"Young immigrants laboring in shoeshining places for a period of upwards of two years become afflicted with chronic gastritis and hepatitis. These diseases undermine their constitutions, so that if they continue longer at the same work they become afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis. Being too ignorant to take precautionary measures, the disease is communicated to others by contagion."
They go on to ask the Government not to allow such bound boys to land.
Through this peep hole we glimpse one secret of the immigrant's sky-rocket commercial rise. Behold Stephanos, who landed ten years ago without a drachma and now draws a cool thousand a month from his business and is one of our solid men! "Wonderful!" exclaims the innocent American. "What stuff there must be in him! Shows, too, that the country is still full of good chances." The fact is the worthy Stephanos lolls on the backs of a hundred unseen bootblacks who are being ruined that he may prosper. When one considers how mercilessly the immigrant landlord, banker, saloon keeper, contractor or employment agent hoodwinks and fleeces his helpless fellow countrymen, certain of the "successes" one hears of do not seem so remarkable after all.
THE LEVANTINES
One hundred thousand immigrants from Asiatic Turkey introduce us to certain very marked differences between the European civilization and the Asiatic. In general, these Syrians, Armenians, Arabs and Turks eschew alcohol, shun violence and give little trouble to the police. They are thrifty, acquisitive and self supporting. Their women folk are hedged and virtuous. Their native intelligence is beyond question, they respect learning and they appreciate educational opportunities for their children.
On the other hand, they tend to crowd, their standards of cleanliness are low and they are greatly afflicted with trachoma, an excludable eye disease. Their narrow range of interests throws out in ugly relief their lust of gain, especially gain without sweat. The Oriental attitude toward females shows itself in a great difference between the sexes in illiteracy, and in the betrothal of young girls to mature men whom they scarcely know. These people love trade, particularly the individual bargain, which offers scope for what is amiably called "a contest of wits" but is really the ensnaring of the unsuspecting by the spider type. At a time when our retail commerce has happily come to the "one-price" system, the lustrous-eyed peddlers from the Levant bring in again the odious haggling trade with its deceit and trickery.
A Finnish Woman by her Cabin of Hewn Logs in Northern Wisconsin near Lake Superior