The problem of how far the immigrant groups should be encouraged to modify their diet can be determined only after a careful study of their dietary practices. The price and quality of food available to immigrants must be ascertained. Their habits, customs, and preferences must be thoroughly understood. There can be no question, however, that help should be given them in making the modifications required by the changed environment.

There have been a number of suggestions of the best way to accomplish this. Visiting housekeepers or visiting dietitians have been suggested and will be discussed later. It is highly probable that help must first be given to immigrant women in their homes before they can be persuaded to attend any classes or demonstrations outside of their homes. They must gradually be persuaded to take advantage of the help obtainable in this way.

That the whole problem of diets suited to special needs of people is being considered is evidenced by the fact that it has been suggested that food be sold by units of energy value. Dr. Graham Lusk, for example, proposed at a time of great distress in New York that the Health Commissioner attempt to persuade grocers to prepare "Board of Health baskets" which would provide 10,000 calories daily for a family of five at a minimum cost.[37] The United States Commissioner of Labor indorses the idea in the following words, "There are no insuperable obstacles in the way of selling bread, beef, pork, eggs, milk, cabbage, onions, corn, sugar—by the 100 or 1,000 calories."[38] Professor Murlin has advocated that manufacturers be compelled to place on food containers the calorie content of the package.

If such a plan could be worked out, the dietetic virtues and weaknesses of the different groups could serve as a basis for the special form in which foodstuffs were marketed in different areas. Any such project as applied to the foreign born is far from accomplishment. It is suggestive of a new attitude which does not continue to leave the matter of diet to chance.

FURNITURE ON THE INSTALLMENT PLAN

In the purchase of furniture and of clothing there is the temptation to buy on the installment plan. This plan is open to all the objections ordinarily brought against buying on credit. The buyer is tempted to overestimate his ability to pay in the future, and he may not take the same trouble to calculate the actual value of his purchase as when he pays money down. In the past the form of sale has often been such as to place him peculiarly at the mercy of the seller, who might find it more profitable to reclaim the possession of goods on which a considerable share of the price has been paid than to extend the time of payment and allow the payment to be completed.

The superintendent of the Bohemian Charitable Association says, for example, that it is very common for newly married people to load themselves with debt for household furniture, and that at least two thirds of the stoves which are commonly bought on the installment plan are taken back by the dealers before payments are finished. The immigrant from the rural community may be quite unused to purchasing furniture of any sort, and may be easily persuaded to buy what he thinks is "American style."

The Lithuanian peasant, for example, had little furniture at home. In the cottage of two rooms, one was used on the occasion of the visit of the priest or at the time of a wedding or funeral, and contained nothing but the shrine and the dowry chest of the daughters. The walls were decorated with paper flowers and cheap lithographs. In Lithuanian homes here one is struck by the fact that among the more prosperous the same sort of furniture is seen in all the houses. This consists of the heavy oak and leather sets of three or four large pieces usually sold on the installment plan by stores in the immigrant districts. It is not beautiful, and there is no reason to think that it is distinctly American, but the immigrant is not in a position to know that.

NEW FASHIONS AND OLD CLOTHES

Then there is the unsolved problem of clothing. As in the case of food, so with dress; the general effect of the organization of the department stores in the different neighborhoods can be only misleading and confusing. Many misleading devices that would no longer deceive the older residents are tried again on the newcomer.