The line between the natives and foreigners is very sharply drawn in Johnstown. The native population as a rule knows scarcely anything about the foreigners, except what appears in the newspapers about misdemeanors committed in foreign sections. The report of the Immigration Commission[[15]] comments “on the attitude of the police department toward foreigners ... with regard to Sunday desecration,” and states that “the Croatians are accustomed to spend Sunday in singing, drinking, and noisy demonstrations. The police have been instructed to show no leniency on account of ignorance of the municipal regulations, and, without any attempt at explaining the laws, they arrest the offenders in large numbers.” Again, it states: “They are arrested more often for crimes that make them a nuisance to the native population than for mere infractions of the law.... Few arrests are made for immorality among foreigners.” “Sabbath desecration” is the crime foreigners are most frequently charged with.
[15]. United States Immigration Commission Reports, Volume VIII., “Immigrants in Industries: Part 2, Iron and Steel Manufacturing in the East,” p. 387. Reference is to Johnstown and is a very true picture of various immigrant institutions and of the comparative progress and assimilation of different races there. Although the immigration report was made five years before our investigation, conditions remain practically the same.
Foreigners are employed largely in the less skilled occupations of the steel mills, which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At the time the investigation was made some of the men in the steel mills worked for a period of two weeks on a night shift of 14 hours, then two weeks on a day shift of 10 hours, and back again to the night shift of 14 hours for another two weeks, and so on. When shifts were changed, one group of men was required to work throughout a period of 24 hours instead of for the usual 10 or 14 hour period and another group had 24 hours off duty. Some departments of the steel mills, however, shut down on Sundays, and in some departments for certain occupations an eight-hour day prevails, but these more favorable conditions do not prevail among the majority of the unskilled foreign workers whose homes were visited.
The foreigners who work on a 24-hour shift in a mill on one Sunday frequently “desecrate” their alternate free Sabbath by “singing, drinking, and noisy demonstrations,” in spite of the known danger of arrest for “crimes that make them a nuisance to the native population” or for “Sabbath desecration,” laws concerning which are strictly enforced in Johnstown; for example, children are not permitted to play in public playgrounds on Sunday and mercantile establishments are required to be closed on that day. Also, it is “unlawful for any person or persons to deliver ice cream, or to sell or deliver milk from wagon or by person carrying same, within the city on the Sabbath day, commonly called Sunday, after 12 o’clock m.” The ordinance from which the foregoing sentence was quoted became a law on January 25, 1914.
SERBO-CROATIAN
The foreign group having the highest infant mortality rate is the Serbo-Croatian[[16]] where infant deaths numbered 263.9 per 1,000 live births.
[16]. A distinct and homogenous race, from a linguistic point of view, among Slavic peoples. They are divided into the groups “Croatian” and “Servian,” on political and religious grounds, the former being Roman Catholics and the latter Greek Orthodox. Their spoken language is the same but they can not read each other’s publications, for the Croatians use the Roman alphabet, or sometimes the strange old Slavic letters, while the Servians use the Russian characters fostered by the Greek Church.
Three Krainers have also, for convenience, been included in this group. Krainers are Slovenians from the Austro-Hungarian Province of Carniola and are designated “close cousins of the Croatians but with a different though nearly related language” by Emily Greene Balch in her book entitled “Our Slavic Fellow Citizens.”
The men of the Serbo-Croatian group are fine looking and powerful and are employed in the heavy unskilled work of the steel mills and the mines. They greatly outnumber the women of their race in Johnstown, and a man with a wife frequently becomes a “boarding boss”; that is, he fills his rooms with beds and rents out sleeping space to his fellow countrymen at from $2.50 to $3 a month each. The same bed and bedding is sometimes in service both night and day to accommodate men on the night and the day shifts of the steel mills.
The wife, without extra charge, makes up the beds, does the washing and ironing, and buys and prepares the food for all the lodgers. Usually she gets everything on credit and the lodgers pay their respective shares biweekly. These conditions exist to some extent among other foreigners, but are not as prevalent among other nationalities in Johnstown as among the Serbo-Croatians.