Volume VII.

Number 1

"I

SEE a ship a sailing-a sailing on the sea-and it is full of wondrous things, and some of them for me." When a youngster did you ever have that ditty, thrilling with the mystery of things that were going to be, chanted to your childish ears? Yet somehow in spite of the fact that the ship was even then sailing on the sea, you had a feeling that not until you were grown up and could be counted on to manage that cargo would the ship come into port. One need only look about to see the prophecy come true. Now, day after day from over the sea sail a great procession of ships. Thousands of people are on them. on them. They come from as many countries as there are in the world. They speak as many languages. They are unfamiliar to one another as all are strange to us. Almost every step in the climb of centuries is represented in their varying states of "civilization." They seem to have but one thing in common-a determination to get on, to "better themselves," an eagerness for work, and a rock-bottomed faith that the new country will supply generous means for both.

For the last two years the ships have brought of men, women and children one million each year. Of women alone they have brought more than three hundred thousand. Of this three hundred thousand, one hundred and twenty thousand are young unmarried

girls! Sixty thousand and five hundred, are from sixteen to nineteen years old, while another forty thousand are only between twenty and twenty-four. Most of these girls have come to the strange new land alone. These are the "li'le greenho'ns" who are swept along in the irresistible march of immigration.

"Is Maria Ankevitch, seventeen years old, in your tenement?"

"Ankevitch Maria? Ye-a. I got li'le greenho'n by my woman. S'e ben Amerik-a tre days. S'e wanta job, Ankevitch Maria.'

"What nationality are you-what is your 'ol' country'?" I asked a slim girl sitting inside the doorway of a dark hallway leading to an upstairs tene

ment.

She was peering timidly and wonderingly out upon the crowded little street as if what she saw held nothing familiar in it. "Me?"-with a blush-"me greenho'n," was the embarrassed answer. The real greenhorn girl who finds the struggles of adjustment to queer new ways of living and to new and feve ish ways of work so bewildering, comes of the people that make up the so-called "Present Immigration."

Present immigration does not include "Early Immigration." It proceeds from a different region of Europe. Scoop out the northwest corner of Europe and you have the countries that gave and to a small extent are

still giving our early immigration. In numbers given, Germany stands first, Ireland second, England, Scotland and Wales third, Sweden and Norway fourth, and lastly Denmark and the Netherlands. Present immigration, on the other hand, proceeds from central, eastern and southern Europe. From the governments of Austria, Russia, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Turkey, come the twenty-three different "nationalities" now astir and marching along the broad highway that leads to "great and good America."

The earlier immigrant peoples have been coming for fifty years, and now are established in America. They are a part of us, we are they! It is impossible to draw lines through communities dividing German descent from Irish descent, or Danish descent from English descent. And who shall say which are not Americans? Pioneering for them as nations was ended twenty years ago. "Foreigners" from Germany or Ireland now know what they are about in coming to "the States." They know the hazards as well as the opportunities. They go to friends who settled years ago and use America's English as their own tongue. Should they find themselves friendless, they know something of the sort of institutions that might be expected to exist in American communities, and they are free from the suspiciousness bred of ignorance and mediæval Catholicism that holds the real "immigrant" from turning to any but his own kind. They are able to take the initiative toward helping themselves out of a tight place. Whereas present immigration is constantly fed from new communities, districts that five years ago were still asleep to the call of America, the early immigration now is drawing unto itself the last ends of family groups long since in America. Few come who have not family connections of some sort in the States. Large numbers, moreover, come second cabin and not steerage at all. Certain it is, any stranger in a country not his own stands in need of friendli

ness and assistance. But the stress of contending with unexplained strange things appears a hundred times less acute with the folk from the north than with them of Austria, Russia and the south.

Americans, when they have come to know the northern people whose previous environment has rendered them more easily approachable, too often fancy themselves at work upon the "Immigrant Problem." The real immigrants are unapproachable and remote. They live in circles of their own and know nothing of Americans. As a nation we have not begun to learn how to explain ourselves and our institutions to them.

