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Title: Some Immigrant Neighbors
Author: Henry, John R.
Language: English
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SOME IMMIGRANT NEIGHBORS
_Interdenominational Home Mission Study Course_
Each Volume 12mo, cloth, 50c. net: paper, 30c. net.
_1. Under Our Flag_
_By Alice M. Guernsey_
_2. The Burden of the City_
_By Isabelle Horton_
_3. Indian and Spanish Neighbours_
_By Julia H. Johnston_
_4. The Incoming Millions_
_By Howard B. Grose, D.D._
_5. Citizens of To-Morrow_
_By Alice M. Guernsey_
_6. The Call of the Waters_
_By Katharine R. Crowell_
_7. From Darkness to Light_
_By Mary Helm_
_8. Conservation of National Ideals_
_A Symposium_
_9. Mormonism, The Islam of America_
_By Bruce Kinney, D.D._
_JUNIOR COURSE_
Cloth, net 40c.; paper, net 25c.
_Best Things in America_
_By Katharine R. Crowell_
_Some Immigrant Neighbours_
_By John R. Henry, D.D._
[Illustration: “Where Us Fellows Has to Play”
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York City]
_Issued under the direction of the Council of
Women for Home Missions_
SOME IMMIGRANT
NEIGHBORS
BY
JOHN R. HENRY
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1912, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 123 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
To Eloise Elizabeth Henry
FOREWORD
This little book for Junior Home Mission Study classes has been written
from the point of view of a New York City pastor. The races that have
been selected for study are so chosen because the writer knows them at
first hand through having labored among them in institutional and church
work.
The book is an invitation to become acquainted with the immigrant and be
his friend and good neighbor.
The thanks of the author are due the many writers whose works he has
freely used, the members of his staff, and Miss Alice M. Guernsey for
helpful suggestions, and the Rev. F. Mason North, D.D., for reading the
manuscript and for valuable criticisms.
J. R. H.
CHURCH OF ALL NATIONS, New York City, April, 1912
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Page_
“Where Us Fellows Has to Play” _Frontispiece_
A Jewish Immigrant Boy 17
A Little Maid of Italy 17
The Home of a Russian Peasant 48
A Russian _Moujik_ and His Family 48
From the “Church of All Nations,” New York City 66
An Italian Kindergarten (Penn.) 74
How the Chinese Babies Ride 82
Rescued Slave Girls (New York City) 82
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Who Are They? 13
II. Why Do They Come? 21
III. Our Jewish Neighbor 35
IV. Our Russian Neighbor 43
V. Our Italian Neighbor 51
VI. Our Chinese Neighbor 59
VII. Makers of Good Neighbors 69
VIII. Good Neighbors and Bad 77
IX. Neighbors to the World 87
I
WHO ARE THEY?
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink,”
“Greaser,” and “Nigger,” and “Jap.”
The Devil invented these terms, I think,
To hurl at each hopeful chap
Who comes so far over the foam
To this land of his heart’s desire
To rear his brood, to build his home,
And to kindle his hearthstone fire.
While the eyes with joy are blurred,
Lo! we make the strong man sink,
And stab the soul, with the hateful word,
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink.”
—_Bishop McIntyre._
I
WHO ARE THEY?
Since we are going to study about “Some Immigrant Neighbors,” it is well
to know just what we mean by the words “Immigrant” and “Neighbor.”
_Immigrant._ The word Immigrant is confusing because it looks and sounds
so much like the word “Emigrant,” but they are quite different. An
Immigrant is one who comes _into_ a country, generally with the intention
of settling there. An Emigrant is one that goes _out_ of a country, with
the intention of settling in some other land.
The people we are to study are the Immigrants who have come, and are
coming, into America.
_Neighbor._ Every one knows the meaning of the word neighbor. A neighbor
is one who lives near another, across the street, or next door, or maybe
in our own village or town. If you live in a large city it is not so easy
to feel that the people who live near you are your neighbors. It was
much easier years ago, when all that are now cities were only towns and
villages, and many cities now well known were simply prairie with waving
grass and flowers, roamed over by bands of Indians and trampled by the
hoofs of countless bison.
The word neighbor has a larger meaning than merely one who lives near
another. There is a wonderful description of a neighbor, given by One
who is the World’s Good Neighbor. He tells of the traveler who found
a stranger lying by the roadside, wounded and helpless. At personal
inconvenience and expense the traveler cared for the half dead man, and
continued his aid until the stranger was again able to care for himself.
We shall have gained a great deal from the study of this book, if we
learn not only to look on these immigrants as neighbors, those who live
near us, but if we seriously ask ourselves how we may be Good Neighbors
to the strangers from across the sea.
_The Neighbors to be Studied._ We are not going to talk about all of
the thirty-nine races of immigrants that are separately listed by our
government, but only about four of them. Some one says, “I hope you will
tell about the ones I like.” Well, we hope before we are through you will
like the ones we shall tell about, and we are sure you will, for you
will be better acquainted, and it is wonderful how much more likable the
immigrant is when you know him.
_Numbers._ Although we are to study only Chinese, Jews, Russians and
Italians, 333,694 of these four classes of immigrants landed in America
in 1911; 920,299, almost a million, landed in the three years last past,
and that is a large falling off as compared with some previous periods.
In 1911 the Jews and Italians numbered thirty-five out of every hundred
that came. You see that while we discuss but four classes, two of these
are more than one-fourth of all that come.
These numbers may suggest very little to us, but how they would have
startled the fathers of our country. The warlike Miles Standish, or,
in later years, the peppery Peter Stuyvesant, would have declared no
such numbers could be brought across the sea in a year. The only ships
our fathers knew were small wooden sailing vessels like our coasting
schooners; the giant, floating hotels that we call steamships, that carry
a big village every trip, were not dreamed of in those days. The sailing
vessel took weeks and months to make the voyage; now we can reckon,
almost to the hour, the time of the arrival of a great liner.
[Illustration: A Jewish Immigrant]
[Illustration: A Little Maid of Italy]
It might be well if these numbers did startle us more and if we better
realized how great is this invading army of strangers, friendly as it may
be.
_Dislike of Foreigners._ Many people do not like the immigrants simply
because they are foreigners. This prejudice is as old as the world, and
its origin is a most interesting study. Perhaps some high school boy or
girl can give a reason for this early dislike.
“The reasons for disliking the foreigner in early times were that no one
traveled much and there were no newspapers, consequently neighboring
tribes, or nations, did not get to know each other. Nearby tribes were
suspicious of each other and were much at war, continually robbing and
killing. Every stranger was a possible enemy.”
Yes, that is a good answer. Now, give a reason for present dislike of the
immigrant.
“I have a reason,” one boy says. “My father lost his job because an
‘Eyetalian’ offered to work for less.”
Yes, I am sorry to say that is a very real cause of dislike. That is
also war, although it is now called by a different name. To take a man’s
position, by which he earns his bread, or to steal a man’s cattle, from
which he and his family were fed, amounts to about the same in the end.
Give some other reasons for disliking immigrants.
“They talk such funny English.” “They don’t dress like us.” “They don’t
eat like us.” “They can’t play ball.”
Yes, undoubtedly all these are reasons for feeling that foreigners differ
from Americans, but are they good reasons for disliking the foreigner?
I saw a “grown-up” show this hostile feeling one day as I was passing
along a crowded street on the East Side of New York. An American youth of
about eighteen years of age snatched some fruit from the push cart of a
young Italian of the same age. The Italian grappled with the young thief
and was giving him a sound thrashing when a policeman, leisurely swinging
his club, turned the corner. With one glance he took in the scene of
the Italian-American war. Raising his club and shouting, “You Dago,” he
charged full at the Italian. The young fellow saw him coming and took off
down the street as hard as he could run, dodging as he went the flying
club the policeman had hurled. When the tempest had calmed I stepped up
to the officer and said, “Officer, what did the Italian do?” “Do?” said
he with supreme disgust, “he was a Dago.” Evidently the sole crime of the
Italian consisted in being a “Dago,” a foreigner.
To some people all Italians are either Dagos, or Guineas, all Jews are
Sheenies, all Chinese are Chinks and all Russians are Owskies. They
are foreigners, and that is enough. Such people forget that while the
language of the immigrant sounds “funny” to us, ours sounds just as
strange to him. While we laugh at the pig tail and queer shoes and
strange clothes of the Chinese, they follow the American in crowds
through Chinese cities and make fun of his absurd dress, and call him
names that are not wholly complimentary, all because he is a stranger to
them.
_Our Debt to the Foreigner._ It will help us to cultivate the spirit of a
Good Neighbor if we remember that we are hopelessly in debt to all these
foreigners.
_Our Debt to the Chinese._ The Chinese invented the mariner’s compass
that enables the sailor to strike boldly out into the deep, sure of not
losing his way across the trackless ocean when stars and sun are gone. He
is likewise an example to all the world in his reverence and care for old
age, for father and mother. A traveler recently returned from China says
he has never seen old faces more calm and kindly than those he met among
elderly Chinese farmers. They seemed to think of nothing but the welfare
of others. The rights of the parent are such that any father or mother
with sons or grandsons living is assured in old age of the best care the
children can provide. Though the son may be fifty years of age and have a
family of his own he will yet give his own salary into the hands of his
father week by week. The father need not worry about the future as do
many fathers of large families in our own land, hence the calm eyes and
care-free faces among old Chinese farmers. The Chinese teach that it is
an honor and a duty for the young to toil for those who are old.
“Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee,” is an old command and promise. The
Chinese Empire is hoary with age. Can one reason for its long life be its
obedience to this command?
_Our Debt to the Italians._ An Italian, Columbus, discovered the
New World. Who, then, has a better right to inhabit it than his own
countrymen? An Italian captain, Verrazano, was the first man to push the
prow of his ship into the harbor of what is now the greatest city of
the new world. Roman law rules the world and her treasures of art and
literature have enriched every nation on earth. What school boy would
like to be without the story of Julius Caesar, or not to have heard of
the cackling of the geese high up in the Capitol the night the city was
in danger, and how that cackling awoke the citizens and saved Rome?
