EDITED TXDEE THE DIRECTION OF 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
 SONS OF ITALY
 
 CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING 
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 MONUMENTS TO GREAT ITALIANS IN NEW YORK CITY 
 
 Mazzini Garibaldi 
 
 Columbus 
 Verrazzano Verdi
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 A SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS STUDY 
 
 OF THE ITALIANS IN 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 BY 
 
 ANTONIO MANGANO 
 
 DIRECTOR, ITALIAN DEPARTMENT, 
 COLGATE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
 191 7
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT 
 OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA
 
 SRLF 
 YRL 
 
 oc. 
 
 TO MY WIFE
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 I. ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA . i 
 
 II. ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY . . . .39 
 
 III. RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS .... 69 
 
 IV. THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN ... 97 
 V. ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN . . . .131 
 
 VI. LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE (PROTESTANT 
 
 CHURCHES) 161 
 
 VII. THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE 
 
 AMERICA OF TO-MORROW . . .195 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 223 
 
 INDEX . *..... 229 
 
 [vii]
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Monuments to Great Italians in New York City Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 At the Gate of the Continent 4 
 
 East Side Sights 2O 
 
 Map-Chart: Distribution of Italians in America by 
 
 States 28 
 
 An Italian Mining Town, Boomer, West Virginia . 36 
 
 Chart: Italian Immigration into the United States, 
 
 1856-1916 37 
 
 Native Types of Italy 52 
 
 Map-Chart: Emigration from Italy to the United 
 
 States by Provinces 55 
 
 A Contrast and a Problem: Out of Rural Italy into 
 
 Urban America 60 
 
 Three Typical Hill Towns of Central and Southern 
 
 Italy 84 
 
 The Americanization of the Home .... IOO 
 
 Map-Chart: Distribution of Italians in Greater New 
 
 York 104
 
 x ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Two Streets in Providence, Rhode Island. . .116 
 
 Davenport Settlement, New Haven, Connecticut . 140 
 
 The Social and Religious Center, Ensley, Alabama . 148 
 
 The Gospel of the Open Air 164 
 
 First Italian Baptist Church, Brooklyn . . .172 
 
 Elm Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Toronto . 180 
 
 Grace Chapel, New York (Protestant Episcopal) . 188 
 
 Chart: Foreign-born Population of the United States 
 
 from Ten Leading Countries of Origin . . 203 
 
 Admirable Types of Church Architecture for Italians 212 
 Map: Italia Irredenta 216
 
 BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is high time that we were getting better acquainted 
 with these new and omnipresent neighbors of ours, cheerful 
 and industrious sons of Italy. I scarcely know of a city, 
 town, or industrial community in the East or Middle West 
 that does not have an Italian colony. Here in New York 
 we have "Little Italys" harboring from 10,000 to 100,000 
 souls. I know of two city blocks alone where 8,000 Italians 
 make their home. But the East has no mortgage on these 
 new neighbors. When in San Francisco recently, I found 
 myself very much at home in the heart of a prospering com- 
 munity of 20,000 Italians. Here they are, come to stay, new 
 Americans, sharers with us in the new democracy. We have 
 been waiting long for just such a book as this to help us 
 better to understand the Italian, his background, his outlook 
 in the new world, and his religious needs and aspirations, 
 for a better understanding and a genuine sort of sympathy 
 is the beginning of this business of living together helpfully 
 and in the spirit of cooperation. 
 
 We are fortunate in having Mr. Mangano as our inter- 
 preter. He speaks from the standpoint of one born in Italy 
 and who has himself traveled hopefully the way of the 
 immigrant. Mr. Mangano's plea is for intimate, friendly, 
 first-hand contact with the Italian, especially in the early 
 stages of his progress in this country. He knows what this 
 means. It was the kindly interest of the pastor and people 
 of a Baptist church in a Long Island community that stirred 
 the heart of this Italian lad to the privileges and opportuni- 
 
 [xi]
 
 xii BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 
 
 ties of the Christian life. After four years at Colgate 
 Academy and a year at Colgate University, he completed 
 his college work at Brown University and was graduated in 
 the class of 1899 with honors. Then he went back to Italy 
 for a year to revive his boyhood memories and to study the 
 language. Upon his return to America he completed his 
 theological studies at Union Seminary, New York, from 
 which he was graduated in 1903, at the same time receiving 
 the degree of master of arts from Columbia University. 
 He made a second trip to Italy, and a third return for the 
 special purpose of studying Italian emigration. The results 
 of his studies were presented in a series of five articles in 
 the Survey (1908). After a pastorate of three years at the 
 First Italian Baptist Church of Brooklyn, Mr. Mangano 
 was made Professor-in-charge of the Italian Department of 
 Colgate Theological Seminary, located in Brooklyn, in which 
 position he continues. The incidents in the lives of Italians 
 mentioned in the following pages are all true, having come 
 under Mr. Mangano's direct observation during his many 
 years of work among his countrymen. And all of this I 
 have set down by way of introduction, that the reader may 
 better appreciate the vantage point which Mr. Mangano 
 enjoys. He is himself a true son of Italy, a loyal American 
 citizen, a devoted and resourceful servant of the Christ and 
 his church. 
 
 WILLIAM P. SHRIVER. 
 
 New York, 
 
 June i, 1917.
 
 I 
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA
 
 Alien assimilation depends largely upon American attitude. 
 
 Nothing is so perilous in a democracy as ignorance and in- 
 difference. 
 
 We build a Chinese wall of exclusiveness around ourselves, 
 our churches, and our communities, and then blame the foreigner 
 for not forcing his way within. 
 
 Howard B. Grose, Aliens or Americans? 
 
 THE ITALIAN BOOTBLACK 
 
 What right divine gives me the kingly place 
 O'er him, my youthful subject bending low? 
 Strive as I may, not mine his thoughts to know, 
 Only to watch with what unconscious grace 
 (Each flashing gesture telltale of his race) 
 His eager hands fly swiftly to and fro. 
 Soft-syllabled his alien accents flow; 
 He lifts his eyes; at last I see his face. 
 
 No menial soul bows in that gaze to me; 
 Out of such depths the pallid Florentine 
 Saw down to hell, looked up to paradise; 
 Lorenzo's orbs are his that darkly shine; 
 A nation's history is in these eyes, 
 Thy pathos and thy promise, Italy! 
 The late George H. Bottome, 
 
 Vicar of Grace Chapel, in A Ficar's Poems. 
 
 The alien in our midst is too elusive a subject for satisfactory 
 study. He changes too rapidly. But yesterday he was a solid 
 citizen in his particular village of Sicily or Roumania, of a 
 piece with his ancestral background, surrounded by friends, 
 apparently rooted in his native soil. To-day he is adrift in a 
 foreign world, mute, helpless, and tragically ridiculous a soul 
 in purgatory, a human creature cut from its moorings, the most 
 pitiable sight to be met on the earth. To-morrow? Who knows? 
 M. E. Ravage, in Harper's Monthly, March, 1917.
 
 I 
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Tommaso was nine years old when he landed at Ellis 
 Island, and very cold and inaccessible the big city seemed. 
 Domenick, who had been his traveling companion, had 
 strangely disappeared, so he had no one to speak for him 
 and he looked in timid bewilderment at the officials who 
 questioned him. Where were father and mother? He had 
 expected to see them as soon as the ship landed, and now 
 the old woman told him the inspector said no one had 
 called for a little boy ; he would have to stay all night, per- 
 haps many nights, and then go back all the way to Italy. 
 The little fellow threw himself on the floor in a torrent 
 of tears. If only he could find Domenick. True, the 
 man had been very unkind to him on the voyage, yet he 
 had promised to take him to his father; why didn't he 
 come and keep his word? What would this new country 
 be like? Tommaso lived over all the momentous events of 
 the past month. First the latter from babbo (papa) in 
 America, saying that he had found work in a tailor shop 
 and mama and he had a home again and wanted their little 
 boy with them. Nonna (grandma) was to send him back, 
 with Domenick, babbo's friend. 
 
 Domenick made many trips to Italy, because he was an 
 agent of a big shipping line that made it easy for people 
 to come to America. And so Tommaso had come in a 
 big ship, where the babies and little children cried most 
 of the night in their discomfort, and he had found it hard
 
 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 to endure the horrible odors. Domenick had begun to 
 hit him and swear at him as soon as the ship left Naples, 
 had allowed him to go dirty and ragged, and had given 
 him so little to eat that he felt weak and ill; for when the 
 ship's man came by with the big bucket of food, Domenick 
 had struggled with the others to get his tin cup filled, and 
 had frequently overlooked the needs of his little fellow- 
 traveler. 
 
 Meanwhile, over in Mulberry Street, an Italian tailor 
 and his wife were waiting impatiently from day to day for 
 news of the ship's arrival. "La Cittd di Genova is in," said 
 the father one night. "It must be that they didn't get to 
 Naples in time to come over on her. They will certainly 
 come next week." The next evening as he came wearily 
 up Grand Street after his day's work, he came face to face 
 with Domenick. "Where is my boy?" he cried, seizing the 
 lapel of Domenick's coat, as the latter seemed about to slip 
 away. "Oh!" replied the Neapolitan lightly. "I forgot 
 all about him when we landed. Guess he is still on the 
 ship. Here are his papers if you want them." Tommaso's 
 father snatched them eagerly, and rushed home. 
 
 THE ARRIVAL 
 
 By eight o'clock the next morning the anxious parents 
 were on the ferry, and a few moments later they were stand- 
 ing in front of a big desk hurriedly answering the customary 
 questions of: "What is your name? Your occupation? 
 Where do you live? For whom have you come? What re- 
 lation are you to the new arrival?" "I am afraid it is hope- 
 less," said the official; "the passport seems all right, but we 
 have no record of any child by that name who has landed 
 here this week." "How about that little fellow we found 
 on the ship and can learn nothing about?" whispered an- 
 other inspector. "Why, yes, they may look at him," and 
 he not ungraciously unlocked the gate and let Maria and
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 5 
 
 Michele in. "Come this way; there, is that your son?" 
 Inside a pen or cage formed by heavy wire partitions lay 
 a ragged little boy asleep. His grimy face was oddly 
 streaked where last night's tears had washed their way. 
 "Oh, no," said Maria scornfully, "my son is not ragged 
 and dirty like that!" and she turned away. "What is his 
 name?" asked Michele. "We don't know; you speak 
 Italian find out for us," and he gently poked the boy, 
 who opened and rubbed his eyes in sleepy surprise at his 
 visitors. "Come ti chiama?" ("What is your name?") 
 questioned Michele. "Tommaso, Tommaso Santucci," re- 
 plied the child. "What!" cried Michele, "I can hardly 
 believe it. Maria, Maria," called the father excitedly, 
 "it is our son!" After the happy greetings were over, 
 and Tommaso was on the ferry with his parents, Michele 
 looked about for something to wash his son's dirty face. 
 
 Having arrived at the Battery Park landing, the three 
 walked along Broadway in search of a shop where Tommaso 
 could be provided with a new suit of clothes. The lad 
 trudged on way ahead of his parents looking curiously 
 at all he saw. The elevated trains interested him most. 
 "From Italy, aren't they, babbo?" he cried. "They are like 
 the train I took to Naples, They come from Italy, don't 
 they?" 
 
 "Ecco (Look)," said Michele to his wife as they passed 
 a small group of men hurrying along, with numerous valises 
 and odd-shaped bundles, led by a burly, bundle-free in- 
 dividual, "there goes that fellow Fraccone with some new 
 men, I suppose. Grazia a Dio (Thank the Lord) ! I have 
 a trade, or I'd have been sent out to work on a railroad, 
 when I landed." "Is that hard work?" asked his wife. 
 "Hard, did you say? those poor cafoni (peasants) are going 
 into slavery and they don't know it. Their padrone Frac- 
 cone will take $10.00 from each man for getting him a 
 job. There is a notice in his window that the Erie Rail- 
 road wants seventy-five men. Those men would know
 
 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 better than to listen to Fraccone, if they could speak English. 
 But here is the bottega (store)." "Vleni qua (Come here), 
 Tommaso," he shouted at the little figure ahead, the tones 
 all in the upper register, with a peculiar, drawn-out, sing- 
 song intonation of the last syllable. "Tommaso-o-o-o-o, 
 vieni qua!" 
 
 Arrayed in his cheap new suit, Tommaso felt quite Ameri- 
 can already, and he strutted proudly along with his parents 
 to Mulberry Street, well known by name and reputation in 
 Italy, as Piccadilly and the Strand are known to America. 
 
 STREET EDUCATION 
 
 During the day Italian women came in to see Maria's son 
 and hear how he was found, and in the evening Michele 
 took him for a walk through the dirty, littered streets to 
 the Bowery. The boy was amazed to find the people all 
 Italians, speaking the same dialect as his father, who pointed 
 out the houses and shops belonging to Italians who had 
 become rich in America. Even on the Bowery there were 
 Italians tending numerous apple- and peanut-stands. This 
 broad, bustling street with its dazzling lights made a last- 
 ing impression on the child brought up in a hill town of 
 Italy. "This," he said softly to himself, "must be the center 
 of the great city, Nuova Yorka. I like it. I shall find 
 many to play with. I shall like this America." Months 
 flew by. Tommaso had become acquainted with every boy on 
 the block and had been duly initiated into all their chief 
 pastimes. He learned that he had to shoot craps on the 
 sly or the cop would break up the fun. That official had 
 to be avoided too, if the boys played ball in the street, 
 or got up a good fight. Moving pictures were a great 
 attraction, and he went every day to see what new pictures 
 there were on the bill-boards. Sometimes if he hung around 
 the entrance long enough, the manager would let him in, 
 after the lights were down. Cold chills crept up and
 
 down his back as he witnessed thrilling scenes of what - 
 he thought was really American life. The life of a high- 
 wayman would just suit him. In the evenings the light 
 and music of the big cafes attracted him, and with Giuseppe 
 and Angelo he would lie flat on his stomach, peering under 
 the gate-like doors of the saloon, watching the -men drink 
 and smoke at the bar, or gambling with cards at the little 
 tables, and he quickly learned the vulgar songs they sang. 
 His father never sent him into the saloon for beer, but he 
 had sidled in once or twice with Giuseppe, who had to 
 go every night for a pailful, and the bartender kindly turned 
 his head while they drained one or two glasses standing" 
 on the gaming table. 
 
 This exciting and care-free existence was rudely inter- 
 rupted one night when he opened the door to his home 
 rather timidly, for it was later than usual. His father seized 
 him fiercely by the shoulder and in loud, excited tones began 
 to berate him. "You run away, you ingrate! Do you 
 think I brought you to America to grow up a vagabond? 
 You will disgrace me. Here your mother sits sewing coats 
 all day and is likely to grow, blind and I am driven to death 
 by that Jew- in the shop, just to keep you in school, so that 
 some day you may be a gentleman. The officer do you 
 hear it? the policeman who never came to my door before, 
 came to-day to arrest your mother for not sending you to 
 school. Where have you been ?" Very reluctantly Tommaso 
 told of his engrossing life on the streets, but he was quite 
 unprepared for the scorn heaped upon him. The next 
 day Tommaso went soberly and dutifully back to school, 
 but was lured off by Angelo to their customary pursuits 
 in the afternoon. Maria and Michele talked long that 
 night. "Come, figlio mio (my son)," said his father quietly 
 the next morning. "If you w r ill not go to school, you 
 must go to work. I will not let you grow up a loafer on 
 the street." 
 
 Silently Tommaso reached for his cap and started off with
 
 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 his father. On the street they saw a group of Sicilians 
 hurrying along with a loud clatter of heavy shoes on the 
 pavement and a louder clatter of tongues, their pick-axes 
 and shovels showing they were bound for the new subway 
 excavations under Broadway, that wonderful underground 
 street for electric cars that Salvatore had told him about. 
 At length they reached a tall brick building, and 
 Tommaso climbed four flights of narrow stairs behind his 
 father and followed cautiously past the machines whose 
 big wheels had commenced to whirl. In an instant the 
 room was rilled with a clicking, humming, throbbing noise, 
 from which there was not an instant's relief. Giorgio 
 Savelli, a boss who had risen from the ranks, looked at 
 Tommaso with a half-smiling, half-appraising look in his 
 black eyes. After a talk with the father, he turned to the 
 boy. "Why don't you like to go to school?" he asked 
 abruptly. Tommaso hung his head. "Oh, come now, tell 
 me. I was a boy, like you, not so long ago. Are you lazy?" 
 Tom flushed. 
 
 THE Boss' STORY 
 
 "Your father has asked me to tell you about my life, so 
 you'll see how necessary it is to go to school. If you don't 
 know how to read and write English, you can't get along 
 well in America. A I came over here with my mother to 
 meet my father, who worked somewhere out in Ohio, they 
 said. We went to the home of a paesano (fellow country- 
 man) in Jersey City, and they tried to find my father, but 
 he had moved and they couldn't get track of him. My 
 poor mother had to go to work on cigars to pay for her 
 board and mine. The whole family worked on the tobacco 
 except the three men boarders who sometimes slept in the 
 room while we worked. There were five children counting 
 me. The eight-year-old boy sold papers after school, but we 
 all, even the girls who were six and four, had to stay home 
 often to help roll the cigars. Even I helped though I
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 9 
 
 was five years old, and the baby crawled about on the floor 
 in all that dirt. Poor little fellow, our mother never got 
 a minute to take him out in the fresh air until he died. 
 Well, my mother came from the Abruzzi and had worked 
 outdoors all her life, so she didn't last long. She caught 
 tuberculosis, they call it, bad disease it is, comes from 
 always staying indoors, with too many people breathing the 
 same air over and over. Our paesana woman felt she had 
 enough on her hands with her own children to look after, 
 so I was put in a protectorate (Catholic home for children). 
 I didn't like it there very well, and tried to run away, but 
 they caught me, and how those sisters beat me, gagged me, 
 so that no one on the street would hear me holler. They're 
 called sisters of charity that means love but I never saw 
 one bit of love from them the six years I was there. We 
 didn't learn so very much but prayers and catechism, and 
 we had to confess every day. The sisters made us write 
 down our sins on our slates, and a bunch of us who were 
 pals would get together and make up a lot of stuff and then 
 copy from each other's slates to have it all alike. 
 
 When I was twelve years old they sent me to a ranchman 
 down in Texas. Well, I stayed there three years, but they 
 didn't have any more love than the sisters did, and I had to 
 work pretty hard, cooking for the cowboys, washing their 
 shirts and cleaning their boots and feeding what stock was 
 kept under shelter. One day I learned there were lots of 
 Italians at a place twenty miles away, called Bryan, and, as 
 the cotton picking season was coming on, I could probably 
 get work. A week later, I skipped off, following the Brazos 
 River, until I reached a settlement of about 350 Sicilian 
 families. The first of them came there thirty years ago to 
 work on the railroad, and, finding that the Americans didn't 
 want the cheap land along the river because it was flooded 
 every spring, they were persuaded to buy it. As soon as 
 they made a little money, they sent for their families and 
 more of their townsfolk, until now there are over 3,000 of
 
 to SONS OF ITALY 
 
 them. Half of them own from thirty to one hundred acres 
 each. They raise corn and cotton. Their property extends 
 along the river for eighteen square miles. They have 
 drained it and have made it quite a nice little town, with 
 fifteen stores and one church. There isn't any school, so 
 they send the children mule-back or in donkey-carts ten miles 
 to school. They do work mighty hard. The women and 
 children help too. Now, if anybody wants to buy land 
 there, it is worth $250 an acre. 
 
 "Ecco" ejaculated Michele, "but what did you do?" 
 "I was taken on to pick cotton, but as soon as the season 
 was over, there was nothing for me there, so I had to move 
 on. I began to think now, I'd like to get back to New 
 York. Of course I didn't have money enough to pay for a 
 ticket, for it's a long journey, and you have to count out for 
 food, too, on the way. So I decided to walk back and try 
 to earn my daily living on the way. 
 
 "To make a long story short, I did tramp all the way 
 back, stopping in towns and cities where I found Italians. 
 Pretty nearly every city has some Italians, you know, and 
 as they all live in one part together, it was always easy 
 to find them. One day in Cincinnati I saw a notice, 'Sixty 
 men wanted for work on the railroad.' I went in and 
 talked to the banker, who was also the padrone. He told 
 me he 'made the men' for lots of jobs on the streets, big 
 buildings, and railroads, and if I wanted work I would 
 have to come to him, because the Americans wouldn't hire 
 any Italian except through him. I didn't want to sign 
 up for four months' work. I was in a hurry to get back 
 to New York, but my money was nearly gone. So I 
 finally put my name down. The padrone wanted $6.00 
 bossatura (the fee for the boss), but as I had only $3.00 
 left, he took that and agreed to have the railroad com- 
 pany give him the other three out of my first pay envelope. 
 Most of the other fellows had to go in debt to the boss 
 too for our railway fare, for our food on the journey,
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA *i 
 
 for our tools, and for our board in his house until the 
 railroad company had a train ready for us. We stayed 
 five days before we were sent out, and then, although, 
 as we afterwards found out, we paid first-class fares, we 
 were put in a worn-out smoking car in which we traveled 
 eleven hours to some place" near Lake Erie. Do you want 
 to know what our camp looked like?" 
 
 LIFE IN THE SECTION GANG 
 
 "There were nine dilapidated box cars, six for the half 
 hundred men, one for the hand-cars, one for the tools, and 
 the last for the padrone and time-keeper. I was allowed 
 to live with them. Ours was the only car with windows. 
 On both sides of the cars on the ground were rusty tin 
 boxes, propped up by stones. These were stoves. Heaps 
 of rubbish covered the ground, and there was an awful 
 stench. After the first day I often went among the men 
 and talked with them in the evenings. You must remember 
 there were no windows in the cars. The 'dogs' did not 
 need fresh air. As I entered one car for the first time, 
 the odor choked me. I saw eight beds of boards placed 
 across two boxes. On these lay bags of straw, and for a 
 covering the men used old tan coats or horse blankets. The 
 blankets were covered with vermin. Dirt of two years 
 covered the mattresses. Roaches and bedbugs livened the 
 walls, the beds, and their surroundings. The tables were 
 covered with oil-cloth or newspapers as dirty as the floor. 
 Under the tables were a few large dishes with the garbage 
 of many a meal. I opened the cupboard. There was a 
 can of tomato paste covered with a film of vermin and 
 green mold, a loaf of soggy bread, a few rusty forks and 
 spoons, and three or four tin dishes. In all the other cars 
 it was the same. All doors were closed at night, no windows, 
 no air. . . . When it rained, the men's clothing was 
 drenched. No one undressed before going to bed. The
 
 13 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 cars had never been repaired. They were too old to be 
 used for carrying freight and were good for nothing but 
 human beings. 
 
 "The men had to get up at three to dress and cook their 
 coffee. I looked out of the door of my car and saw men 
 scurrying here and there, rushing for water, washing, dress- 
 ing, eating. Many of them were already waiting for the 
 call of the padrone. Sharply at five o'clock the boss leaped 
 from his car and began swearing and cursing at the men. 
 The poor laborers trembled and hurried. In a moment five 
 hand cars were on the rails. After riding six miles, we 
 arrived at our destination. Amidst cursing and swearing, 
 t the men took the cars off the track and began to tear up the 
 old rails. In a few seconds the sweat was rolling in streams. 
 The rails were heavy and the men worked with might and 
 main all the forenoon. There w r as no let-up, no mercy. 
 From shortly after five until twelve, about seven hours, 
 the men labored without rest. 'The beasts,' said the padrone, 
 'must not be given a rest, otherwise they will step over me.' 
 As the men silently appealed to him for mercy, I was filled 
 with pity, and often during the day, tempted to beg the 
 padrone to let them rest. But how could I approach a 
 raging maniac? He was what the railroads wanted. . . . 
 After seven hours of the hardest labor the younger men 
 had sausages and bread; the older men were satisfied with 
 bread alone. Yet, with coffee in the morning and bread 
 at noon, these men worked for ten hours every day under 
 the blistering sun or in pouring rain. . . . Stopping work 
 at four, the men returned to their ramshackle cars to cook, 
 eat and sleep. In such an existence there is no religion. . . . 
 A week after, the order came from headquarters to move 
 Saturday evening about five o'clock. Just as the men were 
 preparing their suppers, the engine arrived and the men 
 had to seize their cooking utensils lying over the tin-box 
 stoves and retire to the cars, without supper. Of course 
 the company need not see that the men had time to eat.
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 13 
 
 They were hired to work. None of us slept that night. How 
 could we lose consciousness with the rickety cars bumping 
 and the brakes squeaking.? Next morning, Sunday, the sleep- 
 lees men arose at three, drank the cups of coffee, and de- 
 parted at half past four to their work. Such things hap- 
 pened every week, yet most of the men only trudged along 
 and never murmured. They told me of their troubles, of 
 their hatred of the padrone, of their sorrows over their 
 lot. But they had a mother or wife or children back in 
 Italy, and these 'anarchists' were willing to remain in this 
 sort of hell for the sake of sending money back to their 
 families." * 
 
 "The poor fellows don't get all they earn either. For 
 instance, we were working for $10 a week. The money was 
 all sent to the boss, who first took out of it whatever the 
 men owed him for food. If a man tries to save more, by 
 buying little food, the padrone charges him a certain sum 
 just the same. I kept a list of the boss' prices and the 
 store prices at one city in Ohio, and always the boss' were 
 200 or 300 per cent, higher. Sometimes the men would 
 buy what they had to of the boss, throw it away, and go into 
 the city to buy. 
 
 "If one of the men wished a letter written to his family 
 in Italy, it cost him twenty-five cents, the stamp ten cents, 
 and the envelope five cents. So the men didn't send many 
 letters." 
 
 "Why did they stand it? Why didn't they complain?" 
 asked Tommaso. "Well, kid, to whom? They don't 
 know any English. If they complain to the padrone, he 
 will discharge them. He can get plenty more, and those 
 fellows far from home or friends don't know where to look 
 for other work. Sometimes, I have heard, they suddenly 
 rise and kill a particularly brutal padrone. Say, sonny, do 
 you think you'd like to join a section gang as water boy? 
 
 '"The Wop in the Track Gang," by Domenick Ciolli, in The 
 Immigrants in America Review, July, 1916.
 
 i 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 That's what your father tells me he means to do with 
 you, if you won't go to school every day." This, with a 
 sly wink at Michele, who now spoke, "Si (Yes), Tommaso, 
 I will not let you grow up a loafer on the streets, like 
 Ernesto Socci's boys. Now, which will you choose?" "To go 
 to school," replied the boy, slowly. "But please tell me, did 
 you find your father?" "Yes, after three weeks' work on 
 that railroad, when the first pay day came, I ran off. You 
 see I could speak English and had tramped before, so I 
 wasn't afraid to light out for myself. When I finally got 
 back to New York and hunted up my aunt's family, I found 
 my father there. He had come back to New York and 
 gone straight to the Abruzzesi quarter on Morris Avenue, 
 where, through our paesani, it was not difficult to find 
 his relatives. You see, the Abruzzesi live on one street, 
 the Genovesi on another, the Napolitani on Mulberry, the 
 Calabresi somewhere else. We Italians like to live with 
 people from our own province, who speak our own dialect, 
 and will help us, if we get into trouble." 
 
 "I am going to be a teacher," said Tommaso, after 
 listening intently to the factory boss' story. "I think the 
 greatest need of Italians is education and I would like to 
 help to give it to them." 
 
 FILOMENA'S ACCIDENT 
 
 That evening when Tommaso, assisted by his father, was 
 telling Giorgio's story to his mother, loud screams caused 
 them to rush out of doors to see what was the matter. 
 An ambulance stood in front of the house next door and 
 the white-coated doctor was helping pretty Filomena Manelli 
 into her home. The girl's head was swathed in a big white 
 bandage and she limped and groaned aloud at each step. 
 The Santucci family and twenty more of their neighbors all 
 followed them into the house, and between cries and moans 
 and sympathetic ejaculations, the story came out. Filomena's
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 15 
 
 beautiful hair had been caught in an unguarded wheel in 
 the factory where she worked and before the machine could 
 be stopped her head had been terribly cut. "But," spoke 
 up one of the men who had been longest in America and 
 had recently become a naturalized citizen, "Hyman Brothers 
 are violating the law to have no guards on the wheels. I 
 will go with you to the police station and see if they will 
 arrest Hyman." Accompanied by this man and two other 
 friends, Filomena's father went to the station house and 
 poured out his tale of woe. "I will send a detective in the 
 morning when the factory opens," said the sergeant. "If 
 conditions are as you say and caused your daughter's injury, 
 the man can be prosecuted and compelled to pay her a liberal 
 compensation." 
 
 Early the next morning two plain-clothes men went to 
 the factory with Filomena's father, but Hyman had not 
 been caught napping. All night long machinists had been 
 at work and each dangerous wheel now wore the guard 
 prescribed by law. The baffled detectives questioned two or 
 three of the girls, but they were stolid and uncommunica- 
 tive beyond saying that the guards had always been there, 
 and with furtive, uneasy glances at their employer, they 
 moved hastily away from the detectives. 
 
 "No use," said one of the detectives to Filomena's be- 
 wildered father; "your daughter must have been careless. 
 Every wheel is properly guarded." "I don't understand," 
 feebly replied the Italian. That night the riddle was ex- 
 plained, when Filomena's "lady friend" came in to see how 
 she was getting along. "Hyman had them guards put on 
 during the night," said she, "and he scared the girls, said 
 he'd fire 'em if they told on him, and," with a shrug, "you 
 know how hard it is to get work what can the girls do?" 
 "Yes, yes, now I understand," said Filomena's father; "the 
 teacher at the night school tells us we must obey the law, 
 that if we have any trouble, go to the policemen, they are 
 our friends. The good friends they are when they don't
 
 16 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 punish that man. Here I am with eight mouths to feed 
 and $2.00 to pay to the doctor every day for my girl. And 
 the law doesn't make that Hyman pay anything." "Pazienza 
 (patience)," said the mother; "come now, mangia, mangia, 
 (eat)," as she put a smoking dish of beans and macaroni on 
 the table. 
 
 And of such exciting incidents Tommaso's daily life was 
 made up. Sundays or saints' days he liked the best of all. 
 Then there was always festa, or holiday-making. Father 
 never went to church, but mother always took him to mass 
 first and then he had the rest of the day for play. Perhaps 
 his father would take him and mother to the moving pictures 
 in the afternoon, or to the park to hear the band play, or 
 to a hall where a ball was in progress and there was sure 
 to be violin music and somebody to sing. If it was a saint's 
 day there would be a parade in honor of the saint, headed 
 by a fine band. Tommaso well remembered the excitement 
 over the last feast at which his father was a deputy or 
 committeeman in charge of planning the festival. The 
 deputies had collected $900, of which they proposed to spend 
 $500 for fireworks, $350 for flags, bunting, strings of 
 colored lights, and other street decorations, and $50 was 
 offered the priest to say a special mass. The priest was very 
 angry and shouted at the men that unless they gave him 
 $100 he would not say the mass and he would forbid them 
 to hold the festival. Tommaso's father and the other men 
 were equally indignant. They thought that $50 was enough 
 for a mass; they refused to pay him the $100, and decided 
 to hold the festival without the priest. They placed the 
 statue of the saint in a vacant lot (one year when it rained 
 they had placed the shrine in the back room of a saloon), 
 and the festival was held with undiminished gaiety, and 
 since that time Tommaso's father had refused to go to 
 church or have anything to do with the priest, although he 
 always took Tom out to see the festivals. 
 
 Best of all Tommaso loved singing. When he grew up
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 17 
 
 he meant to go to the big opera house he had heard some 
 of the men talk about, and hear all of Verdi's operas, and 
 not just the parts the bands played, or the music hall men 
 sang. He could whistle several airs from "Rigoletto" and 
 <( I1 Trovatore," and Salvatore could whistle whole operas, 
 changing his voice to imitate the different instruments in the 
 orchestra, now the 'cello, now the violins or the piccolos. 
 Every night his father played on the accordion and sang old 
 songs of Italy ; and he had promised that, if Tommaso.stayed 
 faithfully in school, next year he would buy him a violin 
 and "make him take lessons of Maestro Altobelli." His 
 love of song brought Tommaso to the priest's attention, and 
 he was soon invited to become an altar boy and assist in the 
 ceremony of the mass. This Tommaso gladly did ; his father 
 scoffed a little, but his devout mother was overjoyed, for 
 deep in her heart was the desire that her son should become 
 a priest, for if one had a priest in the family did he not 
 save all the family from their sins? 
 
 TOMMASO AND THE EVANGELISTAS 
 
 Two or three days after school closed, Tom and his 
 companions were racing madly around the corner to escape 
 from a policeman who had surprised a fine imitation of 
 a prize-fight which they were holding, when they saw 
 on a vacant lot a large white tent. "Movin* pictures," 
 vouchsafed a boy who stood by the tent. "Dey has fine 
 pictures every night. Don't cost nuttin' to go in." Tom- 
 maso and his companions resolved to be on hand at 7.45, 
 as the big placard said, but by night the tent was forgot- 
 ten. Next day was Sunday and Tommaso and his friends 
 were surprised to hear what the tent really meant. Padre 
 Morello told his flock that a dangerous sect of heretics had 
 put up that tent, and had moving pictures to entice the 
 people to their ruin. None of the faithful should dare to 
 go near them or they would be eternally lost. They were
 
 i8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 very bad indeed. They worshiped the head of a dead 
 horse, and they had so little sense they allowed a donkey to 
 stand up and preach to them every night. "Gee, some wild 
 west show!" whispered Salvatore to Tommaso. "Let's go 
 to-night." "Sure," replied Tom. In spite of the fact that 
 Tom's mother and the other women were greatly frightened 
 and cautioned their children to keep away from the heretic 
 tent. Tom and his friends were curious to see for them- 
 selves, and seven o'clock found them on the street-corner 
 opposite the tent watching to see what happened. Two 
 men cordially invited Tommaso and his friends to enter the 
 tent. "Come on," whispered Tom to the others. "Who's 
 afraid, I ain't," and in they went. The tent was well 
 rilled with Italians. In front was a platform with a 
 piano, and a young lady was singing. The pictures were of 
 Italy, that beautiful country that each boy had heard his 
 parents talk of so enthusiastically. Then there was a picture 
 of Gesu blessing little children and the minister told the 
 people how much Jesus loved children and wished to be 
 their friend. No dead horse's head nor donkey were visible. 
 The boys liked it and determined to go next day to the 
 summer school, which the man said was held in the same 
 tent. Long before nine o'clock the next day they were hang- 
 ing around the tent, awaiting an invitation to enter. The 
 summer school proved so interesting, with its songs, gym- 
 nastics, and wood-carving, to say nothing of the fine stories 
 the teacher told every day, that Tom went regularly and, 
 after the tent closed, was easily persuaded to attend the 
 Evangelista Sunday-school and church .service. One visit 
 was enough for Tommaso. He liked the teachers. They 
 shook hands and spoke so brightly and kindly to every one; 
 and he liked the stories he heard there too. They were try- 
 ing to show a boy how to live wisely and well. He had 
 never thought much about it before. He had just done 
 whatever he had felt like doing. These people wanted to 
 help a boy make good and loaned him books that told about
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 19 
 
 other poor boys who made a success in life. He felt a strange 
 impulse and longing to be something better than he had 
 ever known. So next Sunday, one altar boy's place was 
 vacant. Tommaso never went back to his mother's church, 
 but became a regular attendant at the Evangelista mission. 
 It did not take long for his mother to discover this fact, and 
 loud were her lamentations and reproofs. Tommaso's father, 
 who professed to hold all religion in contempt, would have 
 been indifferent, but for the fact that he did not like to be 
 "made ashamed" before his neighbors by having a Protestant' 
 son. His wife's grief also annoyed him. So he commanded 
 Tommaso to cease his attendance at the mission. Tommaso 
 tried to tell his father some of the strange stirrings and 
 yearnings of his heart that had been awakened by what he 
 had heard at the tent, and of how he felt he must go where 
 those fine men and women were, and try to learn to be like 
 them. But he could not put his feeling into words very 
 well, and his plea fell on deaf ears. "If you go again, I will 
 hit you," said his father. The next Sunday came. Tom- 
 maso would not go to his old church with his mother. He 
 felt an extreme disgust for it all. It meant absolutely 
 nothing to him now. He wandered disconsolately along the 
 street. "Come on, Tom," called some of his new friends at 
 the mission. "Can't," replied Tom sullenly; "me father'll 
 hit me." "Well, you can stand that, can't you?" "Yes, 
 I can," suddenly replied Tommaso. Anyway it was worth 
 it even to be hit, to go in as usual, join in the singing and 
 then listen to the teaching of the Bible story which he had 
 learned to love and which had awakened a manly response 
 in his nature. His father kept his word and hit him, but 
 Tommaso continued to attend the Sunday-school and re- 
 ceived a beating ever}' time for several months. Then it 
 suddenly dawned on the father that his son was a different 
 boy. He took a deeper interest in his school and seldom if 
 ever played truant. He was more obedient and respectful 
 to his parents and had quit cigarets. Neither was he out
 
 20 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 racing the streets every night, but more often sat at home 
 absorbed in some book the Evangelista teacher had given 
 him. 
 
 One day Tommaso pushed away the glass of beer his 
 father had poured out for him and refused to drink it, say- 
 ing: "Father, I heard at the mission a man tell how bad 
 alcohol is for the stomach and brain. You know how crazy 
 and bad it makes some men, so that they beat their wives. 
 If a man drinks much he spends money that his family needs 
 for food and clothes." This put his father in a towering 
 rage. "Do you presume to teach me? Get out," and he 
 launched a vicious blow at his son, who slid quickly out of 
 the door. But as the days passed, Tommaso steadily refused 
 to touch beer again. His father tried a more subtle argu- 
 ment. Placing a half-dollar by Tommaso's glass, he said: 
 "That is yours if you drink the beer." The money was a 
 great temptation. Visions of peanuts, ice-cream cones, water- 
 melon, moving pictures, and even trolley rides floated before 
 his mind, but he steadily refused, clinging to his resolve never 
 to touch it again and run the risk of being as degraded as 
 the men he constantly saw on the street or in front of the 
 cafes. 
 
 TOMMASO CLIMBS 
 
 Years flew by. Tommaso's parents even his mother 
 became more tolerant of their son's religion. The pastor 
 and missionary who visited their home quite won their 
 hearts by their cordial manner of shaking hands and greet- 
 ing and talking with them as equals. They spoke so kindly 
 and with so much interest of Tommaso that finally the 
 mother, braving the scorn and abuse of their neighbors, 
 went to an entertainment at the church, and eventually 
 became a member. 
 
 And so Tommaso went through high school, running an 
 elevator after school hours in the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, and doing his share in the evangelical work of
 
 Copyright, Brown & Daws. 
 
 EAST SIDE SIGHTS 
 
 "Little Mothers" 
 The Vanishing Organ-grinder
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 21 
 
 his beloved church by teaching English to a group of fifteen 
 Italians who had recently landed. He studied and worked 
 his way through the City College, taking his bachelor of 
 arts degree, together wi^h his master's degree, the year fol- 
 lowing. After a year's probation teaching in an elementary 
 school, he now stands on the approved list to teach in the 
 city high schools. He is engaged to a pretty young Italian 
 girl, also a member of the same evangelical church, a young 
 woman of ability and much sweetness and strength of char- 
 acter. She has taught a class of younger girls in the Sunday- 
 school and now is the secretary of the school. Theresa is a 
 designer in a dressmaking establishment, and her good taste 
 and skill enable her to earn $14 a week. She makes all of 
 her own and her little sister's clothes and such of her 
 mother's as she can persuade the good woman to wear. 
 What a triumph it was when she succeeded in persuading 
 her to wear a hat instead of a scarf over her head, and to 
 put away her old shawl and wear an American coat. Her 
 father is a florist and earns $25 a week. The family of 
 eight occupy five well-kept rooms furnished in American 
 fashion. Theresa and her little sister both play the piano 
 and one of her brothers has recently commenced playing the 
 violin in a small orchestra. 
 
 OCCUPATIONS OP ITALIANS IN AMERICA 
 
 Seventy-five per cent, of the Italians who come here are 
 men who in their own country live a^healthful outdoor life, 
 tilling the ground or caring for vineyards or orchards. Less 
 than twenty per cent, find such employment here. America 
 has used the others in her mighty industrial development, in 
 shoe factories, glue and paint works, silk mills, machine 
 shops, glass works, in her coal and iron mines, stone quarries, 
 and refineries, in digging her subways, constructing her rail- 
 roads and waterways. In the trades shoemakers and tailors 
 lead. The shoemaking and repairing business is wholly in
 
 22 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Italian hands in New Haven, Connecticut, and it is esti- 
 mated that their 450 shops use $5,000 worth of leather a 
 week. In some cities, notably Philadelphia, Italians form 
 nearly all the street-cleaning force. In Chicago and Kansas 
 City they work in stockyards. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, 
 they are in the cotton and woolen mills; in Paterson, New 
 Jersey, in the silk mills, and in San Francisco the Italians 
 naturally entered the fruit and wine business. "In Cali- 
 fornia, wherever Italians go, they plant a tree or a vine. 
 Even on Telegraph Hill they have their vegetable gardens 
 on the steep, terraced slopes. Chocolate manufacturing has 
 been carried on successfully since 1852 by an Italian con- 
 cern. In macaroni manufacture they have but one com- 
 petitor in California. The marble business belongs to them ; 
 they are leaders in the fishing industry. Their chamber of 
 commerce is organized to do business between California 
 and their mother country." 1 Twenty years ago when many 
 of them arrived and could find no other work they saw an 
 opportunity to collect and sell the waste in our big cities. 
 To-day the rag-men's is a recognized business and a number 
 have made comfortable fortunes from it. There are also a 
 larger number of Italian bricklayers and carpenters in the 
 country than it is commonly supposed. All the mechanics 
 and men who have trades must work indoors. 
 
 In professional life Italians associate so much with Ameri- 
 cans that it is difficult accurately to classify and enumerate 
 them. In New York City alone there are several hundred 
 practising law, a profession greatly liked by Italians. There 
 are over 250 physicians and many bankers and business men 
 of large wealth. 
 
 Wages 
 
 The unskilled Italian laborer has to accept a very low 
 wage, $10 or even $7.00 a week. Small tailors average 
 from $14 to $18 a week; barbers, $i2-$i8; factory hands, 
 
 1 The Immigrants in America Review.
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 23 
 
 $iO$i8; musicians, $2O-$25; gardeners, $i8-$2O. By far 
 the great majority of Italian families in the cities are living 
 on incomes ranging from $10 to $16 a week, and if work is 
 steady and there is no ' illness, the family will invariably 
 save a little something every month. It is the $8.00 to $12 
 a week man who is the day laborer, with irregular w T ork, 
 sometimes being laid off for weeks or even months at a 
 time, with resulting misery and want for his family. He 
 tends to become a tax on public or private charity either for 
 himself or some member of his ill-nourished family, especially 
 in time of illness. 
 
 Although each Italian colony contains a number of pros- 
 perous individuals, the largest number must be classed as 
 poor, dependent upon steady work for daily sustenance, and 
 a suspension of work or an economic crisis throws them into 
 want, and in need of outside assistance. Dr. Antonio Stella, 
 who has made a careful study of Italian life in America, 
 with particular reference to the occupational and economic 
 causes of the spread of tuberculosis among Italians, has said : 
 "The vaunted remittances of money to their relatives in 
 Italy, instead of being proof of an abundance of wealth, 
 almost invariably represents the most humiliating depriva- 
 tion of the bare necessities of life; the money they send 
 being the result of sorrow and drudgery and every dollar 
 remitted representing a lack of food and lodging sustained 
 by them, with a proportionate decline of the system and 
 deterioration of an entire people." 
 
 Housing 
 
 Next to the important question of occupation is the vital 
 problem of shelter. Italian families are usually large, from 
 five to nine and even eighteen children. With many mouths 
 to feed and little money to do it, the family seeks the lowest 
 priced quarters regardless of sanitary conditions, light, air, 
 or general comfort. All are familiar with the overcrowded 
 condition of the tenements in New York City. Similar
 
 24 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 conditions obtain in all the largest cities of the United States. 
 Italians have to live in the poorest quarters, in the most 
 unhealthful surroundings, not because they like to, but be- 
 cause they are too poor to go elsewhere. These wretched 
 tenements take about 30 per cent, of their incomes for rent, 
 and they must needs take in boarders or sublet to pay ex- 
 penses. This is always a sign, however, that the family is 
 in desperate financial straits, for the head of an Italian 
 family tries, if possible, to have his home for his family 
 alone. A great many families that have lived in this country 
 twenty years or more own their o\vn homes. 
 
 Doctor Stella gives some interesting data gathered by him- 
 self and a committee on congestion of population for the 
 Italian government, which he represents. Eighteen per cent, 
 of the families examined occupied one room, and less than 
 three out of every hundred families had as many as five 
 rooms. Forty-one per cent, had one lodger, sixteen per cent, 
 three lodgers, three per cent, four lodgers. The great ma- 
 jority of Italians were paying twenty-five and even fifty per 
 cent, of their incomes for rent. In most cases the number 
 of cubic feet of air for occupants of sleeping rooms was less 
 than that provided in prisons. Cleanliness and decency are 
 difficult under such conditions, especially since there may be 
 only one water faucet on the floor, or one toilet convenience 
 for an entire house and that frequently out of doors. Again 
 from Dr. Stella: "When people live huddled together at 
 the rate of five and six in a room, it is impossible not to 
 come in touch with the utensils, linen, and bedding of per- 
 sons infected with disease, and in this \vay harmless children 
 and honest women contract the virus of venereal diseases 
 without their knowledge and with no wrongdoing of their 
 own. I shall not tell you of the hundreds of silent tragedies 
 enacted in poor, honest Italian families where the presence 
 of boarders or chance lodgers brought the poison to the 
 home, nor of the children who have lost their eyesight in
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 25 
 
 one night from having rested awhile on the cot of a tran- 
 sient boarder." 
 
 Rear tenements are also a great evil, cutting off from 
 either house whatever light or air might otherwise pene- 
 trate, and many contain dark rooms in which light must 
 burn in the day-time if any work is done. These rooms are 
 unbearably hot in the summer so that the occupants sleep on 
 fire-escapes and the children play on the streets until a late 
 hour. Sometimes the people, panting for air, pass an entire 
 night on the fire-escape or the door-steps. In winter the 
 odor of foul air, cooking, and garbage combines to make 
 that permeating tenement smell which clings even to the 
 garments of the tenement dwellers. Rooms back of the 
 small shops and stores are also deadly. The occupants, be- 
 ing on the ground floor and afraid of burglars, nail down 
 the windows, and the only air comes in during the day 
 through the store door. 
 
 Many Italians cultivate small but fruitful gardens in 
 their back-yards, and their wives have a few flowers in old 
 tomato cans or wooden boxes on the window ledges or fire- 
 escapes. One Italian I know had a fig-tree of which he 
 was very fond. He used to dig a deep trench below the 
 frost line and bury it every autumn, digging it up in the 
 early spring and carefully planting it. It rewarded his care 
 every year with a handful of the ripe figs he so dearly loved. 
 In his little city back-yard he also had two large, well- 
 trained grape-vines, and he raised a quantity of vegetables 
 all summer long, lettuce, beans, and tomatoes predominating. 
 
 Italian children, brought up in the healthful environment 
 of the country, are on an average an inch and a half more 
 in height and from one to five pounds more in weight than 
 city children of the same age. The data furnished by the 
 physical examiners of the Italian recruits at the consuls' 
 offices in New York and other large cities, show that the 
 number of rejections for physical disabilities is frequently 
 double and treble that in Italy, and that the vast number
 
 26 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 of Italian men and women who have contracted tuberculosis 
 in America and returned to Italy in search of health has 
 reached such large proportions that the Italian government 
 is considering special measures of quarantine, both on board 
 the ships and at the point of debarkation. Tuberculosis 
 was wholly unknown in southern Italy before immigration 
 to America became popular. "Now one little town in Sicily, 
 Sciacca, whose inhabitants live in New York, all on Eliza- 
 beth Street, between Hester and Broome Streets, has estab- 
 lished a small sanitarium on the outskirts of the town, to 
 receive the returning consumptive emigrants so as to protect 
 the rest of the population. The cause of higher suscepti- 
 bility of Italian women to tuberculosis must be sought in the 
 sudden change from the open air and the free life of the 
 fields, to the seclusion and semiasphyxiation of the tenement 
 houses where even those of the better class remain shut up 
 for weeks and months at a time." x 
 
 Mines 
 
 Comparatively few Italians engage in coal-mining in 
 America. The colonies at Longacre, and Boomer, West 
 Virginia, are typical of conditions among such groups of 
 Italian miners. The Italians are completely isolated, miles 
 away from any American settlement. At Boomer sixty per 
 cent, of the miners are Italians. They live at the head of a 
 ravine which extends from the edge of the Ohio River 
 straight up into the mountain. A double row of low-lying, 
 loosely built shanties fringing both sides of the ravine serve 
 as dwellings for the miners, and are rented from the com- 
 pany at $5.00 a month for three rooms. Wherever pos- 
 sible the Italian miner has made a little garden where 
 he raises the indispensable po?nodoro (tomato), a few 
 flowers, and some beans. This colony numbers 500 Ital- 
 ians, but about a year ago an explosion in the mines killed 
 twenty-three men. No compensation was given their fam- 
 
 *Dr. Antonio Stella.
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 27 
 
 ilies and consequently the wives and children suffer. This 
 has frightened the people so that several families have 
 moved away. Good workmen earn $5.00 a day and work 
 is steady for eight months of the year. A fine, clean-looking 
 Calabrian had this to say: "Yes, we can earn good wages 
 here, if all goes well, but it is living at the end of the world. 
 We miners are like men going to war. If we succeed in 
 saving some money and getting out with our lives, we may 
 say : 'We have lived in the midst of death and have escaped.' " 
 
 All along the valley are dozens of children of school age, 
 but the company only provides one inefficient teacher who 
 holds school very irregularly in one of the shanties. The 
 mines' superintendent, an American who has risen from 
 the ranks himself, takes a kindly interest in his men. He 
 told me these Italians earn as a rule 15 per cent, more 
 money on piece work than other nationalities on account of 
 their higher intelligence and quickness. He said: "One 
 must learn how to get on good terms with them; they re- 
 spond to good treatment. They are all southern Italians, 
 mostly Calabrians, and a few Sicilians." 
 
