THE SLAVIC IMMIGRANT. 27 



and Lithuanians, when her dominion extended from the Oder to the 

 Don and from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the position of the Polish 

 serf was as unenviable as it is to-day. Poland was an oligarchy in 

 which the ruling nobles and their miserable serfs had no bond of sym- 

 pathy. There was no Polish middle class to carry on commerce and 

 trade, to serve as a connecting link between the two widely separated 

 classes. Commerce and trade were in the hands of foreigners, chiefly 

 Jews. The Pacta Conventa (1572) or, as it has been called, the Polish 

 Magna Charta, was in no sense a charter of the liberties of the people. 

 It is true that it curtailed the power of the king and made him a mere 

 figurehead, but it greatly increased the power of the nobles and, if 

 anything, added to the misery of the peasants. These conditions made 

 impossible a universal national feeling, and paved the way for Poland's 

 downfall. 



No doubt Russian treatment of Polish landowners and nobles has 

 been unjust, even cruel, but it must be remembered that the first real 

 freedom the Polish serf ever enjoyed he received from liis Eussian mas- 

 ters. Russia abolished serfdom and, after the Polish insurrection of 

 1863, the Czar sought to conciliate the Polish peasant class by certain 

 agrarian reforms. By these measures the peasants settled upon land 

 and were made owners, the government compensating the landlord and 

 exacting from the peasant a small sum yearly until the amount ad- 

 vanced was paid. Following the suppression of the revolt, wholesale 

 confiscation placed upon the market thousands of acres of good farming 

 land, and in a great measure broke up the large estates which kept the 

 peasant a serf, even after he was declared free. Unfortunately for the 

 Polish peasant, he was usually too poor to buy any of the land thus 

 placed in the market. 



But the conciliatory policy of Czar Alexander II. is not favored by 

 the present ruler. His efforts at Russification are aggressive and per- 

 sistent. It is to America that the Pole looks as the only land likely 

 to give him a chance. The Polish immigrants possess the general char- 

 acteristics of the Slavs. They are of medium height or very slightly 

 below it, very strongly built, with the broad face and brachycephalic 

 head of the Slav type. Their complexion shows all gradations from the 

 blue eyes and light hair in the Slavs of the north to the pronounced 

 brunette type of the southern Poles. Five sixths of the male Polish 

 immigrants are unskilled laborers. They are very willing to work and 

 are especially useful in the mines, mills, manufacturing concerns and 

 great works of construction. 



The geographical distribution of Poles arrived in America during 

 the year ended June 30, 1902, is shown below: 