_Our Debt to the Russians._ As to the Russian, it is an ungrateful
American who forgets the service rendered this country in that saddest
war of history, when brothers of the North and South rose in arms against
each other. France had determined to found an empire in Mexico. She knew
that this could be done only after the American Union had been destroyed.
Russia refused to join with France and England in the course that might
have made possible this division of our country. In the darkest days of
our struggle the Russian fleet appeared at American ports as a pledge
of her friendship and a protest against the attitude of these European
powers.
_Our Debt to the Jew._ If we said nothing more than that through the Jew
has come the Bible, that gift would place all of us forever in his debt.
No other sacred book tells us so clearly of God; no other book shows us
so truly how we may obey Him and be useful, strong, and holy. In no other
place are we told the secret of that
“City builded by no hand,
And unapproachable by sea or shore,
And unassailable by any band
Of storming soldiery forever more.”
It is true some of the Jewish people did oppose Christianity, but other
Jews were the founders of the Christian church.
Through the Jewish nation came our Lord. Upon the streets of Jewish
cities “walked those blessed feet that nineteen hundred years ago were
nailed, for our advantage, to the bitter cross.”
Kind neighborliness to these strangers is one way of repaying our debt.
II
WHY DO THEY COME?
Lo, the tyrant’s days are numbered,
Liberty no longer slumbers,
Error dark no longer cumbers;
Risen is the Sun.
—_H. A. Clarke._
II
WHY DO THEY COME?
MIGRATION. Why do such vast armies of human beings leave their homes? Why
do they travel weary miles over land and sea and suffer such hardships
and privations? The causes would indeed be urgent that would induce us to
take a like journey and leave behind our pleasant, comfortable homes. Can
it be that the home of the immigrant is not pleasant and comfortable? As
we continue our study we shall find at least some of the reasons for this
greatest migration in history.
On a beautiful day in autumn you may have seen large flocks of swallows
wheeling around the steeple of some old church—“a river of winged life.”
Some one has told you they are gathering before they migrate. “Oh, yes,”
you say, “they are going away because they do not like the cold winter.”
In the spring, you have seen a great moving V in the sky all made of
birds, and some one has cried out, “There go the wild geese,” and you are
told that they are journeying to the far, desolate North where the summer
will soon be and where no one will molest them while they rear their
young. So when great companies of people migrate there is a good reason.
No one wants to leave a comfortable home without good cause.
You will be interested to study the causes of some of the great
migrations in the past. If you will turn to the Book of Exodus you will
find there the story of a vast human river of slaves flowing out of
Egypt, across the Red Sea, into the wilderness. Why did they migrate?
What drove the Goths down into the pleasant valleys of Italy? Did the
richness of the Italian cities, the fertility of the plains, and the
indolence of the inhabitants have anything to do with it? What brought
the Tartars into China where as Manchus they have ruled 300 years, and
where their long rein is now ended? The answer is simple. The Manchus
were warlike Tartars, soldiers of fortune of a barren country. The
Chinese were peace-loving dwellers in fertile valleys and plains. The
better soldier was the victor.
There is no great nation of ancient or modern times but can tell its
own story of migration. There once crossed into England a company of
many thousands of splendid craftsmen bringing from France the secrets of
trades that have helped make England great. What drove these Protestant
families from their beloved land? There rang in their ears the solemn
tolling of a great palace bell. That bell, sounding over the city of
Paris, was the signal for the death of over forty thousand of the noblest
Protestants of France. The St. Bartholomew massacre caused the migration.
In recent years a great tide of Irish began to move across the Atlantic.
In ten years this mighty tide totaled over one million and a quarter
human beings. The reason they came was the failure of the potato crop.
The potato was their great food staple, as bread is ours. Great armies of
Germans began to come after 1848. It would be interesting for you to find
the reason of their coming. How hard it must be for the Southern Italian
to leave his beautiful home and exchange his blue skies and hills and
mountains for a dark, ill-smelling tenement, or for toil far underground
in a mine. Why does he migrate and in numbers so great as to form every
year a city the size of Portland, Oregon? We may find the answer farther
along in our studies.
“If I were a Russian,” some one says, “I would want to leave home. The
winter is so long, there is so much ice and snow, I would be glad to get
to a warmer country.” But the Russian loves his winter. He drives his
_sankey_ with its hoop of tinkling bells arched high over his horse’s
back faster than any other horseman in Europe. In his home is a great
brick oven and on top of this the family sleeps, no matter how the storm
blows, as warm as a Negro boy in a Southern cotton field. The Russian
does not leave his home because of the winter.
WHY THEY BECOME OUR NEIGHBORS
_Opportunity._ Some one says another name for America is “opportunity.”
Amid weeping and “_Il Signore vi Benedica_,” “God Bless You,” Giuseppe
has gone away. He has been earning as _contadino_ (farmer) 20 cents per
day and is like a serf tied to the land. He earns in America $1.50 a day,
or as much in one day as he earned before in seven. Giuseppe is frugal.
He rises in his position to better pay, spends little money, and his
bank account goes up until he has a sum that would have seemed a fortune
in the little Sicilian village. Then, work slacking, he returns home.
His watch and ponderous gold chain, his stylish American clothes, an
exhibition of lofty independence, all make him a marked man.
Wherever you meet him on the village street, an awed, admiring group of
friends is with him. He spreads the glowing tale of the New World and
you may be sure the reality loses nothing in the telling. Every youthful
heart is fired to a like adventure, to seek the golden, western world.
As one returned immigrant said:—“It’s a land where all wear shoes, where
trains shoot through the air, and shoot through the ground; even the poor
ride, no one needs an umbrella, the cars pass everywhere.” It is little
wonder they want to come. In America labor is dear and materials are
cheap; in Italy labor is cheap and materials are expensive. There it pays
a landlord to hire a man to watch his cows, rather than to build a fence,
wood is so costly. In America no one would think of hiring a man for such
a purpose, labor is so high.
The price paid in health and suffering for the money they take back is
often far more than its worth. Many a poor fellow pale and haggard with
that dread disease, tuberculosis, goes home hopeful that his genial skies
will cure him of the death-blow the wet and cold and exposure of America
have given him. But the defeated come home in the twilight, unattended
and silent, while the successful swagger in at noonday with the blare
of trumpet and beat of drums. As one Italian said to me no later than
yesterday, “My uncle never told me the hardships I would have to face.
I was far better off in Italy than here, but I am ashamed to go back.”
And yet, all who come realize that the possibilities of success are far
greater here than at home. As another said, “In Italy I wanted to do
but could not. In America I want to and can. I am sorry, but ‘Good-bye,
Italy.’”
The same opportunity for riches attracts the Chinese. He lives in a land
that, labor as he will, is barely able to feed its almost half a billion
human mouths. His wages at home are so meagre he can never hope for
independence; two cents per day is what the farm laborer in Shantung
earns. Since as a laborer he cannot legally enter the United States, he
comes in under cover of darkness over the Mexican or Canadian borders, or
any other way he can devise. The same hope of wealth attracts the Chinese.
_Steamship Advertising._ Many come because the steamship companies are
such good advertisers. These companies paint beautiful pictures of the
New World, and the peasant sees great farms, busy factories, and wealthy
cities. The companies never show any views of dark, unhealthful tenements.
Through this steamship advertising many unfit persons sail for America,
persons whom the agents might have known would be rejected, while many of
the lowest class are induced to leave their country because their country
is glad to get rid of them. It is said that in one small district in
Austria two hundred and seventy criminals were released from prison one
year and one hundred and eighty of them were in America within the next
twelve months.
The Commissioner of Immigration at New York stated one year that 200,000
of the one million immigrants of that year were a real injury to the best
interests of the country. Since the steamship company must be at the
expense of returning an immigrant who is sent back, they make doubtful
cases give a bond repaying them the return fare if the immigrant fails to
slip by the “man at the gate.” Of course the only interest the company
has is to get the immigrant’s money.
One steamship line anxious to make money brought over on one ship
three hundred and eighty diseased peasants that Ellis Island promptly
sent back. Among those peasants were many people of Montenegro. The
Montenegrins are great soldiers. Tennyson wrote of them as
“Warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years.”
For five hundred years they have stood as a bulwark between the Turk and
Europe. When they reached the home port, they stormed the offices of the
steamship company, demanding the return of their fare, and after one look
at their determined faces the clerks promptly locked themselves in and
telephoned the authorities for help.
Some are induced to part with all they own, selling their little
business and then, because of ill health or other difficulties that
the agent might easily have known, are turned back broken-hearted and
poverty-stricken to the village whence they came. Sometimes they are even
sent to ports entirely different from those to which they had planned to
go. This, of course, is all wrong.
_The Employer._ The reason back of the coming of many of these people
is the employer, the man who manages the railways, the mines, or large
contracts. He works through the padrones, and the Italian banks that
“direct two-thirds of the stream of Italian immigration.” You may be
surprised to know that the news of a big railroad contract reaches Italy
as soon as we hear it. If we are to build subways or barge canals,
or carry an underground river into New York, or let great railroad
contracts, or make a garden of the desert with colossal irrigation
reservoirs and canals, the message flies under the ocean to far-away
Italy and there is spread through a thousand villages.
The employer is constantly looking for cheaper labor. Around his mine or
factory are American homes, practising the “American standard of living.”
This is a valuable term much in use and since it will occur again in this
book we stop here to explain what it means. The American standard of
living simply means the way most Americans live. Do you know that we live
better than any other people in the world?
“I don’t think _we_ live well,” one boy says, “we don’t have an
automobile, or a pony, or a piano, and the people next door to us do.”
But automobiles, and ponies and pianos, while pleasant to own, are not
real necessities. Let us take a peep into the home of a Chinese boy.
