Italian Emigration to America

A Typical Italian Immigrant Family at Ellis Island. Photograph by Arthur Hewitt. The World's Work, October 1902. GGA Image ID # 14f9097c8d

The study of race migrations has gone far enough to bring out the dominant fact that economic causes are at the heart of these movements. Adventure has played its part, and war (with plunder for its aim) has a still more significant role. Still, looting was the economics of the barbarian, while the lode star guiding the world's most romantic adventure was the glitter of precious metals.

It is even a little chilling to learn how the most gallant of these explorers did not forget that they were out for "the dust of the gods."

If, for simplicity, we exclude the war element in migrations, we have the central fact that some millions of people wholly change their habitations on the planet yearly for economic reasons.

They believe that they can raise living standards through migration, and, so far as our immigration problem is concerned, this is too clear to require proof. If we look at the results of this migration into the United States strictly from the human or world point of view, who would immediately question whether it stands for results that enlarge opportunity and progress?

The world has been the gainer. I find many willing to admit this, who still object to our present immigration, who object to it as immigration, and quite apart from specific abuses we may learn to control.

Objections To Immigration

They are restrictionists for the sake of restriction. Men are tariff men, not for revenue, but to keep out competing products as a working policy. They say we must consider our national welfare, not the world's.

In so far as our national well-being does conflict with that of the world, the point may be granted. But all who maintain that the good of the United States does conflict (regarding migration) with the good of Italy, Sweden, or any other country ought to furnish far more definite proofs than have thus far been forthcoming.

I notice that many opponents of immigration deliberately create the material for their objection. They imagine the devastation caused by the inrush of multitudinous Chinese, for example, but with no whit of knowledge as to whether such hordes would come. A Chinese scholar who has lived in this country tells me there are no grounds for these terrors.

It is almost too easy to show that these imagined evils of immigration have, up to date, been mistaken. But, before showing this, look at the problem for one moment, still from the possible good of the world (or at least of the nations) rather than the supposed exclusive good of the United States.

Next year, potentially 225,000 immigrants or children of immigrants may return to their native countries, most on visits, some to stay. A large part of these has been successful.

They generally take back with them what the communities from which they came most need: courage, increased efficiency, and the enlarged political and social outlook that is making them feel increasingly.

Our immigration not only lightens the struggle for existence steadily and permanently in those countries, but it also tends to consistently raise the standard of living there.

As ocean transportation cheapens and develops, these reactions grow in such a ratio that they become the most powerful of world influences for good on this larger human side.

Fewer stimulating experiences in Europe than seeing, as in scores of places in Italy, communities transformed and keyed to a higher standard wholly by the influence of returning emigrants. At thousands of points throughout Europe, this influence steadily deepens.

Eastern Europe

In Eastern Europe, our immigrants set many debt-burdened peasants free every year. Mortgages are paid off, old debts are canceled, and houses and lands are restored.

We will here waste no time on that shabby superstition that immigrants who send their money out of the country are no good. Strictly from our point of view, we get the full equivalent of every dollar they earn. That world fact is undoubtedly to be kept in mind.

If it can be shown that this far-off good is won at the expense of our civilization, that our standards are lowered through and because of benefits to others, we must yield to the first law of self-preservation, hold fast to our advantages, though outsiders are excluded.

The Unfit Should Not Come

Before defining my doubts about this exclusion policy, it should be said with precision that we all agree on one point: the unfit should not come.

I deal a little later with the term "unfit. "Meantime, if it is to be maintained that, barring the unfit, immigration has been and is still immeasurably a greater good than are the evils attaching to it, good for us as it is good for the world, to what proofs are we to point?

The Case Against Excluding All Immigrants

Let me first give no proof but extremely suggestive evidence. How much earlier, I do not know, but since 1787, we have had an unvarying succession of forebodings about the coming evils of our immigration.