 Fairmont, W T est Virginia, is the center of thirteen little 
 hamlets having a population of 15,000 Italians. Here the 
 most intelligent Italians have entered the Art Glass Works, 
 and the smaller trades and business concerns, or have be- 
 come merchants. A goodly number own their own homes. 
 The poorer element are less intelligent than the Calabrians 
 of Boomer, and earn from $1.75 to $4.00 a day in the mines. 
 The men with families usually lead a quiet, decent life, but 
 among the single men in the boarding-houses, the moral 
 tone is very low. They spend much of their leisure in 
 gambling and drinking. Their superintendent reports that 
 when drunk they are very hard to control, that one hun- 
 dred more mules are killed in a "wet" than in a "dry" 
 year; and there are also one hundred per cent, more crimes 
 per thousand people \vhen the town goes for license. Few 
 of the men know any English and very few have become
 
 28 
 
 SONS OF ITALY
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 29 
 
 citizens or take any interest in politics. They are greatly 
 influenced by Industrial Workers of the World agitators. 
 The company provides a physician and collects a dollar a 
 month for his salary and fifty cents a month for medicine 
 from each man. 
 
 In the mining fields west of the Mississippi, the Italian 
 miners are from northern Italy and Montenegro. South 
 McAlester, Oklahoma, contains several hundred Pied- 
 montese who work in the coal mines. Some of the earlier 
 arrivals invested in land and have become very wealthy. 
 Signor Fassoni, who owns a macaroni factory, has $6o,OOO 
 invested in land there. 
 
 Italians are also found in the mining towns of Texas and 
 Colorado, the workmen being mainly north Italians, Pied- 
 montese, Venetians, and Modenese. They live in small 
 wooden houses owned by the company, and must purchase 
 supplies to the amount of $3.50 a week per man from the 
 company store. Many times owing to the poor quality of 
 the food furnished, Italians throw it away and buy their 
 supplies from their own countrymen who keep provision 
 stores. 
 
 Quarries 
 
 There are about 3,500 Italians, mostly northerners, living 
 in and around Barre, Vermont. Two thousand are mem- 
 bers of family groups; 1,000 are single men who board in 
 groups of five to ten with no home life. About 500 are 
 migratory, short-job men, who are coming and going con- 
 stantly. The men are employed in quarrying and finishing 
 granite, and wages range from $2.50 to $6.00 and even $10 
 a day for the skilled stone-carvers, who with mallet and 
 chisel cut out of the solid rock a figure in accordance with 
 the sculptor's model. One such sculptor was chiseling the 
 figures of soldiers on the pedestal of a $7,000 monument, 
 when I visited the stone-sheds. The work is both danger- 
 ous and heavy and the life of a granite-cutter is often short.
 
 30 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 The fine stone dust which fills the air in the sheds causes 
 frequent cases of tuberculosis. Then, too, pieces of flying 
 stone often strike the head or inflict painful wounds in the 
 eye, even causing loss of sight. 
 
 These Italians are ardent socialists and extreme anar- 
 chists, and long ago drove the Italian priest out of town. 
 The American people are afraid of them and have aban- 
 doned one section of the town to them. The Italians feel 
 their hostile attitude and resent it keenly. Several of the 
 Barre Italians are men of considerable education; they 
 write and speak French, German, and Italian, have studied 
 in the universities and technical schools to acquire their 
 skill in design and execution, and have much more learning 
 than the average citizen of Barre. They could be made 
 very helpful members of the community, if the Americans 
 and Italians could only learn to understand one another. 
 In fact it is the Italians who made the first move to help 
 themselves. They subscribed money enough to employ a 
 teacher of drawing and designing for their children, and 
 later the Barre School Board engaged this teacher regu- 
 larly for night school work. 
 
 Living is abnormally high in Barre, accidents frequent, 
 and yet, especially among the young single men, there are 
 many with plenty of money to spend. As one young man 
 expressed it: "We live in a boarding-house, where we have 
 to drink beer. It is served at every meal, and they would 
 put us out if we didn't drink it. I have no place to go in 
 the evening; I can't stay shut up in my room. So I walk 
 the streets or go to moving pictures or the pool-room." The 
 Socialists have built a big hall where there are dances and 
 meetings, but the serious-minded Italians, and there are 
 many, would like a place where they could go, read the 
 papers, study English, and indulge in gymnastics for recrea- 
 tion. In less than six weeks' time two years ago, it was 
 possible to gather a group of twenty-two fine young men, 
 all away from home ties and influences, into a club for the
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 31 
 
 study of English, through which the marked abilities of the 
 group were developed. 
 
 Agricultural Colonies 
 
 Although Italians are scattered all over the United States 
 and Canada and the largest number are to be found in the 
 cities indicated, still there are thousands more in rural dis- 
 tricts. The largest colonies are in Barre, Vermont, engaged 
 in stone-cutting; around Canastota, New York, doing truck 
 farming; in the sandy scrub-pine region of southern New 
 Jersey; in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas, raising sugar- 
 cane and cotton, and in the valleys of California engaged in 
 market gardening and vine culture. 
 
 The Mississippi Valley Immigration Company was formed 
 five years ago to find a labor supply for public works in the 
 Southern states. Several states that knew little of Italians 
 save newspaper accounts of Black Hand crimes did not want 
 them. Other states urged that pressure be exerted on trans- 
 atlantic companies to compel them to land immigrants at 
 New Orleans as a center of distribution for farm laborers 
 greatly needed in the South. Vice-Consul Villari about nine 
 years ago made a study of economic and social conditions of 
 Italians in the United States and reported to his home 
 government unfavorably regarding certain Southern states, 
 stating that, after Italian colonies had been induced to go 
 there, they were compelled to live in most unhygienic sec- 
 tions and work under conditions amounting almost to peon- 
 age and with no educational facilities. The Italian govern- 
 ment published his report, and few Italians are now going 
 to these states. The Waldensians, who founded the colony 
 at Valdese, North Carolina, bought the land before they 
 sailed and came over with high hopes of finding it the fertile 
 paradise represented to them. Their disappointment at the 
 barren clay tract was keen, but they had used all resources 
 in making the trip. They set to work energetically to make 
 the best of the situation, and to-day a comfortably housed,
 
 32 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 prosperous colony is the result, though the land is too poor 
 ever to make it a wealthy one. 
 
 Italian life in small villages and rural communities is 
 naturally more healthful and wholesome in that the people 
 have plenty of air and sunshine and privacy for separate 
 family life. "Americans, generally unfamiliar with the 
 underlying causes of the congestion of Italians in large 
 cities, believe them to be unfit for farm life." 1 The state 
 immigration officials of many states do not wish to receive 
 Italians, and all over the country American residents regard 
 Italians as dirty, undersized foreigners and shun them if 
 they enter the community. In spite of these prejudices the 
 Italians have made good in agricultural pursuits. The town 
 of Hammonton, New Jersey, is a good example of what the 
 southern Italian can do to advance himself in the midst of 
 an American farming community. "It is more than forty 
 years since Italians first came to Hammonton, and sufficient 
 time has elapsed for a second generation to grow up, and to 
 demonstrate what kind of an American citizen can be made 
 out of an Italian born and reared in this country, and asso- 
 ciated with Americans in school and business." x 
 
 The first Italians came to pick berries which grew on the 
 sandy soil, but the dry, wholesome air and the opportunity 
 to buy land cheaply induced them to stay. Quantities of 
 berries and vegetables are still raised, especially sweet pota- 
 toes, the latter crop yielding as many as forty-five bushels 
 to the acre. 
 
 The Italians are mainly Neapolitans and came singly or 
 in groups of father and son. Gradually, as these succeeded, 
 they sent for wives and families or other relatives. They 
 usually saved enough in a few years to buy thirty or forty 
 acres. This ground they carefully cleared of scrub-pine and 
 underbrush and planted berry vines, grapes, or garden vege- 
 tables. One Italian cleared $15,000 from his fruit crop last 
 year. All over the town land has doubled in value, since 
 
 1 United States Bulletin of Labor, No. 70, May, 1907, pp. 473-533.
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 33 
 
 the Italians have improved and cultivated it. Many own 
 comfortable homes of their own and are eager to have them 
 furnished and kept in American style. Lace curtains, rugs, 
 good furniture, pianos, "and phonographs are found in well- 
 to-do homes, approached by little fenced-off lawns set with 
 flowers and bordered with trees, in imitation of American 
 gardens. 
 
 The attitude of their American neighbors has changed 
 through the years, owing to the kindly, courteous nature of 
 the Italians themselves. They are warm-hearted, and if a 
 neighbor is ill, invariably they bring gifts of fruit or chicken 
 and flowers. If an American has been kind to an Italian, 
 his gratitude knows no bounds. He will remember his 
 American friend with early vegetables, baskets of fruits or 
 grapes, artistically arranged with leaves. 
 
 "The Italians of Hammonton show themselves to be a 
 social people with simple, natural tastes; their love of home 
 and children is healthful. They are ignorant, primitive and 
 childlike, but their faults will be largely mended by educa- 
 tion and good American treatment. Their courtesy, gentle- 
 ness and love of outdoor life and simple pleasures are de- 
 sirable qualities and they take a normal part in the life of 
 the community." There have been many intermarriages 
 between the Italians of the second generations and their 
 American neighbors with whom they attended school. The 
 death rate is low and the children, although ignorantly fed 
 whatever their parents eat, because of their natural vigor, 
 combined with an active outdoor life, grow up as strong and 
 sturdy as their parents. 
 
 HOME LIFE 
 
 The Italian husband is verily head and lord of his own 
 house. Not only his children but his wife are expected to 
 obey him. Frequently he is from six to ten years older than 
 his wife. If an Italian woman is invited to take her baby
 
 34 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 and go for a day's outing, she invariably replies, "I'll ask 
 my husband." Italians are very jealous of their young wives 
 and frequently forbid them to leave the house during their 
 absence. This is not the case, however, with young Italian 
 women born and reared in America, who would never endure 
 such restraint. The family shares everything together. The 
 father and mother give their children whatever they have 
 to eat and take them always with them to weddings, family 
 feasts, or any entertainment. Musical entertainments, the 
 theater, and the opera are favorite diversions among Italians, 
 who fill the top galleries, and when a performer has done 
 anything worthy of approval, the most hearty applause and 
 cries of "Bis, bis! (Encore)" come from the Italian gallery. 
 Since theater prices are high the Italians have instituted 
 marionette shows, similar to those in Italy, which furnish 
 great delight to young and old. 
 
 Some men are cruel and beat their wives or tie their chil- 
 dren to the bed-posts for punishment, but the majority are 
 good husbands and good providers for their families, helping 
 their wives care for sick children. If the wife is ill, the 
 average Italian would stay home from work to cook a chicken 
 for her, and, unlike some others of the earlier immigration, 
 will even help his invalid wife with her washing. They give 
 their wives most of their incomes, and this is frugally spent 
 and a little something regularly saved. Even the poorest 
 families will sacrifice to give a talented child music lessons. 
 
 Family ties are exceedingly strong. An Italian unques- 
 tioningly regards it as the natural thing to loan money or 
 otherwise assist a relative in trouble, and any injury to one 
 of "his blood" he resents as if done to himself. Children 
 are dearly loved and too greatly indulged, though often 
 harshly punished in sudden anger. Sons are allowed un- 
 limited freedom, but girls are carefully guarded and never 
 allowed out alone after dark or in company with a young 
 man. Always a brother or sister must accompany, some- 
 times the mother.
 
 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 35 
 
 Marriage Customs Among Italians 
 
 A wedding is an occasion of great importance, and is 
 managed by the parents. The oldest daughter is usually 
 married first. The young man's father and mother arrange 
 matters with the girl's parents, but in this, as in everything 
 else, the American spirit of freedom is making itself felt. 
 A girl is not always satisfied with the man her father may 
 choose. It is considered a great misfortune if a girl is not 
 married before she is twenty-three. The wife is expected 
 to have a dowry and it is not an unusual thing for the 
 parents of a young man to bargain for the dowry before any 
 agreement is reached between the prospective bride and 
 groom. But in this also American influence is felt. One 
 young woman, when asked what sum her father would settle 
 upon her, replied, "If you wish me, you can take me with- 
 out any settlement, but if you want the dowry, you can just 
 go and find some other girl." Italian girls begin prepara- 
 tions for their bridal chests when they are eight and nine 
 years old. They crochet yards and yards of lace with which 
 to trim sheets and pillow-cases. From time to time as she 
 has a little extra money, the mother buys sheeting, spreads, 
 and material for underwear. By the time a girl is twenty, 
 she usually has a w 7 ell-filled chest. 
 
 EARLY ITALIAN IMMIGRATION 
 
 Italians have been coming to America ever since their 
 countryman Columbus led the way, but for years only a 
 few adventurous spirits came at a time. No records of 
 their arrivals were kept until 1825. Their occupation may 
 be illustrated by the following curious little anecdote told 
 in connection with a recent loan of some family relics of 
 George Washington. In this collection are some quaintly 
 carved shell buttons used by Washington. Our first Presi- 
 dent, so the story goes, was walking on the streets of Phila- 
 delphia when he was accosted by an Italian pedler who
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
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 ITALIAN COLONIES IN AMERICA 37 
 
 besought him to buy either his mosaics or his shells. "But," 
 said Washington, "what could I do with them?" The 
 quick-witted Italian indicated that he might use them upon 
 his waistcoat, whereupon Washington laughed, good- 
 naturedly purchased the shells, and took them to his tailor, 
 who fashioned them into buttons and sewed them upon the 
 Presidential coat. 
 
 Fifty years ago, when Italy was in the midst of her heroic 
 struggles for national independence and unity, many patriotic 
 Italians of noble family were obliged to flee for safety, and 
 some found refuge in America. Many were warmly wel- 
 comed in Boston's exclusive social circles. The great Gari- 
 baldi himself lived in seclusion on Staten Island for two 
 years. It was at this time that Cesare Botta, also a refugee 
 in America, wrote his excellent history of the American 
 Revolution. 
 
 Immigration from southern Italy commenced in 1871, but 
 until 1877 less than a thousand a year arrived, and most of 
 these became itinerant pedlers or strolling musicians. Your 
 mothers and grandmothers can tell you of the old-time 
 organ-grinder, his strange dark face, his velveteen jacket and 
 the gaily dressed little monkey that gravely took their pennies 
 and pulled off his scrap of a cap for "Thank you," all of 
 which made an ineffaceable impression of story-book land 
 upon their minds. 
 
 By 1880, the tales of returned immigrants had fired the 
 imagination of those at home, and 5,000 a year sailed for 
 America, w r hile the decade 1906-1916 shows an enormous 
 total of 2,109,974 Italians who have come here during these 
 years, the largest numbers in 1907 and 1914, and the small- 
 est number in 1916, because of the war. Of these two 
 million Italians who have entered the country, 333,231 are 
 northern Italians and all the rest are from southern Italy 
 and Sicily. Italians may now be found in every state of 
 our Union and even in Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippine 
 Islands. The greatest concentration of Italian population is
 
 38 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 in the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
 Massachusetts, Illinois, California, Connecticut, Ohio, 
 Rhode Island and Louisiana. New York City, with all its 
 other race elements, contains approximately 600,000 Ital- 
 ians, making it, after Naples, the largest Italian city in the 
 world.
 
 II 
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY
 
 Twice Italy has led the vanguard of civilization. Will she do 
 it a third time? 
 
 Truly Italy of the Italians is a land pulsating with hope 
 and promise, a land that in a brief fifty years, by its own 
 ability and energy, from a congeries of little states, ill-ruled 
 and exploited by churchmen, Bourbons, Hapsburgs, Napoleonic 
 upstarts, has raised itself, by its own unaided efforts, to the rank 
 of a first-class power. 
 
 Helen Zimmern, Italy of the Italians. 
 
 Some parts of the world are renowned for their beauty. We 
 visit them to satisfy our inherent love for the picturesque. Some, 
 again, are famous as the scenes of great and stirring events 
 which have made history; them we visit to stand enthralled in 
 the presence of the great spirits of old. Still other parts attract 
 us strongly because of the vivid kaleidoscope of their modern 
 life and customs. 
 
 But what shall we say of Italy, at once exquisitely beautiful, 
 glowing with life and contemporaneous interest, and, above all, 
 quick with the memory of her glorious past? One writes of her 
 in despair of giving more than a bald sketch of the character and 
 attributes that endear her to all mankind. Richly lavishly! she 
 returns love for love, and they who most tax her find her the 
 most inexhaustible, ever giving, ever repaying, with boundless 
 interest, the affection of her children of the entire world. 
 
 The compulsion of Italy is based upon the deep, pervasive 
 humanity of soul she shares with no other in degree and with 
 but few in kind. That humanity, with its essential heights and 
 depths of spirituality and grossness, glows in the grandest art 
 the world has ever seen and been inspired by; it pulsates lustily 
 in literature that to this day is the envy and despair of man- 
 kind; it dominates us who still live in the closing era of the 
 Renaissance that only the splendid individualism and genius 
 of the lustrous Florentines could make possible. 
 
 Italy is not of the Italians; she is of the world. We are all 
 her children, and some of the most sublime lessons life has to 
 teach us have been learned of her wisdom and accumulated ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Arthur Stanley Riggs, 
 
 The National Geographic Magazine, October, 1916.
 
 II 
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 
 
 Italy is a country of striking contrasts. There is great 
 refinement and intelligent love of beauty at one extreme and 
 life only a little better than that of animals at the other. 
 There are the highly educated and the grossly ignorant, 
 rampant rationalism and crudest superstition, numberless 
 churches with an army of clerics opposed to the greatest in- 
 difference to religion in Europe, the churches not being 
 nearly as well attended as in France. In north Italy we 
 find some of the most modern agricultural implements, in 
 the south, the most primitive, as the wooden plow and the 
 mattock. Great wealth and luxury live in sight of woful 
 poverty. Italy possesses no less than twenty-one universities, 
 turning out highly educated men, while in the south her 
 primary schools are fifty years behind the times and forty- 
 five per cent, of the peasantry cannot read or write. The 
 finest idealism and devotion to duty are contrasted with 
 indifference and low moral tone. "In no country in Europe," 
 says Professor Villari, "are local differences so marked as in 
 Italy." 1 The provinces are unlike in everything, except the 
 fact that they are different. Let writers on social subjects 
 ponder this fact and they will make no more sweeping asser- 
 tions about Italians in America. 
 
 Dialects are a great factor in maintaining these local 
 differences. Each locality has its own peculiar vernacular, 
 and so marked is the difference between the Piedmontese 
 and the Neapolitans, that even a foreigner cannot fail to 
 
 1 Luigi Villari, Italian Life in Town and Country, page 2.
 
 42 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 notice it, and a Venetian may not well understand a Sicilian. 
 The local dialect is not only used by the peasantry but also 
 in family life by the middle class and the aristocracy. Among 
 the upper class in Tuscany and in Rome, however, "good 
 Italian" is usually spoken. In the rest of Italy, literary 
 Italian is known by all educated people but is not generally 
 used in ordinary, conversation. People love to use their 
 native dialects so much that in order to preserve them, books 
 and newspapers are published in dialect. 
 
 Another reason for these regional differences is the fact 
 that Rome, Venice, Florence, and Naples existed for so many 
 years as independent states, making history, climate, and the 
 geographical isolation of the middle ages responsible for the 
 differences in manners and customs that still persist. 
 
 CLASSES OF SOCIETY 
 Aristocracy 
 
 In Italy, the term aristocrazia is applied not only to people 
 of noble birth, but also to those who move in good society, 
 government officials, wealthy business men, bankers, and the 
 most honored and successful professional men, who fre- 
 quently have titles conferred on them by the king in recog- 
 nition of some valuable service rendered. Not only the 
 eldest child bears the father's title, but all the children have 
 this right; hence titled people in Italy are numerous. In the 
 little rural towns these signori are important and respected 
 personages on account of their historic descent, even if poor, 
 but in the cities they are not so regarded unless they also 
 possess wealth. 
 
 The aristocracy is really divided into two classes, the old 
 feudal aristocracy of birth, whose principal wealth is in ter- 
 ritorial possessions, and the newer citizen aristocracy of the 
 cities. 
 
 Lombardy. The nobles of Lombardy are progressive and 
 by their enthusiastic leadership in the new industrial life of
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 43 
 
 Italy, have become not only the richest nobles of the country, 
 but have made Milan and Genoa seem like bustling Ameri- 
 can cities, rather than places of a great historic past. Those 
 competent to judge predict that Genoa is destined to become 
 the greatest shipbuilding and commercial port on the Medi- 
 terranean. 
 
 Tuscany. The Florentines are fond of country life, and 
 who would not be in that garden spot of Italy, Tuscany? 
 They spend much time on their estates in the country, living 
 a care-free outdoor life. The town house in Florence is the 
 family headquarters and there are kept the family heirlooms 
 and paintings. The Florentines of good family are easy- 
 going and self-satisfied. In contrast to the more hustling 
 northern nobility, who read, travel, and entertain exten- 
 sively, the Tuscans travel little and read little foreign litera- 
 ture. They make, however, the best landlords in Italy and 
 are on excellent terms with the peasantry, since they live 
 among them such a large part of the year. "The Tuscan 
 contadino (peasant) has little of the feeling of hostility . . . 
 which in the north helps to swell the ranks of socialism and 
 finds vent in brigandage or outbursts of savagery in the 
 south." 1 
 
 Central Italy and the South. Few nobles south of Tus- 
 cany have large incomes, though In Rome there are still very 
 many old families, descendants of names famous during the 
 middle ages and Renaissance. Most of these are related to 
 the papacy, past or present. Emperor William of Germany, 
 when entertained in Rome, was amazed at the luxury and 
 splendor of the palazzi and the gold plate that was used. 
 But in general, the nobility of this region must get along 
 on slender means. They seldom visit their estates and leave 
 their management to superintendents who wring as much 
 from the peasants as possible. These absentee landlords are 
 "feudal and unprogressive, stingy and overbearing with the 
 peasants. On their estates they exercise old feudal rights 
 1 Villari, Italian Life in Town and Country, page 27.
 
 44 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 in spite of laws." They are uninterested in their property, 
 except as a source of revenue, and make no improvements. 
 Their sons spend their time in gay life in Rome and Naples, 
 are too proud to work, look forward to a rich marriage, or 
 a further mortgage of their estates to assure the continuance 
 of a life of ease. It seldom occurs to them to enter business. 
 The only other professions young men of good birth care 
 to enter are the army, navy, or government service of the 
 diplomatic corps. "Yet, among these selfish, unprogressive 
 southern nobles are found men of high character and genuine 
 zeal for the public good. The Marquis de Rudini, Signor 
 Giolitti, and Signor Salandra have distinguished themselves 
 in public service." 1 
 
 Professor Villari further says: "The great fault of the 
 Italian upper class is its contempt for work outside of the 
 army or navy, or looking after landed property. The youth, 
 often with fine instincts, would be useful elements if only 
 betfer brought up. They are mostly sent to priestly colleges 
 or have priestly tutors at home. They spend their time at 
 balls, hunting, traveling about Europe, wear London-made 
 clothes, and indulge in sporty tastes, card-games, and horse- 
 racing. The true old-fashioned Italian aristocrats live in 
 cold, cheerless, run-down old palaces in the country, dress 
 shabbily, live frugally, yet have irreproachable manners." 2 
 Fare il signore, "to play the gentleman," has become the 
 ideal of the peasant immigrant who slaves in America will- 
 ingly to save sufficient money to return home and live a life 
 of ease without work. 
 
 MIDDLE CLASSES 
 The Civil Class 
 
 There is no middle class in southern Italy, and that of 
 central and northern Italy is always fixed and stationary, but 
 
 1 Villari, Italian Life in Town and Country, pages 27, 28. 
 
 2 Ibid., page 31.
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 45 
 
 it is the most highly educated and important factor in mod- 
 ern Italy. The middle-class people of the cities monopolize 
 the professions of law, medicine, trade, civil service, and 
 teaching, and often fill Important army, navy, or diplomatic 
 posts. They are in government positions and really form the 
 governing class of the country. Their youth throng the 
 twenty-one universities of Italy. More students choose the 
 law than any other profession. Italian lawyers are usually 
 hard-working, honest men, loyal to their clients, averaging 
 small incomes, unless they get into the Chamber of Dep- 
 uties, when they may charge large fees. 
 
 Professional 
 
 Medicine is the profession of highest respectability. Medi- 
 cal instruction is for the most part inadequate, and if a 
 man becomes expert it is largely because of his own private 
 study and hard work. To the credit of the Italian medical 
 profession, it must be acknowledged that in spite of poor 
 pay, Italian doctors are quite faithful and skilful, and many 
 are famous surgeons. An Italian doctor is usually ready to 
 discuss religion or politics with his patients, two subjects 
 our doctors consider tabooed. 
 
 The lower middle class or artigiani (artisans) is com- 
 posed of small tradesmen, shoemakers, tailors, bakers, car- 
 penters. Such a one never aspires to become a noble. Al- 
 though of better education than a cafone, his tastes are un- 
 educated, and his home is rilled with plush furniture, highly 
 colored and gaudy pictures, or prints and crocheted tidies 
 and spreads. This class furnishes the labor agitators and 
 strike-breakers both here and in Italy. 
 
 Military 
 
 The army as a profession attracts many men of noble 
 birth who are capable of intense devotion to an ideal, men 
 of fine spirit, as it is a life of great self-sacrifice. As a class, 
 the officers of the Italian army are a splendid body of men,
 
 46 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 physically well set up, brilliant, resourceful, and fearless in 
 action, loved by the men they command and whose life they 
 share. An Italian officer knows his men by name and 
 fraternizes with them without loss of dignity. The govern- 
 ment sees to it that the prestige of the army officer is main- 
 tained. He cannot marry unless his bride is of a family of 
 social rank and possessed of a dowry relative to the grade 
 of the officer. 
 
 The government maintains three principal army schools: 
 La Scuola di Modena } for men of previously good educa- 
 tion, covering a three years' course; La Scuola di Torino, 
 attended by men of wealth and position who seek rapid pro- 
 motion to the General Staff; and La Scuola di Pinerolo, 
 where the cavalry leaders are trained. 
 
 The uniforms of the different branches of the Italian 
 army are among the most striking and picturesque in Europe. 
 The Bersaglieri wear a close-fitting jacket and a jaunty 
 round hat with a coque or plume. They always march at a 
 jog-trot and cover more ground in a given time than any 
 other soldiers in Europe, The Alpini wear a single pheasant 
 feather in the hatband. These men can climb up a steep 
 precipice, shooting as they go, and the members of the bicycle 
 corps sling their machines on their shoulders while they 
 climb. It is generally recognized that the Italian cavalry is 
 trained to a high state of efficiency, executing daring feats 
 which seem well-nigh impossible to those who have not 
 seen them. Who that has been in Italy does not recall the 
 vivid appeal to the imagination made by groups of officers 
 encountered on the Corso or Via Nazionalef Their long 
 blue cloaks slung gracefully over their left shoulders, yet 
 with such precision -that the folds of each hang alike, show- 
 ing a touch of the scarlet lining are they not true descen- 
 dants of toga-wearing ancestors? 
 
 The government provides instruction for the common 
 soldiers in the ranks during their period of compulsory mili- 
 tary service. So excellent is the schooling that some Italians
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 47 
 
 in this country send their sons or young relatives back for 
 military service, to obtain the education furnished the 
 soldiers. 
 
 The government also constantly moves bodies of soldiers 
 from one part of the country to another. Thus youths from 
 the Calabrian hills and the Sicilian mountains have an op- 
 portunity to see Rome, Florence, and Venice, while young 
 men from the cities are enabled to see country life in the 
 various provinces. This has the effect of enlarging their 
 horizon, creating a sympathetic understanding of one part of 
 the country by another, and intensifying the growing spirit 
 of national unity. The Italian army is well-trained, well- 
 fed, and well-equipped with the most modern implements of 
 warfare. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CLASSES 
 Clergy 
 
 The clergy and the descendants of the feudal nobility form 
 the two large classes of society living on unearned incomes. 
 Since, under the Bourbon kings, only one or two of a noble 
 family could marry, in order to preserve the family patri- 
 mony, the others must perforce enter convents and mon- 
 asteries. There is still a large group of the clergy who come 
 from noble families, men of culture and fine education, but 
 with little religion. They are in the church simply as an 
 honorable profession, and from their number are usually 
 recruited the higher clergy, who lead the life of princes in 
 fine old palaces, with rich food to eat, magnificent clothes 
 to wear, and a large retinue of servants to wait upon them. 
 To this day, every devout Catholic family expects to have 
 one or two sons trained for the priesthood. These lads enter 
 the collegia at the age of ten or eleven years, before they 
 can know what they wish to become, and, remote from all 
 touch with life, study Latin, the lives of the saints and 
 early fathers, and memorize the liturgy of the church. This 
 is the education of thousands of Italian priests. Although
 
 48 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 there are many profound thinkers and scholarly men among 
 the upper clergy, it is erroneous to suppose that, because a 
 man has spent ten or twelve years in a seminary for priests, 
 he is an educated man. He frequently displays the greatest 
 ignorance of the Bible, to say nothing of history, literature, 
 or modern science. "The style of teaching," says a Catholic 
 writer, "the ordinary conversation, and the means adopted to 
 train the minds of our priests are all charged with the heavy 
 superficiality which is so apparent in Italian clerical life." 
 It is interesting to note here that many of these seminarists 
 who have spent long years in study, with the intention of 
 becoming priests, when they are called upon to render mili- 
 tary service and so come in contact with the life of the world, 
 so different from the life of the cloister, change their minds 
 about clerical life and, instead, take up some other pro- 
 fession, generally completing their development by turning 
 against the church. Some of the most pronounced unbe- 
 lievers and atheistic propagandists are frank to admit that it 
 was their experience in the seminaries which has led them to 
 their present intellectual and religious attitude. 
 
 In the south there are many pious, kind-hearted priests 
 interested in the welfare of the peasants and genuinely 
 friendly to them, but they are ignorant and nearly as super- 
 stitious as the people to whom they minister. They read 
 very little, are absolutely out of touch with the modern 
 world, and are sincerely afraid of modern science or social 
 reforms. 
 
 In the north many of the younger clergy have a high 
 ideal of service and visit the poor and interest themselves in 
 social welfare, but the majority of priests are lazy and in- 
 different to the conditions of the people, social reform, or 
 politics. In small towns it is not unusual to find the priests 
 in cafes, gaming, drinking, and so conducting themselves as 
 to enrage the people by their immoral living. 
 
 Modernism. In the universities large groups of the young 
 men are seriously considering social, religious, and philosophi-
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 49 
 
 cal problems. Bergson was well known and appreciated in 
 Italy while he was yet little known in France and not at all 
 in England. William. James was translated and widely 
 read in Italy when in France and Germany he was still 
 known only to specialists. One of our eminent American 
 thinkers recently told me he considered Benedetto Croce, a 
 south Italian, the greatest living philosopher to-day. The 
 philosophical papers are not purely speculative, but aim to 
 awaken the moral consciousness of the nation and purify 
 national life. 
 
 Religion is always a popular subject of discussion among 
 Italians. The modernists have revived interest in its study, 
 and aired their views in an excellent review, // Rinno- 
 vamento. Modernists are of two general classes, those who 
 see that heathen rites and superstitions, claims of infallibility 
 for any human institution, as well as the robbing of the poor 
 and the inconsistent lives of the clergy cannot be true re- 
 ligion, and who therefore break away from the church, tend 
 to become atheists, and try to drive out the influence of the 
 church in schools or politics. The other group, while realiz- 
 ing all that the first one does, seeks to purify the church by 
 reforming it from within. Such was Fogazzaro, and such 
 was the meaning of his // Santo, describing the holy life of 
 self-sacrifice, fidelity to vows, and devoted service to all in 
 need. His book was placed on the "Index." Others are 
 Giorgio Bartoli, former Jesuit editor of the Vatican organ, 
 La Cimta Cattolica, Salvator Minocchi, and Romulo Murri, 
 who after long internal struggles resolved to be true to con- 
 viction and abandoned the priesthood to dedicate themselves 
 to social regeneration in politics and education. One result 
 of the spread of modernism and also of the Protestant propa- 
 ganda which has proved an ally of modernism, was the 
 presentation to the pope a few years ago of a petition signed 
 by 5,000 priests, asking to be released from the vow of 
 celibacy.
 
 50 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Higher Ecclesiastics 
 
 The higher clergy of the church are usually members of 
 the Roman curia and noble clerical houses related to the 
 papacy for centuries. The members of their group are in 
 politics with the avowed aim of reestablishing the temporal 
 power of the pope through foreign interventions or by revo- 
 lutions at home. Their main support comes from Catholics 
 outside of Italy. This group pays little attention to more 
 than the formalities of religion, its chief interest being polit- 
 ical. 
 
 Devout Catholics 
 
 There are many examples of devout living in Italy. 
 Fogazzaro is an example of a sweet spiritual nature striving 
 to make Christianity a moral force in the lives of people. 
 Many ladies devote themselves in an unselfish spirit to 
 charitable enterprises. These people have nothing to do with 
 the political aims of the Vatican, and discountenance its 
 absurd claims. There are also those who devoutly believe 
 in the miracles and mysteries of the church, in fact, in every- 
 thing the priests tell them, and they are superstitious to an 
 inconceivable degree. They provide the degrading, pitiable 
 scenes all travelers have witnessed, climbing sacred stairs on 
 their knees, kissing each step, and kissing the feet of images. 
 
 Freethinkers 
 
 This class comprises the majority of the upper classes and 
 people of culture, who call themselves freethinkers. They 
 are engaged in public service and business, and are active in 
 literature and the professions of the bar, medicine, and teach- 
 ing. The universities are filled with atheists or those who 
 are indifferent to religion. Hundreds of the students have 
 never opened a Bible or even heard of the life of our Lord 
 or the heroes of the Protestant church, like Luther and Cal- 
 vin. Needless to say, they are strongly anti-Catholic, and
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 51 
 
 show their hostility on such occasions as the demonstration 
 in commemoration of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at 
 the stake for advocating freedom of conscience. At these 
 demonstrations thousands of free masons, socialists, an- 
 archists, university students, and various labor organizations 
 take part in processions all over the kingdom. 
 
 In 1913 when, under the Giolitti ministry, universal man- 
 hood suffrage was granted, the papacy decided to relax its 
 ban forbidding the faithful to vote, and even presented its 
 own candidates. The increase in votes was of course from 
 the illiterate peasant class, who could supposedly be influ- 
 enced by the priests; still, out of 508 Catholic candidates 
 for Parliament, only thirty were elected, which was a bitter 
 disappointment to the papacy'. 
 
 PEASANTRY 
 
 Contadini 
 
 Among the peasantry of Italy there is as great a diversity 
 as among the nobility. Past differences of government, 
 present differences of climate, of land systems, and also of 
 race elements, have created a great variety of farm laborers 
 whose homes, food, social customs, holiday dress, and educa- 
 tion are vastly different in different regions. 
 
 In the north, especially in the valle d J Aosta, the peasants 
 usually own their land, have comfortable homes, and live 
 well on bread, meat, wine, and vegetables. These men are 
 fairly well educated, take part in political life as ardent 
 liberals, and are usually Protestant or freethinkers in re- 
 ligion. 
 
 The peasants, under the shrewd, businesslike Lombard 
 nobles, are often well educated, but their class sympathies 
 are excited by the superior attitude of their employers, and 
 by the wide social gulf which the nobles create between them- 
 selves and their men. Rampant socialism is stirring these 
 men to class action, for they feel they owe little to an un-
 
 52 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 democratic social order. Most of the strikes and labor 
 disturbances are in these northern provinces. The Venetian 
 peasant is ill-paid, overworked, and wretchedly housed, and 
 is illiterate and superstitious. 
 
 The Tuscan farmers of the old Florentine families who 
 spend so much time on their estates lead quiet uneventful 
 lives, seldom very well-to-do, seldom very poor, but always 
 hard-working and usually joyous and sunny as the day is 
 long. Content with their lot, they are indifferent both to 
 religion and politics. 
 
 Then "there are the shepherds of the mountain villages of 
 the Roman Campagna, masters of mighty flocks, but living 
 on black bread and water, leading a nomad life on the low- 
 lands in winter, the uplands in summer." They wear goat- 
 skins for protection against the cold, as in the time of Horace. 
 An ineffaceable memory it is to open the wooden shutters of 
 a stone palazzo in Forano and look over across the marshes 
 at old snow-crowned Soracte reddening in the sunrise, and 
 then just below the window to watch an Italian shepherd, 
 clad in goatskin trousers, thick cape, and slouch hat, with a 
 long staff in his hand, followed by a shaggy black dog, come 
 slowly up the mountain path. He is bringing some goat's 
 milk cheese. 
 
 Near Naples the peasants do extensive market gardening 
 and come into the city in the early morning cracking their 
 long whips and urging their donkeys with a long-drawn 
 "A-a-a-a-a-h !" The two-wheel carts are piled high with 
 cauliflower or tomatoes and perhaps lemons and oranges too. 
 These people are industrious and thrifty and by sheer hard 
 work they make their terraced gardens into marvels of fer- 
 tility. But they are illiterate, rent-racked, and meek before 
 their haughty landlords. 
 
 The famous Amalfi-Sorrento roadway skirts the blue sea 
 at the base of mountain cliffs which are terraced and culti- 
 vated from top to bottom. Every inch is utilized, irregular 
 stone fences marking the boundaries. On one terrace are
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 53 
 
 almond trees, on the next, orange or lemon trees, perhaps 
 the others are planted with vines quaintly festooned in long 
 loops from pole to pole, then a garden of vegetables, more 
 trees, and more vines. ""Indeed the first glimpse of Italian 
 land cultivation should be sufficient to dispel all the super- 
 stitions which some people seem to have been at great pains 
 to instil into the popular mind about the down-right laziness 
 of the Italian. Tfie dolce far niente (sweet do-nothing) 
 libel, originally meant only for the street gamins of Naples, 
 but thoughtlessly applied to all, is an outrageous accusation 
 against one of the most painstaking and industrious people 
 of the world." x 
 
 The southern peasant is also good-natured and hard- 
 working. At harvest time he frequently works sixteen hours 
 a day. In most cases he does not live on the land any more 
 than his absentee landlord. In old feudal days, the inhabi- 
 tants built their homes in towns, on mountaintops, clustering 
 about the lordly castle for protection. The peasants still 
 live in these century-old stone huts, dirty and unsanitary, 
 frequently shared by the family chickens, pig, and donkey. 
 The only reason he survives such unwholesome conditions is 
 because all of his working life is spent in the open air, toil- 
 ing on the fields in the lowlands. He may be as crowded 
 in his one-room stone hut as he later will be in a New York 
 tenement, but the group is strictly a family one, even includ- 
 ing the animals, while in a New York tenement morality is 
 menaced by boarders, and health by indoor life asleep or at 
 work. Though heavy and hard, this outdoor work makes 
 the southern contadino sturdy and long-lived. Generations 
 of burden-bearing have developed broad backs and strong, 
 thick-set necks and bodies. Meat is not a regular article of 
 diet, perhaps only at New Year or other holidays. Black 
 bread, made of rye or chestnut flour, and vegetables, made 
 palatable with a little light wine when he can get it, com- 
 prise the peasant's daily fare. He used to work for fifteen 
 
 1 Charles Lapworth, Tripoli and 'Young Italy, page 241.
 
 54 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 or twenty cents a day, but since emigration to America has 
 lessened the supply of laborers, his wages have risen to sixty 
 or even eighty cents a day. This southern contadino is 
 patient, honest, thrifty, usually pious though superstitious, 
 and light-hearted in spite of his extreme poverty. When he 
 comes to America he is open-minded and ready to learn, 
 forming most promising material for future citizenship, pro- 
 vided he falls in with people who lead him wisely. Thou- 
 sands of Italian contadini and even artigiani all over Italy 
 suffer from lack of sufficient food, and in the winter eat two 
 meals a day and sometimes only one. 
 
 RACE ELEMENTS 
 
 "The history of Italy has been the history of barbarian 
 conquerors, foreign dynasties, princely and papal usurpations, 
 petty states, and, above all, interminable feuds. Its sole 
 characteristic has been disunion, which, although it has 
 tended to produce individual men unsurpassed in personal 
 attainments, has at the same time made Italian history inter- 
 esting solely on account of its diversity and unstudied except 
 for the sake of its great men." 1 
 
 Pushing an investigation back to the early race settle- 
 ments in Italy, we find two main aboriginal elements, the 
 Celts mixed with low Germanic in the north and the Pelas- 
 gian, exactly the same race stock as peopled early Greece, 
 in central and south Italy. The Pelasgians lived on the 
 seacoast of Asia Minor and were an adventurous, sea-faring, 
 colonizing folk. They invented what in its modified form is 
 now our modern alphabet and had perfected, even in those 
 early days, certain industrial arts such as weaving, dying of 
 cloth, and painting. These Pelasgians, combined with the 
 Sabines, Umbrians, and Germanic tribes, and later what 
 seems to have been a Gothic or Norse tribe, the Etruscan, 
 
 1 Quoted from Cottrell by J. W. Donaldson in A Critical Study 
 of Latin Language.
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 
 
 55 
 
 ITALY 
 
 showing 
 
 Emigration *>** 
 United States 
 ^Provinces 
 
 in. 
 
 1010
 
 5 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 united to form the Latin race of Roman history, but it was 
 to this Pelasgic element that Rome owed most of the glory 
 of her ancient civilization. 
 
 The Greek colonies in the south and the Lombard and 
 other Germanic invasions in the north simply renewed ele- 
 ments already in the Latin race. During the first half of 
 the eleventh century the Normans mastered Naples, Calabria, 
 and Sicily, and evidences of this infusion of blood are still 
 to be seen in the blue-eyed, fair-skinned, yellow- or even red- 
 haired Italians of tall, stalwart frame from Calabria and 
 even Sicily. "The two Sicilies, Sicily and Naples, were ruled 
 in the thirteenth century by Frederick and his devoted Sara- 
 cens. The Pisans defeated the Saracens and drove them out 
 of Calabria, so it is in Sicily that we find relics of the Moors, 
 such as the Byzantine mosaics of Monreale, the oriental lux- 
 ury of the royal palace, the Moorish fountain in the cloister, 
 and perhaps the picturesque hooded cloaks worn by the 
 Sicilian men, while among the people themselves the dark 
 skin, black eyes, and glossy curls show this mixture of 
 race." * 
 
 To summarize the race elements : 
 
 Piedmont. Aboriginal Celt and Germanic; later French 
 blood. 
 
 Lombardy. Aboriginal German; later German. 
 
 Tuscany. Aboriginal Gothic or Norse; later assimilated 
 with Pelasgic, and merged into Latin people. 
 
 Central and Southern Italy. Pelasgic ; later Greek, Latin, 
 and Norman, also Albanian on the eastern coast. 
 
 Sicily. Pelasgic; later Spanish, Saracen, Norman, Arab, 
 and Greek. 
 
 As a result of this mixture of race elements, Italy has the 
 most complex and diverse psychology of any country in the 
 world. 
 
 "But," says Professor Villari, "the racial element is of 
 much less importance than is generally supposed. The 
 
 1 Villari, Italian Life in Town and Country.
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 57 
 
 geographical conditions of mountains and poor land in the 
 south and fertile plains in the north are responsible for the 
 economic and social differences between north and south, 
 and as a corollary, fof governmental and educational dif- 
 ferences." 1 
 
 PRESENT-DAY ITALY 
 
 "When in 1861 the kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, an 
 arduous task devolved upon the young state. Everything 
 was wanting schools, army, navy, railways, and ports. All 
 that other nations had done in the long sequence of centuries 
 had to be accomplished in a few years. An enormous public 
 debt contracted during the Wars of Independence, a deficit 
 in the revenue, and immense expenses had to be faced in 
 order to reach the level of other nations." 2 No other nation, 
 having to face such obstacles, has attained a corresponding 
 progress. The fiber of the Italian character has not been 
 weak. The world has been greatly surprised to find that 
 instead of the traditionally poverty-stricken Italy, the nation 
 has a sound financial basis." She had money to pay for her 
 war with Tripoli, and in spite of that great drain, has been 
 able to join the present conflict, furnishing her army with 
 ample modern supplies. The country's revenue in 1912 was 
 about $15,000,000 in excess of her expenditures. 
 
 The Italians take great pride in their united country. 
 When in 1900 King Humbert, the father of the present king 
 of Italy, was shot, and his son took the throne, the latter 
 made an address before the Chamber of Deputies (corre- 
 sponding to the English House of Commons). During his 
 address he used a phrase which had been coined by his father 
 years before, and which thrilled the Italian people, Roma 
 Intangib'de, "Rome, which must not be touched." This 
 phrase came with a special force at that time, since the ever 
 present question of papal return to temporal power was 
 
 'Villari, Italian Life in To<wn and Country. 
 
 3 From a public speech of the Marquis di San Giuliano.
 
 S 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 being rediscussed. The union of Italy is geographically and 
 governmen tally a fact. The union of thought and coopera- 
 tion comes more slowly, yet much toward this has been ac- 
 complished during the last ten years. The north Italian 
 has always affected to despise the southerners and insisted 
 that there was nothing in common between them. In his 
 Memoirs, Massimo D'Azeglio wrote: "We have made 
 Italy: we must now make the Italians." To this work of 
 real unification, the government has set its hand along with 
 its other problems. 
 
 POLITICAL ITALY 
 
 Italian politics is not a two- or even three-party affair. 
 True to the individualistic tendencies of Italians, there are 
 a dozen or more parties, liberals of all shades, republicans, 
 socialists, liberal-conservatives, and the anti-Catholic and 
 clerical groups. It is significant of the growing nationalism 
 and the true spirit of democracy in Italy for outside of a 
 few old reactionary families, who side with the pope, the 
 mass of the Italians from king down are democratic that 
 no political party has ever been formed on geographical 
 lines, as Venice or Milan against the south. The parties 
 take their issues on national questions affecting the welfare 
 of the entire country. 
 
 The present king, Victor Emmanuel, was brought up with 
 strict and severe views of duty. He entered the infantry, 
 the most democratic branch of the army, and his young son, 
 Prince Humbert, instead of wearing a naval uniform, like 
 English and German princes, frequently wears the plain 
 every-day garb of Italian boy scouts. His father has even 
 permitted him to visit the first-line trenches, and the risks 
 his Majesty himself has run when inspecting the fighting 
 lines are well known through the press despatches. When 
 told it was exceedingly dangerous to visit a certain part of 
 the front, the king quietly replied, "I wish to share danger 
 with our brave men." He has declared ."hat he would not
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 59 
 
 go back to Rome from the battle-front until the war is over. 
 
 The king uses little pomp or display at Rome but applies 
 himself seriously to the enormous problems of his country. 
 He has been greatly assisted in his policy of work by Queen 
 Elena, a model housewife and mother. In politics, the king 
 is liberal, and has succeeded in imparting his enthusiasm for 
 efficiency to his ministry. He used to make surprise visits 
 to government schools, army barracks, and hospitals, so that 
 their directors kept their work at its best, not knowing when 
 the royal critic might appear. 
 
 The liberal Giolitti ministry which the king put into 
 power, although slightly anticlerical and antisocialistic, 
 enacted such a socialistic measure as state control of life 
 insurance. There is comparatively little corruption in pol- 
 itics. The greater number of Italian political leaders are 
 patriotic statesmen, righting for ideals, and are not in politics 
 to make money, most of them having died poor. There is 
 much less corruption than in other countries, and so great is 
 the outcry of popular condemnation, and so ruthless the 
 punishment of any who are in the slightest degree suspected 
 of wrongdoing, that many innocent men have suffered. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL LIFE 
 
 While it is estimated that there are about 7,000,000 illiter- 
 ates in Italy, there are also tens of thousands of highly and 
 broadly educated people. Italian ladies and gentlemen 
 speak French, English, Spanish, and even German fluently, 
 as a matter of course, and in an Italian drawing-room one 
 hears the latest news of scientific achievements or philosophic 
 research. There is a decidedly literary atmosphere at social 
 gatherings, for Italians are born critics and delight in ab- 
 stract discussions of philosophy, art, or music. Says one who 
 has lived long in Italy : "There is perhaps no other country, 
 not even Germany, where so much writing is put out by the 
 printing press as in Italy, because of the keen mental activity
 
 60 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 of Italians. This is partly due to the fact that printing is 
 cheap and partly because the Italian runs easily into elegant 
 verbal expression of his own rapidly conceived and redundant 
 thought." x 
 
 Countless newspapers and small reviews are published, 
 some of them temporary, devoted to the discussion of some 
 passing theme of public interest. The tone of newspapers 
 is high, and as yet there is no yellow journalism in Italy. 
 