It is breakfast time and he is busy with a bowl of rice and a pair of
chopsticks. Do you think you could eat rice with chopsticks? No! I
think you would do much better with a spoon. “But doesn’t he like milk
and sugar on his rice?” Perhaps so, but neither milk nor sugar are in
sight. Now, let us look in at dinner. Here are the same boy, and the same
chopsticks, and the same bowl with more rice. “Where are the bread and
butter, the meat and potatoes, and the dessert? We always have different
things like that for dinner,” you say. The Chinese boy does not seem to
miss them; what seems to be troubling him is the small amount of rice
left in the bowl.
Now take a look through this crack in the paper window, (the father of
this little man is too poor to have glass windows in his home,) and see
what our boy has for supper. Why there are the identical bowl, and the
identical chopsticks, and what looks like the identical rice, though of
course it is not. “So that is all this boy has had to eat for breakfast,
dinner and supper—only rice?” Yes, that is all, and let me tell you he is
very well satisfied, because he likes that much better than eating millet
seed and that is what so many really poor Chinese live upon. As for
shoes, our Chinese boy has none. His clothes cost only a few cents where
yours cost dollars.
Nor is the Chinese boy so great an exception. The standard of living
among the peasants in Russia is also very low; the same is true among the
great mass of peasants in Sicily, and remember these peasants form the
large majority of the population. That our standard is not the standard
of living of some nations may be gathered from the question of the great
Chinese viceroy, Li Hung Chang, when visiting America. After seeing the
ever-present throngs of prosperous-looking people on the streets, he
asked in great surprise, “But where are your working people?” He did not
know that the happy-faced, well-dressed people he was looking at were
working people practising the American standard of living.
The immigrant provides the cheap, unskilled labor. As he becomes
influenced by American customs, he requires better clothes, a room
for himself instead of sharing his room with ten other men, more pay
as he becomes more skilled. He wants shoes for his wife. The American
law compels him to send his children to school instead of making them
wage-earners while little children. As his expenses increase he demands
more money that he may live as the people about him live. Then the
employer begins to replace him by labor costing what he formerly cost.
Herein is a remarkable story that would fill many little books like this.
It accounts for the procession of the Welsh, Scotch, Irish, Germans,
and Huns in the coal regions. It accounts for practically all the civil
war, in the form of bloody strikes, carried on in the Pennsylvania coal
fields, and much of that which occurs in other industries throughout the
country, this method of the employer seeking to replace those demanding
higher wages by those willing to work more cheaply.
OPPRESSION
_The Sicilian._ Many come because of oppression in the home land.
The Sicilian lives in a beautiful country, but while the sea and the
mountains are good to look upon, the people are very poor. The farm
worker cannot send his boy to school as boys go in America, for the
rural schools are few. He must pay such heavy taxes he has little left
for himself. Then, a few rich people own almost all the land and he must
work for them, or starve. They pay him such small wages he cannot buy
good, nourishing food for his children and they often suffer greatly
in consequence. You draw a long breath when you are told his wages are
from eight to thirty-two cents per day. Many of us use more each day in
car-fare than a laborer in Sicily receives though he works from the time
the top of Etna is crimson with morning, until the birds go to sleep.
Even salt, so cheap with us, is taxed so heavily he cannot use it and
when he cooks his corn meal in the salt water from the sea he is accused
of smuggling. Oppression is what makes many of these people our neighbors.
_The Jew._ Let us step in and visit an old Jewish tailor, a saintly man
who worships devoutly after the manner of his fathers. I am very careful
not to give him any work on Saturday as it grieves him to disoblige his
friends, and yet he will not work on his Sabbath day. He says, as do many
others of the Jewish race: “I pray every day; my son prays once a week;
my grandson does not pray at all.” This old tailor speaks such broken
English, we will let his daughter tell the story. “My father is almost
eighty years of age; he never worked with his own hands until he came to
America. He was for many years the tailor of a Russian regiment, making
all the uniforms for the officers and having a number of men employed
under him; we were well-to-do, the officers loved my father, but when the
riots arose it was all they could do to save his life and all we had was
destroyed. Now he is an old man, he should not toil any more, but,” as
she shrugs her shoulders, “who will give us bread?”
A kindly-faced man is sitting in my office. He speaks such good English
you can tell he is a foreigner only by the peculiar way he pronounces
some words. He says “dough” for though. Just imagine yourself sitting
quietly by and listening, then you will know why many thousands come to
us from one part of Europe. “We were friendly with all the people of
our town. My ancestors had been in the same business for generations.
All the Russians trusted us and although we were Jews they would rather
deal with us than with their own countrymen. One day there had been
many murmurs around us; the people had looked less friendly; they were
ignorant, superstitious people, and they were miserably poor. Few of them
could read or write. The nobility had fleeced them for centuries, but the
nobility was too strong to be reached and so as scapegoats for the nobles
we were pointed out as the cause of their wretchedness. We went to sleep
that night, peaceful, prosperous and unsuspecting. At midnight our house
was in flames. I never again saw father, mother, brothers, or sisters
alive. I escaped in the night and was hidden by some friendly Russians.
High above the roar of the flames and the din and slaughter rose the
hoarse cry of the peasants—Our Daddy, the Tzar, wants it. Our Daddy, the
Tzar, wants it.” Multiply that scene by thousands and you have a Russian
_pogrom_. Oppression brings many Jews.
_The Russian._ The Russian does not leave his land because of the winter
cold. He leaves it because he dare not speak out against the wrong he
sees. He is always fearful of some police spy making charges against
him, shutting him up in prison, and sending him to Siberia. No one is
safe from these spies. The Russian comes to America because here he can
think aloud and here he can worship according to the voice of his own
conscience. America is his hope.
One of our poets pictures America as she really is, a refuge for these
fleeing, hunted people. He shows how the tyrant must give up the chase
and return empty-handed when once these poor people have reached our
friendly shores.
“There’s freedom at thy gate, and rest
For earth’s down-trodden and opprest,
A shelter for the hunted head,
For the starved laborer toil and bread,
Power, at thy bounds,
Stops, and calls back his baffled hounds.”
III
OUR JEWISH NEIGHBOR
“O God-head, give me Truth!” the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted, he became the slave
Of “Truth,” a pilgrim far and wide.
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged, with none to save.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour;
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.
III
OUR JEWISH NEIGHBOR
THE NUMBERS THAT COME. So great has been the volume of Jewish immigration
that the eyes of the country have been turned upon it in anxiety and
question. In the ten years last past 1,012,721 have come. The largest
number in any one year was in 1896, when 154,748 passed through the
various ports. In 1911, 94,556 arrived. To better understand the meaning
of these figures let us take a large map of the United States. Now be
ready with a blue pencil and draw a circle around the cities I name.
Perhaps I shall name the place in which some of you live. We will start
with a city right on the Eastern coast of the United States, where you
could step on board a steamer and sail away for Europe and see the homes
of some of these people we are studying. The first city is Bridgeport,
Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. The next is the capital of New York
State, the city of Albany. The third city to get a blue circle is where a
famous university stands, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then we will journey
away West and draw a blue pencil mark around the name of a city that
stands near a famous lake out of which no one ever drinks. Yes, that is
the name, Salt Lake City, Utah. While we are West we will mark Spokane,
Washington. Then we will move South and place a circle about San Antonio,
Texas; then come East to Reading, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey.
Michigan is a big state with beautiful forests, and we will blue pencil
the city of Grand Rapids. One more city is needed to make the ten. If
none of you lives in the cities I have named perhaps you may live in the
last one we mark, Kansas City, Kansas. I hear some one say, “Why do you
ask us to place a circle about these cities?” Because I want you to know
that in the last ten years enough Jews entered the United States to make
ten as populous cities as the ones we have just marked.
_From Where Does the Jew Come?_ Five-sixths of the Jewish immigration
comes from Russia. While the Jews number probably 11,000,000 in the
world, about 5,000,000 of them live in that empire, mostly in what is
called the Jewish Pale of Settlement. Why there are so many in Russia
needs a brief statement. Poland invited the Jews to settle within her
borders in order to build up her cities. Here was gathered the largest
population of Jews since the destruction of Jerusalem. In some of the
provinces of Poland the Jews number one-sixth, and in some of the cities
one-half of the population. When Poland was divided between Russia,
Prussia and Austria, fifteen provinces fell to the share of Russia. These
form the Pale of Settlement, for there the Jew is allowed to dwell and
there he is engaged in all forms of industry, including farming.
_Why They Come._ We have learned some reasons why the Jew leaves Russia.
Other reasons are his desire for a better education for his children,
freedom to engage in any business he may choose, and the privilege of
worshipping God and of saying what he thinks without danger of arrest
and imprisonment. Strange as it seems to us, there are still many places
in the world where if a man thinks the judge or the ruler has done wrong
he dares not say so openly. If he were heard to criticise them he would
be in danger of prison. Sometimes when we complain of our own country we
forget how fortunate we are to live in such a land of liberty.
Let us now find some of the reasons for the Russian hatred of the Jew.
There could be no such merciless persecution of any race without some
cause, and it is pretty well understood that the Russian government
encourages and often provokes the attacks upon these people. The Russians
dislike the Jews because the Jews are not Christians, and because they
are much smarter business men than the average Russian, and would soon
own all the land of the ignorant peasants if they were allowed to live
among them and loan them money; the American Indian was cheated in this
way by the smarter and better educated white man. Then the government
does not like the Jew because the Russian government is corrupt and does
not want the people to have a voice in governing themselves, and the Jew
stands for the rights of the common people. Thus we see that while there
is some just cause for dislike of the Jew, there are other reasons why he
should be praised and commended.
_As a Good Citizen._ The Jew, having no country of his own has yet
always been loyal to that of his adoption. The records show that when
war came the Jew was willing to shed his blood for his adopted land.
They are good to their own poor, providing hospitals for their sick, and
homes for children who are without father or mother. The Bible tells us
of the love of David for Absalom and the Hebrew king’s prayer for the
recovery of his little sick son. The Jew is no different to-day, he is
kind and affectionate in his home. We know the evil the saloon does in
every city and town and village in America where it exists. The Jew is
generally an enemy of the saloon. The liquor business does not prosper
where he lives. The Jews are lovers of books and education, and some of
the greatest scholars, musicians, artists, and writers of the world have
been Jews. Some of the noblest people who come to America are to be found
among the Hebrew immigrants.
