One of the wine-presses in Gualtieri is owned by a fine old country gentleman by the name of Betto, a freeholder who has prospered in the heating and forging of the several irons he has in the community fire; and after a visit to his press he took us up to his house, one of the very best in the region, and set before us wine that was so old it had changed color twice and was, at the time of uncorking, a pale amber with light-flecks in it here and there.
If there were spots in the southern provinces on the peninsula where the irrigation systems were worthy of note, then indeed did the artificial watering of the soil in Sicily appear wonderful. In that extremely fertile spot called the Conca d’Oro “Shell of Gold,” which surrounds Palermo, not only is every natural spring and stream sought out and redirected, but deep artesian wells tap the subterranean waters. Where the sides of the mountains in the interior are terraced far up, in an effort to increase the area of tillable land, water conduits have been hewn out of solid rock in spots, and streams carried for miles over barren places to moisten a patch or two of productive soil. Looking on such works of patience, one can fully realize the hard necessity of the Sicilian; and one cannot help thinking how much better it would be for all concerned if the Sicilian peasant, when he emigrates to the United States, instead of becoming a barber, a fruit-peddler, a trencher, or following some other of the favorite temporary pursuits which allow the immigrants to congregate in large cities or their environs, he should be given an opportunity to try his irrigating skill on some of the fine undeveloped land in the West, where a little carefully applied water and seed will bring any man a wealth of results at harvest-time.
I do not think there was a soul of reasoning years within a radius of several miles of the mountain village of Gualtieri-Sicamino who did not know that on the last Tuesday of September, Antonio Squadrito, with a part of his family, a number of neighbors, and his two American friends, would be leaving for Naples, to embark thence on the Prinzessin Irene for New York. When, in the sixth year preceding, Antonio had been one of a handful of the first emigrants from that section, every one, even his own family, had been dubious and pessimistic about the venture. Since then more than one tenth of the population has followed him, and any remaining pessimism was restrained, and those who were too poor to go, too old or too well situated to take new chances, vented openly expressions of envy.
From San Filipo, a near-by village, where almost half of the people have the dreaded eye-disease, trachoma, an old man hobbled over to Gualtieri to ask if there was not some way that he could go to America. He had a nephew earning $1.20 a day in the mines in Belmont County, Ohio, and he felt sure that if he got there his nephew would find him work enough to do. He said he could sell his few belongings for five hundred lire, enough to take himself and his wife to Ohio. I looked at his gaping, granulated lids and told him that he could never go. He sat with his head bent on the top of his staff for a longtime in silence, then, with working features and trembling hands, rose and said good-bye. A day or so later a very brown, shy little girl brought over three fine squashes, a present to us from the old pair.
I was somewhat concerned when I learned that Concetta Fomica, a beautiful young girl of sixteen, a relative of the Squadrito family, who was to go with us, was the daughter of a San Filipian and had lived in the afflicted village. She had some slight inflammation of the eyes, but it did not seem to be trachoma, and Dr. Giunta, the village medico, assured me that, though her father had it, she did not. Since the disease is highly contagious by contact of hand, towel, handkerchief or anything that the head touches, and there are few oculists who claim to be able to effect permanent cures and none who are able to remove the cicatrices from the inside of the lids, the causes for concern can be easily understood. There were only two cases in Gualtieri, so Dr. Giunta said, and one was her father. He is blind almost half the time. Those who are known to have the disease are required to have separate toilet articles for their own use.
Antonio, as the actual head of the Squadrito family, was in hot water constantly over the matter of who should go to America and who should not. All of the remaining members of the family, with the possible exception of the eldest daughter, Giovanina, and the mother, were wild to come to America and join the three brothers at their little barber shop in Stonington, Conn. Giovanina alone was looking forward to the day of her marriage with her soldier lover. The small boys were simply insane on the subject of America. One of them approached my wife with an air of great mystery one day and confided to her a plan whereby he would himself borrow the money to buy his ticket, and she could hide him under her shawl and bring him through. But a great reversal in the family plans came when Giovanni, the father, who, remembering his two hard years in America, announced that he had come home to stay. He said he liked home and village life too well to go back. I told him that I believed the restless germ of the American spirit lurked somewhere in his system and that he would change his mind. This has proved entirely true. As I write, a letter lies before me in which he says that he wants to come back. Home comforts and familiar pleasures and labors are all right, but he “can’t stand it.”
When the father had so decided, there was no question as to whether the mother should come, and the small boys’ chances were effaced. Nicola decided to stay by his prosperous smithy, Maria clung to her mother, and Vincenzo, who had a cartilaginous growth over his left eye, was told to wait till his eye had been operated upon and then he might come. Of course, there was a small storm, especially from the younger members of the household; but Antonio poured oil on the troubled waters by promising to return next year and take every one who would go. It was a treacherous compromise, and since the father has changed his mind I believe this year will see nearly the entire family in America.
We were to be joined at Messina by Giuseppe Cardillo and several other people, and by the Papalia family from Monforte-Spadafora; but our party as finally constituted had the following people from Gualtieri, and throughout the trip they continued to be our party proper and were directly under our care:
Antonio Squadrito, Camela Squadrito and her child, Caterina; Mrs. Squadrito’s brother, Giovanni Pulejo, a barber; Felicia Pulejo, a nephew; Concetta Fomica, the pretty young cousin; Antonio Nastasia, a sixteen-year-old boy neighbor; Gaetano Mullura, in the same category; Nicola Curro, aged twenty-seven, an intimate friend of the family, a finished cabinet-maker; Nunzio Giunta, son of a prominent family of the village, a big, powerful fellow of twenty-three, just out of five years’ service in the police or Carabineers; Antonio Genino, twenty-one years of age, a cheese-maker going to a cousin in Philadelphia; and Salvatore Niceta, Benedetto Runzio, Luciano Sofia and Salvatore Damico, four farmer-boys from Gualtieri-Socosa, a detached village of the community, all going to the Banca Gelantado in Philadelphia, destined for the mines.
These boys afforded a very fine example of the latest methods of evading the contract-labor law. They had no contract in writing, merely the letter of an uncle of one of them promising work if they would come. He was not to employ them, but he would turn them over to men who would. This is the method by which scores of big corporations in America, which dare not import Italian laborers by reason of the law on this matter, do it by making the contract here with a relative or friend of some group of men in an Italian community, and the relative or friend brings them over. The men are instructed to answer the question as to whether they have been promised work or not by saying they have not. Out of 1903’s approximate million emigrants, only 1,086 were refused admittance as alien contract laborers. One large industrial corporation at Buffalo, N. Y., alone received nearly half that many, and those who passed successfully through to other parts of the country can be easily imagined. I do not hesitate to say that it is impossible to defeat this fraud by any operations on this side of the sea.