 120;
characteristics of, 121, 205 ff.;
numerical supremacy, 203;
condition at home, 204;
dangers in Slavic emigration, 211;
industrial development impossible without them, 191;
late product of civilization, 215;
an Aryan people, 216;
Southern group of, 217;
Western group, Catholic, 218;
priests among, 220;
the reformation among, 221;
speech, 77;
conception of Slovaks, 190;
ideas of drink, 201
Slovak, slowness of, 125-127;
evangelistic effort among, 134;
returned emigrants, 128, 136
Sonnenschein, 275
Spalato, 185, 248
“Stary Kray,” 24, 25
Stelzle, Charles, 317
Streator, Ill., 302-303, 309, 311-312
Syrian children, 352
Taft, President, 309
Taylor, Prof. Graham, 200, 284
Third class travel, 77, 79
Tolstoi, 241
Trenton, N. J., 195
Turk, M. H., 307-308
Vienna, University of, 296
Waag, the River, 124
Wages, 166
Wallachians, 78
Watchorn, R., 277
Welsh miners, 339
Wilkes-Barre, 192, 238, 331, 341, 344
Y. M. C. A., 258, 318, 323-324
Printed in the United States of America
HOME MISSIONS
JOHN T. FARIS Author of “Men Who Made Good”
The Alaskan Pathfinder