_Not All Money Lovers._ Jewish people are often accused of prizing money
more highly than any other race and of setting a greater value upon it
than they do upon either truth or justice. Some years ago a great strike
took place in New York among the garment workers, who were mostly Jews.
It lasted till the savings of the workers were exhausted. I was talking
with one of the strike leaders one day and he produced a letter he had
just received from his former employer. It said, “If you will come back I
will make you foreman and double your salary.” I knew the man was without
any money, and I asked, “What will you reply?” “There is only one reply,”
he said as he tore up the letter, “I couldn’t accept because I couldn’t
be a traitor.”
The cheerful suffering that goes on among many East Side Jewish strikers
is heroic, for they feel that they are fighting for principle and these
battles that mean less food, thinner garments for the winter winds
to pierce, and less fire in the homes, are fought with astonishing
cheerfulness. In fact, it would be well for old as well as young folks to
remember that the great battles being fought in these days are not with
machine guns; these settle no principle. But the right to live, the right
to live better than the brutes, the conviction that all one’s time should
not be required in the struggle for bread, for shelter and for clothes,
that the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment,—for these
things the Jews fight by enduring hunger, sorrow and even death for the
sake of simple justice. They are the preachers of world brotherhood.
We do not mean that all Jews can be placed in this exalted class. Among
them are the hardest and most merciless task-masters. Just the other day
I heard a Russian complain bitterly because the Jews for whom he had been
expelled from Russia were paying him the pitiful salary of $4.00 per week
for his toil. But among them are a great multitude of noble men and women
battling for a better day.
_The Jew Intellectually._ If I were to ask the question, “Are Jewish boys
and girls at the head or at the foot of their classes in school?” I know
the answer would be, “They are at the head.” The Jew is delighted at the
boundless opportunities for education in America. He is like one long
locked out from a treasure which he could see but could not touch.
_As a Business Man._ As a money getter the Jew is without a peer in the
world to-day; he seems to possess the golden touch we read of in the
Wonder Book. But when we know how it is done there is little mystery
about it. A Jewish family sent their children to my Sunday-school. They
were poorly dressed and had the appearance of being ill-fed. After a year
or two these signs of poverty disappeared and there was every evidence
of comfort. I wondered what the cause might be and said to the children.
“Your father is doing better, is he not?” “Oh, yes,” they said, “he has
gotten over the hard times he had when he went into business. He always
used to get up at four o’clock in the morning and go to the factory and
get the work ready before the tailors came. Then after they were gone he
used to work until eight or nine o’clock every night, but he has a good
business now and doesn’t work so hard.” Most men would succeed if they
worked such long hours.
_The Jew Spiritually._ The Jew is a religious man but he seems to be
losing his religion in America. In Europe the synagogue was a rallying
point, in America the rallying place is the Labor Union, and many have
turned away from the old faith. Family life, once loyal and beautiful,
now shows many desertions, the father leaving the family to care for
itself. The streets at night are trodden by too many Jewish girls, and
the criminal courts are thronged with too many Jewish boys. Contempt
for old age is one of the saddest products of American life. I have
frequently seen young Jewish boys, twelve and fifteen years of age,
mocking Jews as venerable as Abraham, both by pulling their beards and
by sundry insults. The ignorance of Jewish children on sacred things is
widespread. It is a question if any religious body has a more solemn
festival than the Day of Atonement. It is supposed to be a day of
fasting and prayer, but the restaurants are full, and numerous Jewish
organizations use the day to make money by hiring a hall and selling the
seats at a good profit to all who can be induced to buy. Many Jews who
are members of congregations never attend service except on two or three
of the principal fast days.
And yet, careless as the Jew may be of his old time religious faith,
Christianity calls forth the bitterest opposition. He cannot forget the
many things he has suffered in the name of the Christian church.
IV
OUR RUSSIAN NEIGHBOR
“Come, clear the way, then, clear the way:
Blind creeds and kings have had their day.
Break the dead branches from the path:
Our hope is in the aftermath;
Our hope is in heroic men,
Star-led, to build the world again.
To this event the ages ran:
Make way for Brotherhood—make way for man.”
IV
OUR RUSSIAN NEIGHBOR
I mention the Russian not because large immigration has set in from
Russia, but because I am personally acquainted with work among these
people and because they are coming in increased numbers. When the Russian
wishes to change his home, he is usually directed to some part of his own
vast empire, and large numbers are settling in what was one time thought
to be ice-bound Siberia, and are there successfully engaged in farming.
There is, however, a constantly rising tide of immigration among the
Russians. In 1901, 672 entered the United States. In 1911, 20,121, the
largest number to date, was reported by the Commissioner of Immigration.
_Intellectually._ There is much ignorance among these newcomers. Over
thirty in every one hundred who landed in 1911 did not know how either to
read or write. A number of the Russians in New York are revolutionists
of various classes; they are almost always led by the Jew, who acts
as public speaker and general leader in most Russian affairs. About
two-thirds of those who come are unskilled farm laborers and common
laborers.
_Religiously._ While a large number of those who land are members of the
Russian Greek Church, most of them are members of groups hostile to the
church, although many of this latter class are unusually fine men. They
are exiles from their country for causes that would often bring them
honor in any really enlightened land. In fact, America has little idea of
the great riches in heroism, sacrifice and splendid lives that are hidden
away in the forbidding tenements of its great cities. The Russians’
dislike of the church is deep seated and intense, for the Church of
Russia has been the judge that sentenced them, the jailer that imprisoned
them, the knout that whipped them. The Greek Church in many ways is
an out-of-date church. It is an enemy of progress and free thought,
the greatest ally of a cruel government. These men, knowing no other
church than that of Russia, do not understand the difference between
the Christianity found in America and this church of the Middle Ages in
Russia.
One of the best loved and most influential Russians in New York City
said to me recently, “My wish is to elevate my countrymen. Too many of
them hold their club meetings in saloons and are given over to drinking
habits. But I cannot have anything to do with the Christian church, for
if I did I would be compelled to forget how the church has injured me
and I have suffered too much from it to do that.” The Jews share in this
attitude of the Russian toward the church.
“Can any country afford to lose such men?” I put that question to myself
as I looked over an audience of six hundred stalwart young Russians,
their faces alight with intelligence, their whole bearing showing sturdy
self-reliance, and yet lovable and teachable, withal. The place was an
East Side hall, and the occasion a gathering to do honor to a Russian
fellow countryman, and to enjoy a Russian play. The countryman was an
exile because he wished to hasten the day of freedom for his beloved
land. He was a man with a noble, melancholy face, and eyes that looked
love and friendship. One wondered what that scholarly man could have
done to have the sentence of death passed upon him.
The play when given in Russia was immediately suppressed, and yet it is
founded on an actual happening. Imagine yourself with me at the Russian
hall; let us take a seat and hear what the play is about and maybe we
shall learn why it is that many Russians do not like the church. The
players will speak in Russian, but we shall understand them for we shall
have some one beside us to translate the Russian into English.
Now all is quiet. Here enters a young student in a red shirt and big top
boots. He feels very important, for he has just arrived home from the
University at St. Petersburg. His sister is with him. They are talking
about a monastery in their village. “You know how the great monastery
near us deceives the people,” says the brother. “You know how the monks
pretend the sacred _ikon_ (image) on the altar works miracles, and how
the poor peasants have to give the monks hard-earned money. You know how
these cheats tell the authorities of any one who says he is dissatisfied
with the government. And you know, too, that these monks are not good
men.”
“Yes,” the sister says, “I am sorry that what you say is true. The
monastery ought to be a great blessing to our village, but instead it is
a great curse.”
“Then,” cries the student, walking up and down and much excited, “I am
going to open the eyes of the people and show them that the monastery is
a wicked fraud.”
“How will you do it?” exclaims his sister, greatly alarmed. “Please do
nothing that will cause the police to send you to prison.”
There comes a knock at the door; the brother opens it, and in walks one
of the monks from the monastery. He is such an unclean, repulsive-looking
man you would want to run away from him if you met him on a lonely road.
He does not look at all like the priests, or preachers, we know. He holds
out a tin cup and whines, “Please help a poor friar who is begging for
holy church.” All the Russians in the audience laugh in derision when
they hear the whining voice.
“Why is the church in need of money?” asks the student.
“We need money,” whines the monk, “because the people no longer visit
us as in years past, and since they do not bring money in we monks must
collect it.”
“But,” persisted the questioner, “why have the moujiks stopped visiting
you?”
“They do not believe in holy church nor in the sacred _ikon_ as they once
did.” (The _ikon_ on the altar of this monastery was believed to have
worked many wonders.) “What the church needs is some miracle to restore
the faith of the peasants,” and the monk seems very sad, probably because
he would rather sit down comfortably at home than walk the muddy Russian
roads begging alms.
“Why do you deceive the peasants?” says the indignant student. “You know
your sacred _ikon_ never cured anybody, nor worked any miracle. I will
give you the dynamite if you will blow it up.” The monk admits the _ikon_
worship is a fraud and says finally after a long discussion, “I will
place the dynamite under the image and blow it up.”
When the time comes to explode the dynamite, the monk is afraid and
confesses the plot to the Abbot. “Let us blow up the altar,” says the
Abbot; “we can say the anarchists did it, but we will first remove the
_ikon_ and then tell the people a miracle was wrought—the altar was
destroyed, but the image was saved.”
[Illustration: The Home of a Russian Peasant]
[Illustration: A Russian _Moujik_ and His Family]
So the altar is blown up after the priest has removed the image. The
people are told it is a marvelous miracle and the church is crowded
again, each peasant not forgetting to leave his copeck, half a cent, as
he departs.
After the explosion, the student says, “I will go to the monastery and
when the great crowds of peasants are coming out of the chapel I will
tell them just how great a fraud the latest miracle is.” So he goes and
tells the people how grossly the monks are deceiving them and that it was
his plan that destroyed the altar. Do the people believe him? Oh, no.