Rarely do they seem really to have come, as feared, but they are always lurking there in the future. I asked several genuine restrictionists among the delegates at the recent Immigration Conference in this city.

They agreed they could point to no observable evil that had arrived, but it certainly would come if we did not put up the bars. It was admitted that enormous undertakings were everywhere waiting for more labor and were wholly dependent upon it. "But think of a million coming in a single year! "

Here is the ghost that has worked on our imagination for a century and a quarter. Now, my bits of history are undoubtedly worth recalling a long list of knowledgeable foreign observers, French and English, both report legal opinions upon immigration and give their own, T. Hamilton, Miss Martineau, Dickens, Tocqueville, Chevalier, Sir Charles Lyell, Marryat among the number.

When 20,000 were coming in a single year, many wise people were alarmed for precisely the same reason that people are now alarmed. How could we assimilate such masses?

How could the American standard be maintained in the face of these multitudes? Many came without their wives; they would return their money to Europe. Bred under other political and religious systems, how could harmony be preserved? And so on through the familiar list.

Before the nineteenth century came in, Washington and the Federalists were generally afraid of immigration. In 1812, at the Hartford Convention, many of the ablest men thought we had inhabitants enough of our own. Jefferson was pretty nearly hysterical in his fears of immigration.

Coming down to 1826, when the foreign observers I mentioned began to come, a successive chronic alarm was reported among the most thoughtful people because of this swelling tide of foreigners.

"What can we do with 55,000 people a year!" As we look back upon the tempest of savage prejudice in the middle of the century against the Irish and the Catholics, riots, a convent, and two churches burned to the ground, we feel that the "Know-Nothing" fury was appropriately named.

What prejudice, too, against the Germans who flocked here after the revolution of '48! Would they not subvert the very principles of our government?

What a light is thrown on the fears when we look today at the German city of Milwaukee and the American city of Philadelphia, not forgetting that such political shame as Milwaukee has had was under an American boss and not under a German.

In all the earlier years, moreover, no effective attempt was made to exclude the unfit. A steady stream of criminals and physically unfit poured into the country and doubtless brought us much harm, yet the absorbing power of this country had been beyond the wildest calculation.

Our immigration, taken as a whole, has been rapidly assimilated and has probably raised the standard of living rather than lowered it. If an exception is made to certain choked conditions in the larger cities, I do not believe that we assimilated our immigrants more easily in those earlier days than we are now doing, for the reason that the number and variety of industries have so enormously increased.

Think of the assimilative power of 8,000 industries as against 300 or 400 industries! Barring again exceptional centers, into which unskilled labor has dropped, our standard of living wages, hours, and conditions have been improved by immigration to the present moment, again, for the plain reason that these newcomers have added so much to that general wealth from which wages are paid.

But, if a million a year are to come, can we continue using them for the common good? One cannot answer this except by such experience as we have passed through. It should be remembered that ocean and railway transportation is so developing that it will take more and more action to give automatic relief for congested periods and districts.

A half million can now easily leave this country in a single season. This steam traffic will increasingly have the same motive to take them away as it has had to bring them. And inducements will be forthcoming.

So many agencies are now at work to strengthen the weakest links in this chain, which leads us into the field where we should find the higher measure of this question. I mean the realm of ideal values that connect themselves with the free and friendly movement that brings foreign races long enough into constant relations to know each other and tolerate differences.

The supreme world question is that of races learning the highest and most challenging art of civilization, that of living together with goodwill and intelligence, living together so that they may help each other rather than exploit or despoil each other because of an outworn surface agriculture and market methods that condemn us to create armies and navies to get rid of surplus products.

The United States is helping to solve that problem in the only conceivable way, namely, by giving the races a chance to live together and work together long enough to substitute human and social habits for mere clannish and tribal habits.

What is now the Mother Mischief in our race relationships? The shadow· of an extremely gross ignorance and prejudice, one race against another.

Maeterlinck has said it well: the essence of hell is this misunderstanding. It raises and maintains hell upon earth; we have more illustrations than we know what to do with.

