"'Where God builds a church the devil builds next door a saloon' is an old saying that has lost its point in New York. Either the devil was on the ground first, or he has been doing a good deal more in the way of building. I tried once to find out how the account stood, and counted to 111 Protestant churches, chapels, and places of worship of every kind below Fourteenth Street, 4,065 saloons. The worst half of the tenement population lives down there, and it has to this day the worst half of the saloons. Up town the account stands a little better, but there are easily ten saloons to every church to-day.
Hunting for an American
"As to the motley character of the tenement population, when I asked the agent of a notorious Fourth Ward alley how many people might be living in it, I was told: One hundred and forty families—one hundred Irish, thirty-eight Italian, and two that spoke the German tongue. Barring the agent herself, there was not a native-born individual in the court. The answer was characteristic of the cosmopolitan character of lower New York, very nearly so of the whole of it, wherever it runs to alleys and courts. One may find for the asking an Italian, German, French, African, Spanish, Bohemian, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish, and Chinese colony. The one thing you shall ask for in vain in the chief city of America is a distinctively American community."
The Peril of Poverty
The immigrant is nearly always poor, and is thrust into the poverty of the city. We must distinguish between pauperism and poverty. As Mr. Hunter points out, in his stirring chapter on this subject,[76] "pauperism is dependence without shame, poverty is to live miserable we know not why, to have the dread of hunger, to work sore and yet gain nothing." Fear of pauperism, of the necessity of accepting charity, drives the self-respecting poor insane and to suicide. It is to be said that the majority of the immigrants are not paupers, but self-respecting poor. Moreover, the new immigration is not nearly so ready to accept pauperism as are the Irish, who make up the largest percentage of this class, as already shown. But the poor immigrants are compelled, by circumstances, to come in contact with, if not to dwell directly among this pauper element, lost to sense of degradation. The paupers make up the slums. And because the rents are cheaper in the miserable old rookeries that still defy public decency, the Italians especially crowd into these pestilential quarters, which are the hotbeds of disease, physical and moral filth, drunkenness, and crime. Thus pauperism and poverty dwell too closely together.
Some Causes of Poverty
Upon the unskilled masses the weight of want is constantly pressing. Unemployment, sickness, the least stoppage of the scant income, means distress. It is estimated that in our country not less than 4,000,000 persons are dependents or paupers, and not less than 10,000,000 are in poverty. This means that they cannot earn enough regularly to maintain the standard of life that means the highest efficiency, and that at some time they are liable to need aid. Mr. Riis has shown that about one third of the people of New York City were dependent upon charity at some time during the eight years previous to 1890. The report of the United Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows similar conditions existing among the Jewish population of New York. Pauperism is a peril, and poverty is a source of apathy and despair. The unskilled immigrant tends to increase the poverty by creating a surplus of cheap labor, and also falls under the blight of the evil he increases.
Pauperism and Immigration
Treating of this subject, the Charities Association of Boston reports that it is hopeless to attempt to relieve pauperism so long as its ranks are increased by the great hosts coming into the country, with only a few dollars to depend upon, and no certain work. The statistics of the public almshouses show that the proportion of foreign-born is greatly in excess of the native-born. The pathetic feature of this condition is that what is wanted is not charity but employment at living wages. Greatly is it to the credit of the immigrants from southeastern Europe that they are eager for work and reluctant to accept charity. The danger is that, if allowed to come and then left without opportunity to work, they will of necessity fall into the careless, shiftless, vicious class, already so large and dangerous.
Peril of the "Great White Plague"