They believe what the priests tell them and they are so angry with the
young informer for saying he blew up the altar and for trying to open
their eyes that they kill him.
“But,” some one says, “we have been looking at and hearing only a play.”
Yes, that is true, but it is a true play, for all you saw actually
happened in Russia, and it is the deception of such monks that has made
so many Russians hate the church and hate God.
You noticed how the audience leaned forward in their seats, each seeing
in that picture his own story, the forces that drove him far from his
fatherland. You also remember what the interpreter said at a great burst
of applause, the greatest of the night, when we asked, “What was that
for?” “Why,” said the interpreter, “you will be surprised to know what
they are applauding. In reply to the question as to who was his most
bitter enemy, the actor has just said, ‘My greatest enemy is God; through
God and the church come all my troubles.’”
It is the duty and the privilege of the Christians of America to
introduce these Russians to a true church, and to instruct them in the
knowledge of the true God.
V
OUR ITALIAN NEIGHBOR
“Genoese boy of the level brow,
Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes
Astare at Manhattan’s pinnacles now
In the first, sweet shock of a hushed surprise;
I catch the glow of the wild surmise
That played on the Santa Maria’s prow
In that still gray dawn,
Four centuries gone,
When a world from the wave began to rise.”
—_R. H. Schauffler._
V
OUR ITALIAN NEIGHBOR
NUMBERS. Our immigrant neighbor that has attracted the most attention
in the last decade has been the Italian. He has attracted this notice,
first, because of his great numbers and, second, because of the inferior
quality as compared with much previous immigration.
Over two millions have come from Italy in the past ten years, and the
numbers show little prospect of diminishing. This stream that two decades
ago was but a tiny rivulet is now a human Amazon. The Amazon of South
America pours so vast a tide into the ocean that the sailor while far
from sight of land may yet dip his bucket overboard and draw up fresh
water. We may well inquire about these people who are flowing in so vast
a flood into the sea of our American life.
In the year ending June 30, 1911, 213,360 Italian immigrants entered. In
1910, 233,453 were admitted. The largest number entering in any one year
was in 1907, when 294,061 passed through the various entry ports.
When we are dealing in millions figures suggest little or nothing to
us. Let us take another method to show the large numbers of this one
nationality that are pouring in through all our gates.
Imagine the two millions of the last ten years drawn up in a single line,
each holding the hand of the fellow countryman on his right and left.
How far will this human chain extend?
Suppose we step aboard a train at New York. We pass along the
Palisade-bordered Hudson, past Yonkers, West Point, Poughkeepsie, Hudson
and Albany, one hundred and fifty miles. These black-eyed children of
Italy line the track all the way. At Albany we turn west and go to Utica,
Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. We have come over four hundred miles and
still the line is unbroken. Here the porter makes up our sleeping berth,
and all through the night, past Detroit and into Chicago, the metropolis
of the Middle West, along a thousand miles of railroad stretches our
imaginary hand-clasped line. From Chicago we journey still further toward
the sunset until we rumble across the Father of Waters and into the
station at St. Louis. Surely these endless faces are no longer beside our
train. But there they are; westward still extends our immigrant line.
From St. Louis we travel right across the state of Missouri to Kansas
City, almost three hundred miles. Our train moves so fast across the
level country that the hand-clasped strangers seem like closely placed
pickets in an endless fence, but still the line is there and we must
travel one hundred miles across Kansas before the last of that endless
chain waves us farewell. And all these have come in ten years.
_The Italian Compared with Former Immigrants._ The earliest immigration
to America was not that of the peasant class. “It was the middle class
tradesman and the stout, independent yeoman.” The immigration of a
few years ago, as is well known, was from Northern Europe, bringing
the German, the Scotch, the English, the Irish, the Welsh and the
Scandinavian. These were races from the temperate zone who had gained
culture and the virtues of a Christian civilization, largely Protestant,
through long centuries of intelligent struggle. The Italian immigrant
of today is from Southern Italy. The Northern Italian, more skilled and
better educated, does not come to the United States in any large numbers;
his goal is mainly Argentina and Brazil, in South America.
The Italians from Sicily have lacked educational advantages. If, when
they land at the Battery from Ellis Island, you asked them to read the
name of the street upon the lamp post, sixty out of every hundred would
shake their heads. In the public schools the Italian is by no means so
clever as some of the other immigrants, nor is he employing his leisure
time in so wise a manner as is the Jew, for instance.
_Thrift._ The Italian is frugal and thrifty. Most of them seem to have
money. A poor woman exclaimed at one of our free Saturday night concerts
some time ago, “O Signore, some one has robbed me.” I looked at her and
thought to myself, “She is so poorly dressed I do not believe she has
lost much,” but I said, “Come and see me after the concert.” On talking
with her I found that the thief had been better informed than I, for he
had cut the skirt of her dress with a knife and had taken $80 which was
in an inside pocket. It is no unusual sight for a laborer to draw from
his wallet a roll of bills amounting to $50 or more to pay for a ten cent
spelling book in our night school. The amount of real estate the Italians
own in New York is very large; some years ago it was estimated at over
sixty millions. It is probably more than double that today. Some of them
own tenements and rent rooms that are slept in by day by one shift of men
and at night by another.
One must be careful that he is not an innocent party to placing children
in orphan asylums and other such homes to be educated at the public’s
expense when the family is entirely able to support its own children. An
Italian woman wished me to place her two boys in “college.” By “college”
she meant an orphan asylum. When I investigated I found that she was
married, had a husband who was in perfect health, and was herself worth
between three and four thousand dollars. The church receives very little
financial support from these people, although they are lavish enough when
it comes to a big display at a wedding, a christening, or a funeral. The
money paid for bands to walk before the hearse must amount to hundreds of
thousands of dollars every year in the Italian colony of New York City.
_How They Are Misused._ There is no question but that the Italian earns
the money that is paid him in America; no better laborers ever came to
these shores, and the way they are sometimes misused is shameful. I saw
once a pitiful exhibition of this. It was an August day, one of the most
intensely hot I had ever experienced, and all the worse because it was
in a long succession of stifling days and nights. Everywhere men were
stopping their horses and cooling them off with the hose, or with pails
of water and, despite it all, dead horses were lying in all the principal
thoroughfares.
An Irish boss was foreman of a gang of Italians that was asphalting a
city street. A line was drawn down the middle of the street and the force
divided, each gang taking the part on either side of the line from the
middle of the street to the curb. The gang that asphalted their half of
the block first would receive as reward a keg of beer that stood perched,
temptingly, on an elevated platform at the end of the street. I do not
remember ever seeing elsewhere human beings driven at such inhuman
speed; it was a cruel proof of what greed and a total disregard of the
welfare of the poor immigrants could furnish.
A writer in “Everybody’s Magazine” saw the statement of the press agent
of the Erie Railroad that no lives had been lost in cutting the great
open air rock entrance of the Erie into Jersey City. He was interested
enough to investigate it, and he learned of twenty-five who were killed
and so many who were injured that a partial list filled four newspaper
columns, a year before the work was completed. “Why,” he asked, “was it
said that no lives were lost?” “Because,” was the reply, “the killed were
only Wops (Huns) and Dagoes.”
_Spiritually._ The Italian is naturally religious, and when converted he
becomes an earnest, intelligent follower of Christ. We must not fail to
tell him the story of “Jesus and his love.”
VI
OUR CHINESE NEIGHBOR
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink,”
“Greaser,” and “Nigger,” and “Jap”;
From none of them doth Jehovah shrink.
He lifteth them all to His lap,
And the Christ, in His kingly grace,
When their sad, low sob He hears,
Puts His tender embrace around the race
As He kisses away its tears,
Saying, O “least of these,” I link
Thee to Me for whatever may hap,
“Dago,” and “Sheeney,” and “Chink,”
“Greaser,” and “Nigger,” and “Jap.”
—_Bishop McIntyre._
VI
OUR CHINESE NEIGHBOR
THE MISUNDERSTOOD CHINESE. The Chinese are the most misunderstood
people in America, and the reason is probably found in the Celestials
themselves. No author in writing about this myriad people feels that he
can give an account of the Chinese in one province, or city, or village,
that he is sure will hold good in another. The earliest bit of wisdom
concerning the Chinese that I remember acquiring was the statement in an
old geography that to write one’s name in Chinese characters was a sure
way of winning their favor. I now know that I am no surer of winning
the favor of a Chinaman by writing my name in Chinese characters than
a Chinese would be of winning my favor by writing his name in English
letters. But the writer of the old geography may have been acquainted
with some place in China where what he states was true.
In our short account of these people we can catch but a fleeting glance,
seeing little more than the curious Chinese himself, who, “when he wants
to get a peep inside a house applies a wet finger to a paper window so
that when the digit is withdrawn there remains a tiny hole through which
an observant eye may at least see something.”
_Unchanging China._ What force was back of the movement that reached its
height in 1892, when almost 40,000 of these people landed in America?
What caused the first large migration from China to the United States?
Today very few come. In 1911 but 5,657 Chinese entered, while 7,065 went
back to China.
That the Chinese would require some powerful force to set this tide in
motion, a few instances would indicate. The Chinese do the same thing
in the same way today as their ancestors did it five hundred years ago.
If a village street is so crooked that one must walk an extra mile, no
one would think of straightening the street. If the village well was
the source of water supply in the past centuries, the substitution of a
pump would not be thought of, as it would be an insult to the past. They
dislike even the most trivial changes; the altering of the time of the
regular hour of meetings; a re-arrangement in the seating of their class
rooms, or the transfer of a teacher, all disturb them. Because things
used to be done in such and such a way is the reason that they ought to
be done so now.
Old customs are followed, although the life has long since departed from
them.
For example, “It is the custom in Mongolia for every one who can afford
it to use snuff and offer it to his friends. Each man has a small snuff
box which he produces whenever he encounters a friend; if the person
with the snuff box happens to be out of snuff, that does not prevent the
passing of the box, from which each guest takes a deliberate, though
imaginary, pinch and returns it to the owner. To seem to notice that the
box was empty would not be good form, and all is according to a well
settled precedent.”