Think of two nations as advanced as England and France living century after century hard by each other. Until the most recent years, having merely contempt for each other, the average Englishman thought that a Frenchman was a kind of monkey with clothes on and that chiefly because he had a different manner and speech from the English.

By what plummet are we likely to measure the depths of ignorance that separates the white from the yellow races? Japan has done something to show us the density of our prejudice about a portion of the East.

China has, doubtless, quite startling surprises for us. An Australian prime minister who knew the Chinese opposed their admission into Australia, not because they were a low race, but because of their ability.

They are a "superior set of people," he says, belonging "to an old and deep-rooted civilization. We know how wonderful their powers of imagination, endurance, and patient labor are." Wherever they have been fairly dealt with in this country, their living standards very rapidly adjust to those about them.

I am not here arguing for the removal of all racial barriers to their incoming, but rather for the overcoming of the more primary evil of our ignorance-an ignorance that is probably the main obstacle to the world's civilizing.

As stubborn and unyielding as this race prejudice is, there is probably no agency for its slow removal like 'that of common work and contact which these migrations offer in the United States.

We have helped a lot in discussing this problem by first stating and defining specific points of agreement. There is, for example, no dispute over the exclusion of the "unfit."

However, there is little agreement on what this word means in its complete applications. The word now legally applies to idiots, insane, criminals, and epileptics.

In 1891, certain specific "diseases," like trachoma and favas, were added. Still, the unfit will include a far more significant variety of infirmities until some manageable standard of physical and mental qualifications has been determined.

If Syrians, Greeks, and Armenians, for instance, bring in a percentage of infirmity (as is proper) many hold greater than northern races, that of itself will enlarge the category of the unfit, precisely as the term "sanitation" has been widened by the choking of city slums by low-class occupants. The student and administrator probably assume that the extension and defining of the unfit are still primarily to be worked out.

To make this exclusion effective, agencies must be devised, like far heavier penalties upon steamship owners for bringing the unfit, and also a definite international understanding, so organized that migrations shall be brought under more conscious control and direction.

Professor von Philippovich, an authority on migration, has already given this a theoretic statement that so often antedates practical legislation.

The beginnings of this exist already in the act of 1903, under which our marine and hospital surgeons are applying much more careful tests in several Canadian towns, in Italy, Japan, and China, and in these latter countries, under definite arrangements with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, a large percentage of disease, like trachoma, has thus been detected at the point of departure.

If there be added to this, quite apart from disease, a fair physical test of size and strength, we shall be doing only what many physicians familiar with the work are now demanding.

This restriction and selection might eventually exclude an immensely more significant proportion of the anemic, under-sized, and devitalized, whom we do not wish as propagating types in this country.

Again, it is agreed that the distribution possibilities away from cities into country areas may be greatly extended. This has passed the theoretical stage, and I now have a solid basis of experience at a score of promising centers in the South and among the Western fruit growers.

The still bolder step of directing migrations concerning geographic and economic conditions and demand for skilled or unskilled labor, under international agreement and organization, also has its working model within national boundaries, as in the German approach to Arbeitslosigkeit.

There is, indeed, a more sharply defined model still. Canadians, noting that immigrants arriving late in the autumn found difficulty in securing work and that the Home of Industry and charitable institutions of Montreal were thus overcrowded, have agitated for legislation to restrict immigration between October and March.

The gist of Professor von Philippovich's scheme of a scientifically controlled A wandering from the world point of view is to broaden the scope of this proposal and give it a statistical basis such as industrial bureaus will soon make possible.

On the whole speculative side of this question, we are bound to allow for these two future possibilities:

1. Effective exclusion of the unfit, so organized at selected points of departure, and with such a standard and such penalties as to check the evil at its sources;
2. International control and direction of these migratory currents, with deliberate reference to local trade demands.