And the most remote of all immigrants is the "li'le greenho'n" of a girl. She is found in foreign colonies. Her knowledge of the wonderful new land is taken from the foreign colony itself. Her life is hemmed in by it; she's afraid to venture beyond its limiting streets. Of course she does not always stay a "greenho'n", in her own estimation at least, but the timidity, the sickening fear of the newly arrived is beyond the imagination of most of us to comprehend. Every girl who comes is filled with dread tales of dark and awful things that happen in America. They add to her terror without arming her with real wisdom to meet experiences that do befall. The language is a serious enough hindrance with immigrant men, but to the girl the difficulty seems insurmountable. One may take comfort in the thought, however, that these very limitations serve often as her protection.

Greater than the barrier of language and her own personal fears, loom the prejudices of her people. The different nationalities vary only in degree. The medieval position of woman, that she actually is an inferior sort of being and must be ruled by the head of the household, be he husband, father, uncle, brother or only "cousin" is held by all. The men believe it and the women believe it. A woman need not seek to attain to anything but a hus

band and her children, therefore why train her for a better job; why take the trouble of all the good ladies to teach her English!

"Don't you think your sister had better come to the English class?" an International Institute visitor asked an Italian brother. "Huh-her? 'cause w'y? She ca'an' un'nerstan'-'cause w'y? Her's li'le greenho'n!" was the brotherly reply.

It were dangerous to set forth figures upon the illiteracy of these young women. Illiterate girls there are, and many, and yet in any given locality or community the ratio to all those who can read and write is exceedingly small. Illiteracy depends entirely upon what the government has happened to do for their education at home, not upon any mental qualities of the race. Generally speaking, where men are illiterate the women are; and where men are literate the women are too. Of course the illiterate woman is hedged in more than her fortunate sister. The opinion prevails that she knows enough to keep her happy anyhow and any more might unsettle her. "My woman ain' gotter lern English-she ain' gotter sense-I say English-she stay by house," as a Russian man explained to me once for his eighteen-year-old bride.

no

The immigrant girl crowds the ranks of the vast army of unskilled workers. Her only marketable asset is her young strength of body brought from life on the fields and hillsides of her old-world home. She gets a job where "hands" are wanted-it is always "hands" that are wantednever “heads”. Even those girls who have worked at trades in the old country cannot find work at it here because they have not the language. The headquarters of the Hodcarrier's Union of Chicago was startled one day to find itself besieged by a dozen young Hungarian women who could not speak one word of English, but steadfastly held forth their membership cards, which stated that they were Union

members of the Hod Carriers' trade in Hungary. They had grown tired of scrubbing, and wanted a better job. "Why don't you go home-when you want to so much?" I asked a Polish girl whose cheeks looked as if they must have been fresh and rosy not such a very long time ago. She was scrubbing footprints off the threshold of a New York restaurant when I stopped, to avoid upsetting her dirtylooking bucket. "Home-ol' coun'ryis werk, is Mudder,-is cows-is gress is sky. Noo Yerk-no mudder, no cows-werk!" Alle peoples tell 'merika is much money-get gran' suc-cessNO! 'merika scrub-scrub-Mudder

s'e s'ink gran' suc-cess," then with her head turned away-"no go home -'shamed."

The unskilled market offers meagre choice. As a rule she must seek for work within the foreign district. She goes to a nearby factory or dingy small shop, or she ventures into one of the Employment Agencies that hover like vultures over districts where greenhorns can be found. The one introduces her to the worst conditioned factories, the other delivers her into "domestic service" which means scrubbing and dishwashing in hotels and cheap restaurants or in "private families" that make a business of "breaking in" girls of all work at three dollars per week and down. In loneliness, and utter helplessness to change or affect her lot, the last is perhaps the worst. But whatever job takes her "on" she proves a strong and willing worker.

One hundred and twenty thousand young girls landed in America this passing year; most of them came all the way alone! By far the greatest number come to earn the money that is to be sent back to bring over their families. A family decides to cast its lot in America. Perhaps the father must stay by the farm until all is ready for the final move; the brothers must serve out the dreaded years in the army; the oldest daughter is the only one who can be sent. It is a great

distinction; she is proud to go. She is loaded with the family treasures, is provided with the necessary address and name of a friend who is to receive her, and with many blessings is sped upon her journey. The very day after she lands she must find her job. She never forgets for a moment that she must work, must work very hard to send back the precious passage money the soonest possible.