“In a country like China, which stretches through some twenty-five
degrees of latitude, but in which furs are taken off and straw hats are
put on according to a fixed rule for the whole Empire, in regions where
the only heat in the house during the winter comes from the stove bed
or _k’ang_, it is not uncommon for travelers who have been caught in a
‘cold snap’ to find that no arguments can induce the landlord of the inn
to heat the _k’ang_, because ‘the season for heating the k’ang has not
arrived.’” American street car companies and apartment house owners have
at times taken a leaf from the Chinese in this particular. What could
move this people to leave their home and seek a new world?
THE CHINESE IN AMERICA
_What Caused Their Coming?_ The first large migration of the Chinese to
America may be explained by two words, War and Gold.
In 1850 the great Tai Ping rebellion broke out and soon spread poverty
and ruin through southeastern China; the terrors of war with its ever
present hand-maidens, famine and plunder, ruined all business and
paralyzed all industry. The farmer class of the sea coast districts was
driven into Hong Kong and there they met the astonishing stories of the
fabulous wealth in the recently discovered gold fields of California
and Australia. That, in brief, is the history of the first big wave of
Chinese migration to America.
_The Sort of Chinese Who Came._ Those who came were largely from the
farmer class. The Chinese farmer is very different from the Sicilian
farmer; the latter rents his land at a ruinous price from the large
land owner, or works it for a meagre wage almost as a serf; the Chinese
farmer belongs to one of the most honored classes in China. “He owns
the land, has freedom of trade and industry, local self-government, can
appeal against official misgovernment and has the opportunity to rise
to any social or political station.” The social system of China is well
worth keeping in mind. First in rank comes the scholar, the man with
the trained mind fitting him to be a wise leader and guide; second,
the farmer, the producer, the creator of wealth; third, the artisan,
who changes the raw material into usable forms, makes furniture of the
timber, pots from the iron, dishes from the clay; fourth, the merchant,
the middleman, who sees to the distribution of flour, rice, clothing,
etc.; fifth, the laborer; and last, the soldier or non-producer. In what
order do we rank these classes? The early type of immigration from China
was of a high grade.
_How They Were Received._ The Chinese were received in California with
open arms, so to speak. “Industrial necessity” overlooked the visually
present race prejudice, and the Chinese turned their hands to anything
that would fill the gap the American gold-seeker had created. They
became cooks, restaurant keepers, laborers, household servants—there
were no women on the Pacific Coast then, willing to do the last named
work—carpenters, farmers of neglected land. Governor McDougall, in
1852, recommended a series of land grants to induce their further
coming; editors praised their industry, their cheerfulness, and personal
cleanliness; the Chinamen must have thought the Golden Age was come again.
_The Rude Awakening._ In 1854 came the collapse of the California boom;
placer mines gave out; men from the mines seeking employment were
coming to the city in droves; the wage of $10 per day for skilled and
$3.50 to $5 for unskilled labor was over; then came the cry of America
for Americans. The Chinese were ill-treated and many lost their lives.
Committees were formed by the better class of Americans to protect them,
but the cry against them never ceased in California until the Chinese
exclusion law of 1888 was enacted, barring them from the country.
_The Chinese Intellectually._ The Chinese rank high intellectually.
Their age-long reverence for learning—for a knowledge of the Chinese
classics opened the door to the highest positions—has undoubtedly had a
marked effect upon the mental side of the nation. The Chinese hero has
been the one who passed successfully through the various examinations in
the classics and finally, after many difficulties, attained the coveted
degree. Their “highways are spanned with arches erected, not to great
soldiers, but to great scholars.”
The nature of the outings that the average young American of the East
Side conducts is pretty well known throughout the city of New York. They
are usually anything but orderly and thoughtful. But on a Christian
Chinese picnic I have gone from the bow to the stern of the boat and
found numerous games of Chinese chess in progress, each game surrounded
by an excited group of advisers telling the players what move to make to
checkmate their opponents. The playing of a good game of chess is not a
childish task. The Chinese are a thoughtful people.
_Generosity._ Few favors done the Chinese pass unrewarded. I have seen
many touching examples of sympathetic helpfulness. A few years ago a
beautiful Chinese woman was helped to escape from worse than slavery.
To save her from the sworn vengeance of her master, it was necessary to
send her clear across the continent in company with a missionary. This we
did. Like Nicodemus, who came to our Lord under cover of darkness, there
came to us later a woman from Chinatown. Her husband is one of the most
notorious gamblers in the country, but his wife had a woman’s sympathy
with the kindly service rendered, and she left a hundred dollars as her
gift toward the safety of her unfortunate countrywoman.
_Spiritually._ I am repeatedly asked, “Do the Chinese ever become
Christians?” Their spiritual nature is as keen as that of any
foreign-speaking people that come to us. The spirit that changes the life
of a wicked, gambling, drinking American performs a like office in a
wicked, gambling, opium-smoking Chinese. The Christ that attracts little
American boys and girls is a like magnet to these little Chinese lads and
lassies. We had in our school for some years a little Chinese boy named
Guy. He was bright and courageous, and accompanied our missionary on many
of her visits among the Chinese. He said one day, with great earnestness,
“There are three things I want. First, I want to become a Christian and
get my heart right; second, I want to be baptized so that all the Chinese
may know that I am separated from paganism, and third, I want to be a
preacher of the Gospel so that many may hear the glad news.” You will
agree that these are good wishes for even an American boy. One night he
dreamed that his father, who was in China, had returned to America and
that he and Guy stood together at the altar of a church while Guy was
being baptized.
Wong Sing came into our night school seven years ago. He hated the name
of “Jesus.” When he heard in America that Christ was being preached in
his native village, he said, “Hot anger rose within me.” One reason for
this was that Wong Sing knew only the Christianity of Mexico, and this
is cruel and disdainful toward the Chinese. It has taken the world many
centuries to learn that the Christianity of Jesus is best extended not by
sword or force, or even by argument, but by loving-kindness.
[Illustration: A Chinese Family
(Church of All Nations, New York City)]
One day Wong Sing went home from our school with a Chinese New Testament,
and to him it was the Word of God from heaven. He read it all night,
getting an hour’s sleep in the early morning before he went to work. He
was converted by the reading, and then he threw himself, with all his
soul, into the work of the church. He was all for Christ. In the last
four years he was with us he did not miss one session of the school.
Finally, business called him home. His mother in China was greatly
grieved at his conversion. She said, “My son has deserted the old faith.
When I die, who will worship at my tablet? My son went away a good boy,
he comes back possessed of a devil.” Wong was the only Christian in the
village. He tried to show his mother the better way he had found in
Christ, but without success, and in great bitterness of heart over the
loss of her boy’s faith in the old religion, she ended her own life. On
this young Christian has fallen the curses and revilings of the entire
village, but he has “kept the faith.”
When You Toy, a little Chinese slave girl whom we had rescued, told us
her dream, we felt that there was a relation between it and her own life
and thinking. “Oh,” she said, “I had such a wonderful dream; I saw God
and He had a great book, and He called me to Him and said, ‘Here, You
Toy, look in this book,’ and I looked and there was my name, and after it
in bright letters was written, ‘You are my precious one.’” I believe that
a little orphan girl from a far country, trained in ancestor worship,
could never have had that dream if God were not a known and near friend.
What do you think about it?
The Russians, Hebrews, Italians and Americans—none of these people
surpasses the Chinese in loyalty and in labors, once they become
followers of Christ.
VII
MAKERS OF GOOD NEIGHBORS
“Fear not, we cannot fail:
The message must prevail;
Truth is the oath of God,
And sure and fast,
Through death and hell,
Holds, onward, to the last.”
VII
MAKERS OF GOOD NEIGHBORS
TO BEGIN WITH. Who and what are the good neighbors in our country that
are most powerful in changing this many-tongued multitude into Americans?
Who are influencing them so that they understand us and we understand
them? What forces are welding these many fragments into one nation?
To receive into one great common home millions of sons and daughters
strange to that home and to one another in speech, custom and land, and
to blend them into one people, this seems an impossible task. And yet it
is being accomplished.
_The Public School._ Among the good neighbors that are grappling with
this great task most effectively I place the public school first,
because I believe it the most useful neighbor in making young Americans.
Frequently the foreign-born parents see the New World largely through
the eyes of their children, so that the school is a good neighbor to the
whole family.
The public school makes different nationalities friendly. All school boys
know how by studying together, reciting together and playing together
they acquire respect for one another, and learn to look over the barriers
of race. A public school near my church which is made up almost wholly of
Jews and Italians, elected one of my Sunday-school scholars, a Japanese
boy, president of the class, simply because his ability and good manners
had won their respect.
_Manual Training._ By manual training classes the public school promotes
respect for work with the hands. We cannot understand the foreigners’
contempt for this kind of work, but it is very strong. I once took an
Armenian, who had come all the way to America in the hope of getting
an education, to the president of a preparatory school in the hope
that he might be admitted free of expense by doing some work about the
institution. The president stated that the school was overcrowded, but
he would take him in if he would work in the field a couple of hours a
day. The Armenian, who was really an earnest man, felt the work would too
greatly degrade him, and declined.
_Teaching in the English Language._ The English language is of course
another great help in Americanization.
_The City and the Immigrant Child._ The child of the immigrant is in
special need of the help and sympathy of all American boys and girls.
Frequently he is the sole person in the home who speaks English, and so
is called upon for advice and is consulted in many things upon which
American fathers and mothers never need to consult their children.
This is unfortunate for him, as we can readily see. He often despises
the language and customs of his parents and then ends by despising the
parents themselves. He cannot understand the love his parents feel
for their homeland; he cannot see the blue skies and green hills and
mountains so dear to them; he cannot feel the home attachments.