That physically and politically, we are suffering from the slovenly neglect with which we have met this immigration is clear. This is seen in the whole humiliating history of our naturalization frauds, in staggering burdens of insanity, dependency, pauperism, and certain forms of crime.

However, these are largely traceable to avoidable causes—causes that should be brought under control in the future and constitute, indeed, the main problem for the future.

A world energy like that of race migration cannot be tested finally by merely attendant evils. The evils of trade or democratic government are baffling enough. Still, we rightly accept the facts of business and democracy and understand that we have to cope with them, plus a swarm of ills.

With these considerations in mind, what will be our attitude toward the general subject under discussion? That the people on this small globe are to travel with increasing freedom from one part of it to another, we may safely take for granted.

The fact that nearly one thousand large ocean ships are used for human traffic every moment in the construction process is good evidence that they will be used.

The merely physical and pecuniary difficulties of forcing people to stay in places from which they wish to escape will become more embarrassing and costly every year.

The old Know-Nothing cry of "America for the Americans" and "Canada for the Canadians" is not only already seen to be unwise and impracticable, but, what is more, it is becoming ridiculous.

From race education, this human or world side of the problem should receive increased attention and the maximum practical weight consistent with safeguarding interests within national bounds.

In one of his final conversations with John Morley, Gladstone reportedly said that in his sixty years of public service, he had found no principle so safe to trust as the principle of an ever-enlarging social liberty for all.

The president asked me to speak on "The Italian side of the North American Immigration Problem."

We sailed from Naples three weeks ago—a dark, dusty, unrecognizable Naples. Beneath a brazen sky with brown, purple, and dull red, men, women, and children hurriedly fled the Vesuvian villages. Still, carrying blankets or pillows on their heads to defend themselves from the falling stones of the aroused volcano, they bore the marks of suffering and a hasty, awe-stricken flight about their persons.

Many were huddled upon village carts and the wagons of the rescuing artillery. They clung convulsively to some poor household chattel, the one remaining bond with the ruined home.

In their ignorant fright, they refused to be lodged within the barracks and fortresses, for had they not seen roofs crashing beneath the weight of ashes and heard the cries of their buried neighbors, and had not the very market in Naples fallen in, killing or wounding the tradespeople at their stalls? But they were willing to go to the royal palace, which was wide open to receive them.

That undoubtedly, like the churches, was under God's protection. They knew the King loved them and wanted to help them, for with his beautiful Queen, he had pressed forward into the hell of darkness and fire where all others feared to go. Together, they had stood the rain of scorching stones and had their blood drawn and their eyes burnt by the ashes and cinders.

We embarked on the ship "Romanic" of the White Star Line, which, the captain told me, was short of hands because many of his best sailors were from the Vesuvian shores and had visited their homes while the ship was in port.

At the appointed hour, these men had returned and, weeping, implored him to leave them, for their villages were buried, their families had disappeared, and they would seek for their own, alive or dead.

The full emigrant capacity of the "Romanic" is 1,700. We were 150 short, for that number of Greeks, owing to the ashes of Vesuvius reaching across the Mediterranean as far as Montenegro, had been landed at Leghorn and could not join the ship in time, as the wind having veered; the railway had been buried.

About twenty-five years ago, crossing on a White Star ship to England, I had visited the miserable accommodations offered to the Irish emigrants, and now with the Italian emigration officer, a captain-doctor of the navy, who had touched at many ports in the interests of Italian emigration.

I inspected the third-class or emigration quarters on the ship. I admired the improved accommodations due to the wise laws enacted by foreign governments (especially that of Italy in 1901) to protect their -out-going citizens. The hospitals for both men and women were excellent.

Though too few, the baths and conveniences were sanitary. The employees explained that all this was required by law, as was the requirement that the ship carry at least one doctor for every five hundred emigrants.

And that the Steamship Company was held financially responsible for overcrowding, diminishing the cubic feet of "air, bedroom and deck space, required for each passenger. The food I tasted was good, and the bill of fare was subservient to the people's religious customs.