 EDUCATION 
 Elementary Schools 
 
 United Italy adopted the German model for her national 
 system of education. Every city and town was left to pro- 
 vide and control its own educational system. The cities have 
 done their tasks fairly well, but the small communes, because 
 of their poverty and isolation, were unfitted to understand or 
 undertake real educational measures. In some mountain 
 districts there were still only donkey trails; roads were not 
 thought necessary, nor was education. The peasants saw no 
 advantage in learning to read and write, when the only 
 occupation open to them was working the fields in time- 
 honored fashion; and further, the officials, tied to tradition, 
 had no mind to cooperate in any movement which would 
 raise the standard of life among the peasants. The Italian 
 Secretary of Education reports: "The communes are the 
 bitterest enemies of the people's schools. Both in the north 
 as well as in the south, the majority of the men who ad- 
 minister them and the greater part of the well-to-do hate 
 and oppose popular education, for they see in it a leveling 
 force which frightens them, and cannot brook that the 
 peasants' sons sit on the same bench as their own. The 
 richer syndics hardly conceal their hostility under the pre- 
 text that an ignorant working man is more submissive. 
 And in many instances they are backed by the priests, who 
 
 1 Lapworth, Tripoli and "Young Italy, page 264.
 
 A CONTRAST AXD A PROBLEM 
 Out of Rural Italy into Urban America
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 61 
 
 want to have the schools in their own hands, and care 
 only to train the children to be obedient followers of them- 
 selves and enemies of Italian unity." All this is changing. 
 Under the recent Sonnino ministry a bill was drawn up by 
 the Minister of Public Instruction, compelling communes 
 to provide and pay for schools, willy-nilly. The social 
 values of education are gradually being realized, and to 
 stimulate the education of all classes the government has 
 adopted measures for feeding the school children of the 
 very poor. There is also an extension library movement 
 to provide each class in a school with a library suited to 
 its particular needs. Gymnasiums, school savings banks, 
 and continuation schools have likewise been established. 
 
 In July, 1912, the so-called factory laws were passed, 
 prohibiting the employment in factories of either boys or 
 girls under fifteen, unless they have passed the sixth form. 
 In spite of all these measures, however, there are thousands 
 of illiterates. Most of the country schools are crowded into 
 dingy rooms with no heat, no ventilation, and with scanty 
 equipment. The teachers are of inferior grade, because of 
 low pay. In a mountain town in Calabria, I found a man 
 responsible for the mental development of sixty boys and 
 girls, who received only $12 per month. He wanted to 
 come to America. 
 
 Higher Education 
 
 Beyond the elementary school, which takes the children 
 through the sixth grade, is the gimnasio, which corresponds 
 to our high school. This consists of a five-year course, with 
 examinations at the end of the third and the fifth years. 
 Then comes the liceo, a three-year course which falls 
 slightly below our regular American college course in re- 
 spect to subjects taught. 
 
 The modern university had its rise in Italy. The Uni- 
 versities of Bologna and Naples are noted for their medical 
 education, the former being the earliest university still in
 
 62 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 existence to be established anywhere in Europe, having been 
 founded in the eleventh century. Other universities that are 
 largely attended and prominent for various educational and 
 scientific features are those of Turin, Rome, Pavia, Genoa, 
 and Padua. The larger universities, such as Naples, have 
 enrolments of as high as 5,000 students. Only those can 
 enter the universities who have passed all the preceding 
 courses, elementary, gimnasio, and liceo. The student in 
 medicine must submit to a five-year course before he can 
 secure his diploma, law requires four years, and engineering 
 five. There are also many technical schools w r hich prepare 
 men for special occupations without the study of the classic 
 languages, but they must learn German, French, and Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 All schools are under governmental supervision. If pri- 
 vate schools desire to send their graduates to the great uni- 
 versities, they must prepare them to pass the state examina- 
 tions. 
 
 Agricultural Education 
 
 Great advances are being made yearly in scientific and 
 technical work in Italian 'schools, and English is extensively 
 taught in response to the popular demand for it. The 
 government, finding the pursuit of agriculture so primitive 
 and behind the times, has set about giving agricultural educa- 
 tion even in the elementary schools. The universities of 
 Rome and Bologna have special faculties of agriculture, 
 and a National Experiment Institute is located at Perugia. 
 There are about twenty-five schools of practical agriculture, 
 and the government offers fifty valuable scholarships to 
 students of this subject. It also provides the salaries of 
 seventy professors who. travel from district to district giv- 
 ing instruction to the farmers in their own fields. Recent 
 years have seen great progress in methods of agriculture, as 
 shown by the fact that in 1910, $3,017,104 worth of mod- 
 ern agricultural machinery was imported.
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 63 
 
 PUBLIC HEALTH AND WATER SUPPLY 
 
 In the good old days of papal regime no such informa- 
 tion as vital statistics was deemed necessary. People just 
 died of what or why, did not matter. The great scourge 
 of the country was malaria, which carried off thousands of 
 victims yearly and made great stretches of needed land 
 untillable. In 1900, the government commenced a vigorous 
 war on mosquitoes and created government control of 
 quinin, compelling employers of labor to give it free to their 
 workers. Eucalyptus trees were also planted in large num- 
 bers along highways and beside government buildings. The 
 protection of doors and windows by screens was ordered 
 by law, and the proportion of the number of cases to the 
 entire population was reduced from fifty to four per cent. 
 All the tourist world knows the ill repute of Italy's drink- 
 ing water. The Italian government tackled this problem 
 too, and now one may safely drink delicious mountain spring 
 water in Rome, Naples, or almost any large city of Italy. 
 
 THE ARTS 
 Poetry and Drama 
 
 Italian novelists and poets are dominated by D'Annunzio's 
 mighty genius. A native of south Italy, accustomed to 
 sights of wo, he dwells on the seamy side of life too much, 
 and his great naturalistic dramas, like "The Dead City," 
 are concepts of horror. However, he is the people's idol, and 
 he it was who stirred them to wild enthusiasm by his 
 speeches and writings during the war with Turkey and also 
 at the beginning of the present war. He is the leader of a 
 group of young poets like Roberto Bracco, who turn toward 
 life and action with a confident, buoyant hopefulness. La 
 V'wica, a monthly magazine, devoted to poetry, is full of 
 verse glorifying life and a poetic ideal of humanity. Then 
 there are the great dramatic realists, Giacosa and Butti,
 
 64 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 with their stirring indictments of society. The Italian genius 
 runs more to short, brilliant tales, plays, and poetry, rather 
 than to long, heavy works, though it has produced many 
 world-famous historians and scientists, like Ferrero, Villari, 
 Lombroso, Mosso, Sergi, and a host of others. "It would 
 never occur to an Italian, if he wanted to deal with some 
 psychological or social problem, to write a novel about it. 
 Your true Italian would either turn to poetry or else dis- 
 cuss his subject in minute detail in a pamphlet devoted to 
 it without love frills or social fringes. He breaks into 
 verse as spontaneously as a bird into song." x Most Italian 
 youths of any culture dabble to some extent in poetry. I 
 have in mind now four young men : one, who is at work in a 
 factory in New Haven, has composed verse of deep religious 
 feeling; another is working for a degree at Columbia and 
 writes poetry poignantly beautiful in its appeal to the im- 
 agination. The other two, though you would pass them 
 by without a second glance because of their shabby clothes, 
 know as much as an expert about meter and style, and not 
 only compose, but have memorized hundreds of lines and 
 could recite for hours from Dante, Carducci, Stecchetti 
 D'Annunzio, and others. It is the natural impulse of the 
 Italians to write poetry when deeply stirred. Every bride 
 has a poem dedicated to her, and the lover writes sonnets 
 to his beloved just as naturally as he serenades her. 
 
 Painting and Music 
 
 In painting and music there is also constant activity. The 
 tourist is always impressed by the sight of dozens of young 
 modelers and painters working away in every gallery. On 
 the streets one passes innumerable art stores filled with 
 sketches and water-colors and copies in oil of the great 
 masterpieces. "The younger men are overweighted by 
 Italy's glorious past or by outside present-day tendencies." 2 
 
 1 Lapworth, Tripoli and "Young Italy, page 259. 
 * Ibid., page 266.
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 65 
 
 Yet the riotous splendor of the Italian Renaissance is gone. 
 Painting, for long, was stagnant. Now, under the inspira- 
 tion of such moderns a& Michetti and Mancini, a new life 
 is being felt. Impressionism flourishes in Italy. The paint- 
 ers revel in color and the effects of light, rather than the 
 conveying of a thought. Some of the contemporary radical 
 movements of art, such as the futurism ^>f Marinetti, 
 originated in Italy. Of the four leading Italian painters 
 of to-day, two are northerners and two are from the south. 
 
 Physical Culture 
 
 Up to 1902, the number of army recruits rejected as 
 unfit was fifty per cent. This was partly due to the fact 
 that the strongest youths emigrate and also to the fact that, 
 with few men left to till the fields, many women were 
 compelled to work when they ought not to have done so. 
 The government noticed that the average height and physique 
 was deteriorating, and passed a law forbidding women to 
 work outside of the home for three months before or after 
 childbirth. Physical culture drills and manly sports are 
 also provided by local authorities; boy scouts and boys' 
 brigades are everywhere organized ; hygiene is taught in the 
 schools and as a result a great and beneficial change is al- 
 ready seen in the nation's physique. Athletic games assume 
 national importance and are patronized by the crown. Dur- 
 ing my last stay in Venice, young men from all over Italy 
 had met there to compete. The king came up from Rome, 
 accompanied by army officers and civil authorities, to witness 
 the contests. Each organization seemed to have its own 
 band and the parade and drill on the Piazza San Marco was 
 a brilliant scene of picturesque and colorful costumes. 
 
 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 
 
 The new industrial development in Italy is all the more 
 noteworthy because Italy lacks the basic minerals in large
 
 66 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 quantities. Coal, ore, and even wood are lacking. The 
 result is that her mechanics have developed electrical science 
 and have used the water power of her mountain streams, 
 "white coal," the Italians call it. Of our modern inven- 
 tions and discoveries, many more are due to Italians than 
 we think. It is a characteristic of Italians that the concep- 
 tion of an iojea and putting it into practise are almost 
 simultaneous. They do not wait to see what other people 
 make of it. The result is that an American visiting Italy is 
 greatly surprised at the number and variety of uses to which 
 electricity is put. Streets, hotels, public buildings, and many 
 homes are lighted by it. Tram-cars, machinery, and even 
 elevators or lifts are operated by electricity. When America 
 harnessed the great water-power of Niagara, she sent to 
 Milan for her giant turbines. When acetylene gas was 
 being experimentally tested for lighting purposes in America, 
 it was quite a jolt to our American assurance to find an 
 old monk carelessly swinging an acetylene lantern to light 
 our pathway in the catacombs of Siracusa in far-off Sicily. 
 The great Marconi did all his experimenting in Italy and 
 still holds his residence in Bologna. 
 
 Ten thousand kilometers of railroad and wonderful tun- 
 nels, notably that through St. Gothard pass,, and those in 
 the mountainous district between Florence and Bologna, 
 have been built. One may now ride in a well-appointed 
 train from Paris or Berlin to Palermo, without change, the 
 cars being transported by ferry across the Strait from Reggio 
 to Messina. 
 
 ^Industrialism 
 
 (>' Prior to 1870, Italy had few or no industries. She was 
 strictly an agricultural country. The coming into being of 
 what is known as "la terza Italia" "the third Italy," 
 affected every phase of the people's life. Not only was 
 agriculture pursued by more modern methods, but the peo- 
 ple in north Italy condescended to invest their money in
 
 ITALIAN LIFE IN ITALY 67 
 
 home industries, instead of sending it to England, France, 
 and Germany, and living on the interest that might thus 
 accrue. As a result, we have to-day such cities as Milan, 
 Genoa, Naples, Bari, and Palermo, which form the indus- 
 trial arteries of the peninsula, including Sicily. 
 
 Venice, with its environs, is noted for its world-renowned 
 glass works. Milan, the "New York of Italy," is a modern 
 industrial center, the business metropolis of the nation, where 
 all the large commercial houses have their headquarters. It 
 leads in the production of machinery of all kinds. Genoa 
 and Naples are keen rivals for first place as seaports, while 
 Terni and Bari hold the primacy in products of fine steel. 
 The greatest hat-making establishment in the world, that of 
 the Borsalino hats which may be found in every fashion 
 center of our own country, is located in Alessandria, in 
 north Italy. 
 
 Italy excels in the manufacture of locomotives, steam 
 boilers, turbines and dynamos, pumps, silk-weaving appa- 
 ratus, surgical and musical instruments, objects of art, and 
 in certain specialized food products, such as macaroni and 
 olive oil. What Italy lacks is capital. Had she more 
 money available, her industries could be greatly enlarged, 
 and many other new fields could be invaded. Since Italy's 
 entrance into the war, factories have sprung up all over the 
 peninsula for the production of munitions and war ma- 
 terials. The country has veritably become an industrial 
 state over night. The adaptability of the people and the 
 influx of modern ideas make it seem probable that the pres- 
 ent economic expansion will continue unabated after the 
 war. The Honorable Signer Nitti, member of the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies and of the Italian mission to the United 
 States, gives it as his opinion that Italy is destined, as a 
 direct result of the war, to become the greatest industrial 
 nation of Europe. 
 
 Italy had used her local post offices for savings banks many 
 years before our government adopted the plan. The de-
 
 68 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 posits are constantly increasing, greatly helped by the sums 
 her sons in other countries send back to the home land. 
 
 GROWING NATIONALISM 
 
 Italy has ceased to be a mere "geographical expression," 
 ceased to be only a museum of past glories, and has emerged 
 into modern life, a united nation of great potentiality and, in 
 the future development of Europe, a power to be reckoned 
 with. The average individual thinks of Italy only in terms 
 of old masters, her Michelangelo, Raphael, or Dante, and 
 is entirely ignorant of present-day Italy and the urge of 
 her modern spirit, her aims, and her needs. Such a one 
 cannot understand her war with Tripoli or her entrance 
 into the present European struggle. 
 
 "The power of ideas is the greatest force in history." 
 The growing national spirit is the great driving force in 
 Italy to-day. It consists in common ideals of democracy, 
 a common interest in keeping out foreign influence and 
 the desire to develop and govern Italy for the benefit of 
 Italians. The war is welding all parties closer together in 
 the common purpose of freeing the lost provinces from 
 Austrian oppression. It is this ideal which caused 70,000 
 Italians to return from the United States and 90,000 from 
 South America to fight for the liberation of brother Italians 
 in Trent and Trieste.
 
 Tell me what a man believes, and I will tell you what he is. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Rome no more goes forth in triumph, for a Galilean of blond 
 hair has ascended the Capitol ; into her arms he has thrown a 
 cross and said, "Bear it and serve!" . . . Farewell, Semitic God, 
 crucified Martyr; thou crucifiest men and defilest the air with thy 
 sadness. 
 
 Translated from the Italian of Carducci. 
 
 O Galilean, thou, in thy paradise, art worth less than Ulysses in 
 Dante's Inferno. The anchor which descends into thy waters is of 
 no avail to us. He who puts his trust in thee does not value him- 
 self. 
 
 Translated from the Italian of D'Annunzio. 
 
 (The quotations above illustrate the religious attitudes of the 
 intellectual and literary classes in Italy.) . * 
 
 The origin of our duties is in God. The definition of our duties 
 is in his law. The progressive discovery and the application of 
 his law belong to humanity. God exists because we exist God 
 lives in our consciences, in the conscience of humanity, in the uni- 
 verse that surrounds us. ... 
 
 Doubtless the first atheist was a man who had hidden a crime 
 from men, and sought, by denying God, to free himself from the 
 sole witness from whom he could not hide it, and so suppress the 
 remorse which tormented him. 
 
 Mazzini, The Duties of Man. 
 
 . . . There is no greater illusion than to believe that . . . social 
 relations can become more sincere and friendly without the great 
 influence of the Christian religion. 
 
 Raffaele Mariano. 
 
 (These quotations illustrate the more liberal attitudes of the 
 modernists and political reformers.)
 
 Ill 
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 
 
 The genius of the Italians for organization has per-' 1 
 fected the most intricate and powerful religious hierarchy 
 the world has ever seen, but even so, Italy is less Catholic 
 than France and the papacy is less respected in its home than 
 in America. The vast majority of men of all classes never 
 attend church except for weddings or funerals, and then 
 because the elaborate church ceremonials on such occasions 
 are greatly liked by Italians and have more of social custom 
 than of religious significance. Churchgoing is left to the 
 women and children. 
 
 A VILLAGE FESTA 
 
 San Giovanni is perched on the sides and summit of a 
 steep hill. The stone houses are built one against the 
 other, opening directly upon narrow, ill-paved streets which 
 ascend the hill by irregular stone steps. All the way to the 
 summit the houses huddle closely together, the ground floor 
 of the one above built against the second story of the one 
 below. No carriages or carts pass along these uneven stair- 
 ways of streets. The ox-carts must stop at the entrance 
 to the town, and all supplies of grain, produce, and wine are 
 carried in baskets on the backs of little donkeys which, 
 with goats and children, run nimbly up and down. 
 
 Where the ground is level enough, the streets broaden 
 out into a large open square called the piazza, in which is 
 centered the life of the town. Here is the duomo or cathe- 
 
 71
 
 7 3 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 dral, with a bell which incessantly clangs its call to mass on 
 Sundays. Here also stands the town or municipal hall. 
 Enter, and in a room on the first floor you will find the 
 town orchestra, numbering thirty men and boys, holding a 
 rehearsal, and they are not playing ragtime, but Verdi or 
 Mascagni. 
 
 The town possesses one or two palaces. These houses 
 are tall, imposing structures, built in feudal days like the 
 old Roman homes, with a large central door or gate leading 
 into a courtyard around which the house is built. The lower 
 floors are used for storage purposes and to house the crops 
 which the tenant farmers bring in for rentals. At sheep- 
 shearing time, the peasant drives his herd of sheep into this 
 spacious courtyard and shears them there. 
 
 Sunday is festa or feast day. The girls and women don 
 their holiday finery and every one goes out into the street 
 to spend the day in walking about inspecting the market, 
 singing, and watching the street shows that are sure to be 
 given. The young men balance poles on their chins. The 
 peasants from smaller towns for a radius of eight or ten miles 
 about walk or ride in ox-carts into this central town on 
 Sundays in order to sell their goods. In the piazza, there 
 is a great mercato publico (public market). Grain, vege- 
 tables, flowers, and even goats and pigs are for sale, and 
 the makers of pottery and metalware also spread out their 
 stocks on the ground. 
 
 Little tables are placed out in the street and around them 
 sit men drinking their light wine, singing snatches of songs, 
 and playing card games. Some of the men find time and 
 interest enough to join the women at morning mass. Except 
 at Easter time, there are no sermons. One fine Italian youth 
 told me that in four years of constant church attendance 
 he had heard only one sermon. The priests intone the 
 service in unintelligible Latin, and save for a few devout 
 ones who are praying in front of the shrine of the Madonna 
 or a patron saint, the people walk up and down, chat, and
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 73 
 
 even crack jokes. The younger men go to flirt with pretty 
 girls who are kept so closely at home they have no op- 
 portunity to meet them otherwise. Children run about 
 unhindered, while the brothers of Saint Francis who are 
 attached to the church shake the little velvet bags on the 
 ends of long poles to make the coins jingle and thus at- 
 tract attention to the duty of alms-giving. When mass is 
 over the people pour into the streets again to make merry 
 the rest of their holiday. A band of strolling players amuses 
 them or it may be a bagpipe plays for an impromptu dance 
 in the square. By sundown the peasants start for home, the 
 traders gather up their wares, and the piazza, is quickly 
 cleared. At an early hour the town is dark and quiet for 
 the night. 
 
 Although the town numbers only 4,000 people, there are 
 three churches besides the cathedral, and each is served by 
 at least three priests. The mendicant order of St. Francis 
 has a monastery attached to the duomo. These Franciscan 
 monks perform no religious service except as they may be 
 called upon to preach during Lent. Their chief pursuit is 
 beggary. The people are so superstitious that they will 
 give whatever is asked, even though they cannot afford to, 
 for fear that if they refuse, the "holy man" will curse their 
 crops. The people detest the begging friars and call them 
 "crows" and "parasites" behind their backs. All over Italy, 
 even among those who still believe in their church, one finds 
 many who speak of the priests with scorn and contempt, 
 a sneering laugh, and a shrug of the shoulders as they re- 
 peat tales of scandal about priests. When the procession 
 in honor of Giordano Bruno takes place yearly in Rome, no 
 priest, no "petticoat," as the Romans jeeringly say, dares 
 stir out-of-doors all day. 
 
 In Naples an Italian banker told with keen relish the story 
 of how Garibaldi dealt with the priests when he entered 
 Naples. The papacy was opposed to a free, united Italy 
 and intrigued with France and Austria to prevent it.
 
 74 
 
 Through her priests she also worked upon the religious fears 
 of the ignorant. San Gennaro (St. Januarius) is the patron 
 saint of Naples and the idol of the populace, as he is sup- 
 posed to keep the dry safe from calamity each year. His 
 blood is kept in a solid state in a glass vial in the cathedral, 
 and three times a year, if the saint is pleased with the people 
 on the day sacred to him, he liquefies his blood in sight of his 
 worshipers, who do not realize how easily the miracle is 
 worked by chemicals. The people are often kept waiting in 
 the church by the wily priests two or three hours for the 
 blood to liquefy. When Garibaldi entered the city with 
 his few faithful followers, the bishop sent word to him that 
 if he did not withdraw, he would influence the Neapolitans 
 against him by telling them that owing to anger at his 
 presence, San Gennaro would not liquefy his blood on the 
 morrow, which chanced to be the saint's holiday. Garibaldi 
 realized how useless it would be to argue with ignorant peo- 
 ple, who would be in a frenzy of fear and disappointment if 
 the miracle was not performed, so he drew up his cannon 
 in front of the fagade of the cathedral and then sent word 
 to the bishop that if within four hours San Gennaro had 
 not liquefied his blood, he would destroy the cathedral. 
 The miracle was performed within the allotted time. 
 
 ATTITUDE OF THE ANTICLERICALS 
 
 The educated Italians realize that the church derives its 
 wealth and power from the ignorance and superstition of 
 the poor, and that every step in public education, in national 
 unity, and in the advance of human rights in Italy has been 
 vigorously opposed by the church. 
 
 "The Roman Church," said Giovanni Bovio, a member 
 of the Chamber of Deputies, "is a branch that is withering 
 upon the tree of Christianity"; while the great Crispi 
 prophesied, "The day is coming when Christianity will kill 
 Roman Catholicism," and again, as he lay dying and had
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 75 
 
 been called antireligious, "It is not true. We are anti- 
 Catholic, anticlerical. Our religion is He," pointing to a 
 figure of the Christ by his bedside, 
 
 It is difficult for Americans who speai no Italian or have 
 never lived in Italy to realize how bitter is the feeling of 
 thousands against the Roman Church and how disgusted 
 they are at the silly superstitions fostered among the 
 ignorant visions, miracles, images of saints, madonnas, and 
 adoration of relics. How these heathen beliefs and rites 
 became incorporated in the Christian church is a long story, 
 but, in passing, we may note some of the striking similarities 
 between the religious practises of the early Greeks and Ro- 
 mans and of present-day Roman Catholicism. 
 
 PARALLELS WITH HEATHEN CUSTOMS 
 
 First of all, the Roman people were made to adopt Chris- 
 tianity by royal decree rather than by personal conviction. 
 When they shook off paganism, they still retained their love 
 of local deities. Every mountain, river, and fountain had 
 its presiding divinity in classic times, and mythology is full 
 of wonder stories concerning them. Many of these divinities 
 have been retained with their legends, the only substitution 
 being the name of the Madonna or some saint in place of the 
 heathen god. A traveler realizes how little the influence of 
 the great outside world has affected these southern towns, 
 when he witnesses a four-day festival, essentially unchanged 
 from Roman times. The statue of the saint is brought out 
 of the duomo and drawn about the town on an old-fashioned 
 high ox-cart until sundown, and provokes the same demon- 
 strations and tributes as the statue of Cybele, mother of the 
 gods, did nearly two thousand years ago. 
 
 The Romans also borrowed from the Greeks the custom 
 of setting up images of their gods at the street-corners and 
 wreathing them with flowers on festival days. "Hecate of 
 the Cross-roads" we read of in Virgil. In the small, remote
 
 7 <S 
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 towns of southern Italy and Sicily, at nearly every corner 
 of a main street stands a statue of the Madonna, garlanded 
 with flowers on festival days. The Calabrian shepherd 
 peasants still come trooping into town the month before 
 Christmas and play on their reed pipes before every statue. 
 It is perfectly well known that the pipe of reeds, the tibia, 
 was sacred to the service of the gods, and it was an old 
 Roman custom to go about the town playing to every image 
 after the harvest season of the year. Other rites centuries 
 old still persist. 
 
 A few parallels with heathen customs we may tabulate 
 briefly as follows: 
 
 ROMAN CHURCH 
 
 Use of eunuchs, "popes 
 angels," to sing in St. Peter's. 
 
 White Cassocks. 
 
 Monasticism, black -robed 
 monks supported by gifts of 
 charity. 
 
 Altar paintings, statues of 
 saints in the churches. These 
 saints' statues, particularly the 
 Madonna, are worshiped with 
 votive offerings of jewelry, 
 rings, pins, bracelets, watches, 
 In the Church of St. Agostino 
 in Rome is a large miracle- 
 working statue of Mary, af- 
 firmed by a book sold in the 
 church to have performed 650 
 certified miracles. The pope in 
 1851 placed a crown of gold 
 upon its head with his own 
 hands. 
 
 Each devout family has its 
 images of saints in the home, in 
 
 HEATHEN RITES 
 
 Custom of eunuchs arose in 
 Egypt. 
 
 White robes commanded by 
 Roman law at religious fes- 
 tivals. 
 
 Monasticism arose in Egypt 
 centuries before. The monks 
 wore black, and were supported 
 by public gifts. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans 
 adorned their temples with 
 paintings, scenes from the lives 
 of the gods, and also with 
 statues to which rich votive of- 
 ferings of gold and silver jew- 
 elry were made. 
 
 The Roman houses all had 
 shrines for the "lares and pen-
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 
 
 front of which candles or small 
 lamps burn continually, and be- 
 fore which prayers are said. 
 
 The Italian fishing boats all 
 have figureheads of madonnas 
 or saints as guardian angels. 
 
 On many Italian houses you 
 may find niches occupied by a 
 madonna or saint who is sup- 
 posed to guard the house. 
 
 The priest laves his hands, 
 turns, and sprinkles water to- 
 ward the congregation, while 
 the altar boys or choir chant. 
 Christ, the victim, is symbolized 
 by the host, the wafer taken 
 by the priest in the celebra- 
 tion of the mass and the Lord's 
 Supper. 
 
 Any one who has attended 
 a Catholic mass will remember 
 the tinkle of a little bell when 
 the host is elevated, though -it 
 now serves to recall the wan- 
 dering attention, mayhap, of the 
 worshipers. 
 
 ates," household gods, before 
 whom small lamps burned con- 
 tinually and the family devo- 
 tions were paid. 
 
 The Greeks and Romans al- 
 ways used divinities, usually 
 goddesses, as figureheads on 
 the bows of their ships. 
 
 The Romans placed statues of 
 the gods to guard the entrances 
 to their homes. 
 
 The priest washed his hands 
 before the sacrifice, turned, and 
 sprinkled water toward the 
 audience. The pagan priests 
 chanted or played upon pipes 
 while the cow or goat, called 
 the "hostia," was prepared. 
 
 When all was ready the vic- 
 tim or hostia was held up, of- 
 fered to the god, whose atten- 
 tion was called by the ringing 
 of a bell, and whose senses 
 were supposed to be pleased by 
 the clouds of incense from the 
 censers, just as in Jewish cere- 
 monies. 
 
 The great peacock feather fans carried behind the pope 
 are a relic of the days when they had a real use, to shoo 
 away the flies from the slaughtered offering. "That which 
 characterizes pagan ceremonies in any country is the ap- 
 peal to sense and the scenic and dramatic effect rather than 
 that which appeals to thought and reflection." x The in- 
 habitants of Italy from most remote times have been very 
 
 1 Blunt, Vestiges of Ancient Rites and Customs in Modern Italy 
 and Sicily, page 150.
 
 7 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 sensitive to color and form, that which appeals to the eye. 
 As Dr. Bhmt puts it, they have a "keen hunger for sense 
 impressions." This very sensitiveness to beauty, the ap- 
 peal to eye and ear, constitutes one of the chief reasons why 
 Italians should be permitted to worship in as artistic, at- 
 tractive buildings as it is possible to secure. 
 
 The worship of the Madonna seems to have grown from 
 the fondness of the Greek and Roman people for the 
 worship of female deities. This cult originated in Egypt, 
 where Isis was worshiped as the giver and preserver of 
 life. In Italy, Cybele, the mother of the gods, was wor- 
 shiped as the giver of life and the Queen of Heaven. Her 
 help was invoked in time of disease or any danger that 
 threatened life. The Christian trinity contained no female 
 deity, although some abortive attempts were made to call 
 the Holy Ghost a female. 
 
 MARIOLATRY 
 
 There are literally hundreds of madonnas, Our Lady of 
 Loretto, Our Lady of Pompeii, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 
 Our Lady of Good Counsel, Our Lady of the Sea, Our 
 Lady of the Figs, Our Lady of the Vines, St. Mary of 
 the Angels, the Madonna of the Tubs, the Madonna of 
 Babies, enough madonnas for every day in the year. Many 
 of these are supposed to work miracles, especially the 
 famous Madonna of Pompeii, and pilgrimages are made 
 to her shrine. 
 
 In 1854, Pope Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of the 
 Immaculate Conception as an article of faith, to deny which 
 would be heresy meriting eternal punishment. After de- 
 claring Mary to be born free from sin, it was only a step 
 to declare her life to be sinless; hence her merit as well 
 as the merits of the sinless life of her son can be applied 
 as atonement for sin, and a sinner is urged to pray to her. 
 "Each village and town has also its own feast in honor of its
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 79 
 
 local madonna. Each Saturday is dedicated to her, also the 
 whole of the month of May. The worship of Mary, 'Queen 
 of Heaven,' Mother of God, has long since eclipsed that 
 of her son." 
 
 SAINT WORSHIP AND RELICS 
 
 And what shall we say of the saints? Their name is 
 legion and the church is continually turning out more. Not 
 even a devout Roman Catholic could possibly be acquainted 
 with all the saints in the catalog. Says an Italian news- 
 paper in an article entitled "La Fabrica di Santi," "The 
 Manufacture of Saints" x : "As is well known, the papal 
 church, because of the scarcity of men worthy of veneration, 
 was obliged to create a number of saints, enough to satisfy all 
 the parishes, each of which wanted at least one for itself. 
 How did it do so? Easily enough! Exploring the cata- 
 combs of Rome, it collected right and left all the skeletons 
 that came in its way, giving them names haphazard and 
 surrounding them with marvelous stories. So great, how- 
 ever, was the haste and hurry, that bishops and priests 
 went on repeating the same names and same stories for dif- 
 ferent localities. Hence, there arose in the church this ex- 
 traordinary state of matters that some saints have many 
 bodies, besides quantities of arms, legs, hands, and fingers. 
 St. Peter himself has three bodies, one under the high altar 
 at Rome, one at Constantinople, one at Cluny, and frag- 
 ments in five other cities. St. Andrew has five complete 
 bodies and the head of a sixth. St. Pancreas has twelve 
 bodies, all genuine, as attested by papal bulls recorded at 
 shrines where they are kept. Mary Magdalene has four 
 bodies, and the relics of her hair would make many wigs. 
 
 All relics are supposed to have power of healing and 
 performing miracles like San Gennaro. The relics of the 
 true cross scattered over the world would make many 
 
 1 Quoted in Alexander Robinson, The Roman Catholic Church in 
 Italy.
 
 8o SONS OF ITALY 
 
 crosses. Then, there are teeth, fingers, bones of the Virgin, 
 numerous milk-bottles with which she fed the infant Christ, 
 and pieces of her veil. The handkerchief of St. Veronica, 
 with which she wiped the Savior's face and which bears the 
 imprint of his countenance, is exhibited from a high gallery 
 in St. Peter's during Holy Week and venerated by the 
 faithful who bow and cross themselves. Every Catholic 
 church desires to possess at least one relic. Some have many 
 and have derived fame and wealth through the pilgrimages 
 of thousands who come to worship or to be healed by the 
 sacred relics. New York City, even, has its bone of St. 
 Ann, supposed to heal cripples. 
 
 The Italians are not without their accustomed sense of 
 humor even in regard to relics. De Sanctis tells of how 
 the custodian of the Vatican relics made a poor, ignorant 
 priest believe that among the relics was a feather from the 
 wing of the Archangel Michael, which he lost while fight- 
 ing Satan. The poor priest wished to see it, so the custodian 
 finally took a swan's feather, tied it with a ribbon, and, 
 stamping it with the official seal, gave it to the credulous 
 priest, who was nearly beside himself with joy at his 
 treasure. 
 
 It is only fair to state that intelligent, spiritually-minded 
 Catholics and there are many in Italy are digusted with 
 this state of affairs, but the sincere efforts of many earnest 
 souls to cleanse the church of superstition and make religion 
 a spiritual, vital, moral force in the life of the individual 
 and in society have resulted in excommunication for those 
 who make their views too public, 
 
 PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC TEACHINGS 
 
 The Protestants hold that God's truth should be free to 
 all. All can and ought to learn to read and think for 
 themselves on relipirms matters. The Protestants believe
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 81 
 
 in education, teaching the Bible, and training the conscience 
 and will to discern and decide for the truth. 
 
 The Catholics hold that their church is the sole repository 
 of truth and it is its function to dole it out to the people, 
 as a mother gives what she thinks is necessary to her 
 children. No matter how well educated a man may become, 
 and how well able to decide for himself in other matters, 
 he is still a child when it comes to religion and has no 
 right to question the decision or authority of the church, 
 no matter how it may conflict with his reason. This is 
 the great battleground of modernism in the Roman Church. 
 
 The Protestant churches teach loyalty to God and country, 
 and freedom for the individual. They have no Index, no 
 barred books, and they are not afraid to have their members 
 talk religion with any one. Truth will conquer by its 
 own force, if only freedom of access to it is allowed to men. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church teaches obedience and loyalty 
 to itself as the highest authority. If there is any question 
 between conscience and the teaching of the church, follow* 
 the teaching of the church. But we have only one criterion 
 by which to judge the superiority of one form of religion 
 over another, and that is by the type of character it de- 
 velops. "By their fruits ye shall know them." The subject 
 of salvation, how it is attained, and what are its logical 
 results, occupies the central position in Protestant teaching. 
 Salvation means faith in and attachment to the personality of 
 Jesus Christ, and the domination of the life by the Spirit 
 of God so that sin in the life is gradually overcome and 
 service reigns in its stead. This means the development 
 of a moral character. According to the practise and teaching 
 of the Roman Church, salvation consists in avoiding the 
 consequences of sin. Here is a quotation from "How to 
 Make a Mission," by one of the Paulist Fathers: "Recogniz- 
 ing the fact that man is prone to sin, what has the church 
 done? She has opened the treasure of her indulgences and 
 she says to her sinful children, 'Come, fear not, I will
 
 82 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 open a way to you, satisfying God for your sins. Do this 
 good work, say these devout prayers, and I by the power 
 vested in me will grant you a plenary indulgence. That 
 is, I will take away all that debt which you owe to the 
 justice of God for your sins.' " 
 
 The church further teaches that the priest is indispensable 
 to any who desire to enter heaven, and hence the necessity 
 of extreme unction, the last rites administered to the dying. 
 
 Here are some of the cardinal principles taught and 
 practised in the Roman Church: 
 
 1. There is no salvation outside of the Church of Rome. 
 
 2. The child who dies unbaptized cannot enter heaven be- 
 cause of original sin which is washed away by baptism. 
 
 3. Forgiveness of sin is dependent upon confession to a 
 priest and the performance of the penance which he may 
 impose in granting absolution. 
 
 4. Penance may be removed from the penitent by obtain- 
 ing a plenary indulgence, and indulgences are far more 
 numerous to-day than in the time of Luther. 
 
 5. Partaking of the communion, attendance upon mass, 
 performing pious works, and advancing the interest of the 
 church are all means whereby merit is acquired which may be 
 applied to satisfy God for the sins one commits. 
 
 6. Priests are the only channel of divine grace to men, 
 regardless of the moral and private life of the priest. 
 
 7. The Bible is a pious book, but the church is superior 
 to it, because the church produced the Bible. 
 
 8. A clear distinction is made between venial and mortal 
 sins. 
 
 9. Masses said and paid for will liberate souls from the 
 sufferings of purgatory. 
 
 10. Objects of indulgence have magic power to heal and 
 even deliver from the power of justice. 
 
 The following are quotations from the new Catholic 
 catechism :
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 83 
 
 Art. 127. The pope alone is infallible when he decides 
 
 what all Christians must believe and practise. 
 Art. 129. Out of the (Holy Catholic) Church no one can 
 be saved, because she alone was founded by Christ to 
 save men. 
 
 Art. 131. ... Application. Give thanks to God that 
 you are a member of the Catholic Church. If you live 
 as a good Catholic you will also die as such and go to 
 heaven. If not, you will be punished in hell more 
 severely than the pagans. Pray for the conversion of 
 heretics and infidels. 
 
 Art 137. Only God can forgive sins and those to w r hom 
 God has given power. This power God gives to bishops 
 and priests. 
 
 Art. 138. Sins are forgiven by the sacraments of baptism 
 and penance. Application. In baptism you are cleansed 
 from original sin. If you have committed grievous sin 
 after baptism, the only salvation is the sacrament of 
 penance. (This is, of course, imposed by the priest 
 after confession, and usually takes the form of alms- 
 giving to the church treasury, and additional prayers.) 
 Art. 139. We help the poor souls in purgatory by prayer, 
 good works, indulgences, and especially by the holy 
 sacrifice of the mass. 
 
 In answer to the efforts of sincere Catholic modernists 
 who are trying to reform the Catholic Church, we may 
 quote the view of the hierarchy from The Faith of Our 
 Fathers by Cardinal Gibbons. On page 95 we read : "The 
 church is not susceptible of being reformed in her doctrines. 
 Like all God's work, it is perfect. It therefore is incapable 
 of reform. Is it not the height of presumption for men to 
 attempt to improve the work of God? Is it not ridiculous 
 for the Luthers and the Calvins, the Knoxes and the Henries 
 [he is referring to Henry VIII of England] and a thousand 
 lesser lights to be offering amendments to the constitution 
 of the church, as if it were a human institution? ... If,
 
 8 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 as we have seen, the church has authority from God to teach, 
 and if she teaches nothing but the truth, is it not the duty 
 of all Christians to hear her voice and obey her commands?" 
 It makes no difference whether intelligent Catholics ac- 
 cept all these principles or not. They are taught to the 
 common people. It is a fact that a religious system based 
 on such teachings cannot produce highly developed spiritual 
 and moral characters. There are Catholics that are highly 
 spiritual, but they are so in spite of the system. There are 
 professing Protestants who are not nearly as good as some 
 Roman Catholics, and yet the Protestant system, carefully 
 observed, tends to produce characterful people. One of the 
 dangers from Romanism is the tendency to lower the moral 
 and ethical significance of the Christian religion. 
 
 BREAKING AWAY FROM THE FAITH OF THE FATHERS 
 
 No great movement comes about without a long period of 
 preparation. The seeds for the present religious upheaval 
 and indifference in Italy were sown many centuries ago. 
 Indeed, they began to grow as far back as the second and 
 third century when vital religion was gradually transformed 
 into a system of externals and when salvation was based 
 upon what one did rather than upon what one was. The 
 Renaissance broke the backbone of authority and the 
 Reformation set up the ideal of real religion. Italy would 
 have taken an active part in the Reformation had there 
 been any power whatsoever that could protect those who 
 wished to follow Christ according to the teaching of the 
 Scripture. Germany had her princes; Switzerland had her 
 Canton rulers, while England had her Cromwell, and Hol- 
 land, her William the Silent. Italy had no outstanding in- 
 surgent leaders to arrest the terror of the Spanish and Ital- 
 ian Inquisition. The Roman Church was able to root out so 
 completely the heretical representatives that outside of the
 
 THREE TYPICAL HILL TOWNS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN ITALY
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 85 
 
 little Waldensian valleys none of the Protestant groups have 
 persisted to our times. The Council of Trent, without rea- 
 son or proofs, asserted what the church taught regarding 
 certain religious matters, and all those who refused to ac- 
 cept the dictates of the church were anathema, and, if they 
 were not killed outright, their lives were made intolerable 
 by persecutions of body and spirit. 
 
 History is full of the awful things that were committed 
 in the name of religion. People in south Italy and Sicily, 
 kept in ignorance and threatened with torture and death if 
 they dared to oppose what the church said, thought best to 
 keep silent. But when Italy was united and religious tolera- 
 tion was declared throughout the kingdom, professors and 
 students made known to the world that they did not, wish 
 to stultify their consciences, and so they declared their op- 
 position to the church, and in their eyes, therefore, to re- 
 ligion. At the present time the vast majority of university 
 professors and students are avowed atheists. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE WAR ON THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN 
 
 ITALY 
 
 Mr. Gino C. Speranza, a New York lawyer who is the 
 special correspondent of The Outlook on the Italian front, 
 finds that the war is leading Italians, as it has English, 
 French, and Belgians, to think more seriously on the mean- 
 ing and destiny of life. He finds an increase in religious 
 practise, a turning of men's minds to God, and a quiet, calm 
 religious faith among the soldiers, but he adds, "If the test 
 is made of a closer adherence and devotion to the sovereign 
 pontiff, the religious fervor has declined." He is also inter- 
 ested in anticipating the influence which the contribution of 
 many hitherto indifferent "intellectuals" will make upon 
 religious thought after the war.
 
 56 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY IN ITALY 
 
 The history of Protestantism in Italy is written in blood. 
 The inquisition, cruel edicts, and persecutions of various 
 forms have wrought havoc among seekers for religious 
 truth. Popes, kings, and dukes have vied with each other 
 in their efforts to root out heresy from the peninsula. The 
 absolute power of the Roman Church during the thousand 
 years prior to the unification of Italy explains why New 
 Testament Christianity did not get a permanent footing 
 there. When such men as Arnold of Brescia, Giordano 
 Bruno, Savonarola, and a host of other lesser known heroes 
 raised their voices against the false positions of the church, 
 and against the unchristian lives of prelates, the stake and 
 the dungeon closed their lips forever. Italy has remained 
 nominally Roman Catholic to our day because of the mailed 
 fist of the vicar of Christ. 
 
 The evangelical colonies of north as well as of south 
 Italy were hewn to pieces by the fanatical soldiery of the 
 church. The unity of the church was maintained by letting 
 no one live who dared to differ from her. The savage 
 slaughter of the Waldensians known as "Le Pasqua Pie- 
 montese" in 1655, made such an impression upon the out- 
 side world, that Cromwell threatened to intervene unless 
 the awful butchery of men, women, and children ceased, 
 and the great Milton wrote his famous sonnet, "Avenge, 
 O Lord, Thy Slaughtered Saints." 
 
 Permanent relief, however, came in 1848 when Carlo 
 Alberto issued his famous edict of emancipation. While the 
 Roman Church was still recognized as the state church, the 
 dissenting Waldensians were restored to civil rights and 
 once for all the evangelicals of the Italian kingdom were 
 protected against further civil persecution. 
 
 Waldensians 
 
 And yet, in the face of serious obstacles during the past 
 ^orty-five years, the Waldensian Church has established
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 87 
 
 many churches and institutions. At the present time the 
 Waldensians report 20,519 members, 70 pastors, 6,408 
 Sunday-school pupils, and an annual contribution to their 
 own work of $34,000. The church also maintains a theo- 
 logical seminary, three religious papers, schools for girls and 
 boys, and two lace-making schools for young women. 
 
 Evangelization is the chief business of the Protestant 
 church in Italy. But each of the denominations at work 
 lays special emphasis upon some one feature of the general 
 task. The Waldensian Church, because of its Protestant 
 inheritance, has secured the position of primacy in the per- 
 sonnel of its ministry. The missionary pastors are all 
 drawn from the Waldensian valleys, where they receive a 
 good general education and are then sent to the theological 
 seminary in Florence, where they have access to L'Istituto 
 del Studi Superiori for advanced work. Due to the assist- 
 ance of generous friends in England, Scotland, and America, 
 the Waldensian Church has been enabled to equip itself 
 with good, churchly buildings. Through the bequests of 
 Mr. John S. Kennedy of New York, a large, cathedral-like 
 church has been built in Rome, not far from the Vatican 
 itself, on ground made sacred to Waldensians by the death 
 and suffering of their martyrs. The Protestant propaganda 
 in Italy as a whole began in 1870 when the temporal power 
 of the Pope came to an end and the soldiers of Victor 
 Emmanuel entered the Eternal City through the breach 
 made in the ancient walls of Rome. 
 
 Baptists 
 
 Among the first of the denominations of America to re- 
 spond to Italy's religious needs was the Southern Baptist 
 Convention. The Rev. George B. Taylor, sent out by the 
 mission board of that denomination, gave thirty years of 
 his life to the task of Italian evangelization. He had diffi- 
 culties to encounter of which only those nearest to him were 
 aware, but he was able with his own eyes to behold the fruit
 
 88 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 of his labors. During his lifetime a score of churches and 
 missions were planted in various parts of Italy, a religious 
 weekly was established, and a theological seminary was 
 inaugurated under the leadership of the Rev. D. G. Whit- 
 tinghill, who is still its president. 
 
 The Rev. Everett Gill and the Rev. J. P. Stewart have 
 been in charge of the strictly religious work, the former 
 caring for the churches in the north, the latter for the 
 southern churches. Dr. Whittinghill, in addition to his 
 duties as president of the theological seminar} 7 , has general 
 direction of the department of publication. 
 
 According to the last report, the Baptist mission in Italy 
 has 32 ordained Italian pastors, 46 churches, and 70 out- 
 stations, with 1,362 members, 40 Sunday-schools with 1,144 
 pupils, a theological seminary, two religious papers, and a 
 monthly religious review. 
 
 One of the outstanding features of the work of the Bap- 
 tist mission is the publication of a series of volumes on vital 
 topics. These are meeting with general approval. The 
 two volumes, "The Baptists" and "Faithwards," have had a 
 circulation of 4,000 copies, and 500 copies of the former 
 were sent to well-known priests, some of whom wrote of 
 their appreciation of the work. But it is the monthly re- 
 ligious review, // Bilychnis, that has met with the greatest 
 success. Men in all ranks of society are glad to read its 
 message. It is sold in forty of the principal book-stores in 
 Rome, while among its subscribers are professors of univer- 
 sities, one hundred teachers of gymnasiums, lyceums, and 
 technical schools, 115 Roman Catholic priests, nearly all the 
 evangelical ministers in the country, and several members 
 of parliament, including ex-Prime Minister Luzzatti. // 
 Bilychnis is the leading review of Protestantism in Italy 
 and is doing much to spread Protestant religious ideals 
 among those who are the creators of public opinion. Some 
 of the leading modernists, deprived by papal ban of their
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 89 
 
 own organ, II Rinnovamento of Milan, contribute valuable 
 articles on modern scientific research, philosophy, and 
 politics, 
 
 Methodists 
 
 Three years after the Italians became masters of their 
 own country the Methodist Episcopal Church of America 
 responded to the call from Italy. In 1873, the Methodist 
 mission in Italy was established by Dr. Leroy M. Vernon, 
 who was in charge until 1888. The principal figures of 
 this enterprise are Bishop William Burt, Dr. N. Walling 
 Clark, and Dr. Bertram M. Tipple. Both Bishop Burt 
 and Dr. Tipple have been honored by the king with the 
 title of cavaliere because of the splendid work they have 
 done for Italy. 
 
 Dr. Burt was in charge of the religious work until 1904, 
 when he was elected bishop, and was succeeded by Dr. 
 Clark, who had been for many years at the head of the 
 educational work. Dr. Clark's place was ably filled by 
 Dr. Tipple. Two of the district superintendents are 
 Italians, Rev. Vittorio Bani being in charge of the Milan 
 district, while Carlo M. Ferreri cares for the Naples dis- 
 trict. 
 
 In addition to its regular work of evangelization, the 
 Methodist mission has established schools which are attract- 
 ing general attention because of their scholarly efficiency 
 and high moral tone. Crandon International Institute, a 
 modern school for girls which occupies one of the most com- 
 manding sites in Rome, has had among its students daugh- 
 ters of the most distinguished families of the city. The 
 Methodists have built three large buildings in Rome. One 
 structure of five stories on Via Venti Settembre furnishes 
 quarters for the Italian and American churches, the day and 
 boarding school for boys, the theological department, the 
 printing plant, and splendid apartments for some of the
 
 9 o SONS OF ITALY 
 
 workers, while the other two buildings situated on Via 
 Savoia house the International Institute for young women, 
 which has been well called the Vassar of Italy. 
 
 But the proposed new collegia on Monte Mario is 
 destined to be the most effective institution for the establish- 
 ment of Protestant Christian ideals in Italy. This is to be 
 a real college. Aside from its regular classical and cultural 
 subjects, it will include a science hall, an agricultural build- 
 ing, a music school, an art department, an industrial build- 
 ing, and everything that will make such an institution of 
 the highest value to the Italian people. The crown of it 
 all will be a splendid chapel, the gift of the Epworth 
 League of the second General Conference district in 
 America. "The last available hilltop in Rome is now owned 
 by Methodism. On this strategic summit Methodism pro- 
 poses to train the vital Christian statesmen for the coming 
 millions of the Mediterranean." 
 
 The Methodist mission in Italy has 76 pastors and local 
 preachers, 3,212 full members, 1,025 probationers, and a 
 Sunday-school membership of 2,8n. It publishes a weekly 
 religious paper for young people, the Evangelists, main- 
 tains a theological school, a boys' secondary school and in- 
 dustrial school, two schools for girls, six elementary schools, 
 and a publishing house. It has a fund for disabled min- 
 isters and holds tide to property valued at $1,000,000. 
 
