Roumanian Couple in Gala Attire, Youngstown, O.
All down Cape Cod these fishermen have well nigh replaced the sea-faring Yankees. Provincetown, the spot where the Pilgrims first landed and which was settled by the purest English, seems to-day a South European town. Handsome dark-skinned Azoreans man the fishing boats, Correa, Silva, Cabral, and Manta are the names on the shops and the Roman Catholics outnumber those of any other denomination.
When the bottom fell out of whaling the New Bedford Portuguese went into the cotton mills and their countrymen began coming in larger numbers. Besides the "White Portuguese" have come in multitudes of "Black Portuguese" from the Cape Verde islands. Three thousand of them work during the season in the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts and all other pickers flee before them. They are obviously negroid, lack foresight and are so stupid they cannot follow a straight line.
The real Portuguese immigrate in families and show very little money on landing. At home 70 per cent. of them were farmers or farm laborers. They know sea and soil but bring no industrial skill. If they cannot farm or fish they become day laborers, mill hands, dockers, teamsters, draymen, stationary engineers or firemen. Many of their women are in the needle trades.
In the mills the Portuguese do not shine. The men earn $8.00 a week, while the rest of the foreign born average $12.00. Their sons and daughters earn $9.50, whereas the second generation of other immigrants average $14.00. They put wife and daughters into the mill and stay out of labor unions. In eight cases out of nine they sleep three or more in a room. In Lowell, according to the government investigator, "The standard of living of the Portuguese, as judged by the number of persons per apartment, room and sleeping room, is much lower than that of any other race."
In Boston, "Among the Portuguese poverty is greater and more hopeless than it is among the Jews and Italians, although there are no Portuguese in the almshouses. Few of the Portuguese are really well to do while many are partially dependent because the labor of the women, who are often obliged to support the family, is too unremunerative to ensure their independence. Portuguese women who have shown their low moral sense by rearing a family of fatherless children exhibit their courage and industry by sewing early and late to gain a meager living for their little ones."
Although unskilled, ignorant and segregated, the Portuguese commit very little crime. Nevertheless, their moral standard is in some respects exceedingly low. Says Dr. Bushee: "The idea of family morality among them is almost primitive, resembling that of the negroes of the South. Not only are elopements made and repaid in kind without involving further complications, but also what anthropologists call 'sexual hospitality' is not unknown among the Portuguese." They "are not free from drunkenness and thieving, but these faults are more carefully concealed among them and fewer arrests result than would be the case with other nationalities. Many of the Portuguese men are idle and thriftless, and some of the women are suspected of having been public women in the Azore Islands from which they come."
In California the Portuguese live like the Italians, but while the Italians coöperate in leasing land, the Portuguese are so individualistic that they seldom rent or own land in partnership. This has handicapped them in agricultural competition with the Italians and the Japanese.