Most passengers lay down or squatted on the deck, so their clothes were grimy. The commissioner explained that despite many expostulations and the presentation of designs for practical folding steerage deck seats, the steamship companies would not introduce them because the law did not exact this and that every improvement upon the ships is due to the emigration laws of one or another of the nations.

Third-class human cargo brings the greatest profit to all the lines, so the surest means to control emigration is to enlighten laws on the transportation of second—and third—class passengers.

Reciprocity is necessary in emigration as in commercial interchange. United States laws now require that Europe furnish its best physical and moral standards for its immigration market, guaranteed by a passport and a medical certificate. The educational test can be added if desired.

However, education requires patience, and such a law should only become active after allowing the necessary time to prepare for it.

Thus, no interruption of the building, digging, and delving which North America's present significant period of development requires would occur, owing to a lack of foreign laborers, men of iron muscle, willing to bear any discomfort and give all their strength for money, thrifty, sober young men, who may send the guerdon home to support their families, and, when enough besides has been accumulated, generally bring them hither, contributing a physically and morally sound, prolific though ignorant sub-soil upon which to found your national institutions.

The illiteracy and ignorance your school system is more than calculated to eliminate in the next generation, and, as the immigrant mass is composed chiefly of young married people and their offspring, what can a decade of ignorance in a one-hundred and-fiftieth part of your population count for as against the solid qualities furnished by this stratum?

In these last twenty-five years, the exchange from American to Italian money has fallen from 30 percent premium to par. We recognize that an equal percentage of Italy's prosperity is due to the American money earned by Italian emigrants and to American pleasure-seekers and art seekers who temporarily inhabit our Italy and enjoy the same privileges as her citizens. But it is well to remember we treat here of percentages.

All nations travel to Italy, and the laborers in Italy emigrate to wherever scarcity of hands calls them. What is the money you have given us through the pleasure-seekers compared with the renewed health, mental breadth, and art beauties endowed with which these have returned home?

What, on the other hand. are the savings, almost the blood money, one might say, which have been wrested from the greed of boardinghouse keepers, padrone, and so-called bankers and the graft of contractors by the fathers, brothers, or sons, and sent back to their families, as compared with the builder railroads which girdle your continent, the magnificent water-works which make your homes luxurious and salubrious, the public and educational institutions in which you take just pride?

Let us accept Mr. Graham Brooks's statement that this is a free country and that the money that goes to Italy is a simple exchange for the Italian brawn and muscle that you have used up here, a just remuneration for that selection you have instituted by law, and any limitation on its use would betray the spirit of your Constitution.

If you imported steel to build your bridges, you would have to pay for that steel without requiring the manufacturer to leave its guerdon in the United States. As you have iron and need muscle, you must pay for the muscle instead of building your bridges and letting its earnings go where its possessor wishes.

Do you wish to learn why Italy allows its best laboring blood to come to America and protects, almost assists, it to do so?

The problem which weighs heaviest upon Southern Italy today is lack of regular work, further complicated by the rapid multiplication of its inhabitants, the earthquakes in Calabria, the eruption of Vesuvius, the oil fly (destructive of olives throughout the south), the suspension of the Sicilian fruit trade with Russia because of its political disturbances, and the political and financial corruption of Southern Italy, due to the ignorance of the masses resulting from governmental neglect and the indifference of the wealthy descendants of its feudal lords.

South Americans have studied the European emigration problem on the ground and, consequently, have taken great pains to foster Italian Immigration of the best type. They have paid for it liberally, assisting financially and contracting their selected immigrants. All of Europe has done the same. Nowhere is there an anti-contract-labor-immigration law that I know of, save in North America.

As a consequence of the above, the pick of Italian emigrants go where encouraged, and you get the Neapolitans, Calabrians, Sicilians, and other Southerners who are not likely to receive offers of assistance in emigrating yet are desirous of bettering their lot.