Another large number are allowed to go to America that they may earn for themselves the generous wedding portion that the parents will be unable to give. Moreover good marriages are easily made in America. And there is no husband so good as he who has been in America. These girls, also, are often in debt for their passage money and must work at anything to pay it back. A smaller number come while their "betrothed" serve time in the army. The money earned in America will either start them well when she goes back to be married, or will bring him to America-which is usually the case. And still a number come to earn money to send back to the father for debts or to keep the old folks comfortable-money that could not be earned at home.

Supposedly all these girls are booked to relatives or friends. The law insists upon it for their protection, but for the vast majority the protection is more theory than real. They must fend for themselves, even though all their training of the past and fears and prejudices of the present combine together to make them unfit.

Herein lies America's greatest problem-America's greatest responsibility. These thousands of young women come to us to make homes; they come full of dreams, real to them if vague to us, of wonderful things to be found in America. It is the rare immigrant man or woman who does not cherish an ideal of America, each according to the best he is able. These girls are helpless to reach out for the opportunities America has set up for them -even if they happen to understand that they are there. Agencies ordinarily touching the men pass over their heads. She comes with ideals with readiness to take what comes; but if nothing comes-if she lives her suncheated, worked out life untouched by the America we know, she-as we ourselves would loses faith, grows discouraged, hardens. Years pass and her children begin to attend the Amer

ican school and learn to know that they are "Americans", and then for her it is too late. She cannot, does not, learn English. She fails to comprehend the forces that shape the lives of her children. Unless the father has gone far in his American understanding it is not long before the children. become boss of the family. There results that inversion of normal relationships wherein the parents are forced to depend upon the children, and children are deprived their rightful protection. Our Juvenile Courts reveal startling results of homes that never learned how to "fit" into life in America's cities, all because the immigrant parents were never "started right."

And yet even the "li'le greenho'n" can be reached. Even the simplest folk can be won, can be persuaded that it's a fine thing for even a woman to read and write English. At the Christmas party of our International

Institute in New York, one of the classes that gave a "number" was a group of Ruthenian girls. They presented the "Holy Family" as it is given at Christmas time in their own villages in far off Russia. They represented Joseph and Mary with the Babe in her arms and attendant angels, and sang the native Christmas hymns in Ruthenian. That group was illiterate. The girls represent as primitive a type as any that come in the whole million! And yet they were won. A woman who understood them and could speak their language had made them see what the International Institute was really about. Even they were pathetically eager to learn!

Every girl deserves a chance. The ships are sailing in from the sea! Another hundred and twenty thousand young girls for this year! Who can be found to help "manage that cargo?"

Ο

N the morning of the first Sunday in May I looked from my window with interest to see what sort of a day had dawned. This was to be the day of the annual tea given by Madame Schalck, president of the Italian Associations, to the members of the Waldensian branches.

Two days earlier we had motored on the French side of the Alps to within three miles of the summit of the Mt. Cenis pass. There we were stopped by the news that the pass was still snow-covered. A walk across the crocus-starred meadows and up Napoleon's noble road which sweeps over into Italy, showed us that tons of snow still lay in the cleft of the summit. So we retraced our route for fourteen miles, took the train through the Mt. Cenis tunnel; and here we were in

the Waldensian town of Torre Pellice, thirty miles from Turin.

we

Immediately after breakfast climbed steadily for an hour up a country road to the high village of Angrogua. The walk was a stiff one. but well worth the effort. It was an enchanting spring morning; the apple orchards were in full bloom, the chestnuts and beeches just leafing out; the rich grass was full of buttercups, English daisies, patches of bloodroot and tall, stately asphodels. As we climbed higher we saw the Alpine gentians on the hillsides.

The Waldensian valleys are deep, narrow gashes in the hills, one high valley unfolding into another. The picturesque farm houses are perched high on their steep slopes. We passed many people walking slowly up to