 The children of the inventor Marconi attend the Meth- 
 odist church and Sunday-school in Bologna, and two of them 
 are now pupils of Crandon Institute. The Garibaldi fam- 
 ily is Methodist. Italia Garibaldi, a granddaughter of the 
 patriot, has done much for blind children and has taught in 
 the girls' industrial school in Rome. Her brother Bruno 
 was educated in the Methodist boys' school in Rome, and 
 when he was killed in action in France, his countrymen 
 gave him the tribute of a public military funeral in recogni- 
 tion of his heroic service.
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 91 
 
 Interdenominational Institution 
 
 The SaTonarola Institute for converted priests was 
 established in Rome in 1912 by Dr. Walling Clark. It is 
 under the direction of a board of managers having repre- 
 sentatives from all the Protestant churches, and provides 
 instruction in the Bible and in practical subjects for men 
 who leave the priesthood for reasons of conscience. More 
 than forty ex-priests have been aided by this movement, and 
 some of them are now occupying positions of large influence 
 and usefulness in the Protestant churches of Europe and 
 America. 
 
 Impact of American Protestantism on Italy 
 
 Soon after evangelical churches commenced work among 
 Italians in America, the effects were seen in Italy. The 
 first missionary pastors were converts who came from Italy, 
 but by their labors America soon began to repay Italy. 
 Here and there an Italian converted in America returned 
 to Italy, and did not hide his light under a bushel, but 
 faithfully proclaimed his new-found faith in Jesus as his 
 Savior. Sometimes these humble messengers were ostra- 
 cized by their families and friends, persecuted until they 
 returned to America. In other places their townspeople 
 listened first with curiosity to the American religion, and 
 later with such interest that many were converted. A 
 peasant of Calitri was converted at the Baptist mission in 
 Hartford and became an earnest Christian. When he re- 
 turned to his family in the little hill-town of southern Italy, 
 he labored tirelessly to bring his townsmen to Christ, with 
 the result that a church was formed with a membership of 
 half a hundred which has since grown to several hundred. 
 
 One of the members of a Methodist Italian Church in 
 New York went back to see his relatives in Albanella, south 
 of Naples, and eagerly told them of his new friend Jesus. 
 The priest tried to set the people against him to stone him 
 as a heretic, but he was not daunted. Although he could
 
 92 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 only read the New Testament with difficulty he gathered 
 his friends in his Own room and taught them all he knew 
 about the Son of God. In the course of a year, twenty-five 
 had been well established in the fundamentals of the gospel. 
 This simple but effective preacher felt his own insufficiency 
 to give his friends further light, so he asked a missionary 
 from Naples to visit his group of believers. During the 
 following year this group so increased in numbers that the 
 district superintendent at Naples sent his own son to min- 
 ister to the congregation, brought together by a zealous 
 peasant. The Roman Church viewed with alarm the growth 
 of this church, and a prominent theologian, and later, the 
 bishop of the diocese visited the town to stem the tide. They 
 threatened and warned the people against the "diabolical, 
 heretical propaganda," but the earnest, upright life of the 
 converted Italian from America had not been unnoticed. 
 The new pastor could find no hall large enough to hold all 
 the people who flocked to his services, so he asked the authori- 
 ties for the use of the public square. The whole town 
 turned out to hear him. After another year's work, a 
 church with 300 members was organized, a school was 
 established, and to-day Albanella is rejoicing in the liberty 
 of the light which is in Jesus Christ. All this was made 
 possible by the conversion of a humble day laborer in an 
 American mission. 
 
 An Abruzzese was converted in a Methodist mission in 
 Astoria, Long Island, and when he returned to visit his 
 native Sale among the Abruzzi mountains, his first concern 
 was to preach the gospel of glad tidings, the truth that 
 makes men free. He had very little education, but could 
 read the New Testament, which he always carried in his 
 pocket, and read to all who would listen to him. In a 
 short time forty persons became deeply interested, but when 
 the grain crop failed, and the priest announced from the 
 altar that it was due to the presence of a heretic among 
 them, the people were so enraged they sought to kill him.
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 93 
 
 But as time went on, here, too, his daily life won them, and 
 to-day there is a church and day school conducted by the 
 Waldensians, who have also sent a Bible woman to work in 
 the homes. Such instances as these might be multiplied in- 
 definitely. 
 
 The effect of Italian evangelization has been felt in all 
 parts of Italy. Scores of missions and churches have been 
 made possible because of one or more returned converted 
 immigrants. The freedom of America has made these 
 humble people bold in proclaiming the truth. One of the 
 religious leaders of Italy said: "You brethren in America 
 can do much for the evangelization of Italy. Indeed, our 
 work here is largely dependent upon what you do in 
 America. Your converts have more enthusiasm and more 
 abandon in their efforts to reach others. Why, I have mar- 
 veled to see a poor peasant talk about Christ with all the 
 frankness and passion of his soul to people who ordinarily 
 would not listen to such a man, but they could not help 
 appreciating his earnestness and conviction. Our men, sub- 
 ject as they are to the social barriers and class distinctions, 
 do not dare approach any save those in their own class. 
 But even then they do not compare with the converts from 
 America. Your converts have more living faith; they are 
 willing to take God at his word. They are willing to make 
 sacrifices for their religion. Your Protestant atmosphere 
 puts iron into the blood of our Italians when they are con- 
 verted. 
 
 "Then, too," he added, "having come in contact with 
 American Christianity, they have higher ideals for their 
 private life. We find that many of the converts from 
 America believe that it is not right to drink or smoke. They 
 have ideas of the sacredness of the Sabbath which are diffi- 
 cult for us here to attain, and I believe they have in general 
 a clearer conception of the value of truth. Tell your people 
 in America that the best way for them to convert Italy is 
 for them to convert the Italians in America. The man
 
 94 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 who is converted in America cannot keep still. Through 
 letters and visits the gospel of Christ is getting a large 
 hearing here in Italy." 
 
 SUMMARY OF PROTESTANT WORK IN ITALY 
 
 The work accomplished by the evangelicals may be briefly 
 summarized. There are at present about 25,000 Protestant 
 church-members, a majority of whom are in the Waldensian 
 valleys, about 200 church organizations, a still larger num- 
 ber of mission stations, three theological schools, a goodly 
 number of day and night schools, about 200 Sunday-schools, 
 three publishing houses, six newspapers, two religious re- 
 views, several orphanages, Bible women and colporteurs. 
 The work up to the present has been extensive rather than 
 intensive. The churches generally have little prospect of 
 immediate self-support. 
 
 GENERAL EFFECT OF PROTESTANT WORK IN ITALY 
 
 The efficacy and reach of forty-six years of Protestant 
 effort by the various religious bodies at work in Italy are 
 not to be measured by the actual results attained in the 
 number of converts. The total annual increase is small 
 compared with the sum spent, but there are results of the 
 Protestant propaganda in Italy which cannot be fairly tabu- 
 lated. 
 
 It is fair to state that the presence of the Protestant 
 church in Italy, with its schools, its religious press, its public 
 addresses, and the free distribution of the Bible, has been a 
 very large factor in bringing about the modernist move- 
 ment. The existence of the Waldensian, Methodist, and 
 Baptist churches in that country has served as a strong pro- 
 test to existing institutions and unfounded pretensions. This 
 has all tended to impress upon the minds of the people that 
 there are conceptions of religion other than those maintained
 
 RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS 95 
 
 by the Roman Church. Little by little, English and Ger- 
 man works on modern religious views were translated and 
 put on sale in the chief book-stores of Rome. While great 
 care has been observed that heretical literature be kept from 
 the reach of the priests, ideas and views once set in motion 
 cannot be completely smothered. The results of modern 
 Biblical criticism have found their way into the hands of 
 not only the cultured laity but also the cultured prelates. 
 
 One of the evident results of Protestantism in Italy has 
 been the publication of the Gospels and the Book of Acts 
 in the Italian language by the Society of St. Gerolamo, 
 which was organized for that special purpose within the 
 Roman Church itself. Several popes prior to 1889 had 
 declared it to be a sin for the laity to read the Bible. As 
 late as 1869, persons were arrested within the papal states 
 for presuming to read the Bible, even in family worship. 
 Travelers were searched as they entered Rome, and if they 
 possessed Bibles, the books were confiscated. Both Pope 
 Pius IX and Leo XIII declared ex cathedra that it was 
 unlawful for Catholics to read the Bible. 
 
 But in 1898 Leo XIII sanctioned the establishment of 
 the Society of San Gerolamo, for the above-mentioned pur- 
 pose, and in the preface of that publication each Catholic is 
 promised one hundred days' indulgence if he reads the gospel 
 each day. What brought about the change in attitude? It 
 certainly was not the conviction that the Gospels are an 
 indispensable help to the religious life. The change was 
 caused by the Protestant propaganda, the preaching in sea- 
 son and out of season that the preachers were not proclaim- 
 ing their own thoughts but the word of God. With time 
 this had its impression. Faithful Romanists insisted on 
 having the word of God too. 
 
 The results of the experiment were not favorable to 
 Catholicism. People became too inquisitive. The Protes- 
 tants bought up thousands of copies and distributed them 
 free of charge to the people. In a few years over 4,000,000
 
 96 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 copies were taken up and other millions could have been 
 used, but suddenly the society was suppressed, and not an- 
 other copy is now available. The Roman hierarchy had 
 learned to its sorrow that, even when annotated, the free- 
 dom of the word of God proves disastrous to the Roman 
 institutions. Garibaldi had said years before that the open 
 Bible was the mightiest weapon against the pretensions and 
 aggressions of Rome.
 
 IV 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN
 
 What do you suppose this undesirable immigrant thinks of 
 America and Protestant Christianity? What has he reason to 
 think in the light of his previous dreams and present realiza- 
 tions? What does Protestant Christianity do for him from the 
 time he reaches America? What will he learn of our free in- 
 stitutions in the tenement slums or labor camps, or from "bosses" 
 who treat him as cattle, that will teach him to prize American 
 citizenship, desire religious liberty, or lead a sober, respectable 
 life? If we are in earnest about the evangelization of the 
 immigrant we must put ourselves in his place occasionally, and 
 get his point of view. 
 
 H. B. Grose, Aliens or Americans? 
 
 THE FLOWER FACTORY 
 
 Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, 
 
 They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one 
 
 Little children who have never learned to play: 
 
 Teresina softly crying that her fingers ache to-day, 
 
 Tiny Fiametta nodding when the twilight slips in, gray. 
 
 High above the clattering street, ambulance and fire-gong beat, 
 
 They sit, curling crimson petals, one by one, one by one. 
 
 Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, 
 
 They have never seen a rose-bush nor a dewdrop in the sun. 
 
 They will dream of the vendetta, Teresina, Fiametta, 
 
 Of a Black Hand and a face behind a grating; 
 
 They will dream of cotton petals, endless, crimson, suffocating, 
 
 Never of a wild-rose thicket nor the singing of a cricket, 
 
 But the ambulance will bellow through the wanness of their 
 
 dreams. 
 And their tired lids vrill flutter with the street's hysteric screams. 
 
 Lisabetta, Marianina, Fiametta, Teresina, 
 
 They are winding stems of roses, one by one, one by one, 
 
 Let them have a long, long play-time, Lord of Toil, when toil 
 
 is done ! 
 Fill their baby hands with roses, joyous roses of the sun. 
 
 Florence Wilkinson.
 
 IV 
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 
 
 To a spectator in the visitor's gallery at Ellis Island, 
 watching the long lines of strange peoples coming up from 
 the barge and filing slowly through the aisles in the hall 
 below, come inevitably the questions: Where do they come 
 from? What was their life in the old world? Why have 
 they come here? What is this one's ambition, that one's 
 purpose? What awaits them? Will it be as they hope, 
 something better than they have ever known, or will they 
 wage here a losing fight with poverty, lack of governmental 
 protection, and injustice? 
 
 DISADVANTAGES IN ITALY 
 Poverty 
 
 Our Italian immigrants are largely from southern Italy 
 where centuries of oppression, misrule, and neglect have 
 brought about abject poverty. For two thousand years Italy 
 has been a prize for which many nations have contended. 
 Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Goths, Normans, Spaniards, 
 French, and Austrians, each in turn, have coveted the spot. 
 It formed a domain which has been divided, united, and 
 subdivided again, and handed over from one prince to an- 
 other oftener than any other state in Europe. Never until 
 the wars of liberation which resulted in a united and inde- 
 pendent Italy forty-six years ago, did those in power have 
 the slightest regard for the welfare of the people. Their 
 only consideration had been to exploit them. On the one 
 
 99
 
 ioo SONS OF ITALY 
 
 side the great land barons, whose holdings date from feudal 
 times when the peasants gladly entrusted their land to the 
 great lord in return for protection in his castle or leader- 
 ship in times of war; on the other, the Roman Church 
 together making it impossible for the peasants to gain more 
 than a scanty living from the soil. In summer when fruits 
 and vegetables abound there is little actual hunger, but in 
 many a peasant home one meal a day is the rule in the 
 winter. In addition to high rents to be paid to the land- 
 lord, or low wages of fifteen or sixteen cents a day if he 
 worked for the landowner, the peasant had many religious 
 obligations to meet, all of which cost money, and then if he 
 had anything left, taxes would surely take it. Italy entered 
 the world of nations a poor country, with all the needs but 
 few of the resources of a modern European state. She has 
 made rapid strides, as we saw in Chapter II, in creating a 
 first-class army and navy and building thousands of miles 
 of railroads, in matters of public health, in education, in 
 encouraging art, music, and physical training, but all these 
 require vast sums of money, and these she has raised by an 
 established and minute system of taxation which Prof. Vil- 
 lari calls "progressive taxation, topsy-turvy the less a man 
 has the more he pays." On the theory that each must do 
 his share equally, all necessities are taxed and all luxuries 
 exempted. But how does it work out? The rich landlord 
 pays no tax on his riding horses, but the poor peasant is 
 taxed for his donkey, his necessary beast of burden. Works 
 of art are, of course, exempt, while the peasant must pay a 
 tax on everything he raises and everything he buys. Under 
 such circumstances it is almost impossible to save and to 
 rise in the world. 
 
 Social Status 
 
 Even if a peasant, working early and late, and blessed 
 with many sons to help him, succeeds in earning enough to 
 buy a piece of land and have some measure (4 comfort, the
 
 Copyright (.Upper), Underwood & Underwood 
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION OF THE HOME 
 
 An Italian Tenement Family 
 An Italian Baptist Deacon and His Family
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 101 
 
 social distinctions are so strong and firmly fixed in Italy 
 that he must be a man of extraordinary genius, a Garibaldi, 
 who can rise above them. The peasants bow humbly to the 
 signori and make way for them if they wish to pass. No 
 gentleman thinks of carrying his own bag or any parcel in 
 Italy, only peasants and facchini carry luggage, and they 
 are often loaded down like beasts of burden. A peasant 
 can never hope to be anything more than a peasant in his 
 native land. 
 
 Lack of Education 
 
 There has been little attention paid to education in the 
 south until recent years. Here, as in the economic and 
 social life, the greatest contrasts are found. Emigration to 
 America has created a desire, however, to know how to 
 read and write well enough to answer the letters from 
 America. When this is acquired the children leave school. 
 I found one town with hundreds of children in school, yet 
 only six in the sixth grade. Italian statesmen are greatly 
 interested in the passage of the Burnett bill with its literacy 
 test by the Congress of the United States. Says one writer, 
 "It may help to solve our problem of rural education. If 
 a man must read and write to enter America, the peasants 
 will demand that the communes furnish them schools." 
 
 These, then, are the conditions that cause thousands of 
 able-bodied young Italians to leave home and try their for- 
 tunes across the sea. 
 
 UNEQUAL OPPORTUNITIES IN AMERICA 
 
 The place the Italian is making for himself in America 
 is an indication of his persistent industry and genuine worth. 
 Only those intimately acquainted with his life can know the 
 fierce struggle and the difficulties met and conquered in the 
 new world.
 
 I02 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Ignorance of Language 
 
 Ignorance of our language and the lack of a good general 
 education are serious handicaps, but, in addition, the ma- 
 jority of the immigrants come from country towns. They 
 are agricultural workers and, coming to the cities, must take 
 the heaviest, poorest-paid work which requires no skill, 
 Their predecessors from northern Europe look upon them 
 with dislike. It is true they have pushed the Irishman up 
 and out of the ditches, and have taken from him the job of 
 building the railroads and cleaning the city streets. But 
 they have done this through no "pull," but because they 
 are better workers, steady, sober, faithful, and less trouble- 
 some. They accept a lower wage, but that is because $1.50 
 looks large to an Italian who earned twenty cents a day in 
 Italy. Even if he realizes that this wage is small for his 
 needs here, he is so eager to work and so afraid of being 
 idle that he will take what he can get. 
 
 If a skilled mechanic, student, or literary man comes over 
 here, unless he finds employment with an Italian firm, he is 
 also greatly handicapped. I have found skilled workmen, 
 even a professor, digging in the ditch, and a man who had 
 spent several years in college, in a factory, because they 
 knew no English. 
 
 Economic Handicaps 
 
 Two other difficulties that beset the path of the Italian 
 are high rents and irregular employment. Low wages and 
 a thrifty desire to save something compel the Italian when 
 he first lands to find the cheapest shelter. But even this is 
 high in proportion to his income, $13 to $14 for three and 
 four rooms, $16 to $21 for five and six rooms, and $5.00 to 
 $8.00 for two rooms. Some pay from one third to one half 
 of their income for rent. Economists tell us that not more 
 than a sixth or a fifth should be paid. Irregular employ- 
 ment is another obstacle to progress. Several days or even 
 weeks may elapse between digging in the subway and build-
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 103 
 
 ing a macadam road, or in a factory a dull season will throw 
 hundreds out of employment for months. Then he must 
 live on his savings, and when these fail, he goes in debt to 
 the provision store or borrows from his friends. To his 
 credit it must be said that, when he finds work again, his 
 first care is to pay off his debts. 
 
 Volumes might be written on the pitiable conditions of 
 the tenements that thousands of Italians call homes. "The 
 home is the key to good citizenship." The question is often 
 asked, "Why do these people crowd together in the cities? 
 Why don't they go out into the less populous states and 
 find work?" The answer is simple. "Their ignorance of 
 our language constrains them to hard labor in factory or 
 gang until they are able to make their services otherwise 
 valuable to American employees. In such work they can 
 be readily directed by Italian foremen, and the average immi- 
 grant shrinks (is ashamed, he says) from exposing his ig- 
 norance to any but his own countrymen. He has reason 
 for this in the common lack of patience with his supposed 
 dulness and blunders. I have heard Americans, otherwise 
 apparently rational, shout at Italians as if bellowing would 
 make spoken English more intelligible, and swear at them 
 as if ignorance of English was an unspeakable offense. The 
 Italian is sensitive to ridicule and feels the injustice of abuse 
 keenly, whether he resents it openly or not. Hence he is 
 slow to venture alone in a strange community or to seek 
 employment on a farm until he is able to speak English with 
 considerable fluency and has become well acquainted with 
 American ways and requirements. The clustering in cities 
 is attributable not only to his fondness for social life and 
 his lack of money to enter country life, but to the lack of 
 invitations with any assurance of patience or sympathy." 
 
 Clannishnesf 
 
 And what is more natural than this "clannishness" of 
 which they are accused, undesirable as it seems? Were
 
 104 
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Italians* 71 
 Greater^ew^rli 
 
 Each doT rejre<mt 
 1.OOO Italians
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 105 
 
 five thousand Americans in Rome, they would be apt to 
 settle in one quarter and do business in that quarter. Race 
 feeling, habits, and tastes would make this natural. It is 
 exactly the same with Italians. They prefer to live among 
 their own people if possible, and if enough are in one neigh- 
 borhood, they will continue to keep up their distinctive habits 
 and local feasts, a true "little Italy." If Italians are em- 
 ployed in manufacturing establishments, they seek lodgings 
 near their work to save carfares or long walks, and for this 
 reason there may be clusters of Italian tenements in widely 
 separated quarters of a city. Hence every large city has 
 at least three or four separate Italian colonies, as we call 
 them. Every rural Italian colony was established by a 
 group of a few families, five to thirty or more from the 
 same region, and as they prospered on their farms letters to 
 the homeland brought friends and relatives to augment the 
 colony. It would be impossible to launch such an agri- 
 cultural colony in any other way. As the Italians have 
 been accustomed to work in the fields and are successful in 
 farm life, it is exceedingly desirable both for the purpose of 
 developing the resources of this country in the South and 
 West, and of relieving the poverty and moral menace of 
 the overcrowded slum, to establish, under governmental 
 protection, an intelligence bureau which would give trust- 
 worthy information about available land and its suitability 
 for Italian colony life. Although the Italian does not state 
 his requirements, still he likes to feel assured at least of 
 school privileges for his children, 
 
 CRIME 
 
 The worst enemy of the Italian has to admit that he is 
 industrious, sober, and trustworthy, and that he earns what 
 he gets. The fact that he is charged with committing 
 crimes of a violent character should not prejudice people 
 against the entire Italian population. Most such crimes are
 
 I0 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 of a momentary passion and are usually due to drink, cards, 
 and women. They could be greatly reduced, were justice 
 meted out to every criminal and were political influence 
 abolished from the judge's bench. The foreigner has 
 learned the tricks of the trade as they are practised here in 
 America. He is convinced that money will give him exemp- 
 tion from the law. 
 
 Mafia and Camorra 
 
 The mere mention of these words produces terror in the 
 minds of many Americans who have the impression that 
 every Italian is a member of these dread organizations and 
 that they are always seeking a favorable opportunity to rob 
 or slay their unsuspecting victim. 
 
 "The American people have heard so much about the 
 criminal tendencies of the new immigration that they have 
 come generally to accept as gospel truth the oft-repeated 
 statements that the aliens coming to America are distin- 
 guished by their criminal tendencies. And yet every investi- 
 gation that has been made points to the conclusion that if 
 there is any difference between the immigrant and the native 
 American in this regard it is in favor of the foreigner rather 
 than against him." i 
 
 Ninety-nine per cent, of the Italians in America are 
 clean in life and law-abiding, and are themselves anxious to 
 rid the world of the Mafia pest. The chief reason why 
 many do not cooperate with the police in revealing crime 
 and criminals is because due punishment is rarely meted out 
 to the guilty. Says one writer, "The Camorra is no casual 
 growth. It is the almost inevitable outcome of the squalid 
 misery, the physical degeneration, the appalling wickedness 
 of sections of the Neapolitan population." 
 
 Professor Villari says, "It is the natural and necessary 
 form the social state of Naples takes. The Mafia in its 
 true sense is a group of .small gangs, each gang consisting 
 
 1 Frederick J. Raskin, The Immigrant, page 147.
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 107 
 
 of not more than a dozen members. It is a kind of crim- 
 inal aristocracy, rarely drawn from the very poor, gen- 
 erally from men of the smaller proprietor or small trades- 
 men class. This form of criminal organization is now found 
 only about Palermo, and the sulfur districts of Girgenti and 
 Caltanissetta." 1 But it is the common opinion of Italians 
 in Italy as well as in America that this blackmailing and 
 criminal organization is rapidly disappearing. 
 
 "Italy is many thousand miles from Chicago, but Italy 
 punishes criminals for crimes committed in Chicago. It is 
 safer for a Black Hander to murder in Chicago and stay in 
 Chicago than it is for him to go back to Italy. Here, in the 
 first place, he is rarely convicted. If he is convicted, it is 
 for an indeterminate sentence, and he is out again in a few 
 years on parole. But if he goes back to Italy, he fairly steps 
 into the door of a prison. And once in, he remains in." 2 
 
 It is a significant fact that the greatest amount of Italian 
 crime is in the cities where people live huddled together 
 and children have no playground but the streets with their 
 lure of saloons, pool-rooms, and moving pictures. In the 
 country districts Italian crime is almost unknown. An 
 American living in Hammonton, New Jersey, near a very 
 large farming colony of Neapolitans, says that, if out late at 
 night, he has far less fear of the Italians than of some 
 toughs of his own race. 
 
 We might also assist in reducing Italian criminality by 
 cooperating with the Italian government in preventing crim- 
 inals from landing upon our shores. Instead of Italy's open- 
 ing her prison doors to flood our country with her criminal 
 class, she is making every effort possible to keep them at 
 home. In the first place, no Italian can secure from his 
 government a passport if he is a fugitive from justice; and 
 in the second place, Italy furnishes to every prospective emi- 
 grant a document, fede penale, which shows whether the 
 
 1 Villari, Italian Life in Town and Country. 
 
 3 Chicago Tribune.
 
 I0 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 holder has ever committed a crime or in any way has come 
 under the condemnation of the law. Indeed Italy has gone 
 so far as to spread the news all over the country that this 
 fede penale is required of every Italian immigrant entering 
 the United States. Here, then, is a splendid opportunity 
 for us to protect ourselves from the criminal class. While 
 we have raved about the Italian immigrant and have con- 
 demned the entire Italian population in America, we have 
 not been sensible enough to use this simple expedient which 
 would have rid us of all who had already entered a life of 
 crime before coming to America. 
 
 The Saloon 
 
 Undoubtedly the saloon or cafe plays too large a part in 
 Italian life. In Italy every one, old and young, drinks the 
 light grape wines freely, but there is very little drunken- 
 ness; the people are temperate. But in America, Italian 
 wine is too expensive to drink and the cheaper, intoxicating 
 beer is used instead. The sociable nature of Italians and 
 the lack of any other club or gathering place draw many 
 to spend their evenings in saloons. Drunkenness, therefore, 
 is on the increase and is one of the evil influences of Ameri- 
 can life which Italians carry back to their native land. 
 Gambling and other games of chance are some of the chief 
 vices of Italians. A heated dispute over cards has frequently 
 led to the quick and violent stabbing affrays that the news- 
 papers luridly publish. 
 
 It is a sad commentary on our boasted Americanizing 
 precess that the great majority of criminals in America 
 are not the foreign-born parents of any race, but their 
 American-born descendants. As children they play craps 
 in the streets, play truant from crowded schools, haunt 
 saloons and pool parlors, and become infected with the 
 desire for easy money by the penny prize packets given with 
 candy or the lucky number guessing cards at cheap cigar
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 109 
 
 and stationery stores. They drift into a gang under the 
 leadership of an older boy, become cigaret and drug users, 
 learn crime from their leader, and do his work for him until 
 perhaps one becomes strong enough to break away and lead 
 a gang of his own, when he becomes a dandy, swaggering 
 about the streets while members of his gang commit the 
 crimes he plans. 
 
 The cause of this is not hard to find. Apart from the 
 lure and demoralizing effect of life on city streets, the real 
 reason is loss of parental control. The child speaks one 
 language, the parent another. The child put to work at 
 fourteen feels he is grown-up, is earning money, and has a 
 right to his own way. An Italian girl of eighteen suddenly 
 left her home and went to board some distance away with 
 strangers. Her parents, aware of the danger surrounding 
 an unprotected girl, besought me to win her back to her 
 family. I called on the girl and she told me she could no 
 longer endure life at home. She had paid to have gas put 
 in but her father wouldn't let her use it at night. He 
 wanted to go to bed early, neither would he allow gentle- 
 men callers, and if he saw her reading a book, he took it 
 away from her, fearing it was something bad. Then I 
 went to her home and explained to the father the kind of 
 books his daughter drew from the library to read, and finally 
 won his consent to permit his daughter to fix up the 
 front room attractively as a sitting-room and receive her 
 friends, or use the gas to read by at night after work. The 
 solution was the reunion of the family life. We must teach 
 the boys and girls to respect and honor their parents and 
 to speak their native tongue as well as English. All workers 
 who expect to do anything more than superficial work among 
 Italians should know their language. This matter of lan- 
 guage is a wide gulf between parents and children. It must 
 be bridged not only by the parents' learning English, but by 
 the intelligent use of their mother tongue by the children. 
 Imagine the helplessness of a mother who knows no English
 
 IIO SONS OF ITALY 
 
 and whose children feel that Italian is to be despised and 
 cast aside. The children talk English in the home and even' 
 plan to disobey her before her eyes when she has no idea 
 what they are saying. 
 
 CHILD LABOR 
 
 Child labor is one of the greatest handicaps to the progress 
 of the immigrant in America. Few realize how widespread 
 and injurious it is. Little children of even four and five 
 make artificial flowers or pick out the shelled nuts so attrac- 
 tively sold in glass jars. In the glass industry in Pennsyl- 
 vania boys work at night, in the berry fields of New Jersey 
 and New York, in the canning factories shelling peas or 
 beans, in the cotton factories of the south tending spindles. 
 All these children, robbed of education, of a chance for 
 healthful play, stunted by long hours of work which is not 
 heavy, perhaps, but tedious and mind-deadening, in close 
 rooms amid dust-laden air, wear out at an early age and 
 become a problem to organized society. The immigrant 
 sacrifices his children because he is ignorant, short-sighted, 
 and in desperate need of the few pennies their efforts bring 
 in. Child labor even affects the 'question of wages. The 
 cotton mills in Massachusetts competing with the southern 
 mills which produce more cheaply, cannot pay as high wages 
 as they otherwise would. 
 
 THE SOUTHERN ITALIAN 
 
 In a recent book, The Old World in the New, Prof. 
 Edward A. Ross makes a statement so surprisingly unfair 
 that it cannot go unchallenged. He says: "As immigrants 
 their [the north Italians'] superiority to other Italians is 
 generally recognized. I have yet to meet an observer who 
 does not rate the north Italian among us as more intelli- 
 gent, reliable, and progressive than the south Italian. We
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN in 
 
 know from statistics that he is less turbulent, less criminal, 
 less transient; he earns more, rises higher and acquires citizen- 
 ship sooner. Yet only one fifth of our Italians are from 
 north Italy." 1 
 
 This is too superficial a view, not borne out by facts if 
 one studies Italians closely and intimately. The north Italian 
 comes from the better governed and industrially developed 
 part of Italy. The majority come as skilled workmen. 
 They are a fine, intelligent, and substantial contribution to 
 our national life. I know of magnificent, cultured men 
 among their number. But the north Italians have weak 
 points as well as their southern brothers. Extremists and 
 anarchism are rampant in north Italy, and the north Italian 
 furnishes us with most of our I. W. W. agitators and 
 anarchists. Paterson, New Jersey, and Barre, Vermont, 
 frequently the scenes of "turbulent" labor troubles, are full 
 of north Italians, while the peaceful colonies of Hammonton, 
 New Jersey, Bryan, Texas, and Canastota, New York, are 
 settled by south Italians. The north Italians are the hard- 
 est, heaviest drinkers, and it is well known among police 
 officials that the Italian crook is neither the northern nor 
 southern Italian from the country districts, but the city man 
 who can read and write. The country people are, both north 
 and south, warm-hearted, generous, law-abiding, only seek- 
 ing opportunity to earn a living. The causes of crime and 
 anarchy are not in the nature of either north or south 
 Italians, but are to be found in Italian history, conquest, 
 oppression, and injustice of the governing class both church 
 and state. 
 
 Mentality of Italians 
 
 As to mental strength, Mr. Ross has himself said that 
 only one fifth of our Italians are from north Italy. The 
 following figures are therefore impressive. They are found 
 on page 31 of the volume, Insane and Feeble-minded in 
 
 The Old World in the Kev:, page 101.
 
 112 
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Institutions, prepared by the Census Bureau of 1910. We 
 are not getting mental degenerates from Italy, but unde- 
 veloped brains and well-developed muscles. The truth is 
 that Italians in many instances degenerate in America, due 
 to heartless exploitation by employers, high rents, crowded 
 street life, and the generally demoralizing environment in 
 which our neglect forces them to live. 
 
 FOREIGN-BORN WHITE 
 
 Country of Birth 
 
 In Total 
 Population, 
 1910 
 
 In Hospitals for the Insane, 1910 
 
 Enumerated on 
 January I 
 
 Admitted Dur- 
 ing the Year 
 
 Number 
 
 Per 
 
 100,000 
 
 Number 
 
 Per 
 100,000 
 
 Total 
 
 13,345,545 
 
 1,670,545 
 810,987 
 385,083 
 117,236 
 2,501,181 
 1,219,968 
 
 058,934 
 261,034 
 
 1,352,155 
 1,313,070 
 1,602,752 
 
 1,250,662 
 403,858 
 665,183 
 181,621 
 
 124,834 
 967,098 
 
 54,096 
 
 3,935 
 
 2,777 
 972 
 614 
 13,787 
 4,555 
 
 3,7o6 
 849 
 
 13,174 
 1,829 
 3,705 
 
 6,442 
 2,062 
 3,677 
 703 
 
 725 
 1,554 
 
 405.3 
 
 235-6 
 342-3 
 352-4 
 523.7 
 551.2 
 373-4 
 
 386.5 
 325.2 
 
 974-3 
 136.2 
 231.2 
 
 5IS.I 
 510.6 
 552-8 
 387.1 
 
 602.4 
 160.7 
 
 15,523 
 
 1,552 
 1,030 
 266 
 146 
 3,193 
 1,445 
 
 1,148 
 297 
 
 2,833 
 863 
 1,709 
 
 1,587 
 337 
 874 
 176 
 
 196 
 
 702 
 
 116.3 
 
 92.9 
 
 127.0 
 69.1 
 124.5 
 127.7 
 118.4 
 
 119.7 
 113-8 
 
 209.5 
 64.3 
 
 106.6 
 
 126.9 
 133.0 
 131.5 
 96.9 
 
 157.0 
 72.7 
 
 ^Austria-Hungary 
 
 Canada, English 
 
 
 France 
 
 
 
 
 Scotland 
 
 
 Italy 
 
 
 Scandinavian countries 
 
 Sweden 
 
 
 
 Other countries- 
 
 
 * Includes Polish people who belong to Austria-Hungary, Germany, or Russia, and 
 hence have no separate enumeration. 
 
 "The ratios are conspicuously high for persons born in 
 Ireland. Of the natives of that country 974.3 per 100,000 
 were enumerated in insane asylums, on January i, 1910, 
 a proportion of almost one per cent. At the other extreme 
 are the natives of Italy, with a ratio of 136.2 per 100,000 
 enumerated.
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 113 
 
 "Undoubtedly the Irish, as compared with most other 
 foreign nationalities, include a much larger percentage of 
 old persons, because they represent earlier immigration. 
 The Italians, on the other hand, representing a recent immi- 
 gration, are comparatively young. But the mere facts of 
 age can hardly be the complete explanation of the marked 
 contrast between these two nationalities as regards propor- 
 tion of insane persons committed to asylums, and in general 
 this factor probably does not go very far toward explaining 
 the variations in ratios for other nationalities. . . . On ex- 
 amination the table shows that Italians have the lowest per 
 cent, of insanity of any race admitted to the country" 
 
 Mr. Ross accuses the south Italian of emotional insta- 
 bility. He should remember the undeveloped childlikeness 
 of the south Italian. He is credulous, responsive, warm- 
 hearted, generous, happy as a child, as easily pleased or hurt, 
 and some very thoughtful people consider this lack of self- 
 consciousness his chief charm. Repression and self-control 
 all come with education, and sometimes also, unfortunately, 
 a loss of spontaneous, warm-hearted sympathy. One meets 
 from south Italy many cultured Italians of calm, impassive 
 bearing who hide their thoughts and feelings as completely 
 as the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 The south Italian is illiterate, but not unintelligent. 
 Traces of the "divine fire" of a race' largely Pelasgic in 
 south Italy, a race that has produced the greatest genius the 
 world has ever seen, still persist and only await favorable 
 environment to flash out and enrich our life. Said a hard- 
 headed business man to Prof. Steiner, "These dagos are an 
 ignorant lot." "Yes," was the reply, "but they are of the 
 same race as Tasso, Dante, Verdi, Garibaldi, and Cavour." 
 "Oh, come now, they aren't Tassos or Garibaldis." "No; 
 neither are you George Washington or Lincoln." If we 
 call the roll of modern times, we find that the great poet 
 D'Annunzio, the philosopher Benedetto Croce, among 
 musicians such names as Arrigo Boito, Mascagni, Giacomo
 
 u 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Puccini, Paolo Tosti, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, and scores of 
 lesser men are all southern Italians. In fact, if one talks 
 with an Italian he will tell you frankly that most of the 
 artists, poets, and musicians are from southern Italy, Cala- 
 bria, the Neapolitan district, and the Abruzzi, the home of 
 the great genre painter, Francesco Paolo Michetti. Antonio 
 Salandra, called the "greatest Italian statesman since Cavour 
 and Crispi," is a native of Apulia. Says a foreigner in 
 Rome, "He has no air or pretension. Italian people love 
 him; he personifies their best characteristics, strength with- 
 out arrogance, craft without malignity." * 
 
 Surround the Italian with the best, not the worst influ- 
 ence; present the highest, not the lowest ideals in our 
 American life; and to lend purpose and inspiration to his 
 life, give him the simple gospel of Jesus Christ he will 
 respond! The Italian is an idealist; he suffers the life of 
 railroad camps, to send back money to his loved ones in 
 Italy. Savonarola would not compromise his ideal of right- 
 eousness for Alexander VI, and he died as a consequence. 
 To-day the hundreds of ex-communicated modernists, men 
 of culture seeking for the most part a moral regeneration 
 of their mother church, stand firm for their ideals of the 
 separation of church and state and of religion as a spiritual 
 and moral life. The martyrs of yesterday, the thousands of 
 valiant lives that fought for Italian unity, the hardships 
 that I see endured in many an Italian home for the sake of 
 the children, the great missionary zeal of our converts all 
 exhibit this fine national trait of devotion to something out- 
 side the personal interests of the individual. Shall we not, 
 as Christian brothers, give this quality of enthusiastic devo- 
 tion a worthy object, Jesus Christ and the establishment of 
 his kingdom upon earth ? 
 
 1 Helen Zimmern, Italian Leaders of To-day.
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 115 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE AMBITIOUS 
 
 While there are too many of the second generation who 
 go to recruit the hoodlum and the prison class, there is a 
 large percentage who are in attendance at our high schools 
 and colleges. In one high school in Buffalo, New York, 
 200 sons and daughters of Italy form the Italian club of 
 that school, while Brown, Colgate, Princeton, Syracuse, 
 Yale, Harvard, Chicago, and Leland Stanford have repre- 
 sentations of Italian students. A young fellow from the 
 Calabrian hills, without any one to back him, has been 
 able to secure his preparatory training and college course 
 by performing any job offered him. He is to graduate from 
 Colgate soon and he will either teach or do social work 
 among his own countrymen. Another brilliant young fel- 
 low, a Sicilian, graduated from Columbia recently at the 
 head of his class. Another in one of our well-known uni- 
 versities received the Phi Beta Kappa key, being the third 
 man in a class of eighty-four, and completing his course 
 four months ahead of his class. 
 
 Throughout the entire country Italians are to be found 
 in positions of trust and responsibility. Dr. Antonio Stella, 
 doubtless the best known and most efficient Italian physician 
 in this country, has an enviable standing among American 
 doctors. Mr. Francolini, the president of the Italian Na- 
 tional Bank, was for many years a member of the school 
 board of New York City. 
 
 Forging Ahead 
 
 When we consider the lack of opportunity the Italian 
 has had in his own land and his ignorance of our language 
 and business methods, and then see him forge ahead among 
 people who are more highly developed, we realize he Jias 
 qualities which make him a desirable citizen. A Calabrian 
 peasant came to New York several years ago and finally 
 secured a position in the street-cleaning force. He and his
 
 u6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 wife lived frugally, brought up a family of six children, 
 and saved a tidy sum yearly. In time he was able to buy a 
 little place near a Connecticut city. He has a comfortable 
 house and a good garden which he diligently works. Two 
 sons are now in good positions, the two older girls have 
 been through high and normal school and are teaching, and 
 the younger children are still in school. It does one's heart 
 good to see the happy content of this successful family. 
 
 Another man from the Basilicata, unskilled in any trade, 
 had an ear for music. He had never been taught and could 
 not read a note, but he picked up harp-playing by ear, and 
 strolled over France, Spain, and our central, Southern, and 
 Eastern states, carrying his harp on his back. His faithful, 
 plucky wife went with him. Once when he had saved a 
 small sum of money, he bought a little farm in South Caro- 
 lina, hoping to settle down there. It was after the close of 
 the Civil War and feeling against all strangers was high. 
 He returned one evening to find the dread warning of the 
 Ku Klux graphically pictured on his door and he fled that 
 night with wife and child. A second time he saved money 
 and invested it in a home farther north, only to be warned 
 out of town by the country-folk, who were afraid of the 
 dark-skinned foreigner whom they held to be a potential 
 thief and murderer. Penniless, he again faced the world 
 with his wife, children, and harp. He finally settled in 
 Brooklyn, where to-day he is living on the income of his 
 three houses, a genial old man, full of jokes and stories of 
 his travels, a great favorite with young people because of 
 his ability to see the human side of everything. One of his 
 sons holds a paymaster's position with a big railroad com- 
 pany, another has graduated from college, has recently 
 taken his master's degree, and is teaching. Twenty years 
 ago no one would have dreamed such a future for the sons 
 of the strolling harp-player. It is only in America that such 
 development is possible. 
 
 Says Professor Costa of the College of the City of New
 
 TWO STREETS IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 
 
 Atwell Avenue, Wholly Owned by Italians 
 Broadway, an Italian Residence Street
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 117 
 
 York, "During my experience of fourteen years as an in- 
 structor at the College of the City of New York, I had 
 occasion to consider the work and general intelligence of 
 many Italian students, of whom only a small percentage 
 originated from the northern provinces of Italy. I have 
 never noticed the least superiority of intelligence and gen- 
 eral culture of the latter over those of the south of Italy. 
 The south Italians proved not only bright and studious 
 pupils, but also good-natured and easily amenable to disci- 
 pline. They were and are very popular with the other 
 students, and not a few of them were elected to office in the 
 various student organizations." 
 
 "He who would find the face of an Italian burglar in 
 the 'rogues' gallery' must take his microscope with him," 
 says Elliot Crawford in the Bankasine. "He might find 
 some juvenile Italian- American pickpocket, and thereby 
 hangs a tale of East Side environment. Nor does the Italian 
 stay long, not more than one generation, in the ranks of 
 common laborer." 
 
 THE ARTS AND CRAFTS 
 
 In every large city there are also to be found skilled 
 Italian cabinet-makers, picture frame-makers, wood-carvers, 
 and frescoers, of a high degree of excellence in workman- 
 ship. There is also an increasing number of sculptors and 
 artists as well as musicians. "The handiwork of naturalized 
 Italians as well as of their children born in this country 
 may be seen in pictures, statuary, and rural decorations 
 adorning many fine residences in America. Although the 
 great mass of the immigrants has been made up of the poor, 
 ill-educated cafont and farm laborers, it is noteworthy how 
 surely the innate artistic powers of the stock come to light 
 and expand in the attainments of their children under the 
 culturing influence of our schools of design." 
 
 Several of the women and girls are expert dress designers,
 
 Il8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 one woman I know receiving $75 a wee ^ ror her work in 
 style designing. Even among the very poor, one will fre- 
 quently come upon girls and women tastefully dressed, who 
 cut and make their own clothes without patterns, copying 
 what they see in store windows. Every Italian quarter has 
 its own macaroni factory, its bakers, confectioners, shop- 
 keepers, musicians, and makers of plaster casts. $800,000 
 worth of saints are made yearly in New York both for use 
 at home and in the street parades on saints' days. 
 
 SAVINGS 
 
 Italians are distinguished not only for their industry and 
 fidelity to their work, but also for their thrift in saving with 
 the ambition to rise in the world. A conservative estimate 
 of the value of real estate owned by Italians in New York 
 City is close to $100,000,000, and this is proportionately 
 not as much as in St. Louis, Boston, and San Francisco. In 
 Providence, Rhode Island, Italians own all of Federal Hill 
 and property on both sides of the busy thoroughfare, Broad- 
 way. Italian-owned factories in Paterson and Hackensack 
 produce $12,000,000 worth of silk annually. 
 
 Every quarter also has its own banks, but since many of 
 these private bankers charge exorbitant fees for forwarding 
 money to Italy, and they frequently abscond, taking their 
 clients' savings, Italians are beginning to place their de- 
 posits in regularly organized banking institutions, both 
 Italian and American. 
 
 The Italians have almost a monopoly of the fruit, cheese, 
 oil, and macaroni importing business, and their boards of 
 commerce contain many wealthy men. In Greater New 
 York there are 3,000 fruit-stores owned by Italians, and 
 the Italian wholesale merchants import $3,000,000 worth 
 of lemons and oranges a year, besides $5,046,000 worth of 
 oil, wine, cheese, macaroni, and chestnuts. Quantities of 
 Italian marbles and chemicals are also imported. They own
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 119 
 
 10,000 stores in New York alone, whose combined valua- 
 tion is $7,000,000, and many millions more are on deposit 
 in city savings banks. 
 
 Landlords consider Italians good tenants. They pay their 
 rent promptly and seldom complain about anything. In 
 localities where they settle and buy property, real estate 
 increases in value. In Rochester, New York, property in 
 the section occupied by Italians was almost given away. 
 To-day it has increased 500 per cent, in value. The Tene- 
 ment House Department of New York declares that the 
 tenements in the Italian quarters are much cleaner than in 
 Jewish or Irish tenement districts. The Italian settlement 
 has assuredly increased property values and bettered the 
 average moral character of the districts. Malodorous Mul- 
 berry street, for example, has been practically redeemed 
 within the last ten years. Many new tenements with mod- 
 ern conveniences have been erected throughout this section, 
 built, owned and tenanted by Italians. Fifteen years ago, 
 before the Italian influx, twenty-five-foot tenements were 
 worth $10,000 to $15,000. They are now worth $40,000. 
 
 The testimony of those who have had business relations 
 with the Italian is that he always pays up to the last cent. 
 Said a milkman in a large foreign quarter, "The Italians 
 are the best customers. They always pay for their milk, 
 and if they have no money, they stop the milk; we never 
 lose a cent from Italians." Bakers, butchers, and drug-stores 
 are ready to trust an Italian who is in hard luck, for he 
 always pays sooner or later. In a New Jersey town the 
 proprietor of a large store gives credit only to Italians. 
 Said he, "We know they always pay. Once an Italian 
 woman left town without paying her bill here. When the 
 Italians heard of it, they made up the sum and gave it to 
 the store, saying they wished to keep the Italian name free 
 from stain." In Vineland, New Jersey, the banks are al- 
 ways ready to discount Italian notes, and all the stores gladly
 
 I20 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 give them credit throughout the entire year, knowing they 
 will pay when their crops are sold. 
 
 I have known bright boys to leave school and go to work 
 because their fathers had had hard luck or illness or were 
 out of work and "made debts" which must be paid as soon 
 as possible. The normal Italian cannot rest happy if he 
 owes any one money. An Italian in another Jersey town 
 refused to put running water or any convenience in his new 
 house until he had repaid a loan made him by a friendly 
 American. 
 
 It is greatly to the credit of Italian self-respect that, in 
 spite of low wages, less than one-half of one per cent, of 
 the Italian population seeks charitable aid; this percentage 
 was abnormally increased when Italy entered the Great 
 War, because so many reservists left dependent families here 
 for the Italian Red Cross and Figli d'ltalla to care for. 
 Further, the census report of 1910 shows the number of 
 Italians in public almshouses and charitable institutions to 
 be only one tenth of one per cent, per 100,000 of the popula- 
 tion, the smallest percentage for any foreign race in America. 
 
 NATURALIZATION 
 
 Until three years ago, there was no universal manhood suf- 
 frage in Italy. Ability to read and write and the possession of 
 property constituted the necessary qualifications of a voter; 
 all others were debarred. Consequently, from sixty to 
 eighty per cent, of the population have had no share in 
 the government and are not particularly interested in it 
 when they come here. Even when a man decides to apply 
 for his first papers, he is told that this is very difficult and 
 very costly, but Mr. B. makes a business of it and will make 
 the way easy for him for a consideration of $25 to $50. 
 I have in mind now a fine-spirited Italian who has been in 
 this country several years and would make a solid, reliable 
 citizen. When I spoke to him about it, he replied, "Oh, no,
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 121 
 
 it is too costly." He could not afford to pay $50 to become 
 a citizen. He was greatly surprised when he learned that 
 the fee is only $5.00. 
 
 Some have been led to take out papers because it enabled 
 them to secure municipal employment, also because it elim- 
 inated all difficulty in reentering America if they wished to 
 return to visit relatives in Italy. Others are determined to 
 remain in America and wish to take part in the life here 
 and feel themselves real Americans. The last years have 
 seen a rapid change, and now from one half to two thirds of 
 all eligible adult Italians have become naturalized. There 
 must be 500,000 American citizens among our Italian popu- 
 lation, and it is but fair to say that the majority take their 
 citizenship seriously and would defend this country as loy- 
 ally as the native-born in case of trouble with any European 
 country. 
 
 But what is the idea that America presents to the Italian 
 which enlists his devotion? It is that there are no social 
 castes, no hereditary privileged classes, every man is "Mr.," 
 and ability, not birth, speaking broadly, advances men. The 
 public school advantages for his children are greatly appre- 
 ciated. "Yes, Mike and I could go back and live very com- 
 fortably on our little farm near Sorrento, and such fruits 
 and vegetables as we get there! But there is no chance for 
 the children; for their sakes we must stay here," said an 
 Italian mother who was ailing from the confinement of life 
 in a small three-room tenement over a saloon. Her eldest 
 son has recently passed an examination entitling him to be a 
 registered pharmacist. 
 
