90 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



fwithin the City of New York. To publish and send through 

 Ithe mails, or sell upon the news-stands so many journals, im- 

 plies thousands of readers, and I am informed that their vari- 

 ous circulations range from i,ooo to 25,000 copies each. These 

 j journals keep the immigrant who has not yet acquired a com- 

 ' mand of English acquainted with the chief current events of the 

 day, often clipped from our own "yellow" journals, the news 

 ! of his home country, and the chances of work, business and 

 occupation, and the usual chronicles of birth, marriage and 

 death, and of the national or mutual benefit societies with 

 'which he may be connected. 

 1/^ The unfortunate thing regarding the immigrant is the fact 

 J\Qi congestion in the great cities. It is a natural outcome of 

 the human desire for society, and the forlorn immigrant is apt 

 ^o seek out and remain with those who come from his native 

 / Wllage or district, especially if they be his relatives by blood or 

 marriage. Then, again, in the older and more eastern coun- 

 tries of Europe there is a settled lack of individual initiative : 

 "things are done rather en masse, by concerted action. This 

 ,lias resulted in the formation of societies, and every newly 

 arrived immigrant feels at once that he must belong to one. 

 Sometimes these work for good, as when they provide for 

 work, sick benefits or savings in one shape or another. But 

 in the majority of cases they work for evil, by localizing the 

 limmigrant, making him subject entirely to the societies' offi- 

 cers, and keeping him from becoming acquainted with the lan- 

 guage, laws and customs of the land to which he has come. 

 This is an important factor making for the congestion of the 

 cities and sometimes has the baleful effect of permitting the 

 old world governmental authorities to keep control of the 

 immigrant even while in America. It even enables the old 

 world secret societies, under the ban of their own governments, 

 to retain a hold and sometimes exercise terrorism over the 

 immigrant unacquainted with our usages. 



The evil of congestion may be considered also in the light 

 of the occupation of the people whom it afifects. Take for 

 example the Italians, who are said to number nearly 600,000 

 in New York City, thus making it the third Italian city in 

 the world. They are for the most part country people, accus- 

 tomed to agricultural work in the open, such as the orchard, 

 the vineyard and the sheepfold. They are diverted from 



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