218 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



patience, unflagging industry and capacity for hard, monot- 

 onous labor." Aside from his tendency to crimes of per- 

 sonal violence the average Italian has many excellent 

 characteristics, not one of the least of which is his interest 

 in his work, even as a day laborer. He assimilates fairly 

 rapidly, especially in rural districts; not a few Irish girls 

 marry Italian husbands when both are CathoUcs; and this 

 assimilation will add many desirable elements to the .\mer- 

 ican complex. 



g. The Poles are distributed under their political affilia- 

 tions as German, Austrian, Russian and so on. The race 

 constitutes one of the largest contributors to the American 

 population. The cause of this emigration of a large pro- 

 portion of the European Poles is doubtless the pohtical 

 disabihties under which they have labored. Poles first 

 began to form colonies in the United States in 1885 (in 

 Texas), from 1895 they came in numbers to Wisconsin 

 and Michigan, and later to Indiana and Illinois. More 

 than any other recent immigrants, except the Itahans, 

 they become general laborers, largely in rural districts, 

 and as they save money they buy farms. The Poles are 

 independent and self-reliant though clannish. They love 

 the land and work hard to gain a piece of it. They are able 

 to make pay the farms of New England which the sons of 

 the early settlers have abandoned. We may welcome this 

 freedom-loving people whose blood is bound largely to 

 replace that of the old New England stock. 



h. The Portuguese are among our more recent immi- 

 grants, since their numbers did not exceed 2,000 per year 

 until 1889 and first reached 5,000 in 1902. They are classi- 

 fied either as white (largely from the Azores) or dark, from 

 the Cape Verde Islands. The former become farm laborers, 

 general laborers, mill hands, and farmers, and are steady, 

 reliable, and efficient. In Rhode Island they form a notable 