Two of the significant economic forces in Italy, which you ignore, are the agricultural women and children above twelve. While 603,552 men emigrated from Italy in 1905, only 122,779 women and 76,371 children under fifteen accompanied them, of which few came to America.

This was because as yet, your customs do not furnish adequate convenience for the accommodation of foreign women and children of that class, and, as the Italian's family affections are intensely strong, even the most ignorant man will not expose his relatives to the physical discomforts and unhygienic perils which he is prepared to meet personally in obtaining their betterment.

Italy is a safe and economic refuge for his dear ones until he can provide a comfortable home for them here. Should he die in the attempt, their relatives or neighbors (and, lacking both, the town council with the tax money) would save them from starvation and see that they were clothed and educated at least as well as he had been.

Many of the temporary immigrants of whom American agitators complain only return for a short sojourn to visit their parents in Italy or to bring over their families, for Italians are of a jealous, protective disposition and will deprive themselves of the barest necessities to save the wherewithal to fetch their women-folk and children.

A further American fallacy disproved by Italian statistics is that the majority of our emigrants are simple laborers, agriculturists, shepherds, foresters, artisans, and artists form the actual majority.

Of Italy's total population of thirty-three million, over three million women pursue agriculture, and many more are occupied in the factories. In the north, there is average work to employ women for 287 days, in which they earn from 15 to 40 cents wages a day (in American money), while their livelihood, with their abstemious habits and neatness of person, requires 6 to 8 cents a day expenditure.

The laws protect them morally and hygienically. They have appropriately ventilated houses and sufficient floor space. The factories that employ girls are obliged to furnish dormitories and meals at cost for those from a distance, a resting place for all between working hours, and subsidies in some instances of temporary disability to work.

In the extreme south of the mainland, Calabria, which geographically reaches from the "toe" to the · heel" of Italy, the average working days of the year are 122, the average salary of a woman is from 8 to 15 cents, while her health is entirely disregarded.

Owing to the earthquakes, her expenses amount to 6 or 7 cents a day, so she can't assist any member of her family or even provide for her necessities.

We hope to remedy this condition by using industrial and agricultural schools and the household or cottage industries for the introduction and development of the work I am doing.

Train the Southern Italians to become better emigrants to the United States and ameliorate their intellectual and financial condition, not so much by increasing wages as by augmenting their skills and the number of working days.

The booklet we have compiled upon this Calabrian problem can be obtained from the doorkeeper gratis or by sending 24 cents to the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants at 17 Pearl Street, New York.

So, I will not detain you by speaking longer on this subject, nor will I propose the education system for the preparation of emigrants, which Mr. Brooks desires me to treat at another session.

Before closing, however, I will tell you, as he suggested, what are the results of a sojourn in America on the poor Italian who returns to Italy? The influence is, on the whole, beneficent and progressive.

Regular work and a desire to learn new trades and industries, which are better paid and less exhausting, help him gain confidence in his ability.

The keen competition, which quickly lands the ignorant and indifferent in the hospital and workhouse, obliges him in self-defense to seek to understand and follow the laws and local customs.

Those who have the opportunity to learn the language for which they have the facility and come in contact with intelligent citizens acquire frankness, open-handedness, and public-spiritedness unless they are already in the hands of labor or political bosses.

In 1905, out of 649,960 Italian male emigrants over fifteen years of age, the laborers and hod-carriers, etc., numbered 195,361, or 30.06. percent of the entire emigration to all countries.

The agriculturists numbered 232,108, equal to 35.7I percent.; the masons, stonecutters, brick-makers, etc., 11.53 percent; the artisans, tradespeople, musicians, artists, teachers, and other professionals, 22.70 percent.

In America, they are generally free from the trammels of family and political feuds, excepting in the crowded foreign quarters of your cities or in such places as Paterson, where the ignorant are easily victimized and converted to pernicious doctrines, owing to the traditions of Austrian and Bourbon rule, under which spies were all-powerful, and honest men when accused, were punished without appeal.