 Judicial Discrimination 
 
 And yet we must face the unfortunate fact that wherever 
 the Italian comes in coniact with our political machinery 
 he is made to feel that money is the key that unlocks all 
 doors. It is almost impossible for an Italian to secure gov- 
 ernment protection in his rights or justice unless he pays
 
 122 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 well for it. Some time ago an old man was arrested for 
 "hitting" his daughter on the street. The court interpreter 
 at once approached the Italian and offered to get him free 
 for a few dollars. The old man, feeling himself in the 
 right, indignantly refused, and when summoned, poured out 
 his tale in Italian. His wife was dead and his pretty young 
 daughter went out evenings with a young man whom he 
 considered dangerous. The father had argued with her to 
 no avail and had followed her out on the street to compel 
 her to return home with him. The interpreter did not 
 bother to translate his story, only adding, "He admits the 
 charge, your honor." He was fined $10, and an embittered 
 Italian went out of the court-room. 
 
 When a man has been charged with crime and is out on 
 bail, the agent of the court interpreter has even been known 
 to come to his house and tell him how much money was 
 necessary to win the interpreter's assistance usually from 
 $500 to $1,000. 
 
 Not over three per cent, of the trials of Italians for 
 murder result in conviction. Even in cases where a man is 
 justly convicted of crime and sentenced, the professional 
 enemy of society goes to the prisoner and offers to get him 
 out for the sum of $500. The prisoner's family sends out 
 an appeal. A house-to-house canvass is made and the amount 
 collected. The trick is to get a lawyer who is used to this 
 kind of business. Four hundred dollars goes to the lawyer 
 and $100 to the intermediary. Then all the political ma- 
 chinery of the district begins to turn. From the ward politi- 
 cian to the state senator, influence is exerted to get the 
 criminal out of prison. The lawyer watches the court 
 calendar and by postponements and delays the case is only 
 brought to trial when "our judge" is sitting. The prisoner 
 gets off on some technicality, probably the chief witness 
 against him fails to appear, or, even if the jury brings in a 
 verdict of guilty, the judge reviewing the evidence finds 
 some reason to suspend sentence. The guilty man is free
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 123 
 
 money did it ! What respect can Italians have for a govern- 
 ment which tolerates such a state of affairs? Both in Italy 
 and in America the Italian feels justified in "beating" the 
 government. It does not protect him; he protects himself 
 with money. Before the Italian or any foreigner can have 
 proper regard for our political institutions, America must 
 see to it that they are free from graft and that protection 
 and justice are assured to rich and poor alike. 
 
 This matter of court interpreters, for example, is calling 
 for instant action. There is no standard of qualifications 
 for the position. Many of them speak Italian poorly, and 
 as far as education goes, are not fit for the place. These 
 positions are given to particular friends of the politicians. 
 They w r ield great power, the fate of an accused man often 
 depending upon a truthful and exact translation of what is 
 said. Only men of high character and unquestioned integ- 
 rity should have such a responsibility. 
 
 The Italian did not initiate this system of political cor- 
 ruption ; that was done by his predecessors, immigrants from 
 north Europe, but he easily falls into it. His whole former 
 life, religious, social, and political, has been based on the 
 aristocratic principle, that of a dependent accepting favors 
 from the powerful. Even in religion, when he desires 
 favors from God he does not go directly to his heavenly 
 Father, but he makes his appeal through the saints, the 
 Madonna, and the priest. He is constantly asking some one 
 to use his influence in his behalf. There is little of the 
 principle of give and take. It is therefore natural for the 
 Italian to look up to i prominenti in trouble and need, and 
 to ask the help of those who have influence with the powers 
 that be. Finally he comes to the luckless conclusion that 
 justice does not exist, and he frankly says anything can be 
 done with money. 
 
 The Italian is continually coming into contact with this 
 unseen government. There was a striking example of this 
 in connection with the endeavor, on the part of the city of
 
 134 
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 New York, to deport all Italians who could be proven to 
 have been criminals in Italy and whose residence in this coun- 
 try had not exceeded five years. The famous Italian detective 
 Petrosini went to Italy to get records and facts regarding 
 such as were known or suspected of having been criminals. 
 He was killed in the attempt, and his dead body with a 
 bullet in it was shipped across the ocean. Two other detec- 
 tives took their lives in their hands and went to accomplish 
 what Petrosini failed to do. They succeeded in securing 
 the criminal records of 500 Italians in this country, all of 
 whom could have been deported. The records are still in 
 the hands of the police, and the criminals are still in America. 
 If we wish the Italians to become good citizens who will 
 respect our laws and institutions, we must convince them of 
 the sacredness of these laws and institutions. 
 
 Italy Does Not Recognize Change of Allegiance 
 
 For some years, neither the Italian government nor lead- 
 ing Italians in America, especially those who are always 
 eager for honors from the fatherland, looked with favor 
 upon the rapid way in which Italians became Americanized. 
 With time, however, this attitude has changed and, during 
 the past ten years, Italians have been urged to become 
 American citizens and take part in the political life of the 
 nation. And yet, while this was the decision of two coun- 
 cils of Italian immigrants, one held in Rome and one held 
 in Philadelphia, these same councils voted to urge upon the 
 Italian government to make the return to Italian citizenship 
 easy. The possibility of a dual citizenship was seriously 
 considered. Italy finds no difficulty in sanctioning such a 
 proposition since she does not recognize any change of alle- 
 giance on the part of her subjects. My own experience 
 illustrates this statement. I am an American citizen, regu- 
 larly naturalized. I went to Italy seventeen years ago, with 
 naturalization papers and passport in my pocket, but when 
 I reached my native town, after an absence of twenty-five
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 1*5 
 
 years, I was arrested and put in prison for not having pre- 
 sented myself for military duty. When I protested that I 
 was an American citizen, I was told that this did not have 
 the slightest bearing on the case. I was finally exempted 
 from military service, not because of my American citizen- 
 ship, however, but because of an Italian law that prevailed 
 prior to ten years ago, under which law the only male 
 descendant of a family- is exempt from military duty. 
 
 "The thousands of boys born in this country of Italian 
 parents consider themselves Americans, but when they go to 
 Italy they are there considered Italians, subject to the laws 
 of the country, and liable to military service. And if, when 
 called to the colors, they do not respond, they are considered 
 deserters and liable to imprisonment or they are condemned 
 to a permanent exile from the country of their fathers. 
 
 "The only way in which this controversy can be settled 
 would be the arrangement of a treaty between Italy and the 
 United States, but we do not think Italy will ever agree to 
 renounce millions of her sons, who by the laws of the country 
 are obliged to defend her." * 
 
 It is fair to raise the question, what use is it to make an 
 Italian solemnly swear off his allegiance to the king of Italy, 
 when this country does not even make a pretense of pro- 
 tecting him in his rights ? It would seem that all such prom- 
 ises are a sham and worse unless American citizenship can 
 be made something to be recognized and respected through- 
 out the world. It should be the duty of our government to 
 take up this matter and endeavor to secure such international 
 legislation as will make American citizenship worthful and 
 valid to one of foreign birth. 
 
 PAPERS IN THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE 
 
 The Italians have a passion for organizing societies and 
 publishing papers. There are in the United States not less 
 *// Cittadino, New York.
 
 J2 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 than sixty or seventy Italian weeklies and eight dailies. The 
 most widely read daily is // Progresso Italiano. It takes 
 special interest in collecting subscriptions for various ob- 
 jects, such as the relief of disasters in Italy, monuments to 
 be erected in honor of famous Italians, as the Verdi monu- 
 ment at Broadway and Seventy-third Street, the Columbus 
 monument in Columbus Circle, and the Verazzano monu- 
 ment at the Battery, New York. 
 
 There are three weeklies of an ethical and patriotic type, 
 II Carrocio of New York, // Cittadino of New York, and 
 // Cittadino of Chicago. The first is devoted to scientific, 
 political, and literary subjects, while the last two aim at 
 reforming not only the Italian press but Italian life gener- 
 ally. These last two papers were established by Italian 
 Protestant ministers. 
 
 The chief handicap of the Italian press in general (apart 
 from those mentioned) is that it does not have a sufficiently 
 high ideal of its mission. It occupies itself too much with 
 slander, and in many cases expresses sentiments that are un- 
 American. It lacks high ethical standards. It is generally 
 under the control of one or the other of the two political 
 parties, and its utterances are biased because of that relation- 
 ship. It would not be wise, as some contend, to abolish the 
 foreign press in the United States. The evil we seek to 
 avoid does not lie in the language but in the men who 
 control the destiny of the foreign press. No one would 
 maintain that all papers published in the English language 
 are free from low ideas and views that are anti- American. 
 People will read in the language they know best. The 
 Italian press is an indispensable medium for the communica- 
 tion of political, social, and industrial information to the 
 great bulk of adult Italians. Especially is this true if one 
 desires to be informed about social and intellectual move- 
 ments in Italy. The American papers and magazines do 
 not give space to these questions. The thing needed above 
 all else is not laws to abolish the foreign press or a censor-
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 137 
 
 ship for views therein expressed but rather a character test 
 for any man who desires to conduct a paper, whether in 
 English or a foreign tongue. 
 
 La Par ola del Medico 
 
 Because of his ignorance the Italian has fallen an easy 
 prey to quacks, especially of his own race. It has also been 
 my misfortune to meet many American physicians who, be- 
 cause the Italian pays his fees promptly, have the idea that 
 Italians have money and it is their right to get some of it. 
 They do not know the other side of the story as I do. The 
 bill that is so readily handed to the doctor may be the last 
 in the house, or borrowed from a friend, and its loss means 
 that there is nothing with which to buy nourishing food for 
 the invalid to assist in the cure. If an Italian has no money 
 and can secure none, he will not call a doctor, no matter how 
 ill he may be. I personally know of two families where a 
 large doctor's bill has made necessary for months a diet far 
 too meager to keep them sufficiently nourished for efficient 
 work. 
 
 Two instances which came under my personal observation 
 unsought illustrate this bleeding process. An American 
 doctor charged $15 for a very slight operation upon a new- 
 born baby, whose father was earning about $12 a week. 
 Our own family physician chanced to perform an identical 
 operation in an American family of our acquaintance at the 
 same time, for which he charged nothing beyond his $2.00 
 fee for the call. This same American doctor charged a very 
 poor Italian woman $15 for a simple little imple/nent that 
 can be purchased in any drug-store for $2.00. 
 
 The Italian quacks to whom many Italians go because of 
 language are equally unscrupulous, and the quacks of all 
 races who advertise in Italian free advice and sure cures for 
 all manner of trouble, take thousands of hard-earned dol- 
 lars. 
 
 Realizing the injury to the Italian people and the
 
 , 2 g SONS OF ITALY 
 
 disgrace upon the profession, some of the finest Italian 
 physicians in New York recently banded together and are 
 publishing a health culture journal in Italian, called La 
 Parola del Medico, "The Word of the Doctor." The aim 
 is to teach personal hygiene to the Italians and expose fraudu- 
 lent quacks. 
 
 The constructive articles deal with such subjects as 
 "Fruit Diet," "Examples of Good Living," "Wheat, 
 Cereals, and Legumes," "The Work of the Italian Hos- 
 pital." The recent epidemic of infantile paralysis was dis- 
 cussed, and part of the blame for its spread laid squarely 
 upon the bad housing conditions among Italians. 
 
 SOCIAL AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 The Italians are born organizers, but poor administra- 
 tors. If any one gets a new idea, he is anxious to organize 
 a society to promulgate it. Owing to the extreme individual- 
 ism of Italians, many of these associations are short-lived. 
 It is a common saying that if there are fifty Italians in a 
 room and any question is being discussed, there will be fifty 
 different opinions about it. It is this freedom of spirit and 
 desire to think for themselves that has loosened the grip of 
 the Roman Church upon them. They can also be most 
 unflinchingly loyal to an ideal, but this is a voluntary loyalty 
 and cannot be compelled. Mutual benefit societies whose 
 aim is insurance against illness or death are without num- 
 ber. They keep up an esprit de corps by picnics and Sunday 
 excursions. There are also trade unions, some wholly 
 Italian, and in some the Italians join with Americans or 
 other nationalities. There are many Italian Masons and 
 Odd Fellows in the country. It is well for Italian pastors 
 to join these organizations which bring them into touch 
 with the best and most thoughtful Italians in a colony. 
 
 There is a small Dante Alighieri Society whose aim is 
 cultural and educational. In Manhattan, there are 250
 
 THE ITALIAN AS A CITIZEN 129 
 
 Italian societies, some in honor of local patron saints whose 
 holidays are celebrated with picturesque street festivals and 
 parades. There is also an Italian club of wealthy and influ- 
 ential business men, bankers, importers, and physicians. 
 There are Italian chambers of commerce in leading cities. 
 There is a flourishing Italian Red Cross branch in this 
 country, which has been active during the present war. By 
 far the most widely diffused and largest of all the Italian 
 organizations is the Figli tfltalia, "Sons of Italy." 
 
 "The order of the Sons of Italy is not a mutual aid 
 society, nor, in the strict sense of the word, an order. To 
 speak of the Sons of Italy is to speak of the Italian colony 
 in America. The order was started in New York in 1905, 
 and now comprises 623 lodges in twenty states, with a 
 membership of 80,000 brothers. In the membership cf the 
 order are persons of every profession and occupation. The 
 judge or the high official is brother to the laborer, because 
 the relations of the members towards each other are gov- 
 erned by the three principles of the order, liberty, equality, 
 and brotherly love. It aims to gather all Italians in the 
 United States into one close brotherhood, so that Italians 
 in this country may show unity of action in all matters per- 
 taining to Italian welfare. 
 
 "In 1915 when the labor unions stopped subway and aque- 
 duct construction in New York City, claiming the law 
 required that only American citizens be employed upon 
 public works, 18,000 Italians were thrown out of employ- 
 ment. The Sons of Italy appealed as a body to the New 
 York state legislature, with the result not only that the 
 18,000 men resumed work but that the serious and threat- 
 ened delay in the completion of public improvements was 
 avoided. The order is also caring for the families of hun- 
 dreds of reservists who have returned to Italy to fight for 
 the unredeemed provinces. Recently it held a bazaar in 
 New York City which realized $180,000 for war relief. 
 
 "The order urges its members to become American citi-
 
 , 3 o SONS OF ITALY 
 
 zens. It publishes a weekly paper and endeavors to keep 
 alive a love for Italy, its glorious past, and its hopeful future. 
 It is striving to have Italian taught in the public schools on 
 the same basis as French and German. The order is about 
 to build a home for aged members and an orphan asylum. It 
 hopes to build many such institutions and to have its own 
 colleges and hospitals. It has purchased the former refuge 
 home of Giuseppe Garibaldi on Staten Island and maintains 
 it as a historic spot in his honor. Then the Italians who, 
 with their honest labor, have made fertile gardens of the 
 barren lands, constructed railroads and bridges, opened 
 canals, and extracted the riches of the mines, erected large 
 buildings, and helped in the laying out of the highways and 
 railways, thereby adding greatly to the prosperity of the 
 country, will no longer be looked upon with prejudice, but 
 will be welcomed to take an active part in the life of the 
 country a welcome to which the Italians are so justly 
 entitled." 1 
 
 In March, 1911, a congress of Italfhn societies was held 
 in Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia, which was reported and 
 commented upon by the Philadelphia North American as 
 follows : 
 
 "In this congress of Italian residents there was a note 
 quite different from any heard in almost any conference of 
 a foreign strain that has ever come under our notice. It 
 has been the common thing for the leaders of foreign-born 
 citizens to urge their fellow countrymen to work together 
 that the> T might reap larger emoluments and honors in our 
 political life. In this Italian congress there was none of 
 this. With striking unanimity of spirit, all the more marked 
 because of the aggressive diversity of methods, the one domi- 
 nant note was that Italy's sons in this country should acquire 
 citizenship, not that they might reap the rewards of politics, 
 but that they could lend their aid to solving the difficult 
 problems which confront the country." 
 
 1 From a statement by one of the officers of the order.
 
 V 
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN
 
 The first human touch put upon the immigrant in the new 
 environment is vastly important in its effects. He is easily ap- 
 proachable, if rightly approached. Alien accessibility makes 
 home mission possibility. The approach may not at first be 
 on the distinctively religious side, but there is a way of access 
 on some side. A living gospel incarnated in a living, loving 
 man or woman is the "open sesame" to confidence first and con- 
 version afterward. 
 
 H. B. Grose, Aliens or Americans? 
 
 THE IMMIGRANT MADONNA 
 
 This Christmastide, America, I bring to you my son, my baby son ; 
 
 He comes with little heritage, 
 
 But his eyes are clear, his body strong, 
 
 He is ready for you to do with him what you will. What 
 
 will you? 
 
 Will you use him hurriedly for your quick ends? 
 And will you then discard him because he is worn-out and 
 
 still a foreigner? 
 Or will you teach him, watch him grow, and help him to be 
 
 one of you; 
 
 To work with you for those great things you seek? 
 He is my son, America, 
 And all my treasure. 
 I bring him here to you 
 And you, what will you do with him? 
 
 Helen C. Dwight, Vassar, 1907. 
 By permission of the National Child Labor Committee. 
 
 When men set out to note and collate impressions and make 
 perhaps a scientific study of slumdom, without genuine interest in 
 the lives they see, and therefore without true insight into them, 
 they miss the inwardness which love alone can supply. If we 
 look without love, we see only the outside, the mere form and 
 expression of the subject studied. Only with tender compassion 
 and loving sympathy can we see the beauty even in the eye dull 
 with weeping and in the fixed face, pale with care. We will 
 often see noble patience shining through them and loyalty to duty, 
 virtues and graces unsuspected by others. 
 
 Hugh Black, The Greater Friendship.
 
 Provincialism, limited vision, lack of understanding of 
 the immigrant, and little or no sympathy with the for- 
 eigners' point of view and aspirations are the difficult 
 stumbling-blocks in the pathway of the rapid assimilation 
 and Americanization of newcomers to America. Race 
 prejudice has always characterized the human race. Biblical 
 as well as secular history bears testimony to the common 
 practise of descrimination against the foreigner. The 
 Egyptian crowded the Jew in Goshen and later tried to 
 limit his growth and power by murder and oppression; 
 when the Jew, in turn, had become master of the promised 
 land, he looked upon all men not Jews as inferior to him- 
 self; to the Greeks all other nations were barbarians, while 
 to-day in America the immigrants of an earlier day look 
 upon the more recent comers as a menace and undesirable. 
 How can America hope to weld these people into good 
 citizens if good Americans constantly look upon them as 
 inferiors, studiously avoiding contact with them? 
 
 FUNDAMENTALS OF ITALIAN WORK 
 
 The fundamentals of successful work with Italians are 
 genuine, loving interest and sympathetic understanding, 
 and these are only secured by becoming thoroughly well 
 acquainted with them personally, not through the medium 
 of a book or a platform lecturer. 
 
 The matter of assimilating the foreigner and imbuing
 
 J34 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 him with American and Christian ideals is not so much a 
 question of the attitude of the foreigner, but rather of the 
 spirit of the Americans. The tendency to criticize and 
 condemn the foreigner is too common, while the practise 
 of showing kindness and brotherly love to the newcomer 
 is rare. How the Italian responds to fair treatment and 
 how he remembers a kind deed is further illustrated in the 
 following story told me by an eye-witness. 
 
 The wife of an Italian miner in West Virginia was near 
 death. One of the employees of the railroad, knowing the 
 situation, secured a good doctor to see the poor woman, and 
 his wife also cared for her until she was restored to health. 
 Some two years later this employee of the railroad was 
 dismissed from the service because he had taken part in a 
 strike. So bitter was the feeling of the railroad company 
 toward him that they prevented him from getting coal for 
 his stove to heat his house. The Italians on the road heard 
 of it and they decided that the man who took care of a sick 
 Italian woman should not suffer, so whenever car-loads of 
 coal passed the man's house, they would kick off a half a 
 ton. "He good man he help sick woman," they said. 
 
 AGENCIES OF ASSIMILATION 
 
 The Italian Government 
 
 Not the least among the agencies for social service that 
 touch the life of the Italian is the Italian government. It 
 begins its good work at the port of departure. Each ship 
 carrying Italian emigrants either to this country or to South 
 America must take with it a doctor connected with the 
 Italian navy, whose duty it is to see that the emigrant receives 
 fair treatment and proper food. The doctor must sample 
 all food before it is served. He is expected also to gather 
 information about the cities to which the emigrants go, which 
 may be of interest to the home government. 
 
 Realizing the difficulties of the peasant who reaches Amer-
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 135 
 
 ica, ignorant of the English language, without knowledge 
 of American life and customs, and in many cases not know- 
 ing where to turn for work, the Italian government has been 
 very willing to cooperate with organizations which were 
 established to meet these particular needs. Hence it has 
 contributed certain sums to such American institutions as 
 the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, the 
 Investigation Bureau, and the Labor Bureau, the last-named 
 receiving an annual appropriation of $30,000. 
 
 The Italian government has recently prepared a numerical 
 census of all Italians abroad and a complete record of their 
 economic condition, their opportunities for education, social 
 life, thrift, and healthful surroundings, or otherwise. 
 
 The Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants was 
 started by philanthropic Americans. Its aim is to render 
 service to the newly-arrived, such as changing money and 
 finding friends and conducting them to railroad stations. 
 Before the existence of this organization, the Italian immi- 
 grant was robbed of nearly every cent he had by the pro- 
 fessional runner, who would charge the Italian $5.00 and 
 sometimes $10 just to take him to some near-by address. 
 The Benevolent Institute is in reality a home where new 
 arrivals or departing Italians can be accommodated with 
 room and board at a very moderate price. The Society of 
 San Raffaele gives its special care to orphan girls who come 
 to America. 
 
 The Investigation Bureau acts in cases of ill treatment 
 or injustice done to Italians. The Labor Bureau furnishes 
 without charge information about opportunities for work, 
 and investigates conditions of work and wages of the foreign 
 groups. This bureau aims to assist all those who contemplate 
 establishing agricultural colonies. The Italian government 
 contributes to similar organizations in Boston and San Fran- 
 cisco. It also contributes various sums to the Dante Ali- 
 ghieri Society, and to schools where the Italian language 
 is taught. While these agencies help thousands, they have
 
 i 3 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 not sufficient funds to help the vast majority of Italian immi- 
 grants. 
 
 The Italian government is not wholly disinterested in such 
 assistance to the Italian in America. These are bonds which 
 unite him to the mother country. While the aim is not to 
 prevent Americanization, yet the end in view is to have the 
 Italian in America preserve his Italian consciousness, to per- 
 petuate I'ltalianita?- But this can only affect the middle 
 class ; it makes little or no appeal to the mind of the peasant 
 who has never experienced anything at the hand of the gov- 
 ernment except burdensome taxes, compulsory military serv- 
 ice, and indifference to his welfare. 
 
 The Italian Hospital 
 
 There are numerous institutions that are making special 
 efforts to reach Italians, yet it is a lamentable fact that there 
 are few institutions as the direct result of Italian initiative. 
 The one public enterprise which has had the backing and 
 support of Italians in New York City is the little Italian 
 hospital situated on East Eighty-fourth Street. A very dif- 
 ferent state of affairs exists among the Italians of Argentina. 
 There they have developed the spirit of cooperation and help- 
 fulness to the extent that they have been able to build schools, 
 hospitals, club-houses, and to form great mutual benefit 
 societies which are a credit to them and to the country of 
 which they form a part. 
 
 Labor Camp Schools 
 
 The first camp school for immigrants was organized at 
 Aspinwall near Pittsburgh in 1905 by the Society for Italian 
 Immigrants. A rude shanty was the first school-house, but 
 the valuable effects of the work induced the contractor to put 
 up a rough building. The idea of a camp school to teach 
 English and provide a meeting place for the men, where they 
 
 An untranslatable term meaning, roughly, race customs and 
 feelings.
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 137 
 
 would come in contact with Americanizing influences, 
 originated with Miss Sarah Moore, who taught in the first 
 rude camp school in the Catskills. The work has grown until 
 now there is a fine school at Valhalla, which is also a sort 
 of club-room for games and wholesome recreation, as well 
 as a school of English. 
 
 Rhode Island has used high school boys as teachers in its 
 labor camps. Massachusetts has employed grown men, 
 which seems a better policy. One of the best camp schools 
 has been conducted on the western frontier of Canada. 
 This work is done by the Reading Camp Association of 
 Canada, which engages young college men and sends them 
 into these primitive regions to teach English. About forty 
 were so employed in 1914. The college men dress like the 
 laborers, eat their fare, sleep in the same kind of huts, in 
 order to get close to the men and take part in their work. 
 
 Mr. Lovitt of the University of Toronto helped the men 
 in a lumber camp to unload scows, and so had, on his first 
 evening, the same handicap of a tired body and a sleepy 
 brain that the men had. He had fitted up his tent neatly, 
 made tables and benches and adorned his walls with maps, 
 pictures, and a blackboard almost a conventional school- 
 room. But evening brought a great disappointment. Not 
 a man came near his tent except the swing-team boss, George. 
 "He gave one quick glance around the empty tent, picked 
 up the blackboard in one hand, phonograph in the other, and 
 said, 'Bob, you bring the pencils and the scribblers and 
 records, and let's go to the dagos' bunk-house.' The two 
 young men were greeted with friendly smiles as they stepped 
 in. One big Florentine, Michael Angelo by name, swept 
 aside the cards on the table and motioned McDonald to 
 put the phonograph there. 'Home, Sweet Home' was 
 played; not a word was spoken; every one recognized it. 
 The old familiar tune started recollections in the hearts of 
 the home-loving Florentines as well as in those of the 
 Canadians. It had to be repeated four times. Several
 
 i 3 g SONS OF ITALY 
 
 selections followed, including songs in Italian. Then 
 Michael pointed where to place the blackboard. Lovitt 
 picked up a cap, a sweater, a coat, named them distinctly, 
 arid wrote the words on the boards. Then he took a button 
 from a comfort bag supplied for each man by the Women's 
 Christian Temperance Union and made signs for Michael 
 to sew it on Pietro's overalls, explaining every step of the 
 operation in English. Then came a lesson in English on 
 mending a sock. At the end, Michael hospitably pulled out 
 a box of beer. Lovitt declined courteously, saying, 'Teach- 
 ers don't drink beer, only pop and water.' The next evening 
 Michael came to the school tent, poked in his head ami 
 offered a bottle of ginger pop to Mr. Lovitt. After examin- 
 ing the pictures, magazines, and Italian papers, he returned 
 to the sleeping quarters, told the men they ought to go to 
 school, and returned with five others immediately. Thou- 
 sands of foreigners have learned to read and write English 
 through the work of this association." x 
 
 The camps of berry-pickers in New Jersey, the workers 
 in the sugar-cane and cotton fields of the Southern states, 
 present a fertile field for camp school ministries. 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association 
 
 For the past ten years or more the Young Men's Chris- 
 tian Association has been carrying on a multiform and 
 beneficent work for foreigners, including the Italians. In 
 mining centers, in great industrial communities, and in large 
 cities through educational classes, factory leagues, shop meet- 
 ings, gymnasium classes, social gatherings, lectures on health 
 and naturalization, and through religious meetings at oppor- 
 tune times, thousands of Italians come under the influence 
 of this organization. One of the most valuable services 
 which the Young Men's Christian Association is rendering 
 is through its representatives who meet the immigrant on his 
 own soil at the port of embarkation and there give him a 
 
 1 World's Work, April, 1914, pp. 699-702.
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 139 
 
 card which will introduce him to the representative of the 
 Association on this side of the ocean. The latter in turn 
 directs him to agents of the Association in any part of the 
 country where the immigrant may be intending to go. 
 
 The Association also employs Christian men,. who cross 
 the ocean, mingle with the immigrants during the voyage, 
 and are able, with the cooperation of the steamship company, 
 through personal conversation and illustrated lectures, to 
 give many helpful lessons and much useful information. 
 
 The only attempt that I know of in this country to estab- 
 lish a branch of the Young Men's Christian Association ex- 
 clusively for Italians, was in upper New York City on East 
 1 1 6th Street. Although largely attended and doing a fine 
 work, it was unfortunately abandoned, because sufficient 
 funds could not be secured to continue it. The Bowery 
 branch in New York City, known as the Young Men's 
 Institute, is largely frequented by Italians. 
 
 Parochial Schools 
 
 It is the opinion of many well-informed people that 
 the establishment of parochial schools in large numbers is 
 not a contribution to the process of Americanization. In 
 Greater New York alone it is estimated that there are 
 200,000 children receiving their mental training in parochial 
 schools. The order of St. Francis, for example, is establish- 
 ing and conducting such schools among Italians all over the 
 country. Their aim is to inculcate the Catholic faith, and 
 to preserve "L'ltalianita" The teaching is partly in Ital- 
 ian, by Italian monks or sisters. The result is to retard 
 assimilation, and to perpetuate foreign colonies in our cities, 
 as alien in habits of thought as newly arrived immigrants, 
 although these children are born here in America. The 
 parochial school children must furnish their own text-books 
 and if, as it often happens, the parents are too poor to buy 
 new ones when a new term opens in the winter, the child 
 must repeat his grade.
 
 i4<> SONS OF ITALY 
 
 From the Bulletin of the Catholic Educational Association 
 for 1913 we learn that there are in the United States 5,119 
 parochial schools, attended by 1,333,786 children. 1 Con- 
 cerning parochial schools for Italians, Father Burns reported 
 in 1916: "According to the census of 1900 there were 
 826,023 members of Catholic parishes in which the Italian 
 language was used. . . . Comparatively few Italian 
 parishes have parish schools. The chief reason for this ap- 
 pears to be an almost entire lack of appreciation of the 
 importance of the Catholic school. Italian children gen- 
 erally attend the public school. Italian immigrants are but 
 little concerned, as a rule, about the retention of the mother 
 tongue by their children." 3 In 1906 there were forty-eight 
 Italian parochial schools with 13,838 pupils. Since 1906 
 the Catholic Church has tackled this problem of holding 
 Italian children in two ways. First, by building many more 
 parochial schools for Italians, and almost compelling parents 
 to send their children to them. And second, by holding once 
 a week instruction classes in the local church, to which the 
 Catholic public school teachers direct or lead their Catholic 
 pupils. On the theory that all Italians are Catholics, many 
 Protestant Italian children have been forced into these classes 
 by cooperation between priests and public school teachers. 
 
 Public Schools 
 
 Chief among the molding forces of Italian life in Amer- 
 ica is the public school. With all its limitations and short- 
 comings it is still the bulwark in American life. It is the 
 only institution that can in a large way inculcate American 
 ideals and principles in the minds of the rising generation of 
 children of the foreign-born. It should therefore be the aim 
 
 1 Catholic Educational Conditions in the United States, by 
 Rev. Charles Mackey, S. J., 1913, page 7. 
 
 2 Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the 
 United States, by Rev. J. A. Burns, G.S.C., Ph.D., pp. 307-8.
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 141 
 
 of every true American to bring under its influence and 
 teaching every child of foreign parentage. 
 
 Nor is the education in Americanism given in the public 
 schools sufficient, if it consists only in learning to read and 
 write English, saluting the flag, and singing "America," 
 True education means drawing out the best in each one, 
 the development of character. The most valuable contribu- 
 tion which the public school makes to the process of Ameri- 
 canization is that indefinable thing called influence, which 
 devoted men and women communicate through their per- 
 sonality to their pupils. Mary Antin would never have 
 become the characterful woman that she is, if it had not 
 been for her favorite teacher, the woman who encouraged 
 her, saw her possibilities, inspired her, and communicated 
 something of her own beautiful spirit to the immigrant girl. 
 
 In recognition of this value of character in the teacher, 
 all Christians should take a deeper interest in the personnel 
 of our public school staffs, and see to it that boards of educa- 
 tion secure men and women who have other qualifications 
 besides ability to teach the subjects allotted to them. This 
 is a vital necessity in connection with schools that are located 
 in strictly foreign centers. For here the life is more needy 
 and destitute and hence the greater necessity for the real, 
 loving missionary spirit in the lives of those who come into 
 daily contact with these plastic boys and girls. The reason 
 why so many children of our foreign-born population make 
 up the bulk of the inmates of reformatories, houses of cor- 
 rection, and even prisons, is because neither in the home nor 
 in the school do they receive wise personal attention and 
 sufficient moral training. 
 
 There is in an Eastern city of my acquaintance a high 
 school with nearly 2,000 pupils, all foreign-born or children 
 oi foreign-born. Several of the teachers are atheists. It 
 has been found very difficult to interest young people who at- 
 tend that school in religion. They have become quite self- 
 satisfied and self-seeking and are making their plans to get
 
 i 4 2 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 all they can out of this world as their just due, without any 
 feeling of responsibility for the interests or rights of others. 
 The children are influenced far more by their teachers than 
 by their parents, whom they look down upon because they 
 are ignorant foreigners. It is noteworthy, too, that only 
 sixty pupils of this entire school have volunteered their 
 services in case the nation needs them. They are growing 
 up to clamor for the rights of citizens, but too selfish to 
 assume the responsibilities, because they have been taught no 
 ideal of service. 
 
 In addition to the regular work of teaching the three R's, 
 the public schools of many large cities have established night 
 schools for the study of the English language, while New 
 York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and other large cities also have 
 lecture departments of the public school system, which fur- 
 nish free illustrated lectures on subjects of such general 
 interest as travel and biography, with particular reference to 
 America. 
 
 In Greater New York there is an Italian department 
 under the auspices of the city Board of Health, conducted 
 by the Charity Organization Society, which furnishes illus- 
 trated lectures to churches and social institutions on the 
 prevention of various diseases, especially tuberculosis. In 
 addition to this the University Extension Society furnishes 
 doctors, both men and women, to address mothers' clubs 
 on such subjects as "The Home," "Ventilation," "The Care 
 and Feeding of Children," and other important topics. 
 
 Organized Movements 
 
 Detroit's English Campaign. Detroit is the first city in 
 the country to make the foreigner an object of special care. 
 The Board of Education and Chamber of Commerce co- 
 operated in planning a campaign to have the adult foreigners 
 study English in night school as the first step in Americani- 
 zation. The police department, the department of health, 
 Young Men's Christian Association, Recreation Bureau,
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 143 
 
 public libraries, sixty visiting nurses, all social welfare 
 agencies, the Salvation Army, milk committee, and foreign- 
 speaking churches all joined in advertising the night schools 
 by means of hand-bills and printed slips which were thor- 
 oughly distributed. The women's clubs, employment 
 agencies, and the newspapers helped by showing the great 
 advantage of learning, to speak English. 
 
 Practically all the large factories assembled their men 
 in mass meetings and urged them to attend school, assuring 
 them that "it is easier to get and keep a job if you know 
 English, as the non-English speaking are the first to be laid 
 off and last to be taken on." 
 
 One company established a class in its own factory and 
 gave its men a threefold choice, (i) to attend the factory 
 class; (2) to attend public night school; (3) to be laid off. 
 
 Another company proposed a better, less arbitrary scheme 
 of a wage increase of two cents an hour to all its employees 
 who learned the English language. As a result there was 
 a 153 per cent, increase of registration in the night schools 
 for English, and a twenty-five per cent, increase of young 
 mechanics in the evening high schools, and best of all, a 
 thoroughly awakened city with a greatly increased feeling 
 of responsibility on the part of the employers and the entire 
 community for their foreign population. A night school 
 campaign in every city and town for instruction in the Eng- 
 lish language and citizenship is an immediate practical ap- 
 proach to the vast and complicated problem of assimilation. 
 
 Rochester's Americanization Factory. Rochester has what 
 it calls its "Americanization Factory," whose superintendent, 
 Charles E. Finch, is Director of Immigrant Education for 
 the city. Half of Rochester's population is foreign, and 
 Mr. Finch has carefully worked out a program for night 
 schools, with a threefold aim: 
 
 1 i ) To teach foreigners to read and write English. 
 
 (2) To give practical information to make their lives 
 easier and safer.
 
 X44 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 (3) To prepare for American citizenship by teaching our 
 laws, customs, ideals, and history. 
 
 Instead of putting them all together, as is so often done, 
 they are carefully graded according to literary and mental 
 attainments. The natural method is used, such as naming 
 an object and talking about it, as buying a hat, using a 
 hammer, sewing a coat. Mr. Finch brings American news- 
 papers into his schools, and men learn to read them in some 
 instances within two months' time after entering the class. 
 Mr. Finch has prepared advanced courses in the night schools 
 for those who wish further education, and last year one class 
 studied Ibsen's plays. 
 
 Mr. Finch's chief difficulty was in rinding teachers gifted 
 with sufficient intelligence, sympathy, and resourcefulness. 
 He is now devoting his energy to training teachers for this 
 special work. He has recently installed a course of study 
 in the curriculum of the State Normal School for those who 
 wish to prepare for night school work for foreigners. The 
 number of Italians enrolled outnumbered all other nation- 
 alities, except the Jews. The chief opposition to this work 
 came from the powerful political leaders of the foreign 
 colonies. As the foreigners learn to read and think for them- 
 selves, the bosses' power of control vanishes. 
 
 Women's Clubs 
 
 Gradually women's clubs, civic organizations, and settle- 
 ments are coming to realize that the place upon which to put 
 the greatest emphasis is not the school but the home. The 
 greatest problem is not the foreign child but the foreign 
 mother. The Federation of Women's Clubs of the state of 
 California last year succeeded in securing the passage of a 
 law requiring boards of education to employ "home teachers" 
 to teach in communities inhabited by aliens. The applicant 
 must have not only a teacher's certificate for work in the 
 regular schools, but tact and marked ability for her work. 
 Her duty is to visit her entire district in order to discover the
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 145 
 
 homes that need her care, and then to teach English to the 
 foreign mother in her own home, as well as sanitation, house- 
 hold tasks, purchase of supplies, clothing, and our American 
 system of government. She reports to proper authorities 
 bad housing conditions which she may find and those in need 
 of medical attendance. She seeks to cultivate self-respect 
 by carefully preserving race pride and by seeking to discover 
 and develop any special gifts in families under her care. 
 New York City has also recently appointed home teachers, 
 and there are eleven at work in the Greater City. 
 
 A Neighborhood Mother. In the squalid Italian quarter 
 near the salt beds around Syracuse, a sweet-faced woman 
 was picking her way among the puddles of water on the 
 unpaved street. Suddenly a little child saw her and rushed 
 forward with glad cries of "Teacher, teacher!" From 
 everywhere and nowhere in particular came running a dozen 
 more, their little dark faces lighted by bright happy smiles 
 as they gathered about and looked up into the face of their 
 loved teacher, like flowers lifting their heads towards the 
 sun. "Are you coming to my house to-day?" "And mine?" 
 "Yes, dears," and away they scampered to scatter the good 
 news. Up the steep narrow and dark stairway the teacher 
 climbed, with a chattering rear-guard. In the open doorway 
 at the top landing stood a short, thick-set woman whose dark, 
 flashing eyes and olive skin proclaimed her a daughter of 
 Italy. She had a baby in her arms and a two-year-old 
 tugging at her skirt, peeping at the teacher. After warmly 
 shaking hands with every one, including the baby, the teacher 
 was offered the best chair in the room, and in came two other 
 Italian women with small children. The health of each 
 child was inquired after, and a word of advice in one case, 
 warning in another, was given in Italian, and then the 
 teacher opened her bag, took out some picture-books, paper 
 and pencils for the children, and English primers for the 
 three mothers, and began the English lesson. The book was 
 the one prepared by Mary C. Barnes, and as the teacher
 
 ,46 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 had faithfully taught these women in their homes for nine 
 months, they were able to understand and read quite well. 
 At the close, the teacher explained in Italian the Bible lesson 
 which they had read in English. Although these women 
 could understand quite a little English, they did all their 
 thinking in their native tongue, and if one wished to impress 
 a truth clearly it must still be in Italian. Then came a 
 practical demonstration of how to disinfect and do up a 
 cut finger, when Giuseppe came in crying, with an old 
 tomato can still clutched in his hand. The teacher still 
 relied on Italian to explain how dangerous a plaything a 
 tin can is, and the need and action of disinfectants. In 
 each home she entered the teacher met a different problem. 
 In one the window was nailed down tight to keep out 
 burglars; in another the sink drain leaked over the floor; 
 in another she came just in time to overhear a brewery agent 
 in fluent Italian telling a group of mothers that the air in 
 America is so strong that it is necessary for the whole family 
 to drink beer, even the little children, or they will never 
 grow up. 
 
 Her knowledge of Italian opened the way to the lives 
 of these women, who poured out their hearts to her, 
 and in a very true sense she became the neighborhood 
 mother. 
 
 The immigrant committee of the New York State Fed- 
 eration of Women's Clubs is formulating plans for establish- 
 ing rural colonies of foreigners in undeveloped areas of 
 our country. The plan contemplates an arrangement with 
 the federal banks to loan money for long terms at a low 
 rate until the immigrant has a chance to become well estab- 
 lished. 
 
 The National Americanization Committee has prepared 
 a fine program of activities for mothers' organizations, which 
 includes this standard for individual women: 
 
 (1) Americanize one immigrant woman. 
 
 (2) Teach English to one foreign-born mother.
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 147 
 
 (3) Put one immigrant family on your calling list. 
 
 It would be impossible to estimate the enormous trans- 
 formation that could be wrought if every Christian woman 
 would earnestly set herself to the task, taking the foreign- 
 born woman who lives nearest her as her particular work 
 and care. 
 
 Social Settlements 
 
 Some years ago an occasional Italian might have found his 
 way into one of the social settlements located in the vicinity 
 of his colony. To-day, while he is not as appreciative of 
 educational and social advantages as the Hebrew, he is 
 accepting more and more the opportunities offered him. He 
 is timid about mingling with people among whom he feels 
 a stranger. But his desire to learn English has conquered, 
 for he knew well that without such knowledge the doors 
 leading to the best opportunities were closed to him. Con- 
 sequently we find him in Hull House in Chicago, in the 
 West End House in Boston and in the settlements of Phila- 
 delphia, Pittsburgh, New York, and Brooklyn. In the latter 
 borough, there are two settlements exclusively for Italians, 
 the Little Italy Neighborhood House and the Italian Settle- 
 ment. 
 
 In New York City, the Richmond Hill house is distinc- 
 tively an Italian institution. Six hundred Italian boys and 
 girls every week avail themselves of the clubs and classes 
 offered them by this settlement. Ninety-five children attend 
 the daily kindergarten in the mornings and are gathered 
 in sewing or story-telling groups in the afternoons. There 
 are a large Boy Scout troop, dramatic clubs for all ages, 
 mothers' clubs, classes in carpentry, modeling, drawing, 
 painting pottery, and stenography. The house also conducts 
 an employment bureau ( for boys and girls compelled to leave 
 school) based upon the most modern ideas of vocational 
 guidance. The young people also publish a worthy maga- 
 zine. Excellent work has been done in sculpture. One of
 
 H 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 the young men who owes his start in life to the settlement 
 is Beniamino Bufano, who last year won the Whitney first 
 prize in the competition for the best sculptural representation 
 of the immigrant in America. The art committee is en- 
 deavoring to develop artistic ability among Italians in New 
 York and will build a studio in the rear of the settlement 
 house this year. 
 
 The wonderful work of Hull House would need a vol- 
 ume of its own adequately to describe it. Suffice it to say 
 that Italians may and do take advantage of the music school, 
 art classes, day nursery, and the industrial and social clubs 
 for boys and girls. The two distinctively Italian activities 
 are the "Young Italians" social club for young men and 
 women and Circolo Itdiano, the Italian Circle. At the 
 regular meetings of the social club during the past four years, 
 an appreciation of what is best in their old world traditions 
 is fostered. Italian has to some extent been spoken, Italian 
 favors and decorations and refreshments have been used. 
 The Italian Circle has general oversight over all activities 
 in behalf of Italians. It conducts the social club, gives bene- 
 fit performances for the Italian Red Cross, has started rug- 
 weaving for poor Italian women, and gives an annual 
 "Mardi Gras," the invitations for which read "you and 
 your family." Almost all the Italian colony attends. The 
 philanthropic Italian ladies of Chicago have organized a 
 Socifta de Beneficenza della Donne Italiane which meets 
 at Hull House. One of the aims sought has been to make 
 the foreign mothers more respected by their children, and 
 to this end the work for mothers is given much prominence. 
 
 All the settlements conduct classes in English and nat- 
 uralization for foreigners, and, through the visiting nurse 
 and the outings at summer camps, relieve much physical 
 suffering, but, as tHe head-worker of an Italian social settle- 
 ment said to me recently, "What Italians need is less amuse- 
 ment and more religion." Italians frequent the settlements 
 because of the advantages offered, but do they avail them-
 
 THE SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS CENTER (METHODIST EPISCOPAL), 
 ENSLEY, ALABAMA 
 
 The Cooking Class 
 
 The Sewing Class 
 
 Night School for Italian Men .
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 149 
 
 selves of these in order that they may be able to help others 
 less fortunate, or that they may become the moral leaders of 
 their race ? Frankly, no ; only that they may better their own 
 position in the world, or for the good times to be had, or 
 because there they are able to pursue congenial studies, all 
 worthy enough motives, but, without religion, tending to 
 develop a selfish pursuit of happiness, lacking the sense of 
 duty and of responsibility for service which the gospel of 
 Jesus Christ instils. It is not enough that the social settle- 
 ments should be an expression of the Christlike character of 
 loving service in the hearts of their supporters. We must 
 seek to develop the Christlike character in those we aid. 
 This can best be done in settlements conducted from the 
 religious point of view. 
 
 Religious Social Settlements 
 
 There should not be the sharp distinction that is com- 
 monly made between social and religious work. Anything 
 that is done for the welfare of mankind is Christian, but 
 it falls short of its aim if it betters only the physical and 
 intellectual condition of people. For such work to be per- 
 manent in its effect, the spiritual life must be touched by 
 the power of the living Christ. The appeal of the social 
 settlement that ignores religion is to self-interest, a motive 
 not lofty enough to stimulate the development of nobility 
 of character. A few years ago some earnest people closed 
 a large, finely equipped settlement, whose classes were at- 
 tended by hundreds of foreigners, giving as their reason 
 that the results in terms of life and character did not justify 
 the expenditure of time and money. Only an intelligent 
 and vital faith in Christ can bring man to his highest state. 
 
 The ideal method of work is a union of a social settlement 
 ministering to the physical side of life through athletics, 
 health talks, and visiting nurses; to the mental, through 
 clubs and English classes, music, drawing, and handcraft; 
 to the need of fun, through entertainments and social gather-
 
 1 5 o SONS OF ITALY 
 
 ings; and to crown all and give purpose to life, a spiritual 
 ministry, the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus 
 as the way of salvation, by means of religious services, 
 Sunday-schools, prayer-meetings, and a modern evangelism. 
 There are some excellently equipped religious settlements 
 doing just this: Davenport Settlement in New Haven, 
 Good-will Center in Brooklyn, with an average attendance 
 of 1,000 children at their meetings and between 300 and 400 
 Italian men and women at a Sunday service; Grace Episco- 
 pal Chapel, New York City, with an Italian membership of 
 400; the work of the Presbyterians in Kansas City, which 
 is so flourishing that the Italians have advised the priest to 
 close the Roman Church and go away. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the richest and most lasting 
 results in character are brought about by the efforts which 
 Protestant churches are making to win Italians to the service 
 of Jesus Christ. These efforts are necessary in view of the 
 fact that two thirds of the Italians have abandoned their 
 native churches and are drifting into unbelief, and also 
 because the Italians know so little of Jesus Christ beyond 
 dramatic stories of his birth and death. They have scarcely 
 a conception of his life and teachings, and no knowledge of 
 the Bible. Thousands have never heard there is such a book. 
 Their interest is keen when they are introduced to it, and 
 any worker among Italians can tell of men who have read 
 and reread it so that they can quote verse after verse from 
 memory. I have in mind a young man who is becoming 
 actually educated in heart and mind from his study of the 
 'Bible. He had been a gambler, a hard drinker, a tough gang- 
 leader, and a terror to his family. After his conversion the 
 priest saw him and tried to take his Bible from him, and 
 failing, twitted him with the hardest thing for an Italian 
 to bear, disloyalty to his inherited faith. Said he, "I did not 
 think you would ever change your religion." "Why," re- 
 plied the young man, "it's real religion that has changed 
 me." The mother, sister, and brothers were in despair over
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 151 
 
 him at first he was bad enough before, but now that he 
 had gone to the Protestant tent, he would be utterly lost. 
 Weeks went by, and since he did not drink or gamble or go 
 out with the gang, but worked steadily and brought his 
 money home to his mother, they all came in wonder to see 
 what was this religion that had worked the miracle, and a 
 few weeks later the entire family trooped into my study bear- 
 ing the images of three saints (cheap papier-mache, costing 
 them $28), which they no longer trusted nor addressed in 
 prayers. 
 
 Catholic Work for Italians 
 
 What is the Catholic Church doing to meet this situation ? 
 For a number of years it paid little heed to Italians in 
 America. Consequently the work of Italian evangelization 
 was much easier fifteen years ago than at the present time. 
 The common report throughout the length and breadth of 
 the land is, "When we opened our mission, the Catholics 
 w r ere doing nothing for Italians. Now they have built a 
 church, are building a parochial school, and are copying our 
 various social activities." 
 
 Realizing that the majority of Italian priests were unable 
 to hold the people, as early as ten years ago a group of 
 young American seminarians, mainly of Irish descent, were 
 sent to Rome to learn the Italian language and to become 
 acquainted with Italian thought and feeling. They are now 
 taking part in this new, aggressive campaign. In La\vrence, 
 Massachusetts, where the Rev. Ariel Bellondi, pastor of 
 the flourishing Baptist mission, has gathered a large men's 
 Bible class, a new Catholic church has just been com- 
 pleted, and seven nuns have been brought into town to 
 visit the homes and overcome the "devilish influence of 
 the Protestants." In Providence, where, as we have already 
 mentioned, there is a large, prosperous, and influential Ital- 
 ian colony of 30,000, there is the beautiful church of Saint 
 .Anna, completed two years ago. It is a copy of the church
 
 1 52 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 of St. John and St. Paul in Venice, and an Italian bell- 
 tower stands beside it. Padre Bove, who seems to be an 
 energetic, wide-awake priest, is now completing an equally 
 imposing and well-equipped parochial school building. The 
 plant is estimated to cost $50,000. The school will contain 
 an auditorium which may be used as a theater and for con- 
 certs, a room for an orchestra, and a day nursery with ten 
 beds for babies. There are to be eight good-sized class- 
 rooms, where will be taught the religion and ideals of the 
 Italian fatherland, in distinction from American ideals. 
 
