CORRESP ONBENCE. 



553 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



"WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE 

 DAGO?" 



Editor Popular Science Monthly : 



MR. APPLETON MORGAN'S query, 

 in the Monthly for December, What 

 shall we do with the " Dago " ? suggests 

 many other questions. I presume the writer 

 did not design that his description of the 

 " dago " should be regarded as typical of 

 the Italian people, or of any considerable 

 part of them, but only intended it to apply 

 to a peculiar variety of the dangerous classes 

 that happens to come from Italy; but his 

 paper is, unfortunately, liable to the former 

 offensive interpretation, and has, I happen 

 to know, been taken in that sense in at 

 least one quarter. Few will venture to dis- 

 pute that Mr. Morgan's lazzaroni are as 

 dangerous as he describes them ; but it is 

 hardly fair to regard them as the legitimate 

 products of Italian nature. If we review 

 the history of Italy, we shall find that it has 

 been most conspicuous as the progenitor of 

 a very different class of men. 



Classes of outlaws, like the bandits and 

 assassins of Italy, rarely appear prominent- 

 ly in any country that enjoys its own gov- 

 ernment. They are a result of foreign rule, 

 under which even good citizens may come 

 to regard the Government as their enemy. 

 We do not find them in England, or France, 

 or Germany, or Scandinavia, but in Ireland, 

 in Hapsburg- and Bourbon-ruled Italy, and 

 in the European countries under Turkish 

 sway. If we regard them in Italy, we shall 

 find them most prominent and dangerous in 

 those states of the south that were longest 

 and most continuously under Bourbon dy- 

 nasties, as in Naples, or Austrian, as in the 

 central states. 



No European nation, excepting Greece, 

 has done more for civilization and few for 

 liberty than Italy. About twenty-six hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago a band of natives 

 emigrated from the " Long White Hill " in 

 Latium and went to a group of hills on the 

 Tiber and built them a new town. It 

 would be a needless relation of a very old 

 and universally known story to tell how 

 Rome grew and conquered all the known 

 world west of the Euphrates, tamed savages 

 and squelched tyrants, and carried civiliza- 

 tion to every quarter of its vast dominions ; 

 to describe the buildings it erected, the cities 

 it founded, and the roads it constructed ; to 

 name its long roll of illustrious men war- 

 riors, statesmen, popular tribunes, orators, 

 artists, and authors ; its more illustrious 

 women, typifying all that is best in the 

 sex ; or to speak of its laws, the principles 

 of which lie at the foundation of most of the 



European codes. These men, the authors 

 of these great works, mostly came from the 

 same stock as Mr. Morgan's " dagoes " ; for, 

 as fast as one set of great men or noble 

 families died out, others rose or were pro- 

 moted from the ranks. Rome has been 

 called and is called the " Eternal City." It 

 has always, since two centuries before 

 Christ, been the source of the strongest in- 

 fluences by which the world has been ruled. 

 " Roman virtue," " Roman honor," and " Ro- 

 man firmness " are living proverbs. 



After the Western Roman Empire was 

 destroyed and Europe was subjected to bar- 

 barian despots, there were still free repub- 

 lics, civilization, and literature in Italy. 

 These republics lasted till they were over- 

 thrown by foreigners, some holding out till 

 the beginning of this century. Communica- 

 tion was kept up with the Greeks at Con- 

 stantinople, and the light of literature and 

 art shone in Italy through all the darkest of 

 the dark ages. The history of these repub- 

 lics is full of brilliant deeds and illuminated 

 by the names of men distinguished in vari- 

 ous lines, and heroes, the details of whose 

 history are now hard to find, but of which 

 the mere references in Dante's poem furnish 

 a long catalogue. 



Considerations of space forbid more 

 than a mere reference to the splendor of 

 Italian achievements in literature and art 

 from Dante's time till the fifteenth and six- 

 teenth centuries. The story is familiar. 

 The history of the world affords but one 

 parallel to it Greece in the age of Pericles. 



Four hundred years ago there was an 

 Italian who made himself a great nuisance. 

 He had conceived the idea that, if he should 

 sail west on the Atlantic, he would find 

 something worth going after. He bothered 

 the Pope and he bothered the King and 

 Queen of Spain till they were distracted to 

 know what to do with him ; and Ferdinand 

 and Isabella at last gave him ships as the 

 easiest way to get rid of him. We are in- 

 viting all the world to come over here two 

 years hence to help us do his memory the 

 highest honors in our power ; and there is a 

 rivalry between us and Spain as to which 

 shall give him the greatest honor. 



Another Italian he was born in Corsica 

 although he was no doubt a bad man, 

 about the beginning of this century struck 

 the blows which resulted at last in freeing 

 Europe from the despotisms and the doc- 

 trines of despotism which had cursed it for 

 a thousand years. 



How will it be possible, in less than a 

 volume, to do justice to what the Italians 

 have done in the last forty-five years for the 