On the whole, when you give them the vote, they try conscientiously to learn Iwzt' to 110#8 in the best interests of their class. It would be wrong for foreigners to believe, despite its prominence, that "Tammany" is the actual type of political life in America. I would like you to judge likely Italian voters as you would have us judge your politics.

Your night schools are most beneficent, and it would be well could you use special primers for the immigrants, so that, while teaching them the reading and writing and language which they desire, they might also acquire the knowledge of your laws and customs and of the punishment which the breaking of them entails.

Your enlightened influence produces a distinct expansion of knowledge and views of life. Naturally, your customs induce better care of the person as rapidly as finances allow. You are mistaken if you imagine that Italian laborers in Italy always look as untidy as Americans.

Though he works in the field, on account of the climate, in the lightest and oldest of garments, and the farmer there dresses no better than his hired man, on Sundays and holidays, self-respect and the vanity of appearing well among his peers cause him to clean up and dress neatly in the style of his community; while here on first arriving, as he knows no one, his whole object is to economize.

The home he has left in Southern Italy is often an unglazed hovel in which the only comfort may be the free circulation of air. At the same time, you would be quite willing to sleep in the average Italian laborer's house in Northern Italy.

Mr. Brooks wanted me to describe the "Americano" further, namely, your immigrant who has returned to Calabria or Sicily to stay there and tell me what he does for the community.

He often teaches it to drink and drink deeply. This is due to your pernicious business transaction system and hiring laborers in a barroom. In contrast, we have public markets and marketplaces in Italy, where they can freely meet each other and wait for employment.

He may encourage gambling, as this is generally the only way he found for killing time in the congested lodging houses of your northern towns during the winter months of enforced idleness, where his self-respect and the virtues to which it leads may have been destroyed.

A preventive measure against the above would be the opening of agricultural schools, with industrial teaching in winter, which would equip the masses with accessory crafts so that the immigrant might occupy himself remuneratively during these months or when a strike obliges his craft to idleness.

Then, too, though limited, the remuneration for small industries would pay his living expenses, and the summer's earnings could all serve the betterment of his family.

The Italian has an active brain and requires continuous occupation and development, as does the child, and his integrity gains or diminishes according to the character of his employer.

The Italian woman emigrating alone loses more than the man. "The cigar factory welcomes her, for this is a craft she has learned at home, or the sweatshop claims her, for the Italian woman is generally "schooled to hand sewing and useful for "finishing."

You know the moral influence of the kind of small shop or factory in the foreign quarter that would employ an immigrant without references. Italian men do not respect the women who work with them in the same room, and everywhere in Europe where Italian women work, the sexes are kept separate, and special accommodation is provided for the girls.

Here, all are "hands," hence the great scarcity of Italian women in the United States. However, none return to Italy: marriage or death quickly claims them. Thus, you assimilate them all.

The successful "Americano" is a distinct gain to Italy unless morally or politically corrupted. In addition to his savings, he brings the knowledge of how to invest them.

To his familiarity with the customs and products of his country has been added a knowledge of men, of his own ability, and of a certain amount of up-to-date commerce. In following this, he modernizes his community. He is easily elected town counselor, and his power is great for good or ill.

Lastly, Mr. Brooks wishes me to tell you how the government and patriotic Italians consider emigration to the United States. They seek to abide by the Italian law of 1901 on this subject and apply it through the Bureau of Emigration, the members of which are named by Parliament.

They consider that your law against contract labor is the stumbling block in getting our best people. Where those who need imported labor can send their representatives to negotiate with our authorities, we can both protect the foreign employer, assist him in selecting his workers, and protect our Italians against oppression on the part of the employer.

Reliable firms or contractors can come into our country and select the class of labor and quality of men or women they desire, always provided they can prove that it is for legitimate, healthy work, adequately remunerated, and with proper accommodation for the employed.