 In other localities the Catholic Church conducts sewing 
 schools, music classes, gymnasiums, athletic activities, classes 
 for the study of English, kindergartens, day schools for the 
 boys and girls, and Boy Scout troops. In one New York 
 Catholic settlement, vocal, piano, and organ lessons are 
 given free to the people. A large number of fresh air homes 
 have been established, and there is a long list of homes and 
 protectorates for foundlings, orphans, and wayward boys and 
 girls. Children are committed to these through the courts, 
 the city paying $11 a month for each child. 
 
 These helpful ministries are a direct result of the example 
 of Protestant work. Indeed the pope considered the apathy 
 of the Italian clergy of such importance that he not long 
 ago sent a special encyclical letter urging them to stop abuses 
 in Italian parishes and do all in their power to hold the 
 Italian people to the church. In August, 1916, an appeal 
 was sent to all the Catholic clergy to support and distribute 
 a weekly Italian Catholic paper which it is proposed to issue. 
 It will be an ably edited and up-to-date magazine for Italians 
 in their own language. 
 
 Italian priests are both good and bad, but the doctrine 
 the church has taught her children for generations and still 
 teaches that the value of the priest's ministry, his authority, 
 and power are independent of his character and private life 
 is the cause of much moral laxness. When the priest stands
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 153 
 
 before the altar he represents God and he is the only channel 
 for the flow of divine grace to the people. 
 
 RELIGIOUS SITUATION 
 
 It is a common belief among Americans that all Italians 
 are Catholics, and there seems to be good reason for this 
 impression. Out of Italy's population of 35,000,000, there 
 are only a few more than 60,000 Protestants, but there are 
 uncounted thousands, yes, tens of thousands of anticlerics 
 and atheists. Ninety-five per cent, of the Italians landing 
 on our shores would give Roman Catholicism as their re- 
 ligious belief, but if questioned, a large number would add 
 that they do not observe its feasts or attend its services, 
 except, perhaps, for births, deaths, and marriages. A ques- 
 tionnaire sent to all Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and 
 Congregational Italian pastors, including the question, 
 "What per cent, of Italians in your colony are loyal to the 
 Roman Church?" evoked the amazingly unanimous reply, 
 "About one third." One or two reported one quarter and 
 one reported one half. 
 
 The greatest question confronting the Catholic Church 
 in America is the defection of the Italian immigrant popu- 
 lation. In 1912, the Catholic Church made a comparison 
 of Protestant and Catholic statistics, with the astonishing 
 result of 250 Protestant Italian churches to 150 Catholic 
 Italian churches. 1 
 
 The Catholic Citizen of Milwaukee says that "Italians 
 are of a generation whose ideals of political liberty collided 
 with the established order and temporalities of the church," 
 and it further admits that at least 1,000,000 Italians in 
 this country have already been lost to Catholicism. In one 
 city in Massachusetts, out of a population of 1,700 Italians, 
 only sixty attend the Roman Catholic Church and in an- 
 
 1 The Catholic Directory for 1913.
 
 I54 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 other city there is a colony of 6,000 Italians of whom only 
 300 attend that church. 
 
 There is a colony of 35,000 Italians in Brooklyn which 
 has only one Italian Roman Catholic Church, seating at the 
 utmost 400 persons. It conducts three masses on Sunday, 
 and assuming that it is filled to capacity each time, it could 
 only minister to 1,200 persons, less than four per cent, of 
 the population. Out of the 600,000 Italian people of 
 Greater New York, the Roman Church, by its own figures, 
 lays claim to only 180,135 members of Roman Catholic 
 Italian churches. This includes children, and even so it is 
 less than one third of the total Italian population. 
 
 There is need for the widest publicity of these facts to 
 refute the common charge of proselytizing which all evan- 
 gelical mission work among Italians encounters, and also 
 because officials of city departments, health, probation, juve- 
 nile court, and charity organizations, and even school-teach- 
 ers continually assume that all Italian children are Catholics 
 and insist on treating them as such. 
 
 Here is what a well known Italian woman writer, a 
 stanch Roman Catholic, has to say in her recent book against 
 our evangelical propaganda: "In the American missionary 
 world there looms large the idea that the Italian offers a 
 fertile field for Protestant operations. It is true that many 
 of the Italian immigrants have good reasons for their state 
 of indifference, rancor, and hatred toward the Catholic 
 Church. On the one hand, the anarchistic and socialistic 
 propagandists attack many of its theories, on the other, re- 
 action inspired by the condition of the Catholic Church in 
 America. The church must get money, for it has no income 
 save from the faithful. This limits its charitable work. Be- 
 sides, many priests go to America, not sent by the holy office 
 or their immediate superiors, but for the most part, to "seek 
 a mass" like the other immigrants who go there to seek a 
 job. One of the things which disturbs the Italian is that 
 he must pay to enter the church. The rascality of the
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 155 
 
 Protestants takes advantage of this sad state. They are 
 animated by a great zeal to proselyte and they do not hesi- 
 tate to spend great sums of money. One Baptist pastor has 
 said that, if he had money enough, the whole of Little Italy 
 would become Protestant. No, no! When our immigrants 
 have once lost their native religion they cannot deceive them- 
 selves nor others that they can acquire another. They can- 
 not have any other." 1 ' 
 
 Legitimacy of Protestant Work 
 
 It is not necessary for me to argue this matter. Our 
 20,000 Protestant Italian membership, with another 40,000 
 who sympathize fully with us, but dare not take a stand 
 openly by uniting with the Protestant church because of the 
 persecution, boycott, and family opposition which would in- 
 evitably follow, tells its own story. Out of a confirmation 
 class of eighty Italians taken into the Grace Episcopal 
 Church in New York City, last year, sixty of the number 
 had never been confirmed in the Catholic Church, while 
 seven of the women had not even been baptized by that 
 church. 
 
 The surprising thing is, however, to find that within the 
 Protestant fold itself there are those who would discourage 
 our attempts to evangelize the Italian. The contention is 
 usually as follows. Most of the new immigration is made 
 up of Jews and Roman Catholics. It is a great deal better 
 for them to be true to their own religion than that any 
 efforts should be made to undermine their inherited faith. 
 And then the usual argument is presented that "The moral 
 restraint and religious inspiration w r hich come through the 
 medium of the Roman Catholic Church cannot be estimated. 
 We gage somewhat their value through a consideration of 
 their discontinuation. Should all masses in Roman Catholic 
 churches devoting their attention to non-English speaking 
 people suddenly cease, what would inevitably follow? Our 
 
 1 Amy Benardy, Italia in Randaggia.
 
 IS 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 nation would be plunged into a pandemonium unparalleled 
 in the history of the world. Not only should we have end- 
 less processions marching under no-God, no-law banners, 
 but class, clan, and man would cast off all restraint and 
 authority. In this country, often following our example, 
 the foreigner has sometimes interpreted liberty as license. 
 The Roman Catholic Church grips these slowly awakening 
 souls through its traditions and ceremonies, in such a way 
 that law and order result." 
 
 In the light of facts already enumerated such statements 
 are ridiculous, at least so far as Italians are concerned. 
 Only those who do not speak their language and have never 
 lived in close, intimate, daily relations with large numbers 
 of Italians could seriously hold such views, which are not 
 sustained by facts. Instead of the church, through its 
 "traditions and ceremonies, gripping these slowly awaking 
 souls," those that do awaken through education and con- 
 tact with American life throw off the traditions of their 
 church as worn-out superstitions, and become either indif- 
 ferent to religion or actively hostile. Having lost faith in 
 Roman Catholicism, they fervently believe all religions are 
 worn-out superstitions imposed upon ignorant people to keep 
 them in subjection. To this latter group belong the great 
 throng of younger men who represent the socialist and 
 anarchistic organizations. They have rebelled against the 
 tyranny of the Roman Church and, mistaking soul liberty 
 for license, they acknowledge no authority except their own 
 wish and individual advantage. They have an organized 
 propaganda, aided by public debates, street meetings, clubs, 
 and socialist papers, all seeking to enlighten and free their 
 fellow-Italians from the yokes of superstition and their con- 
 sequent condition of slavery for the benefit of the rich and 
 powerful. The rapid growth of socialism and the spread 
 of modernism even in the Roman Church itself shows that 
 the spirit of modern Italy is protestant.
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 157 
 
 How They Cut Loose 
 
 In a large eastern city there is an Italian family in com- 
 fortable circumstances now, but some years ago very poor. 
 The father had been ill and out of work and the mother had 
 no money to pay the christening fee and the expense of the 
 usual large party when her sixth baby came, so she let the 
 matter drift for four months, meanwhile saving money for 
 the ceremony. Suddenly the child became too ill to take to 
 church to be christened and the priest refused to go to the 
 home even for an extra fee and in a carriage hired by the 
 mother. The child died, and so great was the father's 
 wrath at the heartlessness of the priest that he forbade his 
 family ever again to attend the Roman Church. The oldest 
 daughter, a girl of unusual executive ability, became an 
 ardent socialist, secretary of her organization, and was 
 spoken of by the state leaders as likely to rise to high rank. 
 An earnest Christian American woman became her friend, 
 and after several months succeeded in bringing her to attend 
 an Italian evangelical service. She finally gave her heart to 
 Christ, and is to-day an earnest, growing Christian, destined 
 to be an influential leader among her people. 
 
 Several years ago, when I commenced work among 
 Italians, I was invited by a Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion secretary to pay a weekly visit to a shoe factory and 
 speak to the fifty Italians there employed. I was told by 
 the secretary, who supposed the men to be all Catholics, not 
 to antagonize them by preaching religion. I racked my 
 brain to find subjects that ought to interest them. I spoke 
 on Italian art, immigration, American ideals, and Italian 
 heroes. One day one of the men shouted out before all the 
 others, "Maestro, we know you are the minister of that 
 little church. Why do you not talk to us on religion some 
 time?" I answered that my religious views would not 
 agree with theirs. Whereupon a man answered, "You need 
 not be afraid of what you say to us we are all atheists."
 
 I5 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 In that particular group of fifty men I found only one who 
 defended the Roman Church. During the four years that 
 I carried on a tent campaign in Brooklyn, I spoke with 
 hundreds of men and women personally, and the common 
 expression that I heard over and over again was, "I am a 
 Roman Catholic, but have not put foot inside of a church 
 for ten years." There are thousands of young Italians, espe- 
 cially the better educated in this country, who are organized 
 into socialistic groups, whose chief object is to combat the" 
 spread of the "religious pest." As we have already indi* 
 cated, not over one third of the Italian population of any 
 colony is attached to the Roman Church. It will therefore 
 be clearly seen that it is not a question of proselyting, but 
 rather a matter of recovering the Italian from skepticism, 
 unbelief, and violent opposition to religion and theism. 
 Many thousands who have come into contact with the 
 Protestant church have been converted and are now a posi- 
 tive force for good in their communities. Said an Italian 
 mother to one of our young men recently, "I wish my son 
 would go to your church too. I notice the young men there 
 are good. They don't go to the saloon and gamble away all 
 their wages. I'd even be willing to have him become a 
 Protestant if he would be good like that too." Poor woman; 
 I know her son, a street loafer, dressed like a dandy, who 
 spends his time in pool-rooms and drinking resorts, seldom 
 works, and when he does, wastes his money in drink and 
 cards. The mother is a devout Catholic and would never 
 think of entering the Protestant church herself, yet she has 
 given her unconscious testimony to the power of the preach- 
 ing of Jesus Christ to transform life. 
 
 The Challenge to the Church 
 
 As Christian workers, we must aid all efforts to improve 
 social conditions, but we cannot stop there. We have an 
 example in the activities of our Lord. He ministered to 
 the physical needs of the people, but a physical ministry was
 
 ASSIMILATING THE ITALIAN 159 
 
 not the sole object of his coming into the world; he had 
 other gifts to bestow. In answer to the questions of John's 
 disciples, "Art thou the Messiah, or look we for another?" he 
 replied, "Go and show John again these things which ye do 
 see and hear. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, 
 the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the poor have the 
 gospel preached to them" The Jews of that day had sunk 
 to a superstitious fear of God and believed in an elaborate 
 system of rites and ceremonies as their hope of salvation. 
 Christ said, "I am come that ye might have life and that 
 more abundantly," and, "Ye shall know the truth, and the 
 truth shall make you free." To-day there is great fear of 
 being called sectarian. From much that so-called liberal 
 men write and preach, it would seem to be sectarianism to 
 preach Jesus Christ as the only means of salvation, the only 
 mediator between man and God, to a Roman Catholic or a 
 Jew. We must see the good in every system, true, but the 
 value of religion in a man's life must be judged by its 
 fruits. To Jesus and his disciples it made no difference 
 whether men were Jews or Gentiles. If they were not living 
 according to the will of God, they were fit objects of 
 missionary activity. For this, the priestly class, the Pharisees, 
 and the Sadducees, sought to kill him. They were very 
 much prejudiced against his radical views and religious 
 principles. He cared nothing for traditions and ceremonies 
 but declared God to be a spirit, who must be worshiped in 
 spirit and in truth. It is an undeniable fact that those who 
 have shaken the world out of its lethargy and religious in- 
 difference were men of mighty conviction who told the truth 
 as God revealed it to them, regardless of personal conse- 
 quences or of what other men thought. In every field of 
 human endeavor, in art, music, and science, progress is led 
 by men who have convictions about which they cannot keep 
 still, but must seek to impart to their fellow-men. 
 
 Professor Steiner says: "There is no institution in the 
 United States which will be so profoundly affected by the
 
 160 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 immigrant as the Protestant church. Without him, she will 
 languish and die; with him alone she has a future. The 
 Protestant church is called upon to lift the immigrant into 
 a better conception of human relations both for her own 
 sake and for the sake of the communities which she wishes 
 to serve. . . . This she must do even if it brings her under 
 suspicion of proselyting. Indeed one of the growing weak- 
 nesses of the Protestant church is the loss of those deep con- 
 victions which make proselyting easy."
 
 VI 
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 
 (PROTESTANT CHURCHES)
 
 A DANGER TO PROTESTANTISM 
 
 We want our ministers to be alive to the needs of the hour 
 in politics and in industrial reform, quick to come to the cham- 
 pionship of overworked women in factories, and the rescue of little 
 children who are giving up their lives that the cost of produc- 
 tion may be kept low. We want the message from the pulpit 
 to be heartily in sympathy with our modern thinking. But most 
 of all does American Protestantism need a spiritual passion, a 
 contagious faith in the supremacy of God's spiritual order, 
 and an alarm at the misery that waits on sin. From many 
 a community there is already rising a cry for elemental religion. 
 With all their scientific business success, American laymen are as- 
 serting that they want to be assured of God and immortality and 
 the worth of righteousness. They want companionship in spiritual 
 loneliness, comfort in hours of pain, courage in moments of 
 moral wavering. Their souls are athirst for the Unknown, and 
 they will be satisfied with nothing save the water that comes from 
 the river of God. If the awakening of Protestantism were to 
 mean simply a renascence of ethics, or a sort of bescriptured 
 positivism, American society would be defrauded. When it asks 
 for the bread of life, it will not be satisfied with treatises on 
 eugenics. 
 
 Shailer Mathews. 
 
 The test of religion is ultimately a very simple one. If we do 
 not love those whom we have seen, we cannot love those whom 
 we have not seen. All our sentiment about people at a distance, 
 and our heart-stirrings for the distressed and oppressed and our 
 prayers for the heathen are pointless and fraudulent, if we are 
 neglecting the occasions for service lying at our hand. If we 
 do not love our brethren here, how can we love our brethren 
 elsewhere except as a pious sentimentality? And if we do not 
 love those we have seen, how can we love God whom we have 
 not seen? 
 
 Hugh Black, The Greater Friendship,
 
 VI 
 
 STAGES OF RELIGIOUS WORK 
 
 In the course of our attempts to preach the gospel to the 
 Italians we have passed through two distinct stages. 2 The 
 first may well be characterized as the experimental stage. 
 There was at the beginning of this enterprise no definite 
 policy Home mission boards, city mission societies, and 
 individual churches put out feelers here and there to see if 
 the Italian would respond to the gospel appeal. In the city 
 of Brooklyn alone no less than twenty centers were opened 
 to evangelize the Italians. The most of these were short- 
 lived. This period of experimentation lasted from 1880 to 
 about 1900. Then came the stage of permanent work. The 
 
 x The term "Protestant" has generally an unfavorable connota- 
 tion among Italians. "Evangelical," however, is accepted and ap- 
 proved. 
 
 2 In connection with this chapter and with all references to 
 Protestant work among the Italians in America, the reader is 
 referred to a pamphlet by Mr. Mangano, "Religious Work for 
 Italians in America: A Handbook for Leaders in Missionary 
 Work," published for the Immigrant Work Committee of the Home 
 Missions Council by the Missionary Education Movement. This 
 pamphlet is intended as a supplement to this book. It contains a 
 general statement by the author, covering the whole field of Italian 
 work in America, with additional statements of policy contributed 
 by all the important denominational agencies working among Ital- 
 ians. There is a directory of Italian churches and mission stations 
 of all denominations, and a model program of work. The pamphlet 
 is invaluable to all who desire a first-hand knowledge of Italian 
 Work and methods of work in the United States. 
 
 163
 
 ,6 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 conviction had already been formed that the Italians were 
 in sore need of the gospel and that they responded to the 
 gospel as no other foreign people did. Some remarkable 
 cases of conversion took place. The various denominations 
 began to show signs of enthusiasm about the prospects of 
 reaching the Italians. Prophecies were made that in the 
 near future our churches would be thronged with these 
 newcomers. 
 
 Hitherto the work had been carried on in some rented 
 store or a room in a near-by church, and much was done in 
 the open air. The tent campaigns in Philadelphia, New 
 York, and Brooklyn had attracted large numbers of people 
 who eventually served as nuclei for future churches. This 
 second stage is marked by the erection of special buildings 
 adapted to the particular kinds of social and religious work 
 needed by the Italian communities. Workers and organiza- 
 tions began to study methods of approach and to formulate 
 policies. The matter of training schools for the preparation 
 of workers was also given attention, and as a result we have 
 to-day three institutions that have well-equipped depart- 
 ments for the preparation of Italian missionaries and pas- 
 tors Colgate Theological Seminary, which is providing men 
 for Baptist fields; Bloomfield Theological Seminary, which 
 is furnishing many workers for the Presbyterian Church; 
 while the Bible Teachers' Training School of New York 
 has turned out men who have gone into the work of various 
 denominations. 
 
 We are entering now upon the third stage, which we 
 may call the intensive stage. There are still localities where 
 new fields should be opened up as in the past; but the great 
 task before us during the next decade is to put upon a more 
 efficient basis the already existing work. We are face to 
 face with the need of ministering more effectively and more 
 thoroughly to the populations of our largest Italian centers. 
 In these large groups of foreign peoples there are usually no 
 Protestant churches, and a single worker or two in a com-
 
 THE GOSPEL OF THE OPEN AIR 
 
 Italian Summer School in City Mission Tent Campaign 
 Street Meeting, Second Avenue Baptist Church, New York City
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 165 
 
 munity of 15,000 or 20,000 Italians cannot meet the needs 
 of the people. In other words some of our churches and 
 missions must become in reality community centers with 
 facilities and workers sufficient to serve well all the people 
 of that community. It is well enough to have many minor 
 interests here and there, but we ought to have some interests 
 *"hat have a commanding influence. The church in its task 
 of foreign evangelization ought to see the value of concen- 
 tration of effort as the great industrial organizations see it. 
 There are a few Italian churches that are sufficiently 
 equipped with buildings and workers and these are doing a 
 comprehensive community work. The "Good-will Center" 
 of the Brooklyn City Mission is located in the midst of a 
 colony of 15,000 south Italians. Between 4,000 and 5,000 
 attend clubs, classes, or meetings of the settlement weekly. 
 A year ago a church was organized with 125 carefully taught 
 and tested members. The membership is now close to 300, 
 and the average attendance at preaching service is 400. The 
 Sunday-school is flourishing, and the head-workers say it 
 could easily number 1,000 if enough competent teachers 
 could be secured. The work serves all ages through a day 
 nursery, a kindergarten, twenty clubs for boys and girls, a 
 good citizenship club of a hundred men, and a club of 
 Italian mothers which averages sixty in attendance. Every 
 possible need is met: for music there is a band and a well- 
 trained choir; for handcraft, industrial classes and sewing 
 school; for amusement, Saturday afternoon educational 
 moving pictures with an attendance of 1,200 children; there 
 are plays and entertainments for their elders, and for outdoor 
 life there are boys' club hikes and camp life at Cornwall. 
 The $8,000 a year spent in this settlement, if divided among 
 eight widely separated fields where the sum could provide 
 but one room and one worker apiece, could not possibly 
 reach so many people in the short space of a year. Some of 
 our smaller missions have been at work with little outside
 
 l6 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 help and meager financial support for several years and have 
 only from twelve to twenty members. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF ITALIAN MISSIONS 
 
 Attempts to Fuse into American Church 
 
 As Italian churches and missions have multiplied, other 
 questions have arisen. There is a wide diversity of opinion 
 about how an Italian church should be organized. There 
 are those who are completely out of sympathy with the for- 
 eign church. They contend that the converted foreigner 
 should come into the membership of the established Ameri- 
 can church and so hasten the process of Americanization. 
 This is the theory of many who have never faced all the 
 facts in the case. It seems reasonable that a foreigner in a 
 well-organized American church would absorb more of the 
 real Christian American spirit than in any other way. 
 
 It has worked well in a few instances in small country 
 churches, when the foreigners were young, could understand 
 English, and could be taken into the social life of the mem- 
 bers. Such cases are desirable but rare. If the converted 
 foreigners speak little English and are of the laboring class, 
 the attempt is always a failure. The vast majority of 
 church-members will not mix with them and the Italians 
 feel keenly their isolation, the social gulf between the races, 
 and their own shabby clothes. 
 
 Some time ago a clergyman asked me to meet with his 
 deacons to examine four Italians converted through the 
 efforts of the Italian missionary. The candidates passed a 
 good examination, and the deacons were quite willing to 
 recommend them for admission to church-membership. The 
 pastor looked worried. I ventured to hope that he was joy- 
 ful at the fruits of the Italian mission. "Yes, so far so good, 
 but now I am puzzled to know what to do with them. I 
 have some members who would not approve of their coming 
 into the regular congregation." Another city church,
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 167 
 
 through the friendly interest of its assistant pastor, acquired 
 an Italian member. This man had five children, whom he 
 wished to send to the American Sunday-school. A promi- 
 nent woman threatened to withdraw her children if these 
 Italian children were allowed to attend. 
 
 Departmental Work 
 
 Often a church situated near an Italian colony has be- 
 come so much interested in its needs that it has been willing 
 to set aside some room in' the church for the work of Italian 
 evangelization. An Italian minister preaches to them in 
 their own language. Converts are received into the main 
 church, whose English services they attend only on rare 
 occasions. The expenses of the department are part of the 
 regular church budget, and all contributions of the Italian 
 congregation go into the church treasury. As a rule the 
 department has no independent ecclesiastical organization 
 and the ordinances of baptism and communion are admin- 
 istered by the pastor of the American church. This is not 
 wholly satisfactory. Men and women who know no Eng- 
 lish find it very tiresome to attend a service in an unknown 
 tongue, and certainly there can be little religious inspira- 
 tion or instruction in a sacrament administered in a foreign 
 language. How many Americans would keep up their in- 
 terest if they had to attend a Russian or Polish service? 
 Even when the Italian knows enough English to follow a 
 conversation and answer a few words, he receives little from 
 an English sermon. The vocabulary is unfamiliar to him 
 and he still does his thinking in his mother tongue. 
 
 Another obstacle to the success of a departmental work 
 is the lack of importance given to the enterprise. If a 
 society of the main church needs the Italian room, the 
 Italian members are crowded into some other room. Italians 
 resent this. To them their service is exceedingly important 
 and it is a shock to discover that it is less important in 
 American eyes. Then, too, in institutional churches where
 
 i68 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 clubs and classes meet every day in the week, it often hap- 
 pens that while an Italian service is in progress, a social or 
 gymnastic drill may be going on in the next room. The 
 Italian temperament is particularly sensitive to atmosphere, 
 and it is exceeding difficult to preserve a spirit of worship 
 under such conditions. These handicaps should not obscure 
 the fact that there are undoubtedly successful examples of 
 work carried on under the departmental system. 
 
 Branch Church 
 
 The branch or independent church, with a separate build- 
 ing used only for the Italian work, has been found to accom- 
 plish the best results. 
 
 The conduct of a branch church is similar to a depart- 
 mental work. The converts are all members of the mother 
 church, but the branch has its own officers and deacons, ad- 
 ministers the ordinances, and has absolute freedom in con- 
 ducting its own work. Such an arrangement has much to 
 recommend it. The relation with the mother church is a 
 source of help when advice is needed or in case of discipline, 
 where the main church takes the responsibility that the 
 weaker branch could not assume. 
 
 Self-Governing Church 
 
 The self-governed Italian church is organized exactly as 
 any American church. It invariably has its own church 
 building, its ordained missionary pastor and regularly con- 
 stituted officers, and it usually takes care of its own current 
 expenses and frequently contributes something toward its 
 pastor's salary and the various missionary societies of the 
 denomination. Every denomination working among Italians 
 has one or more such independent churches. The Congre- 
 gationalists have a fine work at Davenport Settlement, New 
 Haven, and at Grantwood, New Jersey. Other significant 
 enterprises are those among the Baptists at First Italian in 
 Buffalo, First Italian in Brooklyn, Hurlburt Chapel,
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 169 
 
 Orange, New Jersey, and First Italian, New Haven. The 
 Methodists have their most representative pieces of work at 
 Jefferson Park, New York, First Italian, Chicago, the Peo- 
 ple's Church of Denver, and Elm Street, Toronto. The 
 main features of the Presbyterian work are at the Broome 
 Street Tabernacle and the Church of the Ascension, New 
 York, Olivet Church, Newark, and churches in Philadelphia 
 and Chicago. The Reformed Church in America has a 
 flourishing institution in its Italian Church at Newburgh, 
 New York. The Protestant Episcopal enterprise of most 
 importance is that of Grace Chapel in lower New York. 
 San Salvatore, New York, and the Episcopal chapels in 
 Philadelphia and Boston are also strong organizations. The 
 United Presbyterians have a splendid Italian work on 
 Webster Avenue, Pittsburgh. The only independent self- 
 supporting Italian churches in America are the Wal- 
 densian church on Forty-first Street, New York City, 
 and the Waldensian churches of Gainesville, Texas, Val- 
 dese, North Carolina, and Monett, Missouri, which were 
 built and supported by the people. These people have been 
 Protestant for centuries and when they migrate and make a 
 settlement, like the New England pilgrims, their first care 
 is to build a church. 
 
 MISSIONARY EFFORTS IN SMALL TOWNS OR VILLAGES 
 
 In communities where the Italian group is too small to 
 make it at all feasible to maintain a missionary among them, 
 the local church can still accomplish much. Here the teach- 
 ing of English is imperatively the first step, and the friendli- 
 ness of Christian neighbors will draw the people gradually 
 into the church. 
 
 In a New Jersey suburban town a few consecrated women 
 started a sewing school in a vacant store, and later a Sunday- 
 school was begun. To-day there are over a hundred scholars 
 in that Sunday-school, and forty or more of the parents have
 
 i 7 o SONS OF ITALY 
 
 united with one of the local churches. A missionary from 
 an adjoining town carries on a weekly service in their native 
 tongue for these adult converts. 
 
 In a beautiful residential town of Connecticut there is a 
 group of seventy-five Italian families living by themselves 
 and cut off from any contact with American life. A little 
 Catholic church was built there several years ago, but since 
 the people contributed so little, the services have been dis- 
 continued. Some of the wealthy ladies of the community 
 saw the need of these neglected people and decided to do 
 what they could for them. They first secured a visiting 
 nurse to go into the homes and show the mothers how to 
 care for their children, how to cook their food, and how to 
 attend to them when sick. Later they secured a large room 
 which had formerly been used as a saloon. The place was 
 cleaned and put into shape so as to serve for a sewing school, 
 a lecture room and a place for social gatherings. The day 
 I was invited to speak, the room was full of mothers, and 
 the Christian women of the town were serving coffee and 
 sandwiches over the transformed bar. 
 
 An excellent way to get at the problem first-hand is for 
 every church to appoint an energetic local missionary com- 
 mittee, whose duty it would be to make a careful study of 
 the foreigners in the community, gathering accurate in- 
 formation through personal contact, about the social, eco- 
 nomic, and religious conditions of their foreign neighbors. 
 Then seek, through English classes, sewing schools, civic 
 clubs, home visitation, and personal friendship, to bring them 
 under the ministry of the church. What can any Christian 
 American do to reach the foreigner ? Let him play the host 
 to the stranger. We too often blame the stranger within 
 our gates for his un-American standards of living. How is 
 he ever to attain the true American standard if he never 
 crosses the threshold of an American home? Not long ago 
 a well-educated foreign worker startled his audience by tell- 
 ing them that he had been laboring in their city for over six
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 171 
 
 years and had never been invited to an American home. 
 People are honestly seeking how to reach Italians, but they 
 do not use the most potent means at their disposal to estab- 
 lish a point of contact their homes. 
 
 ESSENTIAL FACTORS 
 Freedom Necessary 
 
 The ideal form of organization, as has been said, is the 
 branch or the so-called independent church with a separate 
 building. This is best adapted to train its members in 
 church life and at the same time to develop a sense of per- 
 sonal responsibility for their own church work. It means a 
 great deal to have the Italian congregation feel that they are 
 entrusted with the conduct of their own church; that they 
 can elect their officers; that they can collect money and dis- 
 pose of it according to their own vote and judgment. There 
 is development and growth in the knowledge that they then 
 have something to do themselves. When an Italian is elected 
 to any of the church offices, he begins to feel his responsi- 
 bility. This is surely one of the elements that contributes to 
 his becoming an individual and a personality. 
 
 But a clear distinction must be made between a church 
 that is organized for the conduct of its own work and an 
 independent church in the strict sense of the term. When 
 such a church is organized it should be made very clear to 
 the members that no church can be actually independent 
 until it is able to provide for all its own expenses. There 
 is no objection to considering the/ members of an organized 
 church as members of some American church. Indeed, there 
 are some advantages in it, especially if it serves the purpose 
 of developing interest in the Italians on the part of the 
 Americans. But this relation must not deprive the members 
 of the Italian congregation of the right of initiative or of 
 independent action. If they are ever to reach the point of 
 self-direction, they must now be given considerable freedom,
 
 172 
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 under some wise but not suffocating supervision, in order 
 that they may be made to feel their personal obligation for 
 reaching the people of their community. The idea that the 
 work carried on for Italians is an enterprise that devolves 
 upon Americans exclusively and not upon the Italians, is 
 too common among both peoples. Too often have Ameri- 
 cans so completely dictated and controlled the activities of 
 the mission church that the Italians have said, whenever an 
 appeal has been made to them for their participation in the 
 maintenance of the work, "This is the Americans' business: 
 let them do it." 
 
 In view of the numerous disasters in the past, leaders in 
 foreign work are somewhat diffident about granting much 
 freedom to the foreign congregation. The tendency is to 
 make wards of these converts and not self-directing and inde- 
 pendent Protestant Christians. The Roman Church from 
 which they come has too long fostered this attitude. It 
 holds that the clergy constitute the church, there can be no 
 church without the bishop, the people have no part in the 
 conduct of the organization, they simply are the recipients 
 of gifts which the clergy possess and can dispense through 
 the mass and the various functions of their office. Our 
 view being diametrically opposed to this, we are compelled 
 in the very nature of the case so to treat our Italian converts 
 as to develop them into self-respecting independent sup- 
 porters of their own church work. It is true that Italians, 
 unused to democracy in church life, will doubtless make 
 many mistakes, if given large freedom. But who does not 
 make mistakes in the course of a life of development? Every 
 precaution should be taken to provide against serious blun- 
 ders, but we must know that by their very mistakes they 
 will better learn to conduct their own affairs. 
 
 Cooperation of American Brothers 
 
 Experience drawn from a wide observation has shown 
 that too large liberties, which are usually attended by official
 
 MARIE LOUISE DIETZ MEMORIAL 
 (FIRST ITALIAN BAPTIST CHURCH), BROOKLYN 
 
 Camp Fire Girls 
 
 The Sewing School 
 
 The Plant
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 173 
 
 neglect, have led to many failures in our Italian work. Espe- 
 cially has this been true where a national or state organiza- 
 tion has taken the initiative in the establishment of a mission, 
 and failed to secure the cooperation and loving supervision 
 of the local church. The tendency now, on the part of all 
 denominations, is to center authority in the local church or 
 city mission organization, for they are in a position to know 
 best the needs of the mission under their care. My own 
 personal feeling regarding the matter is that unless the 
 cooperation of the local church or individuals can be en- 
 listed, it would be better not to attempt the task at all. The 
 risks are too great and the consequences too serious for us 
 to take chances, unless the leader has been found who by 
 his own personal character and ability can secure that 
 cooperation. 
 
 A Cooperative Supervision 
 
 In the matter of cooperation and supervision certain 
 methods have been tried and proved successful. 
 
 1. In a number of missions are to be found consecrated 
 and devoted men and women who have made the Italian 
 mission their special care. In many instances they have to 
 forego the services of their own church in order to be of 
 help and guidance to their brethren of a foreign tongue. It 
 has been said truly concerning a splendid layman in one of 
 our missions in New England, that he serves as a balance- 
 wheel in all deliberations. He has the confidence and re- 
 spect of all the Italians and, although he does not seek to 
 impose his own will, when he expresses his judgment about 
 any matter, the brethren usually follow his suggestions. 
 
 2. In some of our large cities the executive officer of the 
 city mission society takes the matter of supervision in his 
 own hands. The success of this method depends very largely 
 upon how far he is able to understand and sympathize with 
 the Italian temperament and point of view. To do this task 
 well there must be real love for the foreigner and respect
 
 1 74 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 for and confidence in the people who are entrusted with the 
 task of leadership. In other words, there must be a brotherly 
 and cordial spirit between the executive officer of the mission- 
 ary organization and the Italian workers. Too often there 
 is the feeling of distrust and lack of respect that is mutual. 
 Wherever there is lacking that mutual understanding and 
 love between workers and supervisors, the mission is bound 
 to feel the shock and languish as a consequence. 
 
 3. The method that commends itself most generally, 
 wherever it is possible, is a cooperative committee appointed 
 by some local church which takes the mission under its pro- 
 tecting care. This has been tried out in a number of places 
 and has proved workable as well as very much appreciated 
 by the Italian congregation. This method is applicable to 
 any and all forms of Italian missions, regardless of their 
 type of organization. It is especially useful in connection 
 with the work of the so-called independent organized church. 
 It functions in the following manner. The local church 
 nearest to the mission or the one most vitally interested in 
 the work of the mission appoints a committee of three or 
 four of its own members, persons who are really sympathetic 
 to the foreigner and who are willing to give some attention 
 to the study of the people whom they are about to assist. 
 This committee then serves as a joint committee with the 
 official board of the Italian congregation, meeting at regu- 
 larly stated times to take counsel and discuss frankly all 
 questions that arise in connection with the work of that 
 mission and to plan for any departures from the ordinary 
 lines of activities. This combined committee receives also 
 the monthly reports of the work done by the staff. 
 
 This form of cooperation and supervision does not in any 
 way interfere with the free action of the Italian congrega- 
 tion, while at the same time it furnishes splendid oppor- 
 tunity for securing the cooperation of the American church. 
 Occasionally there are rumors about American interference 
 in the conduct of Italian work. But usually these come from
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 175 
 
 Italian workers who do not appreciate America and Ameri- 
 cans and the great help which they must necessarily render 
 our enterprise if we are to succeed. What would the Pres- 
 byterian Mission in Kansas City do were it not for the thirty 
 volunteer workers from the American church? What 
 would the Baptist Mission in Orange do were it not for 
 loyal and generous assistance rendered by the fifty or more 
 persons who gladly cooperate in the task? What would 
 the Congregational work at the Davenport Memorial in 
 New Haven be without the splendid care of American help- 
 ers? But if they form such an important part in our work, 
 it is but just and fair that they be informed about our 
 plans, methods, and ideals of work, and that they have a 
 right to make suggestions about them if they see fit. 
 
 There are two very important ends served by this arrange- 
 ment. It is a protection against ill-advised action on the 
 part of the Italian congregation, and at the same time it 
 provides a means whereby our American friends can better 
 understand Italian problems and views and more fully sym- 
 pathize with the Italian temperament. Both sides would 
 learn to respect, love, and help each other more, as they 
 thus become acquainted. 
 
 Self-support 
 
 There are 300 Italian Protestant churches and missions 
 in the United States with something over 20,000 members 
 who contributed during the past year a total of $50,000, at 
 a rate of $2.50 per capita, toward their own support, while 
 about $400,000 is annually spent by home and city mission 
 boards and individual churches for the support of this work. 
 The question is often raised as to how long it will be neces- 
 sary to expend this large sum of money, and when will 
 Italian churches be able to care for their own work? In 
 investigating causes for the present conditions certain facts 
 appeared. 
 
 One of the main reasons for the alienation of Italians
 
 i 7 6 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 from the Roman Church is the fact that the priests have 
 extorted money from the people in every way open to them. 
 The people have felt the injustice of the system whereby 
 those with plenty of money could get the services of the 
 church, while the poor must go without. The high fee of 
 $10 for performing the marriage ceremony led some of the 
 older immigrants, fifteen or twenty years ago, to dispense 
 with it altogether, and not a few of our Italian ministers 
 have had the experience of marrying a man and woman, 
 father and mother of many children, who had lived true to 
 each other, though unmarried. 
 
 To offset the belief that religion can be bought and paid 
 for, the Protestants have emphasized the fact that the gospel 
 of Christ is free to all. In the church and on the public 
 streets the missionaries have done all in their power to make 
 the people understand that Protestantism grants no special 
 privilege, accepts no payment for a dispensation. The people 
 have accepted these statements and are acting upon them. 
 It is a matter of concern to many of the leaders in Italian 
 work to train the people to self-support. This must be done, 
 but wisdom and tact must be used. Some time ago I met 
 an Italian who had received a communication from the treas- 
 urer of his church, advising him that he was considerably 
 behind on his weekly pledge. Said he, "I left the Catholic 
 Church seventeen years ago, because they tried to force me 
 to pay when I couldn't, and now, here I am out of work 
 and cannot meet my family expenses, and I receive a bill 
 from the church. I shall not go to church ; I have no money 
 to give." 
 
 While the Roman Church manages to secure money from 
 the people, it does not do so by the direct method of volun- 
 tary gifts. It is obtained in indirect ways for which the 
 people suppose they receive some valuable equivalent, such as 
 masses for the dead, special feasts in honor of saints, the 
 sale of objects of indulgence, as medals, scapulars, printed 
 prayers, beads, and candles. Large sums of money are re-
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 177 
 
 ceived also for the yearly masses which societies pay for in 
 honor of their favorite saints. In the coal regions and in 
 the construction camps, the company, acting on direction of 
 the priest, in some cases deducts a small weekly sum from 
 each envelope, which goes for the payment on the church 
 building. The fees for baptism, funerals, and weddings are 
 taken as a matter of course. It is difficult to train our 
 church-members in direct, voluntary, regular giving, al- 
 though it must be said that the converts to Jesus Christ 
 who do give systematically through the envelope and pledge 
 system give more than they ever gave directly to the Roman 
 Church. The matter of regular contribution rests wholly 
 with the Italian pastor. Some men secure a fine response 
 from a small congregation. If a man has taken special pains 
 to educate his people to the necessity and value of regular 
 giving, he gets results. 
 
 A study of the detailed reports of local churches shows 
 that not always do the churches upon which the most money 
 is spent report the largest increase of membership. This is 
 because considerable sums of money are spent in social and 
 educational work, such as day kindergarten, clinics, boy 
 scouts, gymnasium classes, and clubs. This work is very 
 expensive and does not bring immediate results in church 
 membership, but by w r ork in the homes and personal work 
 with individuals, keeping in close, friendly contact with all 
 the youth brought under the influence of the church by the 
 various activities, it is laying the foundation for large future 
 ingathering. It requires no argument to prove that the de- 
 nominations that are now wisely investing the largest sums 
 of money in our foreign colonies, in such projects as the 
 Good-will Center in Brooklyn, the Italian Institute in 
 Chicago, the social and religious center in Ensley, Alabama, 
 or the church on Dufrerin Street, Toronto, are sure, in the 
 years to come, to exert an immeasurable influence on those 
 communities. It is true that this work costs, because for- 
 eign churches must offer social, educational, and recreational
 
 17 g SONS OF ITALY 
 
 features that our English-speaking churches in general do 
 not need, since American parents realize these needs and 
 supply them for their children. 
 
 TRANSITION FROM ITALIAN TO ENGLISH 
 
 Respect for Italian Traditions 
 
 Some thoughtless people consider everything foreign of 
 little value, and unreasonably expect Italians to forget their 
 country and national heroes and be lost in wonder and ad- 
 miration for everything American. A southern Italian was 
 walking through the streets of lower New York, selling 
 plaster casts of saints and well-known men. Among these 
 were some small busts of Garibaldi, dear to all true Italian 
 hearts, and also some of George Washington. A man who 
 considered himself a true American stopped the pedler, 
 and, picking up the bust of Garibaldi, said, "Who is this?" 
 Full of enthusiasm, the Italian replied, "The great Giuseppe 
 Garibaldi, Italian great man." Then, to his utter amaze- 
 ment, his would-be teacher flung the bust on the pavement, 
 saying, "Throw away the foreigner; you must be an Ameri- 
 can here." Instantly the Italian picked up the George 
 Washington cast, and, dashing it so violently to the side- 
 walk that it broke into bits, he exclaimed hotly, "You do 
 that to my Garibaldi, I do this to your damn George Wash- 
 ington." 
 
 We should encourage Italians to remember the grandeur 
 of their history, to preserve the best of their traditions, to 
 feel that, as a race, they have great gifts to contribute to 
 America and that, as individuals, they will strive to be 
 worthy of their inheritance. 
 
 Superficial Americanization 
 
 We must guard, however, against a zeal for too quick 
 external Americanization of these people by many of our 
 well-meaning but short-sighted volunteer workers. They
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 179 
 
 urge the young men and women to throw off their race cus- 
 toms and adopt American ones. This is exceedingly danger- 
 ous. In their impatience of everything Italian, boys and 
 girls despise the moral restraints of their parents, do not 
 respect the authority of the home, are ashamed of their 
 ignorant, Italian-speaking mothers, and become a law unto 
 themselves. The thoughtful young Italian pastor of Grace 
 Chapel, New York, points out that "much of the Italian 
 crime in this country is committed by boys and men of this 
 detached group, neither really Italians nor yet Americans." 
 True Americanization is a slow internal process. It conies 
 from a culture of soul and mind, and where moral character 
 has been established and the best" ideals of this country are 
 understood, the external manners and customs take care of 
 themselves. 
 
 Separation of Young People 
 
 The children educated in the public schools are becoming 
 too rapidly separated from their parents. The church 
 should foster and protect the unity of Italian family life. 
 "But," says a perplexed worker, "the children speak and 
 understand English; they speak very little Italian at home; 
 they cannot understand Italian sermons; why not let the 
 young people become members of an American church?" 
 
 Experience has shown that American churches, although 
 cordial in their reception of these foreigners, do not continue 
 to give them the parental care the foreign church would. 
 This was tried in Brooklyn some time ago. An unwise 
 person induced several Italian young people to leave the 
 Italian church and unite with an American church. The 
 result was that for a short time considerable attention was 
 paid to them, but soon they were forgotten, for they did 
 not and could not really mix. In a few months these young 
 members drifted away, and, being too proud to return to the 
 church of which they had formerly been members, they were 
 lost to organized Christianity.
 
 igo SONS OF ITALY 
 
 The absence of young people from the regular meetings 
 of the church detracts from the interest and life of the 
 services. If we are really desirous of reaching a community, 
 we must make every effort to keep our people together. The 
 religious life of any family is stronger, more enthusiastic, 
 more vital, if all attend one church and have common inter- 
 ests there. 
 
 Two other and better solutions to the problem have been 
 worked out. One is an English preaching service for the 
 children and young people. This is following a precedent 
 successfully carried out in a number of German and Swedish 
 churches. The service should be made attractive and in- 
 spiring, with music and a short practical sermon. Give the 
 young people something to do either in choir, as ushers, or 
 in preparation for special services something to develop re- 
 sponsibility for church life. These boys and girls are the 
 future church. The second method, also good, and perhaps 
 best, is to have classes in Italian, to teach the boys and girls 
 their mother tongue. They can then understand and parti- 
 cipate in all the religious meetings of the church. This helps 
 to bridge the chasm between parents and children, for as 
 the children study their native language, their national 
 heroes, the cause and growth of national customs, their self- 
 respect is quickened, and they receive a more sympathetic 
 understanding of their parents' point of view. Instead of 
 being ashamed of being Italians, wishing to change their 
 names to hide the fact as some have done, these young people 
 become self-respecting and eager to prove to their adopted 
 country that they are not undesirable, but that they will 
 lead lives which will command the respect of Americans. 
 
 Most intelligent people consider it desirable to know one 
 or more modern languages, and the commonwealth is at 
 great expense to teach French, German, or Italian in our 
 high schools and colleges. The ability to use two languages 
 is just as desirable for our young Italian-Americans, and 
 when it serves to unite family life and make the young
 
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 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 181 
 
 respect and tolerate the opinions of their parents, even if 
 they cannot endorse them, a great good is accomplished. 
 Where this has been tried, the young people have also volun- 
 tarily done considerable missionary work among the olde* 
 people, and by keeping in touch through the language with 
 the inner currents of life in Italian colonies, they are fitted 
 to become an influence for good. The one essential thing 
 in forming such a class or any .class is that all workers shall 
 cordially cooperate to favor the plan. 
 
 English or Italian in Sunday-school? 
 
 The Italian congregation has sometimes noted with alarm 
 the alienation of its young people from church services, 
 through well-meant but unwise influence of Sunday-school 
 teachers who wished to rapidly Americanize their pupils. 
 "You wouldn't marry an Italian now," said such a teacher 
 to one girl who had graduated from high school and later 
 from a hospital nursing course; "you're a real American 
 now. I don't see why you should care to go to an Italian 
 church; come with me to my American church." And so 
 this bright girl who, with her trained mind, could teach a 
 class in her own Sunday-school and so develop her own 
 Christian character through service, contributes nothing to 
 Italian work and attends irregularly an American church 
 where there is nothing for her to do and where her talents 
 remain hidden. The chances are she w r ill drift out of the 
 American church altogether in time. Such instances have 
 led one or two Italian churches to abolish English in the 
 Sunday-schools, to get rid of the American teachers, and 
 use only Italian at all services. This is a serious mistake. 
 The children who learn English at school, must be taught 
 in English in Sunday-school, and by teachers who have had 
 mature Christian experience and special training for Sunday- 
 school work. In some Italian churches of long standing 
 there are young people who have grow r n up in the church 
 and Sunday-school from the primary to the advanced classes.
 
 ,82 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 These can be utilized as teachers, and, understanding their 
 pupils as an outsider cannot, often achieve excellent results. 
 
 LEADERSHIP 
 
 It cannot be too strongly emphasized that there must be 
 no premature haste in endeavoring to evolve a full-fledged 
 American church out of an Italian congregation. The rea- 
 sonable thing to do is to secure as workers among Italians 
 men and women who comprehend the real essentials of 
 Americanism, and it makes little difference in what lan- 
 guage they communicate these ideas the Italians will be 
 truly Americanized. It should be a matter of serious con- 
 cern that those who are placed in charge of Italian mission 
 work should have in the very fiber of their lives the real 
 Christian spirit of America. The Italians are eager after 
 all to become Americans, and, becoming deeply attached to 
 their teachers, imitate the Americanism they see in them. 
 
 Italian Pastors 
 
 It is one of the axioms in Christian work that the per- 
 sonal life of the worker is far more potent in the long run 
 than what he or she may say. If there is any place where 
 nobility of character counts in the activities of the Christian 
 church, it is when religious leaders attempt work among 
 those who have broken with the Roman Church. Often the 
 reason for their break is the loss of esteem and respect for 
 the clergy. No Protestant minister has authority over his 
 people because of his robe or his office. Any authority or 
 respect he secures comes through his individual worth. He 
 must make his own position in the community which he 
 serves. If he is the true sort of a man, the people will soon 
 begin to say, "The Protestant missionary is a good man, he 
 is better than many priests, he tries to help people." The 
 influence of an Italian mission in any community is the 
 measure of the character of the man who leads it. The
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 183 
 
 Italian, because of his idealism, is a hero-worshiper. He 
 will follow heart and soul the man who wins his respect 
 and friendship. 
 
 But goodness and personal character, though they be in- 
 dispensable in a religious leader, are not sufficient to make 
 him develop a lasting and progressive work. For some 
 years our various organizations doing work among Italians 
 did little or nothing in the way of training men for this 
 important field. They, simply ran their chances on finding 
 a man here and there, considering themselves especially for- 
 tunate when they found a former Roman Catholic priest or ' 
 some one who had received some training in Italy under 
 Protestant influence. There was a common expression in 
 Italy that any one who did not "make good" over there was 
 shipped to America. This statement was not without a 
 basis of truth, though it must be said in all fairness to those 
 workers who come from Italy that many of them have done 
 splendid work. 
 