“I recall a certain Italian girl,” writes Miss Jane Addams, “who came
every Saturday evening to a cooking class in the same building in which
her mother spun in the Labor Museum Exhibit; and yet Angelina always
left her mother at the front door while she herself went round to a
side door, because she did not wish to be too closely identified in the
eyes of the rest of the cooking class with an Italian woman who wore a
kerchief over her head, uncouth boots, and short petticoats. One evening,
however, Angelina saw her mother surrounded by a group of visitors from
the School of Education who much admired her spinning ability, and she
concluded from their conversation that her mother was the ‘best stick
spindle spinner in America.’
“When she inquired from me as to the truth of this deduction I took
occasion to describe the Italian village in which her mother had lived,
something of her free life, and how because of the opportunity she and
other women had had to drop their spindles over the edge of a precipice
they had developed a skill in spinning beyond that of the neighboring
towns. I dilated somewhat upon the freedom and beauty of that life, how
hard it must be to exchange it all for a two-room tenement and to give
up a beautiful homespun kerchief for an ugly department store hat. It
was easy to see that the thought of the mother with any other background
than that of the tenement was new to Angelina, and at least two things
resulted; she allowed her mother to pull out of the big box under the bed
the beautiful homespun garments which had previously been hidden away as
uncouth, and she openly came into the Labor Museum by the same door as
did her mother, proud at least of the mastery of the craft which had been
so much admired.”
While it might seem that the child represents the most precious future
wealth of our cities, he evidently is not so valued. Real estate is worth
more than he is. Dirty, disease-breeding blocks that should be parks and
playgrounds are worth more than he is. Even where grass grows, big signs
everywhere indicate that grass is sacred and of more account than he is.
In planning our American cities the child seems to have been entirely
left out. When tenements became profitable, and the tenements are the
homes of the immigrant children, the backyard playground disappeared.
The street is the only playground left and, cursed by drivers because
the horses stumble over them, and by chauffeurs because they limit their
speed, and chased by the police as a general nuisance, the children of
the tenements are surely to be pitied.
A young Italian girl fifteen years of age was being sworn in a Brooklyn
court. Before swearing her the Judge told the clerk to inquire if she
knew the meaning of an oath in court. He asked, “Do you know who God
is?” She replied, “God, who is he?” He said, “Do you know anything about
Christ?” She replied, “Christ, where does he live?”
Here is a chance for the boys and girls of America to be good neighbors.
_The Settlement._ Some one says, “I have often heard about settlements,
but what do they do?” The Church of All Nations carries on a church and
settlement work on the lower East Side of New York. If you were to pay
it a visit during a week day this is what you might see. By 8.30 o’clock
in the morning there would be a patter of little feet and a babel of
children’s voices and we would know the Italian boys and girls were
coming for the daily kindergarten. At nine o’clock the office bell begins
to ring; just sit in the office and listen to the people who call. One
says, “I need to go to the hospital”; another, “I want to get a friend
out of prison”; a big able man says, “I want work”; some are in need of
clothes or food, or a lawyer, or are discouraged and have come to talk
over their troubles. These last keep coming during the morning office
hour and, in fact, all day and into the night.
[Illustration: Italian Kindergarten (Penn.)]
In the afternoon there is a mother’s meeting for Italians, or Hebrews, or
some other nationality, with an address of a religious nature or a brief
talk on some topic that helps make the mothers better able to care for
their children. American boys and girls may think all mothers know how to
take care of children, because their mothers took such good care of them.
It would surprise them to know that in the fall some of the immigrant
mothers sew a suit of clothes on their child and expect that suit to
stay on through the winter—it is not to come off at night, either. Many
Italian mothers wrap up their little babies until they look like a mummy
that you may have seen in a museum. The baby can move its hands but not
its feet; it can also move its big black eyes, and laugh or cry. We know
better than these mothers, so we try to teach them wiser ways of caring
for their children.
At three o’clock there may be sessions of the sewing-school, or game
room, or gymnasium classes for the younger boys who are not allowed
to come at night. In the evening there are club meetings under chosen
leaders, bowling contests, basket ball games, and night school for
Italians, Chinese, Hebrews or Russians. In other parts of the building
may be illustrated lectures or motion pictures. So you see a Settlement
has a very busy and varied sort of day’s work, and is a good neighbor to
the immigrant.
_Other Good Neighbors._ In addition to the good neighbors mentioned,
many other forces assist in the Americanizing of the foreigner. America
itself, the streets, the stores, the factories, the public institutions,
the work at which he is employed and the conditions under which he toils,
all have a marked effect upon the stranger. Those who have studied the
matter say that the Jew is developing a better physical type than at
home, while the Italian, used to open air peasant life, is running down
in stature.
While the immigrant is a stranger in a strange land he is by no means a
stranger in a friendless land. America is not only rich in dollars, it is
rich in kindness and sympathy. Our fathers were pilgrims and strangers;
some of us were ourselves strangers. We should, therefore, try to carry
out Christ’s story of the good neighbor, and, if we find our immigrant
brother in need of help or protection, we should be among the first to
have compassion on him.
VIII
GOOD NEIGHBORS AND BAD
“Lead on, O King eternal,
The day of march has come:
Henceforth in fields of conquest
Thy tents shall be our home.
Through days of preparation
Thy grace has made us strong,
And now, O King eternal,
We lift our battle song.”
VIII
GOOD NEIGHBORS AND BAD
THE CHURCH. The Protestant church in America is a good neighbor to the
immigrant. The trouble is that many immigrants refuse to permit it to be
their friend.
We have seen that the chief reason that the church cannot do what it
would among the Jews, Russians, Italians and Chinese, the people we are
studying, is because these people do not understand that the church in
America is different from the church in their home countries. They do not
know that American Christianity is a friend of liberty, and is really
trying to aid the common people.
When the Irish immigrants came in such multitudes to America they
thronged the Catholic Churches. Their church had been their loyal
champion in Ireland, and they knew it would be the same friend in
America. The same loyalty was shown by the Lutheran to his church when he
came from Germany to America.
But the million and more Jews that have flowed into America want to have
nothing to do with the church, and the multitudes of Italians, when loyal
to any church, belong to the Church of Rome. The Russians are often
exiled from home because of the church.
To be the best of good neighbors to these people, it is necessary, first,
for the church to know their history. Only in that way can church people
understand how the foreigner feels toward the church and how most wisely
to approach him.
_The Jew and the Church._ What does the Jew regard as the cause of the
sorrow which has sent him to America? I have seen old Russian Jews stand
in front of a Christian church at night, when they thought no eye saw
them, and shake their fist at the cross over the door, spit at it, curse
it, and go their way. “If,” said a Jewish woman, “the Christians want
to be friends with the Jews why do they forever preach that the Jews
killed Jesus? We know our nation was the cause of His death, but how many
Christians have died in the religious wars between themselves?” She laid
the persecution of her race at the door of Christianity.
Speaking one day of the religious fervor of an old Hebrew, his daughter
said: “Yes, he is religious, but none of the rest of us have any use
for it. I think it is through religion that most trouble comes into the
world.” “Now,” she continued, “the best friend I have in America has just
gone out angry because when she came in she found a fire in my house,
and this is a Jewish fast day. Religion drove us out of Poland with the
loss of everything. I believe we would be better off if religion was out
of the world.” I tried to show her that true Christianity was not guilty
of these cruel persecutions of her people, that it was the lack of true
Christianity that caused them; yet I doubt if I convinced her.
Even when Jewish children are allowed to attend Christian religious
institutions to get them off the streets they are often forewarned. I
noticed one day that a boy who sang lustily some of the hymns stopped
at the word “Jesus,” or else substituted the word, “Moses.” “Curley,” I
said, “why don’t you sing the name Jesus?” “My mother told me not to say
it or my tongue would turn black,” came the prompt reply. Another boy
attending our classes reached up and kissed a gold cross that hung on a
chain around the neck of one of our workers. He had no sooner done so
than he cried across the room to his sister, “It never hurt me.” “What
did you expect would hurt you?” said the teacher. “My mother told me I
could come to class but if I said the name of ‘Jesus’ it would turn my
tongue black, and if I touched the cross, it would kill me, and I didn’t
believe her.” This was especially sad, for the boy said his mother had
told him a falsehood.
_The Russian and the Church._ The Russian dislikes the church. He does
not know the Protestant church of America. All he knows is that the
church of Russia is at least no friend of liberty. He wants nothing to do
with what he considers a similar enemy in America.
_The Chinese and the Church._ The most devoted Chinese we ever had in
our work after he became a Christian, had a similar feeling. His idea
of Christianity came from the Catholics of Mexico, who have treated the
Chinese very cruelly. He came to our school because he hoped to learn
English and not because he wanted to hear of Christ.
_The Italian and the Church._ The church in Italy is more or less a
political machine. The Italian knows how the Roman church opposed the
liberty of Italy and this makes him fear or hate all churches. Great
churches in Italy are often found with but a baker’s dozen in attendance.
The only times on which they are thronged are when a “_festa_” is being
held, a festival in honor of some saint.
_Brave Christians._ Numbers of the immigrants who become Christians
are real heroes. The story of the persecutions they suffer would be a
surprise to most Christian Americans. The Jewish daily papers sometimes
publish the names of the Jewish attendants at Christian meetings that
they may incite their Jewish neighbors against them, and the tenement
has so bitter a tongue that it often drives the family out of the
neighborhood.
Young people who are baptized are mourned for as dead, cast out of their
homes, and made practically orphans, and Christian workers must find
homes for them. Spies are sent into Christian meetings to secure the
names and addresses of Hebrews present, and then letters, or visits, or
both, follow. Bibles of young converts are taken from them and burned.
While the streets are filled with children with no religious instruction,
the whole Ghetto is stirred over one convert to Christ.
One leading Russian revolutionist told me that if he were to come out
openly in favor of the Christian church his business would be ruined.
The country founded by men who sought it for liberty of conscience is not
a free country to every one and men who have found an asylum here from
the oppressor of Europe become in turn oppressors themselves.
The greatest need of all these people is Christ.
