There are at present between 250,000 and 300,000 Hungarians in America. They have a fair degree of education, are generally reputed to be honest, and as compared with the Slavs (with whom they are commonly confused) are more intelligent and less industrious, "more agile in limb and temper." Many are addicted to drink and quarreling. It is noticeable that the Protestants are morally and intellectually superior to the Catholics. The bulk of the Magyars (eighty-six per cent.) are in the Pennsylvania mining regions, in New York, New Jersey, and Ohio. At home chiefly agriculturists, here they work mostly in mines, mills, and factories. The Roman Catholic Hungarians are said to lapse easily from the Church, going into indifferentism and nothingism. This gives opening for Protestant mission work.
The City Colony
A writer who has made special investigations, in the line of social settlement studies,[67] says that eighty per cent. of the Magyars arriving in New York go at once to the farms and mines. The New York colony numbers 50,000 to 60,000, including the Hungarian Jews, who are scarcely distinguishable from the Gentiles. The life of their quarter is one continuous whirl of excitement. Pleasure seems the chief end. The café is their club room. Intensely social, fond of conviviality and gaiety, bright, polished, graceful, the Magyar soon learns English, and adapts himself to his new surroundings. The newspaper, literary society, and charitable organization are the only institutions he cares to support. Pride, independence, fertility of resource, lack of perseverance, love of ease rather than of a strenuous life—these are his qualities. Tailoring is the chief occupation in New York, though Hungarians are also furriers, workers in hotels and restaurants and various kinds of light factories, and some are shopkeepers and merchants. Those who speak from close knowledge call them excellent "citizen-material." In one of these typical East Side Hungarian cafés, as a guest of the Hungarian Republican Club, President Roosevelt spent the evening and made a noteworthy address on February 14, 1905. Among other things, he told them that "Americanism is not a matter of birthplace or race, but of the spirit that is in the man."
V. The Lithuanians and Letts
Mine and Mill Workers
The Lithuanians in Russia number about two millions. They began to come in 1868, driven out by famine at home, and the first comers went to the northern Pennsylvania mines. At present there are about 200,000 in America; 50,000 of them in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, 25,000 in the soft coal mines of western Pennsylvania and West Virginia; 10,000 in Philadelphia and Baltimore; 15,000 in New York; 25,000 in New England; mainly in Boston, Worcester, Brockton, Hartford, and Bridgeport; 10,000 in Ohio and Michigan; 50,000 in Illinois and Wisconsin; while several thousand are scattered over the western states. Though nearly all raised on farms, they do not take to farming here, nor do they like open air work, preferring the mines, factories, foundries, and closed shops. In the cities many of them are tailors, and many are found in packing-houses, steel plants, hat and shoe factories, and mills. Their chief curse is intemperance, and they are not of strong character, having little of the quality of leadership. Generally they are devout Roman Catholics; when not they are apt to become freethinkers, and a freethinkers' alliance has been formed among them. They are described as commonly peaceable, well dressed, and good-natured. Their children are mostly in public schools. Little Protestant work has been done among them.
Three Types of Immigrants
Less Favorable Repute