 Qualifications for Leadership 
 
 Leaders are now awake to the fact that not every one is 
 qualified to be an Italian missionary. What headway can 
 the uneducated man make against the powerful antagonists 
 that are arrayed against the Protestant propaganda? On 
 the one hand stand the priests, who are exceedingly active 
 in their efforts to hold the Italians and who use every oppor- 
 tunity and means to discredit the Protestant work, while on 
 the other hand are the ever-present groups of atheistic 
 socialists who are carrying on an aggressive antireligious 
 propaganda through debate, the printed page, and personal 
 conversation. The Italian missionary should be furnished 
 with historical knowledge regarding the Roman Church and 
 her teachings, and he must also familiarize himself with the 
 history and content of socialism as well as with the utter- 
 ances of the materialistic philosophers. He must be able to 
 give a good reason for the faith that is in him, to sift the
 
 !8 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 good out of the arguments of his adversaries, and it will not 
 do simply to point to a passage of Scripture before people to 
 whom Scripture means nothing, but on the contrary is 
 looked upon as a book of fables and superstition. 
 
 One of the things that we have learned by experience is 
 that, while there is power in the emotional appeal, it is the 
 appeal that is made to the intellect that wins the allegiance 
 of the Italian. He is ready to argue the matter; he wants 
 to know the difference between the Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic positions. Even with the illiterate peasant, we 
 must make the appeal to mind before we make an effort to 
 reach his heart. It naturally results therefore that a com- 
 plete moral transformation does not always follow when an 
 Italian joins the church. That is an effect which comes 
 gradually. But he must be convinced that the Protestant 
 point of view is better and higher and more reasonable 
 before he will express himself as favorable to it. Then he 
 will give himself to it with all the enthusiasm in his nature. 
 
 The choicest spirits, the most highly trained minds, the 
 most devoted and consecrated men and women, are needed 
 to act as the leaven in the great inert masses of foreign 
 populations. It is a task that will cost not only money, but 
 even the very life-blood of God's children, but it is worth it. 
 For a number of years now the representatives of our foreign 
 missionary societies have been crying with a loud voice for 
 the best talent of America to go into foreign lands. Their 
 cry has been heard, and each year the choicest best-trained 
 young men and women from our various colleges and uni- 
 versities have given themselves heart and soul to that great 
 enterprise. Has the time not come for us to raise our voices 
 in behalf of the needs of our own land ? What is necessary 
 to make the church awaken to her great responsibility and 
 duty? She cannot help but hear the cry of the man from 
 Macedonia, pleading in an unknown tongue for help to 
 learn about God. Will the young men and the young 
 women of to-day turn a deaf ear to the call of the foreigner
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 185 
 
 in America? Is the church prepared to see America swal- 
 lowed up in superstition and gross materialism? If not, 
 then she must inspire her children to put high value upon 
 the service which in this generation is necessary to conserve 
 the best in American life and to add to the spiritual patri- 
 mony which has been committed to them. 
 
 There are devoted souls round about us who are, in their 
 own quiet way, setting .forces in motion which will continue 
 in their operation so long as the world shall last. The 
 light which was so graciously given to them they have al- 
 ready made burn brighter and have passed it on to others. 
 A noble woman in New York City, full of devotion to the 
 cause of Italian evangelization, found a young man that 
 gave promise of development and, with much patience and 
 personal sacrifice, she provided for him a liberal education, 
 worked with him and for him, until she sees him to-day, to 
 her great satisfaction, the pastor of the largest Italian church 
 in the city. The wife of a pastor of a New England town, 
 fired with passion to see Italians converted to Jesus Christ, 
 made it her business to cultivate and lead and inspire, by 
 her own generous nature, two young Italians, and to-day 
 they are effectively preaching the gospel to their own people. 
 
 Ex-Priests 
 
 There has been a common impression among many people 
 that converted priests must be especially valuable in the 
 worl of Italian evangelization. But the priestly attitude 
 of superiority and dictation is hard to shake off. We do not 
 wish to make wards of Italians, but we aim at developing 
 self-directing Christians, dependent on their own consciences 
 for decision between right and wrong. It is also hard for 
 an ex-priest to acquire the idea of genuine service to his 
 people. He has been reared in an atmosphere of thought 
 foreign to our Protestant one, and while he may have broken 
 away from the Roman Church, disgusted with her super- 
 ficiality, he still retains some of her theological conceptions.
 
 !86 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Finally, the practical relation between preaching and prac- 
 tise is hard to understand. The answer I received from 
 two priests who had been reprimanded for being false to the 
 gospel they preached was, "What has my own life to do 
 with my work? Cannot I preach a good sermon?" There 
 are exceptions to all rules, but my experience would lead 
 me to avoid taking for our mission work men who have 
 studied many years for the priesthood. 
 
 Americans Who Learn the Italian Language 
 
 In view of the great need of properly trained Italian 
 workers and the fact that this need cannot be adequately 
 supplied, the suggestion has been made that Americans with 
 talent for foreign languages be encouraged to prepare them- 
 selves for the task of Italian evangelization. There is some- 
 thing to be said in favor of such a move and yet, on the 
 whole, the few experiments that have been made along this 
 line do not justify us in adopting such a policy except in 
 very rare cases. 
 
 While the Italian can have respect for the American 
 worker, he will not open his heart or reveal his innermost 
 soul save to one of his own race who has won his confidence. 
 The Italian knows and understands the mode of approach 
 to his own people in a way that few Americans ever can. 
 He, by intuition, can present the message to his countrymen 
 in a way that will best meet their needs. Ministering to 
 the souls of men is an exceedingly delicate task, and some- 
 times the wrong word or the wrong attitude will make it 
 impossible to approach the man or woman in question. 
 There is a common impression that if a man has a smile on 
 his face and can say, "Bene" "Bravo'' and "Son felice" 
 he can make his way into the heart of an Italian. This 
 is good for the occasional passer-by, but will not be suf- 
 ficient for a religious teacher. To meet the man in sor- 
 row or in the critical stages of his life, one must have a 
 comprehensive knowledge of the language he is to use. The
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 187 
 
 story is told of a very genial man who always expressed his 
 joy and approval at anything Italians said to him. On one 
 occasion a poor man had just lost his wife, and his little 
 child was at the point of death. He began by telling the 
 genial American about his sorrow, saying, "My wife was 
 taken with a stroke last night and died." Before he could go 
 further the American, with a broad smile on his face, ex- 
 claimed, "Bene, bene, jono contento!" (Well, well, I am 
 glad!) The Italian continued, "My little girl is very ill 
 and may die before to-morrow." "Bravo, I shall come to 
 your house to take dinner with you." The dear, good 
 American had supposed the Italian was giving him good news 
 about his family. The poor Italian naturally turned away 
 in disgust. 
 
 Many costly mistakes have been made in mission work 
 by persons who have no comprehension of Italian psychology 
 and temperament. To illustrate, some time ago an Ameri- 
 can who had for some years been engaged in religious work 
 in Italy was invited by the American in charge to speak at 
 one of the missions in one of our largest cities, and at the 
 close of the address was asked to extend the invitation to 
 the people. The speaker asked all those who believed what 
 he said and would like to become Christians to raise their 
 hands. For a moment there was silence. Then a man in 
 the rear of the room arose and said, "Signore, we are all 
 Christians, we believe what you say, and we desire to unite 
 with this mission." "Glory to God," said the leader; "this 
 is wonderful forty conversions all in one night." But the 
 American did not know the Italian. He was not familiar 
 with the fact that all Italians call themselves Christians, 
 because they do not happen to be Jews or Chinese. The 
 worst criminal calls himself a Christian and he would be 
 offended if you were to tell him he was not. 
 
 The Italian puts much emphasis on the refinements and 
 the little compliments of life. An Italian knows best how 
 to meet and observe these. I well recall how excited and
 
 1 88 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 really angry a group of Italians became when an American 
 clergyman gave an address in a public square on the subject 
 of the immigrant. He said, "These immigrants are a great 
 menace to our American institutions ; they must be educated ; 
 we must teach them our ideals; they are ignorant of the 
 fundamental laws of citizenship and true religion." What 
 he said was only too true, but my Italian countrymen were 
 offended. The next morning a group that I had been try- 
 ing to inspire with the ideals of America and true religion 
 met me and said, "What was that babbler talking about last 
 night? What does he mean by wanting to educate us? We 
 can teach him things he does not know. We are not* the 
 ignorant people he takes us to be. He is ignorant ; we know 
 more about America than he does about Italy." Some of 
 these men had studied in Italian universities, but their lack 
 of English and humble occupation concealed them. 
 
 A Model Staff 
 
 The ideal arrangement is to have a well-trained Italian 
 pastor for the work with adults, an earnest Christian Ameri- 
 can expert to handle boys' and young men's work, an Italian- 
 speaking woman to spend her time visiting and teaching in 
 the homes, and a well-trained Christian American woman 
 to work with the children. 
 
 All workers among Italians should necessarily understand 
 and speak Italian, just as the workers on the foreign field 
 consider it absolutely necessary to learn Japanese or Telugu. 
 It is frequently necessary to consult the parents about their 
 children, or the parents may have problems that they bring 
 to the "teacher" to solve. Would we wish an interpreter 
 to talk for us to the teacher of our child? Many times 
 American missionaries have thought Italians obstinate or 
 indifferent to their children's welfare, because they could 
 not understand the reasons for their refusal to let them out 
 of the house. All they could understand was the "No." 
 Children are often poor interpreters ; they know little Italian
 
 GRACE CHAPEL (PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL), NEW YORK 
 
 The Italian Choir 
 
 Boy Scouts 
 A Christmas Play by Italians
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 189 
 
 and mistake the sense of a question. I have known of 
 serious and laughable errors made by them. 
 
 Cooperation in Leadership 
 
 The Italian pastor should be the recognized leader, even 
 when better trained and more highly educated Americans 
 work with him. Many a work suffers from too many heads, 
 each independently running his or her department of. the 
 work. This tends to friction and discussion. The people 
 take sides with one worker against or in preference to an- 
 other. It is very injurious to the Italian people to realize 
 that there is any difference of opinion between the pastor 
 and the American missionary. Such differences should be 
 settled in private conference, and in public the pastor ought 
 always to be loyally supported. No principal of a school, 
 no headworker of a settlement, would keep a teacher who 
 insisted on using her own methods when requested to alter 
 her program for the benefit of the whole work. The Italians 
 naturally look to the Italian pastor, who understands them, 
 their mental background, and their problems. American 
 workers big enough to give up their own preferences cordially 
 unite in the pastor's plans, whether it be an outing, a choir, 
 a gymnastic class, or a class to teach Italian, and enthusiasti- 
 cally second the pastor's efforts. The plan may be just the 
 one needed, but a half-hearted support which the children 
 see is not sincere would doom it to failure. 
 
 The steady increase and stability in character of the Italian 
 congregation of Grace Chapel, New York, which now has 
 1,446 persons under pastoral care, is largely due to the fact 
 that there has never been any discord to cause factions in 
 the church. Says the young pastor, paying a high tribute 
 to the consecrated Christians who have worked with him, "I 
 have had the cooperation in the Sunday-school of as fine a 
 body of American men and women as I could ask for. I 
 thank God for this brave company, which has been willing
 
 19 o SONS OF ITALY 
 
 to stand by me, and to acknowledge the leadership, in things 
 Italian, of a man of foreign birth." 
 
 HOME MISSION STRATEGY 
 
 A Union Theological Seminary 
 
 As we have already indicated, there are now three Italian 
 departments that are training men for the Italian mission 
 field. But aside from the work of these institutions, there 
 are several Italian young men who are equipping themselves 
 in colleges and universities in different parts of our country. 
 
 The question has been raised by representatives of de- 
 nominations that have no regular Italian department, 
 whether it would not be feasible to have one well-equipped 
 Italian theological seminary to train all men who are con- 
 templating service to Italian people. It was somewhat sur- 
 prising to find an overwhelming majority in favor of a 
 union Italian theological seminary. Out of the fifty or 
 more that I interviewed, only five expressed themselves 
 against it, but their reason was because they did not feel 
 that such a program was practicable. 
 
 I am frank to say that I believe that the plan is a work- 
 able one, especially if a definite and clear policy is decided 
 upon beforehand, and some central authority is recognized, 
 particularly in the selection and admission of students. The 
 ideal with reference to the selection of men that would be 
 acceptable to all would be the most difficult point to estab- 
 lish. When this was once done, the rest would be easy 
 sailing. 
 
 There would be some decided advantages if such a plan 
 could be carried out. The care and expense of running the 
 one would be materially less than the present maintenance 
 of the three. But aside from the item of cost it is un- 
 deniable that such a proposed plan would make possible a 
 more efficient teaching force than any one of the depart- 
 ments can have at the present time. The most far-reaching
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 191 
 
 effect of a union theological seminary would be the unity of 
 point of view which the students of the various denomina- 
 tions would have, and, what to my mind is still greater, the 
 spirit of cordiality and cooperation which naturally char- 
 acterizes the men who live, study, and work together for a 
 period of years. The strong individualistic tendencies of 
 the Italian are constantly making themselves felt, especially 
 in strong antagonism between the groups that have studied 
 in different institutions or that have studied at none. At 
 the present stage, we cannot lay too much stress upon the 
 spirit of cooperation and real brotherly feeling among the 
 leaders in missionary activity, in order to present a united 
 front to the Italian population. 
 
 A Union Italian Protestant Paper 
 
 The importance of the press in all sorts of propaganda 
 cannot be overestimated. The Christian church knows well 
 its power. There are at the present time four denomina- 
 tional papers printed in the Italian language: L'Era Nuova, 
 Presbyterian; La Fiaccola, Methodist; // Cristiano, Bap- 
 tist, and L'Ape Evangelico, United Presbyterian. The need 
 of these publications and their value may be judged by the 
 sacrifice some of our Italian brethren have been willing to 
 make to keep them alive. 
 
 While the denominational spirit is strong among Italians, 
 it is a most interesting fact, that, with only three exceptions 
 out of seventy-five missionaries whom I have interviewed, 
 all approved of a plan to merge all the papers into one, 
 having a board of editors drawn from the different denomi- 
 nations. This would have these advantages. The financial 
 burden which now has to be carried for four papers would 
 be greatly reduced, and some are convinced it could be made 
 to pay expenses, as Protestants would be able to present a 
 clear, definite, united statement of Christian truth to be- 
 wildered Italians who are used to one church wherever they 
 go. We should without question be able to produce a far
 
 1 9 a SONS OF ITALY 
 
 better paper than any one of the four can now be. Such a 
 paper would include not only religious articles, but a dis- 
 cussion of the leading topics of the day from a Christian 
 point of view, a real Italian "Outlook." It should also 
 include an English page for young people and children, house- 
 hold and health hints, and good pictures. 
 
 OBSTACLES 
 
 Attitude of the Roman Church 
 
 It is fair to state that the bitterest opposition which we 
 experience in our work of Italian evangelization is from the 
 Roman Catholic Church, from its pulpit, through house to 
 house visitation, and by the printed page. All sorts of fake 
 charges are made against Protestant workers and teachings. 
 It is a common thing for Italian priests to tell the people 
 that Protestants do not believe in God, that the Bible they 
 use is false, that they pay each person that goes there a 
 weekly sum, that the more people the missionaries convert 
 to their church, the more money they get. We are looked 
 upon by the credulous and simple-minded as destroyers of 
 the true faith and enemies of God. The priests constantly 
 tell the people that if they put foot inside of a Protestant 
 church they will be excommunicated. It is fortunate for us 
 that the people do not always believe everything the priests 
 say. They are more and more using their own minds and 
 consciences. But it is not to be wondered at that the people 
 hesitate to cross the thresholds of our sanctuaries. Here is 
 what one woman said as she gave her experience before the 
 officers of the church : "I was afraid to come to your church 
 because I felt that if I came in some terrible punishment 
 would be visited upon me from God. I passed by the church 
 many times but did not dare enter. When I did come in 
 I ran through the door as fast as I could, afraid that the 
 walls might fall on my head." 
 
 Still another woman, whose son had united with the
 
 LE CHIESE EVANGELICHE 193 
 
 Protestant church, bought a revolver to shoot him for his 
 diabolical conduct. She went to the Protestant mission with 
 the avowed purpose of killing him. She sat down and waited 
 for the opportune time. The service and sermon attracted 
 her, however, and before she could accomplish her desire she 
 had so entirely changed her attitude of mind that she be- 
 came not only a member of the church herself, but one of 
 the finest missionaries that could possibly be found. She 
 was seventy-five years old, but on Sundays she would visit 
 a dozen homes, talking about Jesus and repeating to her 
 interested listeners what she had heard at the morning serv- 
 ice. "Why," she said, "I thought you were all devils, and 
 that I should be pleasing God if I took my son's life." A 
 young man who used to stone our workers as they went 
 to hold open-air meetings, is now a valiant missionary, while 
 another bright young fellow who used to disturb our open- 
 air meetings and contradict the speakers, is now an aggres- 
 sive worker for Christ. In fact many of our best workers 
 were once our bitterest enemies. 
 
 Abuse of Freedom in the Schools 
 
 But we are facing another obstacle which is troublesome 
 and dangerous. Many of our missionaries report that 
 teachers in our public schools are using the influence of 
 their position to discover Italian children that attend Protes- 
 tant churches and to intimidate them by reprimanding them 
 publicly for "abandoning the true church." While such a 
 practise is contrary to the laws of our free institutions, since 
 there is little or no protest against this infringement of per- 
 sonal rights, many of our people have to endure this added 
 persecution. This is a matter which should be taken up 
 with the state boards of education through the responsible 
 heads of the various denominations that are engaged in 
 evangelizing the foreigner. It should be settled once for all 
 whether in free America people have the right to go to what- 
 ever church they choose ; whether public school teachers may
 
 i 9 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 interfere with that right while the children are in their 
 classes; or whether we have no right to preach the gospel to 
 people who hail from Roman Catholic countries. The next 
 logical step, in the latter alternative, is to give up all of our 
 work of evangelization among immigrants from Europe. 
 But there is no denomination, I am sure, that is ready thus 
 to betray the cause of Christ. Yet there is no one who 
 desires to take up this unpleasant task. 
 
 The fact is that American pastors and laymen alike are 
 too prone to avoid everything in religion which may prove 
 troublesome or cause a disturbance. We must not forget 
 that the progress of the world has been brought about 
 through trouble and disturbance, and Jesus well said, "I 
 have not come to bring peace, but a sword." He was killed 
 because he was a trouble-maker in the established order. We 
 too cannot live in harmony with our Lord in a sinful and 
 greedy world without being at odds with men and systems. 
 The school boards must be given to understand that the 
 Protestant Christian church will brook no interference with 
 its principle of separation between church and state.
 
 VII 
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE 
 AMERICA OF TO-MORROW
 
 Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not; and 
 nations that know not thee shall run unto thee, because of Jehovah 
 thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel ; for he hath glorified 
 thee. 
 
 Isaiah lv.5. 
 
 And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and foreigners 
 shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be 
 named the priests of Jehovah; men shall call you the ministers 
 of our God; ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their 
 glory shall ye boast yourselves. 
 
 Isaiah lxi.5-6. 
 
 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not 
 do him wrong. The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be 
 unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him 
 as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt: I am 
 Jehovah your God. 
 
 Leviticus xix-33-34. 
 
 Man is a force-bearer and a force-producer. If light is in him, 
 he shines; if darkness, he shades; if his heart glows with love, he 
 warms; if frozen with selfishness, he chills; if corrupt, he poisons; 
 if pure, he cleanses. 
 
 Newell Dwight Hillis, The Investment of Influence. 
 
 Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; 
 
 Where knowledge is free; 
 
 Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by 
 narrow domestic walls; 
 
 Where words come out from the depths of truth; 
 
 Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection; 
 
 Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the 
 dreary desert sand of dead habit; 
 
 Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening 
 thought and action, 
 
 Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. 
 Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali.
 
 VII 
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE 
 AMERICA OF TO-MORROW 
 
 It takes the religious mind to see God always at work in 
 his world. The secular historian collects and classifies the 
 events which have made up the life of a nation, and if he 
 be sufficiently profound, he will show how one event grew 
 out of preceding events. But he will not see in the process 
 of a nation's life that mind at work which coordinates all 
 events and finally through them carries out its own will and 
 purpose. It took the great historians of Israel to teach the 
 world that history cannot be written without taking God 
 into account. We are recognizing more and more that this 
 is God's world and that he is persistently at work in the 
 lives of individuals and nations to establish his kingdom 
 among men. 
 
 When ancient Babylon descended upon God's chosen peo- 
 ple and scattered them to the four corners of the earth, the 
 religious seer said that it was God who had called the enemy 
 and bidden him to punish Israel; when pagan Cyrus de- 
 cided that it would be best for the turbulent Jews to return 
 to Palestine, the great prophet exclaimed, "Thus saith the 
 Lord to his anointed Cyrus, whose right hand I have 
 holden to subdue nations before him, ... I have called 
 thee by thy name though thou hast not known me." The 
 secular historian shows how Spain and France failed in their 
 attempts to establish their civilization and religious ideals in 
 the New World, and how England and Holland, through 
 many discouragements and losses, finally succeeded because 
 
 197
 
 I9 8 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 their colonists were more persistent and better sustained. 
 The religious seer cannot fail to see God's hand and pur- 
 pose in the failure of Catholic France and Spain. It was 
 the will of God that Protestant England and Holland 
 should lay the foundations of the future republic of the 
 United States of America. 
 
 To those who believe that there is a cosmic purpose in 
 the entire operation of the universe, and that that purpose 
 is the development of man to his godlike possibilities, every 
 great event in the history of the world has been pointing 
 toward and contributing to the establishment of this mighty 
 nation, America. While each nation and each period in the 
 world's history have had a significance of their own, the 
 life of the world is a unit, and in a real sense all the great 
 movements in the life of humanity from the beginning of 
 time have been a part of an ultimate divine purpose. As 
 Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome clearly prepared 
 the way for the coming of the Son of God, by unifying the 
 world in laws, ideas, government, and language, so the in- 
 vasion of the Roman Empire, the conflict between the papacy 
 and the German emperors, the rise of republics in Italy, the 
 Renaissance, the Reformation, and the breaking of England 
 from the domination of Rome all worked together to pre- 
 pare the way for American religious leadership among the 
 nations, a leadership secured and cemented by service. Our 
 mighty republic is the fruition of the efforts of all the ages. 
 
 THE CHALLENGE OF IMMIGRATION 
 
 The eyes of the world are now upon America. The ends 
 of the earth have already met here. Her democratic institu- 
 tions, her freedom of conscience and religion, her boundless 
 opportunities for the development of human life, are ele- 
 ments that appeal to the oppressed, to the down-trodden, and 
 to the ambitious. Why have these aliens been coming at the 
 rate of a million a year? The superficial answer is, to get
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 19? 
 
 a better living; to earn more money. True, this is the pri- 
 mary motive. But no one who believes in God's ultimate 
 purpose of redeeming mankind can maintain that under- 
 neath this unprecedented migration nothing more vital is 
 involved than mere physical well-being. The attempt to dis- 
 cover a short route to India gave a continent to astonished 
 Europe. The desire to gain gold led the first settlers to 
 America but that prepared the way for the Pilgrims, who 
 established here a nation whose God is the Lord. The better 
 opportunities, higher wages, and the chance to become some- 
 thing which poverty had driven them forth to seek have 
 been the stimuli for millions who have crossed the ocean; 
 but God has as his ultimate purpose that they shall find 
 individual and social salvation. 
 
 The American Christian of to-day is heir to a great 
 heritage. Others have labored, yes, have given their life's 
 blood, and we have entered into their labors while teeming 
 millions of the world's population have been living in gross 
 superstition and ignorance. We have at our disposal the 
 spiritual riches of the ages. We have failed to minister to 
 them, and God has used their very needs to push these peo- 
 ple upon us, and the prophets of God say to us in unmis- 
 takable terms: "If these people had remained in Russia, 
 in Poland, in Hungary, in Greece, or in Italy, God could 
 not have made himself known unto them because of the 
 hardness of heart of ecclesiastics and politicians. America 
 is in the present hour the land of promise among the nations 
 because of her ability and opportunity to serve. Here you 
 have God's open word, freedom of conscience, and religious 
 liberty; here you may worship him according to the dic- 
 tates of your own conscience. You have so much; your life 
 is full and rich; God has blessed you. The very windows 
 of heaven have been opened upon you and rich gifts have 
 been poured upon you. Now look about you upon your 
 right hand and upon your left and see how destitute and 
 barren is the life of many of these little ones. Even as
 
 200 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 God has poured out himself in giving to the world his only 
 begotten Son, so shall not you pour some of your life into 
 these needy lives and enable them to feel that sense of unity 
 which you have in God? 'He that loseth his life for my 
 sake shall find it.' Show your appreciation and gratitude 
 for what you have received by ministering to these, God's 
 needy children." 
 
 Can men and women who profess to be followers of the 
 Christ turn a deaf ear to this urgent call of God to assist 
 him in his work of redeeming the world? What will be 
 the consequences if we do not cooperate with God ? God's 
 word speaks for us. We shall lose our place of primacy 
 and some other nation will take the honor from us. God 
 cannot^ fail in his purpose even if we prove faithless, but 
 we shall be stripped of the glory of service and we shall 
 be as strangers in our own land. 
 
 See what is happening in Greater New York. In the 
 midst of a population of 5,600,000 people there are not over 
 300,000 members of Protestant Christian churches. There 
 are vast sections throughout the entire city where Protestant 
 churches are being completely driven out. In one small 
 district in Brooklyn during the past twelve years one church 
 a year has been pushed to the wall. It is true that syna- 
 gogs and Roman churches are increasing, but can the 
 Protestant church afford to desert these districts without 
 leaving a witness to what we believe to be the principles of 
 vital Christianity? 
 
 It is unnecessary for me to state that, wherever the 
 Protestant church goes out, the moral tone, both social and 
 political, is greatly lowered. And yet, wherever the for- 
 eigner moves in, the Protestant church moves out. What 
 legitimate hope may we have that the newcomers will be- 
 come good citizens, men and women in whose hands the 
 future of our city and nation will be safe? What are the 
 forces at work, molding the life of the foreigner and that 
 of his children? It surely is not the Christian church with
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 201 
 
 all its inspiring influences and holy associations. On the 
 contrary, it is the saloon, the dance hall, the moving picture 
 theater, and the common street life. No wonder our houses 
 of correction, reformatories, and prisons are full of young 
 criminals, the offspring of our foreign population. 
 
 What have we done and what are we doing to change 
 matters? The public school alone cannot work miracles. 
 Ninety per cent, of the boys and girls of foreign parentage 
 at the age of fourteen go to work in factories, in sweat- 
 shops, and in offices, to assist in the maintenance of the 
 family. It is then that they need a friendly hand stretched 
 out to help them. For when they leave school they break 
 away from parental control. They are now grown-up, they 
 can earn their own living, and they know far more about 
 life than their fathers and especially than their mothers. 
 They are seized with the desire for complete freedom, a free- 
 dom for which they are by no means prepared, and which 
 opens the way in so many cases to destruction. 
 
 At this stage of their life, there is only one force that can 
 be effective, the force of a strong, wise, and loving Christian 
 personality. They need some one to love them whom they 
 can respect. How poorly we are equipped to meet, lead, 
 and develop the youth of the foreign-born ! Christians must 
 enlarge their interests, become greater fathers and greater 
 mothers to these youths. We see to it that the criminal 
 is arrested and prosecuted, but how little we do to prevent 
 the young from falling into crime! Here is a God-given 
 task for the Christian church. She only can do it, for she 
 is animated by the love of Christ. Oh, the boundless oppor- 
 tunity for service! To mold and enrich some one life so 
 that it shall become a power to affect other lives is within 
 the reach of thousands of Christians. Such a service would 
 be not only the creation of a new life, but it would be set- 
 ting righteous forces in motion which would affect not only 
 our nation, but the world as well. "In thy seed shall all
 
 202 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed 
 my voice." 
 
 RECENT AND PAST IMMIGRATION 
 
 History is ever repeating itself. Throughout the centuries 
 there has always been discrimination against the foreigner. 
 Whether he comes as a conqueror or a peaceful settler, he 
 never has quite the same prestige as the native element. 
 "When the barbarian hordes broke into the Roman Empire 
 and destroyed the wealth and splendor of imperial Rome, 
 they were cordially hated and despised by the natives. But 
 as the historian of to-day chronicles that mighty migration 
 and has under his eyes all that proceeded from it, he calls 
 the infusion of new blood into the effete and corrupt life 
 of the Roman a blessing. When the Norman conquered 
 England there was discrimination against the strangers 
 for two centuries. But as the historian of to-day de- 
 scribes that great event and recalls the splendor and the 
 glory of the sixteenth century, he says the Normans brought 
 to England what she needed to make her intellectual life 
 richer. When the Germans and the Irish were pouring into 
 America during the period between 1820 and 1850, people 
 raised their voices against the worthless foreigner. As far 
 back as 1833, such opinions as these were expressed: 
 
 "Such as the Irishman is on his native shores, such is he 
 found to be when landed on the quays of New York, Boston, 
 or Philadelphia. There is no charm in the middle passage 
 to remove from his character the impress of recklessness 
 and ignorance. The three pounds which bring him to 
 America buy him no more exemption from the inevitable 
 consequences of his own want of industry and subordina- 
 tion, than the sixpence which lands him on the wharves of 
 Liverpool or Glasgow. Nor is it the Irishman alone, al- 
 though constituting much the larger portion of the class, 
 of whom the same disinclination to labor and incapacity to 
 avail himself of the advantages of a free and unexhausted
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 203 
 
 Foreign-born population of the 
 
 United States from ten leading countries 
 of origin d9io)"by decades,
 
 204 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 country may be predicated. There are hundreds of refugees 
 annually entering the United States, whom the same political 
 influences which operate in the case of Ireland have reduced 
 to the same state of disqualification for every pursuit of 
 laborious and persevering industry. 
 
 "If our social character be liable to be infected by the 
 vices and misery of older countries, from a too rapid absorp- 
 tion of their redundant population; if our political institu- 
 tions be exposed to overthrow and corruption by the undue 
 accession of unassimilating elements, how can it be other 
 than wise and humane to guard against a state of things 
 which must prove ultimately so unfriendly to the best and 
 perhaps last hope of the human family? America is indeed 
 a sanctuary from which none can be rightfully excluded 
 whose presence does not endanger its permanence." 1 
 
 As the historian looks back over the short period of 
 seventy-five years and sees what change has come about in 
 the descendants of those foreigners, he says of that early 
 immigration that it was homogeneous and easily assimilated, 
 and that, for the most part, these races have produced as 
 desirable citizens as the early settlers. 
 
 Now that we are seeing an inundation of other races upon 
 American soil, we cannot see the possible results except 
 through an intelligent faith, and people are saying precisely 
 the same things about these folk that have always been said 
 about the intruding foreigner. We are exceedingly short- 
 sighted. History should teach us vision. As it has been 
 with past migrations, so we may expect it to be with the 
 present, especially so with the Italian. The historian of 
 five hundred years hence who will have the effects of this 
 migration under his eyes will without a doubt give recogni- 
 tion to the valuable contributions of the Italian immigrant 
 to American life. 
 
 Some one has recently said that in twenty-five years New 
 York City will be Italianized, for these people are making 
 
 1 Henry Duhring Landar, North American Review, 1833.
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 205 
 
 a place for themselves in every line of human endeavor. 
 Because of their industry and ambition they are destined 
 to become a great factor in our social, political, and indus- 
 trial life. They are possessed of some noble qualities, and 
 their natural good manners, inbred politeness, and brilliancy 
 open many doors of advancement to them. The one thing 
 they are most in need of is the highly moral and spiritual 
 ideal. In view of what the Italian convert has already done, 
 we are justified in believing that, by his coming into the 
 Protestant church with a life-giving faith in Jesus Christ, 
 he will be able to make a great contribution to our religious 
 life. 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE ITALIANS 
 
 The present religious state of the Italians is not normal. 
 There was a time when St. Paul could say of the Roman 
 Christians that their faith was spoken of by all the world. 
 Later it was the Italian Christian who sealed the vow of 
 his faith by his very life's blood. The world is indeed a 
 debtor to Italy. Had it not been for devoted Italian Chris- 
 tians, the religion of Jesus might not have dominated Eu- 
 rope. It must be remembered that when northern Europe 
 was steeped in superstition and barbarism and when her 
 people were living in caves and huts, clad in animal skins 
 and offering their children in sacrifice to their heathen gods, 
 the Italians were defending the vital principles of Chris- 
 tianity with their lives, and it was the missionaries from 
 Italy who carried the gospel to the peoples of the continent. 
 A thousand years later while civilization was smothered by 
 the dark ages, and ignorance and ecclesiastic tyranny held 
 the minds of the masses in subjection, the Renaissance broke 
 out in all its splendor in Florence, and Italy against became 
 the teacher of humanity.
 
 206 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Revival of the Fundamentals of Protestantism 
 
 Strange as it may seem to some, the converted Italian 
 is destined to make his contribution to a more vigorous 
 Protestantism. While conferences are held for the con- 
 sideration of the problem of Christian unity, the Italian 
 who knows the Roman Church from within puts no confi- 
 dence in the hope that Rome and Protestantism may some 
 day be brought even to cooperation. It is a time in our 
 national life when religious convictions are lightly held, by 
 many not clearly defined. Italians who study the New 
 Testament form sturdy convictions and high ideals of the 
 Christian life and vehemently protest against any compro- 
 mise. No one can know as does the Italian the practise 
 of the Roman Church in saying one thing for the intelli- 
 gent American public and quite another to the faithful. 
 A case in point: the recent conference on Christian unity 
 held at Garden City, Long Island, invited representatives 
 of the Roman Church to take part in the deliberations. The 
 cardinal was too tactful to refuse the invitation, but there 
 proved to be excellent reasons why he could send no dele- 
 gates. The pope, however, sent a special letter breathing a 
 fine spirit of brotherly love and expressing the hope that 
 some day all Christians would be in one fold. This created 
 a great sensation. It happened that a little later the Italian 
 papers from Italy brought news of a papal encyclical issued 
 in Rome at the same time, denouncing all Protestants and 
 their work in scathing language. Among other things I 
 recall, Protestants were called "wolves, thieves, robbers who 
 try to steal men's souls and rob them of salvation, men 
 so utterly bad and dangerous that the faithful should shun 
 them." The pontiff said they had no business in Rome and 
 ought to get out. This was for the Italian public only ; but 
 it should be as widely known as the Garden City letter, and 
 the two should be read together. 
 
 Even the Sunday-school boys and girls are able to answer
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 207 
 
 for the faith that is in them when reproached by priests, 
 nuns, or public school-teachers. It takes much courage and 
 strong conviction to join a Protestant church, for alienation 
 from friends and relatives may follow, and some may lose 
 their positions. One family I know had to move in mid- 
 winter on two days' notice on account of pressure by preju- 
 diced landlords. Children are sometimes discriminated 
 against or publicly censured by their school-teachers, insulted 
 and even stoned on the streets. Our Italian converts make 
 little apology for their Protestant affiliation. "lo sono Evan- 
 gelico" is pronounced with a sense of pride, because already 
 the Italian people admit that the evangelicals are a sober, 
 law-abiding, intelligent element in the population, and their 
 children generally turn out "good." Some earnest Catholic 
 parents who would not dare to leave the Catholic Church 
 for fear of losing their immortal souls send their children 
 to sewing-school, story-hour, picnics, even to Sunday- 
 school, hoping it will make them "good." Already a higher 
 standard of morals is expected of Protestants in every Italian 
 community. Catholics who think nothing of drinking in a 
 saloon or gambling, would be surprised but also overjoyed 
 to see an evangelical walk into a barroom or sit down to 
 a game of cards, because the story would reflect discredit 
 upon the Protestant church. The evangelicals are known to 
 shun such things. 
 
 The spirit of democracy and the recognition of the worth 
 of the individual appeal to the highly individualistic, liberty- 
 loving Italian, who becomes a more zealous champion of his 
 new-won rights than the easy-going native American. Dur- 
 ing the session of one of our Italian ministers' associations, 
 a member read a paper on the political aggression and 
 aspirations of the Roman Church in America. These men 
 see these things more clearly than Americans, because they 
 have become familiar with similar intrigue in Italy. The 
 following day one of the local papers, which is strongly 
 Catholic, came out with the following headline: "Catholic
 
 208 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Church praised by speakers at Italian ministers' convention. 
 Reader of paper says Catholic Church seeks to control poli- 
 tics in order to spiritualize them." As soon as the paper fell 
 into the hands of our Italian brethren they instituted an 
 indignation meeting and a committee of five was immediately 
 sent to the editor, with the result that the error was ad- 
 mitted and corrected in the next day's issue. 
 
 Freedom of Religion 
 
 Former Prime Minister Luzzatti speaks of freedom of 
 religion and points to America as the finest example of what 
 such freedom will do for a nation. Says he, "Freedom of 
 life is dependent upon freedom of religion. There may be 
 freedom in politics, in society, in everything, but if religion 
 is not free, all freedom will soon be lost; but given freedom 
 of religion, it will in time bring freedom in all other phases 
 of life." * Converted Italians can be depended upon to 
 vigorously defend freedom of conscience and separation of 
 church and state, for they realize what it means more than 
 the American who has inherited it from past generations. 
 
 Sense of Reality of Religion 
 
 An Italian, when he is led to the knowledge of Jesus 
 Christ and has had his reason satisfied as well as his spiritual 
 cravings, brings with him into the Protestant church a deep 
 sense of the reality of religion. He has passed through a 
 profound experience which changes his entire life and gives 
 him a high ideal of conduct. There is an element of Puri- 
 tanism in deeply converted Italians, and they are frequently 
 shocked and embittered by the action of American Chris- 
 tians who, born and brought up in the faith, fail to meet 
 the expectations of the Italians. 
 
 We have known girls fine enough to refuse repeatedly at- 
 tractive offers of marriage because the men were Catholics, 
 and the girls would not give up their faith even to marry. 
 
 1 Luigi Luzzatti, The Liberty of Conscience and Science.
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 209 
 
 This shows very courageous loyalty to Christ, for among 
 Italians marriage is considered the only aim in life for a 
 woman. 
 
 Open acknowledgment of conversion to Jesus Christ is 
 a serious step to the Italian. He knows he will meet opposi- 
 sion from kinsfolk and friends and neighbors. Scorn and 
 ridicule, to which an Italian is keenly sensitive, are heaped 
 upon him. Only the bravest and most truly convinced dare 
 undertake it. Modesto, a youth as modest and unassuming 
 as his name, but full of a quiet strength, dropped into a 
 Sunday-school. He had served as altar boy in the Roman 
 Church for some years. His father beat his son for dis- 
 gracing him by attending the Protestant church. The boy 
 said, "You may kill me, but I am going there, because I 
 like what they teach." In June of this year he graduates 
 from Northfield and will enter Colgate University to pre- 
 pare himself for the ministry among his own people. A 
 group of twenty Italian young people was asked to sing 
 with a number of American young people. The Italians 
 accepted joyfully and went with eager hearts, expecting a 
 warm Christian welcome. Instead, the Americans stood to 
 one side, stared, and greeted them with, "Here come the 
 wops; will you look at those guineas?" One funny youth 
 tried to flirt with a very pretty Italian girl, an outrageous 
 insult according to Italian ethics, and was promptly shown 
 his mistake by an indignant young Italian escort. The young 
 Americans were not intentionally rude or cruel, only 
 thoughtless, but the disastrous effect on the Italians will not 
 be easily counteracted. Said one, "We hear wop and guinea 
 on the streets every day, and don't care, but we didn't expect 
 to have Christians call us such names." The clannishness 
 is not all on one side. 
 
 Religion the Most Important Thing in Life 
 
 I have heard it said that in the early days of New Eng- 
 land, religion was a common topic of conversation, and at
 
 zio SONS OF ITALY 
 
 an evening gathering of friends the Bible would be brought 
 out and certain passages discussed. There is a similar condi- 
 tion among Italians to-day. Religion is a subject of absorb- 
 ing interest. In a group of men I have known for several 
 years, after the greetings and preliminary chat about condi- 
 tions of work or politics, the talk invariably turns to religion ; 
 one or another will pull out of his pocket a New Testament 
 and ask to have some passage explained. There is great 
 eagerness to learn spiritual truth. Many commit several 
 chapters to memory or read the Bible so continually that 
 they can quote verses from any book you might mention. 
 Many a humble Italian home observes family worship when 
 the father comes home from work. 
 
 The vast majority of Italians have broken with their 
 ancestral church, not because they are irreligious, but because 
 the church could not satisfy their religious cravings. They 
 find, outside her walls, more democratic ideas and higher 
 ideals of brotherly love, cooperation, and mutual assistance 
 in socialism or even anarchism. A very gifted young Ital- 
 ian was recently converted. He had been a sincere atheist. 
 His cousin is a Protestant, and the two had held many an 
 argument. Because he liked his cousin's ideals and habits 
 of life, the atheist finally attended a church service. He 
 had some difficulty with the Bible at first, for in discarding 
 saints' tales and the miracles performed by images and 
 wonder-working relics, the freethinkers also throw over the 
 Bible stories as superstitions. Slowly, step by step, he came 
 to see that Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, who dwelt 
 among men to make known the will of the Father. He 
 now spends his leisure time writing poems about Christ and 
 his mission on earth. He said recently to a friend, "I always 
 felt there must be something like this, but I could never 
 find it."
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 211 
 
 Missionary Fervor 
 
 The converted Italian becomes a zealous missionary as 
 soon as he comes to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. He is eager 
 to share his joy, to tell his fellows that he has found the 
 true light of the world. 
 
 A young Neapolitan who had commenced to drift into 
 bad habits was met on the street by a pastor's wife who 
 kindly invited him into a near-by mission. He went, became 
 interested, and soon afterward was converted. He spread 
 the good news among as many as possible of his companions 
 in the factory and then stopped work and, with his pockets 
 full of New Testaments, made a tour of towns and villages 
 where he heard there were groups of Italians. In one vil- 
 lage, with the help of another Italian, he established a 
 Sunday-school, and these young men carried it on at their 
 own expense, until there were one hundred children enrolled, 
 and an American church undertook the support. In New 
 Jersey there is a group of Italian church-members so in 
 earnest about the conversion of others, that they willingly 
 give up every Sunday afternoon to accompany their pastor 
 to another town, each paying the seventy-five cent fare out 
 of his own pocket. 
 
 A young Calabrian who had lived a shockingly immoral 
 life gave this testimony before a tentful of his neighbors: 
 "You all know me and the tough life I lived. I drank, 
 swore, stole, gambled, stabbed my father-in-law, and lied 
 out of it so my brother had to serve a term in prison for 
 me, but I went regularly to mass and confession. I was 
 so bad I was afraid not to. But since coming here, I have 
 felt I must change my way of living, and with God's help, 
 I will." Only those who worked and prayed with him 
 know the fierce battle he had with himself and his family, 
 but peace and victory came at last. In two years he became 
 an officer of his church and had acquired a library of sev- 
 eral devotional books, three copies of the Bible, a set of the
 
 2I2 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 Encyclopedia Britannica, and the complete works of Shake- 
 speare. In two different towns where his work has called 
 him, he has started missions for his countrymen, gathering 
 fifty in a short time in Chappaqua, New York. At times 
 he would quit work for a day, come to New York, purchase 
 a satchelful of tracts and Bibles, and return to distribute 
 them. In another place, with his wife's help and in his own 
 house, he started a mission which later called a pastor. 
 
 And these are the people that are looked upon as un- 
 desirable, irreligious, a menace. In their present state, yes, 
 but what they need is a touch of the divine personality of 
 Jesus Christ mediated through some devoted Christian ser- 
 vant. Grant them this, and I will show you a miracle lives 
 transformed and ready to absorb the best America has to 
 offer. If Christian America wants good citizens, let her 
 convert the Italian and all other aliens to Christ. 
 
 THE ENRICHMENT OF EMOTIONAL LIFE 
 
 None can fail to be impressed by the deep feeling and 
 emotion which characterizes the Italian people, and Italy's 
 history has proved that this feeling and emotion can be sus- 
 tained. Rarely does one see a gross and animalistic Italian. 
 Pity, sorrow, affection, spontaneous kindness are inherent in 
 the people of Italy. Their fusion into the amalgam of 
 America will mean an enrichment of our emotional life. 
 There is great danger that America will become too matter- 
 of-fact, that she will look upon all questions from the schol- 
 ar's point of view. We easily assume the attitude of com- 
 placency in the face of problems that involve the stability 
 of our national ideals and the welfare of humanity. America 
 is losing her ability to feel deeply. The national tendency 
 to-day is to be moved only by what affects one personally. 
 "Safety first for me and mine" is the dominant spirit. We 
 need a tonic, something within us which will stir us to our 
 depths and make us feel so strongly that we must act.
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 213 
 
 The emotionalism of the Italian, which some phlegmatic 
 and coldly calculating souls condemn, may become a redeem- 
 ing quality. "We do not live by the dials on a clock, we 
 live by heart-throbs. He lives most who thinks most, feels 
 the noblest, acts the best." Emotionalism without control 
 may lead to extravagance, but the soul lives. Perfect control 
 without emotion leads to stolidity and materialism, and the 
 soul shrinks. Our country is to-day controlled by the great 
 financiers, who have little feeling and no prophetic vision. 
 It is unfortunately not the idealists nor the spiritual seers 
 who formulate our national program. Politically speaking, 
 the end of our national life is not a spiritual ideal, it is a 
 competent bank account and a full dinner-pail. There is 
 lacking the outburst of spontaneous feeling. Not all modern 
 Americans would say with Patrick Henry, "Give me liberty 
 or give me death!" 
 
 The Esthetic Contribution 
 
 The Italians' rich emotional nature finds outlet in the 
 arts. "The Italian is a creative, not an imitative genius," 
 hence the scores of young artists, composers, musicians, sing- 
 ers, sculptors, designers, poets, and inventors in Italy, who 
 are also appearing in America as the second generation 
 acquires education. Says Emil Reich, "There is no other 
 nation in Europe so gifted as Italy." The resources of the 
 race are only tapped here and there in America as some 
 youth, through such splendid philanthropies as the Music 
 School Settlement of New York, or through the interest of 
 some wealthy person, secures the necessary training. 
 
 We have mentioned two or three such, but where one 
 secures training, dozens go untaught. Here is a youth who 
 plays everything he hears, opera and all, and composes well, 
 but he has never had a piano lesson; another can carry an 
 entire piece of music in his mind, symphony or opera, and 
 will hum it through, indicating the themes and the parts, 
 even imitating sounds of the various instruments in the
 
 2i 4 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 orchestra. Another youth, who has possibly worked in thirty 
 different places during the last six years, can draw anything 
 he sees with excellent perspective, proportion, and fidelity 
 of line. He has never had time to study, and was com- 
 pelled to leave school and go to work at fourteen. Here 
 are two girls who draw, one flowers and the other figures; 
 here is a lad who does water-colors and even portraits in 
 oil in leisure moments, and another who designs and makes 
 furniture for his own home. I know personally of at least 
 half a dozen voices that would bring fame and fortune to 
 their possessors, if they could secure money to study. I 
 know scores of young poets who write well, if not bril- 
 liantly. Nearly all Italians commit to memory an enormous 
 amount of poetry. They like to write and they love to act. 
 The Italian is at home on the stage, whether as a platform 
 speaker or in the drama. His enthusiasm, his emotional 
 capacity, and his freedom from self-consciousness make him 
 live in his part. With all of these the daily struggle for 
 existence since an early age has been too keen to give any 
 chance for study. As the Italians become better educated 
 and more prosperous, we may confidently expect an increas- 
 ing outflow of these dormant qualities into the stream of 
 our national life, which is itself so deficient in them. 
 
 The Italian s Idealism 
 
 In literature, art, politics, and religion, the Italian has 
 always been an idealist. The most common expressions in 
 Italian literature are "Fideale" and "la poesia della vita," 
 "the ideal" and "the poetry of life." Marion Crawford 
 well says in one of his books, "Italy has, since Roman times, 
 never been a great nation because of her enemies who kept 
 her torn asunder, but she has always been a nation of great 
 men." 
 
 They were great because of their idealism. Life itself 
 was gladly given for the attainment of the desired end. It 
 was this which made her thrice the illuminating teacher of
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 215 
 
 Europe. Dante, Michelangelo, and Galileo not only gave 
 splendor to the Italian name but became the source of in- 
 spiration for all of Europe. These men were free and 
 mighty spirits, who lived for the attainment of their ideals 
 in their respective lives. 
 
 It was the self-same idealism which led Daniel Manin, 
 the great Venetian patriot, to risk his life with that of his 
 followers in the attempt to rid his native land of the Aus- 
 trian yoke. The modern heroes of united Italy were no 
 mercenaries. They staked all, even to their very lives, for 
 the liberation of their beloved country. It is the same ideal- 
 ism which has led king and people to throw themselves into 
 the task of redeeming Trieste and Trent. 
 