_The Need of Christ._ The non-Christian Chinese are at times cruel and
merciless beyond description. Slavery is common among them, women being
bought and sold like merchandise. The treatment of little “servant” girls
is sometimes so inhuman that they commit suicide. These little girls are
bought by the Chinese and then frequently sold by them when 12 or 15
years of age. The picture of two of these little “servant” girls, rescued
by the Church of All Nations, appears opposite this page.
[Illustration: How Chinese Babies Ride
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York City]
[Illustration: Rescued Slave-Girls (New York City)]
One Christmas night a great company of Chinese and their friends had
gathered to celebrate the birth of Christ. Chinese women were there who
had never before been in a public gathering; bound-feet women were there
who are never seen on the streets. The platform was thronged with Chinese
children in their quaint, beautiful, and becoming Oriental costumes. The
first Christmas was long, long ago. Scripture tells us that on that night
a song so full of joy that it startled the shepherds rang through the
wintry sky. Poets and other people say that as Christmas time comes round
again they can still catch faint echoes of the angels’ song. Perhaps the
angels still sing it each glad Christmas Eve; anyway, at no other time
does a child seem so beautiful and so holy.
When the exercises were over I said a parting word to our guests. One
Chinese woman, carrying in her arms a beautiful little baby girl, came up
to say good night. “Why, Mrs. Sun,” I exclaimed, “I did not know you had
a little girl.” “Oh,” she said, “I hadn’t, but Mrs. Wu had one girl and
when this baby was born she didn’t want it because one girl was enough,
so she gave it to me.” This in New York on Christmas night, 1911. Can you
imagine a Christian mother glad to give away her little girl? The Chinese
need Christ.
The Russian needs something other than shorter hours and larger wages.
Many of them are seeking the higher things. A Russian pastor told me
of making an engagement with one of his hearers at a Russian open air
service to discuss and explain Christianity to a Russian in his home.
When the night came this Russian revolutionist had gathered a group of
his fellows in his tenement quarters and there pastor and men discussed
the Christian faith from 8 o’clock in the evening till midnight and would
have kept the discussion up all night, could the pastor have remained.
Christ and the church are needed by the Russian.
You see that some people have misrepresented our Lord and His church. We
must try to right this wrong done the foreigner and we must be patient
and loving in doing it. The immigrants are in need of many things—we must
endeavor to supply these needs. We must do it for the sake of Christ. We
must do it in the name of Christ. We must do it as if our Lord Himself
sat weary and thirsty before us and it was given us to hand Him the cup
of water. How glad we would be for such an honor!
BAD NEIGHBORS
_The Saloon._ It is sad to see so many bright Italian boys with their
fruit stands and shoe polishing chairs hard by saloon doors. They do not
know how great an enemy is pretending to be their friend.
The saloon is a bad neighbor to the immigrant. It wastes his money and
his time. It unfits him for work, starves his family and makes them
feel ashamed of husband and father. It leads to disease and often to
prison, for the saloon is the mother of innumerable crimes. It helps
make weak-minded and deformed children and is an evil organization whose
destruction has already been determined upon by the truest and best
Christian people in our land. For the sake of the immigrant, for the sake
of the fair name of America, let us unite to shut its doors and banish it
from our country.
_Ignorance._ Ignorance keeps the immigrant un-American. One who cannot
read is at a serious disadvantage. When it is remembered that of the
Italians sixty out of one hundred of all those over fourteen years of age
who come to America belong to this class, we see the need of the work of
night schools to overcome this ignorance. The case is made still worse by
the fact that the immigrants crowd together into colonies, as “Little
Italy,” “Little Russia,” and “the Ghetto,” where the English language is
not spoken and there are no broadening American influences.
_Injurious Employment._ The work in which the immigrant is generally
employed helps keep him un-American. He has no opportunity to know
America or to know Americans. Much of the work is wearying and
disheartening. Men bound for the coal mines are packed in cars and
hurried away, often through the night, to the distant coal fields;
underground all day and sleeping in wretched quarters above ground at
night, they have little opportunity to see or know anything of their
adopted land. I stepped up to a stone house alongside a railroad
excavation in the country part of Connecticut once to have a look at
the occupants. There were two floors in the old tumble-down house
and both were packed with mattresses and makeshifts for beds until
practically the whole floor space was covered. It was a wet day and all
the men were crowded indoors. A handsome young fellow lay sick on one
of the mattresses. I put my head in the door and said: “_Io parlo un
poco Italiano ma non bene._” “I speak a little Italian, but not well.”
Immediately there was a laugh, probably at the “not well,” and they rose
to greet me as courteously as if all were trained gentlemen. The sick boy
began to talk and the group was friendly with me in a moment.
The day will come when we shall find that these people can do something
other than dig ditches and mix concrete. The Italians who are now
employed as our hewers of wood and drawers of water, are of the race of
painters and sculptors and silk makers of earlier days.
We must help the immigrant to overcome his bad neighbors, and to know who
are his true friends.
IX
NEIGHBORS TO THE WORLD
For lo, there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
“Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
IX
NEIGHBORS TO THE WORLD
THOSE WHO GO BACK. “Do these immigrants ever go back home?” asks some
one. “If I went away from home and made my fortune I would want to go
back home to spend it.”
I am glad to hear that question and some of you may be surprised at the
answer.
We have all heard of the incoming immigrant army, and small wonder when
we know that in some years it numbers over a million human beings. But we
have heard little about the returning army. How large is it? How many of
our immigrant neighbors prefer to spend their savings at home? How many
go home because fortune has not smiled upon them in America, or because
their mothers write, “I am getting old and it is very lonesome with my
son far across the sea”?
Let us lay on the table nine, bright, new, copper pennies. Now suppose
each penny represents one hundred thousand immigrants. Then the nine
pennies would represent nine times one hundred thousand, or the nine
hundred thousand immigrants that landed in 1911. Since almost three
hundred thousand immigrants went back home in 1911 how many of these nine
pennies shall we have to remove to show the actual immigrant increase for
that year?
For 1908 we would have to use eight pennies to represent those who
came, and to remove six of these pennies to represent the numbers that
returned home that year.
I am sure this will surprise some of you. You did not know so great a
multitude returned to Italy, or Russia, or elsewhere, yet every year
anywhere from two hundred thousand to six hundred thousand leave our
shores for home. That makes us feel the truth of the song we all know,
“Be it ever so humble,
There’s no place like home.”
_Influence of the Returned Immigrant._ What effect has this home-coming
multitude upon towns and villages all over the world?
When Stefano came to America he could neither read nor write. One day a
friend said, “I know a church where Italians are taught to read free of
all expense.” Stefano was sending money home to his mother each month, so
he was glad to know of a free school. One night the leader of the school
said, “We shall have a short session to-night because we are to have a
prayer-meeting after school.” Stefano and fifty other young Italians
remained for the prayer-meeting. At home Stefano had ceased going to
church after he had been confirmed, except sometimes on feast days. He
remained to the prayer-meeting, not because he wanted to but because all
the others stayed. He listened with great attention to the speaker; he
had never heard such an earnest address as the pastor gave that night.
It seemed as if some one must have told the preacher all about him.
All through the week he thought of the prayer-meeting and after he had
attended a few times more he came to the preaching service on Sundays,
and then Stefano became converted.
When he returned home he was on fire with the new religion he had found.
His heart was full of love for everybody. But he was saddened when he
saw how little the people of his village knew about God. One night he
determined to tell them how he had found Christ in America, and so he
called them together in his mother’s home and told his story. When he had
finished what was his surprise and delight to have three other men rise
and tell how they had found the same Christ in golden America.
Every one was interested. The villagers said, “Some of these men were
bad men when they went away; they are now good men.” You will be glad to
know that whole villages in Sicily have become Protestant and Christian
by the preaching of just such returned immigrants as Stefano. Last year
eighteen Protestant Churches of one denomination were founded in Sicily
by returned immigrants converted in America.
This shows us the wonderful opportunity we have of being a good neighbor
to one part of the world by being good neighbors to the Italians who live
near us.
What has caused so old and conservative a nation as China to change to a
republic? The leaders of this revolution are Christian men. If we asked
them they would say, “We saw that the cities and towns and schools and
churches and men and women and children of Christian lands were different
from those of China. We believe the reason they are better is because
they know Christ and are following Him.”
We have helped China by being a good neighbor to the Chinese who lived
among us.
A few weeks ago a Russian school-teacher attended a preaching service
in my church. After the Russian pastor had finished preaching the
school-teacher sought him out and said: “I had fifty young men in my
class in the Russian village where I taught. I told these scholars all I
knew about God but I could not tell them much, I knew so little myself.
I determined to know more so I visited the most celebrated monasteries
in Russia in order to find out about God, but I didn’t find God in the
monasteries. At the great monastery of Kieff after talking for hours
with the abbot he said, ‘You are too good a man to come in here. Go back
into the world, and somewhere there you will find God.’ I found him this
morning as I listened to the sermon. Now I shall go back to Russia and
tell the men of my village of the God who now speaks to my heart.”
We shall help the Russian Empire by being a good neighbor to these
subjects of the Czar.
America is to-day the greatest mission field on earth. It is not this
because of the vast number of foreigners who remain and make it their
home; it is such because of the vast human river that flows back to
its source. In a barren desert tract in the West, where sage brush and
cactus are the only vegetation, the desert blossoms when the rivers of
irrigation are let in. So does this returning human flood bring hope and
new life to wornout and often hopeless civilizations.
Here lie the responsibility and privilege of America. Through school and
settlement and church and a myriad other institutions and influences we
must make these Old World brothers and sisters feel that they have found
in the New World more tender and loving neighbors than those they left
behind; we must show them that accepting our science and education, our
ways of farming, and mining and manufacturing, is not enough, although
these have had much to do with our greatness. Queen Victoria when asked
the source of England’s greatness, pointed to the Bible. It was a true
answer. It is being humble followers of Christ that makes us fit leaders
of these foreigners, and sends them back fit to be leaders in their turn.
If we are helpful, loving Christian neighbors to these immigrants we
shall set in motion waves of Christian faith and hope and love that, like
the tides, will sweep around the world and break in benediction on every
Old World shore.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Some Immigrant Neighbors" ***
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