In some instances, they are required to give a bond before they can enroll the workers, and the bond is only returned when the employees have all declared themselves satisfied. The Bureau of Emigration publishes reports and suggestions whenever necessary.

These occupy an allotted portion of the daily papers, just as the public amusements have their particular place, and announce the conditions of the labor market, where labor is to be found, where specific industries or labor, in general, is over-supplied, what dangers are involved, etc., to inform not only the proper authorities who are detailed to look after the emigrants, but the would-be emigrants themselves, as to what opportunities, difficulties, or dangers, lie before them.

Wherever conditions are adverse to the laborers, either hygienically or politically, the government forbids and suppresses, if possible, emigration to that region.

For instance, despite the Brazilian government's offer to pay for the journey of Italian emigrants to Santos, the Italian government would not allow the steamboat companies to take third-class passengers to that country.

Finally, I desire to impress upon you the fact that the many millions of money brought into Italy through the activity of emigrants are but in part from the United States and that, even should North America close her doors to the illiterate, laboring Italians, they could find a vast field for their energies elsewhere.

Therefore, the immense inpouring of Italians cannot be due to the necessity for Italy to send them here, but is the result of the local propaganda in Italy of your own transportation companies which have established the current of emigration, and give every facility and inducement to the clannish Italians to follow and rejoin their relatives who have already settled here.

As to the money sent back, statistics have proved that the greater part of it is spent on the transportation of recent emigrants and goes directly into the pockets of the stockholders of the transportation companies, who are nearly all Americans or Anglo-Saxons. The fulcrum of emigration is cheap transportation, and there, you must seek the defects and initiate the remedies through your steamship companies.

Isaac Franklin Russell, Editor, John Graham Brooks, “The Human Side of Immigration.” In the Journal of Social Science, Containing the Proceedings of the American Association, Number XLIV, September 1906, Published for the American Social Science Association, Boston, Damrell & Upham, 1906.

Italian Emigration to America

A Vital Chapter in Immigration History

For teachers, students, genealogists, family historians, and immigration researchers, this article is a must-read exploration of Italian immigration to the United States, offering rich insights into the economic, social, and cultural factors that shaped the experience of Italian immigrants. It provides an in-depth analysis of why Italians left their homeland, their struggles and successes in America, and how they influenced both countries.

Why This Article is Essential for Understanding Immigration History:

• The Driving Forces Behind Italian Emigration – This article examines the economic hardships, overpopulation, political instability, and natural disasters that pushed Italians to seek a better life in America.
• How Italian Immigrants Shaped America – From building railroads and infrastructure to establishing thriving Italian communities, their contributions were instrumental in the development of the nation.
• The Impact of Immigration on Italy – Returning immigrants brought back American wealth, ideas, and innovations, transforming Italian villages, improving local economies, and fostering a cultural exchange between the two nations.
• Challenges and Discrimination Faced by Italian Immigrants – Italians endured prejudice, harsh labor conditions, and economic exploitation, yet they persevered, integrating into American society while maintaining their rich heritage.
• The Role of Steamship Companies and Recruitment Networks – Cheap transportation and aggressive emigration propaganda fueled the mass movement of Italians, making it a profitable business for transatlantic steamship companies.
• Debates on Immigration Policy and Labor Laws – This article provides historical perspectives on immigration restriction debates, including concerns over literacy tests, contract labor laws, and economic impact.

Who Should Read This Article?

• Teachers & Students – A valuable resource for lessons on U.S. immigration history, labor movements, and ethnic communities.
• Genealogists & Family Historians – Offers historical context for tracing Italian ancestors and understanding their migration journey.
• Historians & Policy Researchers – A critical examination of immigration policies, social integration, and labor exploitation.

This article brings to life the resilience, struggles, and achievements of Italian immigrants, offering powerful insights into the broader story of American immigration. Discover how these determined individuals helped shape the United States and left an enduring legacy on both sides of the Atlantic.