 To the outside world it has appeared that Italy's motive 
 for her entrance into the Great War was pure greed of terri- 
 tory, but such is not the case. Deserted by her pretended 
 friend, Germany, Italy was forced to yield Trieste to Austria 
 in 1813, but she has never lost sight of the ideal proclaimed 
 by Prof. Mancuri, that the principle of nationality lives 
 in the "right that each people bound together by blood, lan- 
 guage, and territory have to dispose of their own destiny." 
 The inhabitants of Trent and Trieste, torn from the mother 
 country, tried to keep up Italian language and feeling by 
 a "Pro Patria Society." It was crushed. The Italian 
 language was forbidden and Italian newspapers suppressed. 
 Italy has always dreamed of uniting these lost provinces 
 as France has of Alsace-Lorraine. Italy has not been blind 
 to the dangers of the Triple Alliance forced on her by Bis- 
 marck. In 1912, Mr. Charles Lapworth, who spent some 
 time in Italy, wrote, "The question now is, what will happen 
 to the Triple Alliance? Germany is alarmed and longs for 
 a Bismarck who bullied her (Italy) when a weakling with 
 no army or navy. France is now a tried friend of Italy. 
 Germaay can browbeat no longer. Italy is a strong, vic- 
 torious, young nation in a position to pick and choose." 
 
 Charles Lapworth, Tripoli and Young Italy.
 
 2l6 
 
 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 1
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 217 
 
 Before 1914, Austria had strengthened her military hold 
 in Italy's unredeemed provinces, and the Austro-Italian fron- 
 tier was on practically a war footing while the Franco- 
 Italian border was neglected. Austria nearly stabbed Italy 
 in the back during the war with Tripoli, but Italian generals 
 had the foresight to have a large army on the northern 
 frontier before they sailed for Africa. This Tripolitan war 
 was forced on Italy. Her natives were imprisoned, perse- 
 cuted, and murdered in Tripoli, and her business men 
 deliberately hindered in their legitimate enterprises. Under 
 German influence the Turk ignored her claims for redress, 
 and German steamers were bidding for North African trade 
 while all Europe had acknowledged Italy's "sphere of in- 
 fluence" in Tripoli because of her large colonies there. Then 
 when Italy declared war on Turkey, and, led by the Duke 
 of Abruzzi, her dreadnoughts started for Constantinople, 
 Germany, her supposed ally, forbade her to send her war- 
 ships through the Dardanelles, and demanded that she con- 
 fine the war to Africa. "The big thing threatening Italy," 
 Mr. Lap worth concludes, "is not only the' loss of Trent, 
 but the pan-German movement of Balkan mastication." 
 These facts should be known in order to free Italy from the 
 unfounded charge of treachery in the present war. It is 
 for the ideal of national unity, and because she is in sym- 
 pathy with the democratic ideals of France and England, 
 that Italy is in the war. This same idealism and devotion 
 to something bigger than the individual would demonstrate 
 that America has no more valiant and loyal defenders than 
 her Italian immigrants, who, if need arose, would rally 
 to defend the land of liberty they dearly love. 
 
 An interesting sidelight on this idealism of the Italian is 
 shown in the management of the war. In a little book, 
 For God and Our Country, the soldier is told to remember, 
 even in the "furious impetus of battle, the noble traditions 
 of Latin gentility, and to avoid being cruel toward his 
 enemy, offensive to his prisoners, or disrespectful toward
 
 2i8 SONS OF- ITALY 
 
 any woman." 1 General Cadorna has taken especial care 
 during his operations, and has had to modify them at times, 
 to spare buildings of historic or artistic interest. He ap- 
 pointed early in the war a commissioner to preserve and 
 care for all art objects in the territory captured by the 
 Italians. Such is the Italian love and reverence for art, 
 that its wanton destruction is unthinkable to him. 
 
 In Italy this idealism is exhibited throughout the centuries 
 in the thousands who have worked tirelessly at their arts, 
 paintings, statues, and inventions, with a passion that is 
 remarkable. They get but a scanty living from it, yet their 
 souls are fed. Said a young Italian missionary lately, "I 
 could, of course, make more money at something else, but 
 what is that? the ideal is gone." 
 
 It is a sorry fact that as they come to this country, many 
 drift toward materialism. They are asked to write "popu- 
 lar music" and to paint daring pictures that will sell. We 
 must have a care for the training and for the use to which 
 we put these talents entrusted to America. We must keep 
 alive that spark which is our peculiar heritage from the 
 Italy of the past. 
 
 "There are older nations than Italy. But there is none 
 other in the mobile world of the white race that approaches 
 this in continuous existence as a people. From the days of 
 the Tarquins, the light has never been extinguished on the 
 seven hills. 
 
 "We like to think of modern Italy as the legitimate de- 
 scendant of that people who, two hundred years before 
 Christ, heard the victorious, insolent enemy battering at her 
 gates and, as an answer, put up at auction the ground on 
 which he had pitched his camp, and sold it at a record 
 price. . . . 
 
 "And in their eager, almost impetuous desire to become 
 Americans in fact and in name, we entertain a hope that 
 they will contribute to the American character something 
 
 *A book provided by the Italian government for each soldier.
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 219 
 
 of the indomitable courage that has kept Italy through the 
 triumphs and reverses, the moral revolutions and the ma- 
 terial vicissitudes of 2,300 years." J 
 
 AMERICA THE HOPE OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not and 
 nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee, because 
 of the Lord, thy God, the Holy One of Israel, for he hath 
 glorified thee," might be spoken as truly of America to-day 
 as of Israel of old. The great prophet of the exile had two 
 definite convictions in his mind. First, he was confident 
 beyond any shadow of doubt, that the truth concerning God 
 and his purposes in the world was especially entrusted to 
 the Hebrew people; and further, that no matter what the 
 attitude of Israel or the world in general toward this truth, 
 it would ultimately draw the entire world to itself. Second, 
 he was filled with a burning conviction that both he and 
 his people had a distinct mission to fulfil, the proclamation 
 by preaching and daily living of the righteous will of God. 
 These two clear-cut thoughts gave inspiration and power to 
 the servant of God and to the religious element of the 
 nation. 
 
 The primacy among nations has shifted through the cen- 
 turies. Nations have risen to prestige and power because of 
 some special contribution they have made to human life. 
 When their contributions were made, they sank back into 
 insignificance. In every case the cessation of struggle and 
 the growth of material prosperity choked the spiritual life. 
 Egypt, Syria, Babylon, classic Greece, and imperial Rome 
 are no more. The splendor of the Frankish kingdom waned 
 before the Germanic power. Then Spain became the fore- 
 most power in Europe, then France, then England, and 
 to-day America holds the center of the world stage. This 
 is no vainglorious boasting. This is the verdict of the world. 
 
 1 Philadelphia North American, March, 1911.
 
 220 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 The eyes of the ends of the earth look with longing at 
 America, the land of hope and promise. 
 
 "It is the free American who needs to be instructed by 
 the benighted races in the uplifting word that America 
 speaks to all the world. Only from the humble immigrant, 
 it appears to me, can he learn just what America stands for 
 in the family of nations. The alien must know this, for 
 he alone seems ready to pay the price for his share of Amer- 
 ica. He, unlike the older inhabitant, does not come into 
 his inheritance by birth. Before he can become an American 
 he must first be an immigrant. More than that, back of 
 immigration lies emigration. To him alone is it given to 
 know the bitter sacrifice and upheaval of the soul which are 
 implied in those two words. Oh, if I could show you Amer- 
 ica as we of the oppressed peoples see it, if I could bring home 
 to you even the smallest fraction of the sacrifice, the up- 
 heaval, the dreaming, and the strife, the heartache and end- 
 less disappointments, the yearning and despair, before we 
 can make a home for our battered spirits in this land of 
 yours!" 1 
 
 America may think that it is her riches, her industry, and 
 her material prosperity that draw millions to her shores. The 
 foreigner sees these and something more. America is the 
 symbol of justice, brotherly kindness, equal opportunity, 
 personal liberty, free education, and square dealing. What 
 a tragedy if such an ideal fails of realization in hopeful 
 hearts ! 
 
 Israel would never have been called the chosen nation, 
 were wealth the necessary element of leadership. The 
 prophet did not say that other peoples would look to her 
 because of her fat vineyards, her great treasures stored in 
 the temple, or her wonderful history. It was only the 
 envious conqueror who sought these things, but she became 
 
 1 M. E. Ravage, "To America on Foot," Harper's Magazine, 
 March, 1917.
 
 THE ITALIAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICA 221 
 
 great "because of the Lord thy God, the Holy One of 
 Israel, for He hath glorified thee." 
 
 The ends of the world, willingly or unwillingly, look to 
 America for leadership not because she is great from a mili- 
 tary point of view, but because of her general attitude to- 
 ward all questions involving moral issues. Regardless of 
 what European nations may say or think, down deep in their 
 souls they have a wholesome respect for America. Never 
 was this more clearly indicated than when, at the time of 
 the Boxer uprising in China, the various European nations 
 began looking with hungry eyes to that empire, with the 
 avowed intention of partitioning it among themselves. There 
 was but one voice raised in protest against this impending 
 -oliation. That was the voice of the United States of 
 America. She, through her righteous statesman, John Hay, 
 expressed her opposition to any such action. Hay gave voice 
 to the public sentiment of the American people when he said, 
 "America stands for the open door in China and for her 
 integrity." It was a just statement from a just man, backed 
 by the united sentiment of a just nation. What was the 
 result? Indignation in European capitals? Who is this 
 upstart nation that dares oppose the wish of Europe and 
 presumes to teach what is right? Nevertheless, once the 
 protest was sounded and the moral issue raised, Europe 
 could not justify herself, if she ignored it, before the world, 
 before history, and before her own people. 
 
 In the great world war each of the belligerent nations has 
 sought to retain the friendship and good opinion of this 
 country and has sought to justify every move because it 
 could not afford to neglect the psychological effect upon its 
 own people of the moral judgment of America. For Amer- 
 ica stands before the world as the standard-bearer of the 
 rights of humanity, not only the legal, but the moral right 
 to life, freedom, and the unhindered pursuit of happiness 
 for all. 
 
 This position of leadership entails serious responsibilities.
 
 222 SONS OF ITALY 
 
 The carrying out of God's ultimate purpose and plan for 
 humanity may be delayed by the inactivity of a nation, but 
 it cannot be thwarted. Men and nations may prove faithless, 
 and so bring upon the world an age of darkness such as 
 preceded the birth of Christ or the Reformation, but it is 
 God's eternal will that men shall know him. America's 
 hour is now. God grant she may not fail. 
 
 They tell me thou art rich, my country; gold 
 
 In glittering flood has poured into thy chest; 
 
 Thy flocks and herds increase, thy barns are pressed 
 
 With harvest, and thy stores can hardly hold 
 
 Their merchandise; unending trains are rolled 
 
 Along thy network rails of east and west; 
 
 Thou art enriched in all things bought and sold! 
 
 But dost thou prosper? Better news I crave. 
 
 Oh, dearest country, ia it well with thee 
 
 Indeed, and is thy soul in health? 
 
 A nobler people, hearts more wisely brave, 
 
 And thoughts that lift men up and make them free, 
 
 These are prosperity and vital wealth. 
 
 Henry Van Dyke.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Books for General Background 
 
 Fairchild, Henry P. Immigration. Macmillan Company. New 
 York. $1.75. 
 
 Grose, Howard B. Aliens or Americans? 1906. Missionary Edu- 
 cation Movement, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Haskin, Frederic J. The Immigrant. 1913. Fleming H. Revell 
 Co., New York. $1.25. 
 
 Jenks, Jeremiah W., and Lauck, W. Jett. The Immigration Prob- 
 lem. 1912. Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York. $1.75. 
 
 Kellor, Frances A. Straight America. 1916. Macmillan Company, 
 New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Kinney, Bruce. Kingdom Preparedness. 1913. Fleming H. Revell 
 Co., New York. 75 cents. 
 
 Love, James Franklin. The Mission of Our Nation. 1912. Flem- 
 ing H. Revell Co., New York. $1.00. 
 
 McClure, Archibald. Leadership of the New America. 1916. 
 George H. Doran Co., New York. $1.25. 
 
 Patri, Angelo. The Story of a School. 1917. Macmillan Com- 
 pany. $1.50. 
 
 Roberts, Peter. The New Immigration. 1912. Macmillan Com- 
 pany, New York. $1.60. 
 
 Ross, Edward A. Changing America: Studies in Contemporary 
 Society. 1912. Century Company, New York. $1.20. 
 The Old World in the New. 1914. Century Company, New 
 York. $2.50. 
 
 Shriver, William P. Immigrant Forces. 1913. Missionary Educa- 
 tion Movement, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Steiner, Edward A. The Immigrant Tide: Its Ebb and Flow. 
 1909. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. $1.50. 
 
 Warne, Frank J. The Immigrant Invasion. 1913. Dodd, Mead & 
 Co., New York. $2.50. 
 
 Books on Italy and the Italians 
 
 Arrighi, Antonio Andrea. The Story of Antonio the Galley Slave. 
 1911. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. $1.25. 
 
 Bagot, Richard. Italians of To-day. 1913. F. G. Browne, Chi- 
 cago. $1.25. 
 
 Bartoli, Giorgio. The Primitive Church and the Primacy of Rome. 
 Hodder and Stoughton, New York. (Out of print.) 
 223
 
 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Blunt, James. Vestiges of Ancient Rites and Customs Discover- 
 able in Modern Italy and Sicily. London, 1823. (Out of print.) 
 
 Crawford, Francis Marion. The Rulers of the South. Macmillan 
 Company, New York. $5.00 set 
 
 Eager, J. H. Romanism in Its Home. American Baptist Publica- 
 tion Company, Philadelphia. 
 
 Garlanda, Frederico. The New Italy. 1911. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
 New York. $1.50. 
 
 Gibson, James. The Waldenses: Their Home and History. Wal- 
 densian Church Mission in Italy, London, England. 
 
 Guard, William J. The Spirit of Italy. 1916. H. Rogowski, New 
 York. 
 
 King, Bolton. Italy To-day. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 
 $2.00. 
 
 Lapworth, Charles. Tripoli and Young Italy. S. Swift & Co., 
 London. 
 
 Lord, Eliot; Trenor, John J. D. ; Barrows, Samuel. The Italian 
 in America. B. F. Buck & Co., New York. (Out of print.) 
 
 Luzzi, Giovanni. The Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy. 1913. 
 Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. $1.50. 
 
 Powell, E. Alexander. Italy at War. 1917. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons. $1.50. 
 
 Robinson, Alexander. The Roman Catholic Church in Italy. Mor- 
 gan & Scott, London. 
 
 Steedman, Amy. Legends and Stories of Italy. G. P. Putnam's 
 Sons, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Truitt, Charles. War-time Letters from Italy. 19x5. Sherwood 
 Press, New York. 
 
 Villari, Luigi. Italian Life in Town and Country. 1902. G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.20. 
 
 Von Zedwitz, Baroness. The Double Doctrine of the Church of 
 Rome. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 35 cents. 
 
 Wallace, William Kay. Greater Italy. 1917. Charles Scribner's 
 Sons. $2.50. 
 
 Wells, Herbert George. Italy, France and Britain at War. 1917. 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Zimmern, Helen. Italian Leaders of To-day. Williams & Norgate, 
 London. 
 
 Italy of the Italians. 1906. Charles Scribner's Sons, New 
 York. $1.50. 
 
 Books in Italian 
 (May be ordered at Brentano's, New York) 
 
 Benardy, Amy A. Italia Randaggia. Bocca Brothers, Turin. 
 
 Comba, Emilio. Storia de' Valdese. The Waldensian Press, Flor- 
 ence. 
 / Nostri Protestanti. The Waldansian Press, Florence.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 225 
 
 Mosso, Angelo. La Vita Moderna degli Italiani. Treves Brothers, 
 
 Milan. $1.00. 
 Pecorini, Alberto. Gli Americani nella Vita Moderna, Osservati 
 
 da un Italiano. Treves Brothers, Milan. $1.25. 
 Preziosi, Giovanni. // Problema dell' Italia d'Oggi. Remo San- 
 
 dron, Milan, Palermo, Naples. 
 
 Gl' Italiani negli Stati Uniti del Nord. The Editor's Library, 
 
 Milan. 
 
 Magazine Articles 
 
 Warnes, Arthur H. "A Country Where Going to America Is an 
 Industry." National Geographic Magazine, December, 1909. 
 
 Riggs, Arthur Stanley. "Italy, Gifted Mother of Civilization." 
 National Geographic Magazine, October, 1916. 
 
 Guerazzi, G. F. "Why Italy Is at War." Current History, May 
 and June, 1916. 
 
 "Inexhaustible Italy." National Geographic Magazine, No- 
 vember, 1916. 
 
 Mangano, Antonio. "The Effects of Emigration Upon Italy." A 
 series of articles on the causes and effects of Italian immigra- 
 tion. Charities and the Commons, January, February, April, 
 May, June, 1908. 
 
 "Camp Schools for Immigrants." The Immigrants in America 
 Review, June, 1915. 
 
 "The Gentle Art of Alienating Aliens." The Immigrants in 
 America Review, March, 1916. 
 
 Ciolli, Domenick. "The Wop in the Track Gang." The Immi- 
 grants in America Review, June, 1915. 
 
 Speranza, Gino C. "A Soldier's Prayers." The Outlook, February 
 14, 1917. 
 
 "Immigrants in Canada: Work in a Construction Camp on the 
 Western Frontier of Canada." World's Work, April, 1914. 
 
 Kellor, Frances A. "Who Is Responsible for the Immigrant?" 
 The Outlook, April 25, 1914. 
 
 Creel, George. "The Hope of the Hyphenated." Putnam's, Jan- 
 uary, 1915. 
 
 Pamphlets and Bulletins 
 
 Brooks, Charles Alvin. "The Church and the Foreigner." Help- 
 ful practical chapters on work for adults, mothers, children. 
 American Baptist Home Mission Society, New York. 
 
 Kellor, Frances A. "Immigrants in America: A Program for a 
 Domestic Policy." Committee for Immigrants in America, New 
 York. 
 
 Lovejoy, Owen. "Child Labor in the Tenements." National Child 
 Labor Committee, New York. 
 
 Mangano, Antonio. "Religious Work for Italians in America: A 
 Handbook for Leaders in Missionary Work." Immigrant Work 
 Committee of the Home Missions Council, New York.
 
 226 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Pomeroy, Sarah G. The Italian. 1915. Fleming H. Revell Co., 
 New York. 20 cents. 
 
 Stella, Dr. Antonio. "The Prevalence of Tuberculosis Among 
 Italians in the United States." (A Reprint from Transactions 
 of Sixth International Congress on Tuberculosis, September 28- 
 October 5, 1902.) 
 
 "Effects of Urban Congestion on Italian Women and Chil- 
 dren." William Wood & Co., New York. 
 
 Wheaton, H. H. "Recent Progress in the Education of Immigrants." 
 Department of Interior, Bureau of Education, June 30, 1914. 
 
 Whittinghill, D. G. "Protestant Work and Prospects in Italy." 
 Rochester Theological Seminary Bulletin, May, 1914, pp. 46-58. 
 
 Wright, Frederick H. "The Italian in America." Missionary 
 Education Movement, New York. 5 cents. 
 
 "Americanizing a City." National Americanization Committee. 
 Annual Report of Commission of Immigration, United States 
 Department of Labor. June 30, 1915. Government Printing 
 Office, Washington. 
 
 "The Italian on the Land." Bulletin of United States Depart- 
 ment of Labor, No. 70. May, 1907. Government Printing 
 Office, Washington. 
 
 "The Padrone System and Padrone Banks." Bulletin of De- 
 partment of Labor. March, 1897. 
 
 "Professional Course for Service Among Immigrants." Pre- 
 pared by the United States Bureau of Education by Committee 
 for Immigrants in America, New York. 
 
 Statement of the Commissioner of Education, June, 1915, p. 23. 
 Department of the Interior. Government Printing Office, 
 Washington. 
 
 "What Women's Organizations Can Do." National American- 
 ization Committee, New York. 
 
 The Bureau of Immigrant Education, Department of the Interior, 
 Washington, will gladly furnish information and suggestions re- 
 garding methods of work in educating and Americanizing for- 
 eigners. 
 
 Leaflets 
 
 Haynes, Rev. Emory J. "Pietro the Roman." Board of Home Mis- 
 sions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Lake, Eva M. "Italians and the Simple Gospel." Woman's Home 
 Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Cin- 
 cinnati. 
 
 Urbano, Francesco. "Confirmation of Italians in Grace Chapel." 
 / Rintocchi, May, 1916. 
 
 "The Waldenses, The Israel of the Alps." Waldensian Aid 
 Society, New York.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 227 
 
 "The Waldenses and Their Work." Waldensian Aid Society, 
 
 New York. 
 Morse, W. H. "Timoteo at the Front; an Interrupted Message 
 
 from the Trenches." Methodist Book Concern, New York. 
 Peat, Cora E. "Some Italian Boys." Board of Home Missions 
 
 and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 Reynolds, Minnie J. 'The Italian and His Church at Home." 
 
 Congregational Home Missionary Society, New York. 
 
 "Is America Making Criminals?" Congregational Home Mis- 
 sionary Society, New York. 
 Shepherd, Bertha M. "How Christopher Columbus Discovered 
 
 America," Congregational Home Missionary Society, New 
 
 York. 
 Tipple, Bertrand Martin. "Methodism in Italy." Methodist Press, 
 
 Rome, Italy. 
 
 Many of the different denominations have prepared other tracts 
 on Italians. Especially good is an illustrated lecture, "The Adven- 
 tures of Tony," published by the Presbyterian Board of Home 
 Missions, New York. For particulars regarding the Waldensian 
 colonies of Valdese and Gainesville and the Waldensians in South 
 America apply to the Waldensian Aid Society, 213 West y6th 
 Street, New York. 
 
 Helps for Work Among Italians 
 
 Austin, R. Lessons In English for Foreign Women. American 
 Book Company, New York. 35 cents. 
 
 Barnes, Mary C. Early Stories and Songs for New Students of 
 English. 1914. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Burke, B. H. First Book for Italians. E. Babb & Co., Boston. 
 30 cents. 
 
 Carr, John Foster. Guide to the United States for the Immigrant. 
 (Italian edition.) Immigration Society, 241 Fifth Avenue, New 
 York. 30 cents, 
 
 Immigrant and Library: Italian Helps. Immigrant Publica- 
 tion Society, New York. 35 cents. 
 
 Chanceller, William E. Standard Short Course for Evening 
 Schools Studies in English. 1913. American Book Com- 
 pany, New York. 30 cents. 
 
 Domenica, Angelo D. The Italian Helps for Christian Workers. 
 Griffith and Rowland Press, Philadelphia. 
 
 Roberts, Peter. English for Coming Americans: Teachers' Man- 
 ual, Lesson Leaves, Conversation Cards. 1909. Y. M. C. A. 
 Press, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 English for Coming Americans (with wall charts). 1909. 
 Y. M. C. A. Press, New York. $1.25. 
 English for Foreigners. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 
 
 Tupper, George W. Information on "An Italian Evening" in 
 "Foreign-Born Neighbors," p. 156. Taylor Press, Boston.
 
 22 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Walker, Edith. English for Italians. 1913. William R. Jenkins, 
 New York. $1.00. 
 
 Elementary English Conversation Grammar in Italian. Bren- 
 tano's, New York. 70 cents. , 
 
 Messages for Neva Comers to the United States. North Amer- 
 ican Civic League for Immigrants. 173 State Street, Boston. 
 
 NOTE: Care must be exercised in selecting Italian records for 
 a phonograph to select only well-known airs, or operas, or to ask 
 the assistance of a reliable Italian, as the words of street songs 
 are sometimes objectionable.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abruzzesi, the, 14 
 
 Absentee landlords, 43 
 
 Aggressive campaign of the Catholic 
 Church, 151 
 
 Agriculture, as a field for Italians, 31; 
 progress and training in, 62 
 
 Allegiance of emigrants still claimed by 
 Italy, 124, 125 
 
 America, the world's hope, 219; her 
 position, 198; to learn from the im- 
 migrant, 220; work of, for China, 221 
 
 Americanization a slow process, 179, 182 
 
 "Americanization Factory," 143 
 
 Anarchists, 51 
 
 Antin, Mary, 141 
 
 Appeals, emotional or intellectual, 184 
 
 Argentina Italians, 136 
 
 Aristocracy a numerous class, 42 
 
 Army and navy, positions, schools, and 
 training, 45-4? 
 
 Arnold of Brescia, 84, 86 
 
 Art and paintings, 39, 43 
 
 Art glass works, 27 
 
 Artisans, 45 
 
 Artistic workmen and training in art, 
 29, 30 
 
 Arts and crafts workers, 117, 118 
 
 Atheism, largely found among students 
 and professors, 48, 50, 85 
 
 B 
 
 Baptist (Northern), mission work in 
 United States, 168, 169, 175; (South- 
 ern), mission work in Italy, 87-89, 
 9i, 92 
 
 Ban, 67 
 
 Barnes, Mary C., referred to, 145 
 
 Barre, Vermont, 29-31 
 
 Bartoli, Georgio, referred to, 49 
 
 Beer as a test, 25 
 
 Benardy, Amy, quoted, 154 
 
 Bellondi, Rev. Ariel, 151 
 
 Benevolent Institute, the, 135 
 
 Bergson appreciated, 49 
 
 Bible, 91; ignorance of the, 48, 50; in 
 view of the Roman Church, 82; issue 
 of portions, 95, 96. 
 
 Bible women, 94 
 
 Bishops, 83 
 
 Black, Hugh, quoted, 132, 162 
 
 Blunt, Dr., quoted, 77, 78 
 
 Boomer, West Virginia, coal mining, 
 26, 27 
 
 Boss, story of a, 8-14 
 
 Bosses lose control, 144 
 
 Botta, Cesare, 36 
 
 Bottome, George H., quoted, 2 
 
 Branch church, the, 168, 171 
 
 Brooklyn centers, 163, 165 
 
 Brotherly cooperation and supervision, 
 173, 189 
 
 Bruno, Giordano, 84, 86; commem- 
 oration, 51, 73 
 
 Bums, Rev. J. A., quoted, 140 
 
 Burt, Bishop William, 89 
 
 Cadorna, Gen., 218 
 Calabresi, the, 14, 27 
 Camorra, 1 06 
 Campagna, the, 52 
 Catholic protectorates, 152 
 Catholics. See Roman Catholic Church 
 Celibacy, 49 
 
 Charity Organization Society and 
 Board of Health, New York City, 142 
 Child labor, no 
 China, America's work for, 221 
 
 229
 
 230 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Christ. See Jesus Christ 
 
 Churchgoing neglected by men, 71 
 
 Cigar making in homes, 9 
 
 City College, New York City, 21 
 
 Clark, Dr. N. Walling, 89, 91 
 
 Clerical profession, 47 
 
 Clothes, change to American. 5, 21 
 
 College on Monte Mario, 90 
 
 Colporteurs, 94 
 
 Community centers, 165 
 
 Congregationalist mission work, 168 
 
 Conquests, some notable results of, 202 
 
 Converted priests, 185 
 
 Converts as mission workers, 91-94 
 
 Crandon International Institute, 89, 90 
 
 Crap shooting and gambling, 6, 7 
 
 Crawford, Elliot, quoted, 117 
 
 Crawford, Marion, quoted, 214 
 
 Croce, Benedetto, referred to, 49 
 
 D'Annunzio, quoted, 70; referred to, 63, 
 
 64, 113 
 Dante, 68 
 
 Davenport Settlement, 168, 175 
 D'Azeglio, Massimo, quoted, 58 
 Debt-paying by Italians, 119, 120 
 Democratic spirit, 58, 68 
 Denominationalism, 191 
 Detroit's plans, 142 
 Disabled ministers' fund, 90 
 Disease from overcrowding, 24, 25 
 Domenick, typical immigrant agent, 
 
 3,4 
 
 Domestic traits, 33, 34 
 Dwight, Helen C., quoted, 132 
 
 Economic development, 65, 66 
 
 Educated Italians, 30 
 
 Education, 41, 45, 49, 60-62 
 
 Electricity, large use of, 66 
 
 Elena, Queen, 59 
 
 Ellis Island, 3, 99 
 
 English language studied and taught, 
 
 21, 30, 31 
 
 Ensley, Alabama, work, 177 
 
 Epworth League gift, 90 
 Esthetic contribution of Italy, 213 
 European War and its influence, 68, 85 
 Evangelical reputation, effects of on 
 
 Italians, 207 
 
 Evangelization. See Missions 
 Ex-priests, schools for, 91 
 
 Family ties and the church, 179 
 
 Fees of the Roman Church, 176, 177 
 
 Financiers control our country, 213 
 
 Finch, Charles E., 143 
 
 Florence, 42, 47 
 
 Fogazzaro, referred to, 49, 50 
 
 Food conditions on immigrant ships, 4 
 
 Fraccone, typical padrone, 5, 6 
 
 Freedom, effects of, 172; of religion, 208 
 
 Freethinkers, 50, 51 
 
 Gambling and sporting tendencies, 27, 
 
 30, 44, 48, 108 
 
 Gardens and fruit-growing, 25 
 Garibaldi, Bruno, 90; family, 90; Italia, 
 
 90 
 Garibaldi, General Giuseppe, 130; 
 
 residence in America, 36; statement 
 
 concerning Bible, 96; story relating 
 
 to, 73, 74 
 Genoa, 43, 67 
 Genovesi, the, 14 
 Gibbons, Cardinal, quoted, 83, 84 
 Gill, Rev. Everett, 88 
 Giolitti, Signor, referred to, 44, 51, 59 
 God in history, 202 
 "Good-will Center," Brooklyn, New 
 
 York, 150, 165, 177 
 Grace Chapel, New York City, 189 
 Grantwood, New Jersey, 168 
 Greater New York Protestantism, 200 
 Grose, H. B., quoted, 2, 98, 132 
 
 Hammonton, New Jersey, and Italian 
 agriculturists, 32, 38, 107
 
 INDEX 
 
 231 
 
 Haskin, Frederic J., quoted, 106 
 Hay, John, 221 
 Health and sanitation, 63 
 Hillis, Newell Dwight, quoted, 106 
 Hindrances to assimilation, 13 
 Housing conditions, 23-25 
 Hull House activities, 147, 148 
 Humbert, King, 57; Prince, 58 
 
 Idealist, the Italian an, 214, 217, 218; 
 representatives, 215. 
 
 // Bilychnis, influence as a review, 88 
 
 Immigration from Italy, 35, 36 
 
 Immorality among priests, 48 
 
 Independence of churches to be fos- 
 tered, 172, 176 
 
 "Index" of condemned books, 49, 81 
 
 Industrial expansion, 66, 67 
 
 Industrial Workers of the World, 29 
 
 Intemperance, 27, 48 
 
 International Institute for young 
 women, 90 
 
 Inventions, 66 
 
 Investigating Bureau, the, 135 
 
 Italian, denominational papers, advan- 
 tages of merging, 191; emigrant and 
 the government, 134-136; hospitals. 
 New York City, 136; institute, Chica- 
 go, 177; Red Cross and war relief, 
 129; settlement in Texas, 9 
 
 Italians, as church-members, 166, 179; 
 city colony clannishness, 103, 105; 
 crime, 105-108; handicaps of igno- 
 rance of English and early country 
 training, 102; high rents, irregular 
 employment, low wages, 102; few in- 
 sane, and general mentality, 1 1 1-117; 
 financial showing, 118-120; good 
 qualities, 205; in coal mining, 26, 27; 
 in colonies in America by provinces, 
 14; immigrants mostly from south- 
 em Italy, 99; middle class, 44; nat- 
 uralization and citizenship, 120, 121, 
 124, 125; nobility, 42-44; poverty in 
 Italy, 09, 100; progress of ambitious, 
 115; racial strains, 54, 56; social 
 status at home, 100, 101. 
 
 Italians, northern, 29, 36, 52, 53, 58; 
 southern, 27, 37, 51. 52, 58, 99; com- 
 pared with northern, 110-114 
 
 Italy, as vanguard of civilization, 39; 
 central and southern, 43, 56, 85; 
 contrasts, 41; democratic spirit, 58; 
 dialects, 41; economic growth, 65, 66; 
 education, 60-62; humanity of soul, 
 39; illiteracy, 59-61; intellectual life, 
 59, 60; industrial era, 66, 67; in the 
 European War, 215, 317; many 
 political parties, 58; physical culture, 
 65; recent history, 57; sanitary 
 progress, 63; unification, 58 
 
 James, William, early study of, in Italy, 
 
 49 
 Jesus Christ, 92, 93, 114 
 
 Kansas City work, 150 
 Kennedy, John S., 87 
 
 Labor Bureau, the, 135; camp schools, 
 
 136, 137; unskilled, by Italians, 22, 23 
 Landar, H. D., quoted, 202 
 Landlords, 43 
 Language, a factor in services, 167, 181; 
 
 in nation and in family life, 180; for 
 
 the religious teacher, 186 
 Lapworth, Charles, quoted, 53, 59, 60, 
 
 215, 217 
 
 Lawrence, Massachusetts, 151 
 Lax Romanists, 153-155, 158 
 Leadership qualities, 183; ideal staff, 
 
 188, 189 
 
 Legal profession, 45 
 Liberty and license, 156 
 Literacy test in United States, 101 
 Literary work, 95 
 Literature, 63 
 
 Local committee work useful, 170 
 Lombardy, 43, 51, 56 
 Lombroso, referred to, 64
 
 232 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Lovitt, Mr., University of Toronto, ex- 
 perience in lumber camp, 137 
 Luther, referred to, 82, 83 
 Luzzatti, Luigi, quoted, 208 
 
 M 
 
 Machinery unprotected, 14-16 
 
 Mackey, Rev. Charles, quoted, 140 
 
 Mafia, 106, 107 
 
 Mancuri, Professor, quoted, 215 
 
 Mania, Daniel, 215 
 
 Manners of older nobility, 44 
 
 Marconi, referred to, 66 
 
 Mariolatry, 78, 79 
 
 Marriage customs, 35 
 
 Materialism, drift toward, 218 
 
 Mathews, Shailer, quoted, 162 
 
 Mazzini, quoted, 68 
 
 Medical profession, 45 
 
 Memorial and monuments to famous 
 Italians, 126, 130 
 
 Mentality of Italians, 111-117 
 
 Methodist (Canadian) mission work in 
 Toronto, 169 
 
 Methodist (northern) in return work 
 in Italy, 91-93; mission work in 
 Italy, 59, 90; mission work in United 
 States, 169 
 
 Michelangelo, referred to, 68 
 
 Middle class, 44, 45 
 
 Migration, causes of, 198; some effects, 
 202 
 
 Milan, 43, 67 
 
 Minocchi, Salvator, referred to, 49 
 
 Mission, periodicals in Italy, 88, 90, 94; 
 schools in Italy, 89, 90; typical 
 services in America, 17-20; zeal of 
 converts, 211 
 
 Missions in Italy, 86-96; help of 
 American converts, 91-94; statistics, 
 94 
 
 Missions in United States and Canada, 
 IS3-I94; statistics, 175 
 
 Mississippi Valley Immigration Com- 
 pany, 31 
 
 Modenese, the, 29 
 
 Modernists, 48, 49 
 
 Money, and membership, 177; deter- 
 mining American "justice," 121-124 
 
 Moore, Miss Sarah, 137 
 Moral training often lacking, 141 
 Moving pictures, 6, 17, 30 
 Mulberry Street, New York City, 6, 14 
 Murri, Romulo, referred to, 49 
 Music pursued by Italians, 16, 17, 34 
 Music School Settlement, New York 
 City, 213 
 
 N 
 
 Naples, 42, 52, 67, 74, 106 
 
 National Americanization Committee, 
 
 146 
 
 Nationalism, 68 
 Neapolitans, 14, 32, 41, 107 
 Neighborhood mother, a, 145, 146 
 New standard of life in America by 
 
 Italians, 109 
 New York City, 80; Italians in, 38; 
 
 tenement quarters, 6, 23 
 Night schools, 142 
 Nobility, contempt of for work, 44 
 North American Review, 202 
 
 O 
 
 Obstacles in work of Italian evangeliza- 
 tion, 192-194 
 
 Occupations of Italians in America, 21, 
 22 
 
 Organization, questions of church, 166, 
 168, 171 
 
 Orphanages, 94 
 
 Padrones' extortion and oppression, 5, 
 
 10 
 
 Paintings, 63 
 Palermo, 67, 107 
 Papacy and the Vatican, 50, Si, 57, 58, 
 
 71. 73, 80, 86, 87 
 
 Papers, American, in Italian, 125-128 
 Parental relation and control among 
 
 immigrants, 109, no 
 Parochial schools, 139 
 Peasants, 43, 44, 51-54 
 Personal life and touch, 133; of the 
 
 worker, 182; personal service, 201
 
 INDEX 
 
 233 
 
 Philadelphia North American, 218 
 Physical ministry not all. 158 
 Physicians' exorbitant charges, and 
 
 quacks, 127, 128 
 Piedmontese, 29, 41, 56 
 Presbyterian mission work, 169; in 
 
 Kansas City, 175 
 
 Priests, 59, 82, 83, 157; efforts to con- 
 trol the people, 17, 18; kindness of 
 some, 48; lazy and neglectful life of 
 others, 48; political efforts of many 
 of higher rank, 50; scorned by many 
 of the people, 73 
 
 Professional life of Italians, 22, 23, 45 
 Proselytizing, charges of, 154, 158 
 Protectorates, conditions in, 9 
 Protestant, doctrines compared with 
 Roman Catholic, 80-84; influences, 49; 
 Italians, 169; peasant majority, 51 
 Protestant Episcopal mission work, 169 
 Protestant Missions. See Missions 
 Protestantism, fundamentals revived by 
 
 Italians, 206 
 
 Public schools, 140-142; lecture de- 
 partment, 142; teachers who are 
 pro-Roman Catholic, 193, 194 
 Publishing houses, 89, 90, 94 
 Puritanism an element in converted 
 Italians, 208 
 
 Quarrymen, 29, 30 
 
 R 
 
 Race elements, 54-57 
 
 Race prejudice, ancient and modern, 
 
 178, 181 
 Railroad section gang labor in America, 
 
 10-13 
 
 Railroads and tunnels in Italy, 66 
 Ranch life in Texas, 9 
 Raphael, 68 
 
 Ravage, M. E., quoted, 28, 220 
 Real estate in New York City owned by 
 
 Italians, 118 
 
 Reality and importance of religion, 208 
 Refinements observed, 187 
 Reformation, the, 84 
 
 Reformed Church in America, mission 
 work, 169 
 
 Reich, Emil, quoted, 213 
 
 Relics of saints, 79, 80 
 
 Religion and the Bible in conversation, 
 209 
 
 Renaissance, 39, 84 
 
 Response to kindness, 134 
 
 Responsibility of America, 200 
 
 Richmond Hill House, New York City, 
 147 
 
 Riggs, Arthur S., quoted, 39 
 
 Rochester plans, 143; opposition, 144 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, deeply dis- 
 liked by many Italians, 75; discloses 
 heathen rites, 75-77; doctrinal teach- 
 ings as compared with Protestant, 
 80-84; duplicity of, 206; political 
 aspirations, 207, 208 
 
 Rome, 43, 47, 87 
 
 Ross, Professor Edward A., Quoted, 
 no, ui 
 
 Rudini, Marquis de, referred to, 44 
 
 Saint worship, 79, 80 
 Salandra, Signor, referred to, 44 
 Saloon influence, 108 
 Savings by Italians, 118, 119 
 Savonarola, 84, 86 
 Savonarola Institute, 91 
 Schools, 60-62; mission, 89, 94 
 Sciacca, Sicily, sanitarium, 26 
 Self-supporting churches in America, 
 
 169 
 Sermons very few in Roman churches 
 
 in Italy, 72 
 
 Service, no ideal of, 142 
 Settlement work, educational, religious, 
 
 and social, 147 
 Shepherds, 52 
 Sicilians, 27, 36, 42 
 Social and business organizations, 128- 
 
 130 
 
 Socialism and socialists, 51, 59 
 Societies frequently organized by 
 
 Italians, 125 
 "Sons of Italy," organization, 129
 
 234 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Stages of the work, experimental, 163; 
 
 intensive and preparatory, 164 
 Society, of St. Gerolamo, 95; of San 
 
 Raffaele, 135 
 Statistics of Italian Protestant churches 
 
 and missions in United States, 175 
 Steiner, Professor, quoted, 159 
 Stella, Dr. Antonio, 115; quoted, 23, 25 
 Stewart, Rev. J. P., 88 
 Sunday-school work, 90, 94 
 
 Tagore, Rabindranath, quoted, 196 
 
 Taylor, Rev. George B., 87, 88 
 
 Temporal power, 5 7 
 
 Tent campaign, 164 
 
 Terni, 67 
 
 Theological schools, 88, 89, 94 
 
 Tipple, Dr. Bertram, 89 
 
 Tommaso, typical child immigrant, 
 
 3-21 
 
 Toronto, work in, 169, 177 
 Trades of Italians, 21, 22 
 Traditions, need of respect for Italian, 
 
 178 
 Training and training institutions, 184, 
 
 190, 214 
 
 Trent, 67; Council of, 85 
 Trieste, 67 
 
 Tripoli, war with, 57, 68, 217 
 Tuberculosis, 9, 23, 26 
 Tuscany, 43, 52, 56 
 
 U 
 
 United Presbyterian mission work, 169 
 Universities in Italy, 41, 45, 48, 50, 61, 
 62 
 
 Valhalla, 137 
 
 Valuable results of past immigration to 
 
 the United States, 204 
 Van Dyke, Henry, quoted, 222 
 Venetians, 29, 42 
 Venice, 42, 47, 52, 67 
 Vernon, Dr. Leroy M., 89 
 Victor Emmanuel, 58, 87 
 Village Catholic Sunday pictured, 71-73 
 Villari, Luigi, quoted, 41, 43, 44, 56, 57 
 
 W 
 
 Wages, 22, 23; affected by emigration, 
 
 54 
 Waldensians, 84-87; American colony, 
 
 31; American mission work, 169 
 Washington, George, and Italian pedler, 
 
 35, 36 
 
 Water supply, 63 
 Whittinghill, Rev. D. G., 88 
 Wilkinson, Florence, quoted, 98 
 William, German Emperor, 43 
 Women in Italy, charitable work of, 50 
 Women's clubs and home lessons in 
 
 America, 144, 145 
 Work, contempt for by nobility, 44 
 World's debt to Italy, 205, 215 
 World's Work, 138 
 
 Young Men's Christian Association, 20, 
 138, 139 
 
 Zimmern, Helen, quoted, 40
 
 3Ust of 
 
 n itoa 
 
 Comsponbents 
 
 anb 
 
 THE Missionary Education Movement is conducted in behalf of the Foreign 
 and Home Mission Boards and Societies of the United States and Canada. 
 Orders for literature on foreign and home missions should be addressed 
 to the secretaries representing those organizations, who are prepared to furnish 
 special helps to leaders of mission study classes and to other missionary workers. 
 
 If the address of the secretary of the Foreign or Home Mission Board or Society 
 of your denomination is unknown, orders may be sent to the Missionary Educa- 
 tion Movement. All persons ordering from the Missionary Education Movement 
 are requested to indicate their denominations when ordering. 
 
 ADVENT CHRISTIAN American Advent Mission Society, Rev. George E. Tyler, 
 160 Warren Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 ASSOCIATE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN Young People's Christian Union and Sab- 
 bath School Work, Rev. J. W. Carson, Newberry, S. C. 
 
 BAPTIST (NORTH) Department of Missionary Education of the Cooperating 
 Organizations of the Northern Baptist Convention. 23 East 26th Street, 
 New York City. 
 
 BAPTIST (Soura) Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 
 Rev. T. B. Ray, 1103 Main Street, Richmond, Va. (Correspondence con- 
 cerning both foreign and home missions.) 
 
 BAPTIST (COLORED) Foreign Mission Board of the National Baptist Conven- 
 tion, Rev. L. G. Jordan, 701 South Nineteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 CHRISTIAN The Mission Board of the Christian Church; Foreign Missions, Rev. 
 M. T. M orrill ; Home Missions, Rev. Omer S. Thomas, C. P. A. Building, 
 Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 CHRISTIAN REFORMED Board of Heathen Missions, Rev. Henry Beets, 2050 
 Francis Avenue, S. E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 
 
 CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN General Mission Board of the Church of the Breth- 
 ren, Rev. Galen B. Royer, Elgin, 111. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Rev. 
 
 D. Brewer Eddy, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 
 American Missionary Association, Rev. C. J. Ryder, 287 Fourth Avenue, New 
 
 York City. 
 The Congregational Home Missionary Society, Rev. William S. Beard, 287 
 
 Fourth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 DISCIPLES OF CHRIST Foreign Christian Missionary Society, Rev. Stephen J. 
 
 Corey, Box 884, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
 
 The American Christian Missionary Society, Mr. R. M. Hopkins, Carew Build- 
 ing, Cincinnati, Ohio.
 
 EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION Missionary Society of the Evangelical Association, 
 Rev. George Johnson, 1903 Woodland Avenue, S. E., Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN Board of Foreign Missions of the General Council of 
 
 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in N. A., Rev. George Drach, Trappe, Pa. 
 Board of Home Missions of the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran 
 
 Church in North America, 805-807 Drexel Building, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran 
 
 Church in the U. S. A., Rev. L. B. Wolf. 21 West Saratoga Street, Baltimore, 
 
 Md. 
 Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Evangelical Lutheran 
 
 Church, Rev. H. H. Weber, York, Pa. 
 Board of Foreign Missions of the United Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran 
 
 Church in the South, Rev. C. L. Brown, Columbia, S. C. 
 
 FRIENDS American Friends Board of Foreign Missions, Mr. Ross A. Hadley, 
 
 Richmond, Ind. 
 
 Evangelistic and Church Extension Board of the Friends Five Years' Meeting, 
 Mr. Harry R. Keates, 1314 Lyon Street, Des Moines, Iowa. 
 
 GERMAN EVANGELICAL Foreign Mission Board, German Evangelical Synod of 
 
 North America, Rev. E. Schmidt, 1377 Main Street, Buffalo, N. Y. 
 Board of Home Missions of the German Evangelical Synod of North America, 
 Evansville, Ind. 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL The Department of Missionary Education. Represent- 
 ing the Board of Foreign Missions, the Board of Home Missions and Church 
 Extension, and the Board of Sunday Schools. 150 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 City. 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL (SOUTH) The Educational Department of the Board of 
 Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Rev. E. H. Rawlings, 
 810 Broadway, Nashville, Term. (Correspondence concerning both foreign 
 and home missions.) 
 
 METHODIST PROTESTANT Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Protestant 
 
 Church, Rev. Fred. C. Klein, 316 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Md. 
 Board of Home Missions of the Methodist Protestant Church, Rev. Charles H. 
 Beck, West Lafayette, Ohio. 
 
 MORAVIAN The Department of Missionary Education of the Moravian Church 
 in America, Northern Province, Rev. F. W. Stengel, Lititz, Pa. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN (U. S. A.) The Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
 
 Church in the U. S. A., Mr. B. Carter Millikin, Educational Secretary; Rev. 
 
 George H. Trull, Sunday School Secretary, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., Mr. J. 
 
 Edward Tompkins, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN (U. S.) Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the Presby- 
 terian Church in the U. S., Mr. John I. Armstrong, 154 Fifth Avenue, North, 
 Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 General Assembly's Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. 
 Rev. S. L. Morris, 1522 Hurt Building, Atlanta, Ga. 
 
 PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S. A., Mr. W. C. Sturgis, 281 Fourth 
 Avenue, New York City. 
 
 REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. E. W. Miller- 
 Board of Home Missions, Rev. W. T. Demarest: Board of Publication ana 
 Bible School Work, Rev. T. F. Bayles. 25 East Twenty-second Street, New 
 York City. 
 
 REFORMED CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES Mission Study Department. Rep- 
 resenting the Boards of Home and Foreign Missions, Mr. John H. Poor- 
 man, 304 Reformed Church Building, Fifteenth and Race Streets, Philadel- 
 phia, Pa.
 
 UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST Foreign Missionary Society, Rev. S. S. Hough, 
 
 Otterbein Press Building, Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Home Missionary Society, Miss Lyda B. Wiggim, United Brethren Building, 
 Dayton, Ohio. 
 
 Young People's Work, Rev. O. T. Deever, Otterbein Press Building, Dayton, 
 Ohio. 
 
 UNITED EVANGELICAL Home and Foreign Missionary Society of the United 
 Evangelical Church and Board of Church Extension, Rev. B. H. Niebel, 
 Penbrook, Pa. 
 
 UNITED NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN Board of Foreign Missions United Norwegian 
 Lutheran Church of America, Rev. M. Saterlie, 425-429 South Fourth Street, 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 Board of Home Missions, United Norwegian Lutheran Church of America, Rev. 
 Olaf Guldseth, 425 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 UNITED PRESBYTERIAN Mission Study Department of the Board of Foreign Mis- 
 sions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, Rev. James K. 
 Quay, 200 North Fifteenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Board of Home Missions of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, 
 Rev. R. A. Hutchison, 209 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
 
 UNTVERSALIST Department of Missionary Education of the General Sunday 
 School Association of the Universalist Church, Rev. A. Gertrude Earle, 
 Methuen, Mass. 
 
 CANADIAN BOARDS 
 
 BAPTIST The Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board, Rev. J. G. Brown, 223 
 Church Street, Toronto, Ontario. 
 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND The Missionary Society of the Church of England in 
 Canada, Rev. Canon S. Gould, 131 Confederation Life Building, Toronto, 
 Ontario. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL Canada Congregational Foreign Missionary Society, Miss Effie 
 Jamieson, 23 Woodlawn Avenue, East, Toronto, Ontario. 
 
 METHODIST Young People's Forward Movement Department of the Missionary 
 Society of the Methodist Church, Canada, Rev. F. C. Stephenson, 299 Queen 
 Street, West, Toronto, Ontario. 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN Presbyterian Church in Canada, Board of Foreign Missions, Rev. 
 A. E. Armstrong, 439 Confederation Life Building, Toronto, Ontario. 
 
 REVISED TO MAY i, 1917
 
 UN 
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