IMMIGRATION. 44 1 



missionaries have done much unwittingly to turn the tide of emigra- 

 tion from Asiatic Turkey to the United States. Young Syrians and 

 Armenians educated here through the kindness of missionaries have 

 advertised America, upon their return to Asia, as the land of promise, 

 and thus increased our arrivals from Asia Minor and Syria. The 

 majority of Syrian immigrants are orthodox Greek catholics, and very 

 few Mohammedan Syrians come here. The Greek catholics or Maronite 

 catholics will promptly espouse some form of protestantism in order to 

 get their children into an institution. They are quite as ready to re- 

 nounce the Greek religion for the Eoman catholic for the same reason, 

 to be rid of the responsibility of their young children. They always 

 associate America in their minds with missionaries and charitable 

 institutions. These traits have given the Syrian and Armenian a 

 reputation for mendacity and lack of principle which can scarcely be 

 said to be undeserved. The servile fawning humility and utter absence 

 of spirit which these Syrians and Armenians exhibit are not attractive, 

 and are but a pretense to cover the guile of the oriental. Bright young 

 Syrians utilize religion to secure an education, then coolly repudiate all 

 obligation to their missionary friends and engage in trade in the United 

 States. The Syrian is averse to work of any kind, but he will never 

 work at hard physical labor. He sends his wife and children out to 

 peddle from door to door the oriental rugs, silks, laces and peddling 

 truck. From peddling it is only a step to begging, and many of these 

 peddlers combine the two vocations. The Syrian often goes into manu- 

 facturing small articles for this trade, using lofts in the Syrian quarter 

 as work rooms, and employing men and women of their own race. 

 They manufacture combs, brushes, hatpins, razor-strops, aprons, gar- 

 ters, suspenders, tooth-picks, crucifixes and other small articles for the 

 peddling trade. The women earn from two to three dollars per week, 

 and men make a little more, from four to six dollars per week. The 

 Syrian women and girls also make the lace which they sell upon their 

 peddling trips. The Syrian men and women peddlers make long trips 

 from their headquarters, New York, and like true parasites follow in the 

 wake of the rich to the seaside and summer resorts in the hot months, 

 and to Florida or other parts of the South in the winter. 



The Armenian immigrants, like the Syrians, are mostly traders, 

 but a few are cigarette makers, and a small number are employed in 

 the silk factories. Even the small percentage of these races employed 

 as producers in the silk mills must be classed as unnecessary and com- 

 petitive. 



To the Greek, Syrian and Armenian quarters in New York, newly 

 arrived immigrants go direct; and the congestion in these tenements 

 is steadily increasing. The conditions which exist in the tenement of 

 the Syrian or Greek quarters must be seen to be appreciated. No 



