IMMIGRATION AND TEE AMERICAN RACE 591 



turies Greek colonists came to establish their cities among the native 

 Siculi. Later the Carthaginians and after them the Eomans brought 

 great numbers of slaves to the island. Goth and Vandal came and dis- 

 appeared. The Saracens, themselves mixed with black blood, held the 

 island nearly two hundred years, until the island was conquered by the 

 Normans. All these races left their traces in the modern population 

 of Sicily. But where once the great cities of Syracuse, Agrigentum, 

 Segesta, nourished we find to-day ignorance, poverty, crime ; here is the 

 home of the Black Hand and the Mafia. The southern part of the 

 Italian boot, the old kingdom of Naples, has almost the same history as 

 Sicily, and the modern conditions there are not much different. The 

 best portion of the Italian people are the brachycephalic North-Italians. 

 It is these sturdy and energetic people who have brought about Italian 

 unity. By their thriftiness, intelligence and love of law and justice 

 they form the backbone of the Italian monarchy. 10 If we cross the 

 Adriatic we find on the Balkan peninsula a mixture of peoples, a VolJc- 

 ergemisch, made up of hardly less numerous elements than the popula- 

 tion of Italy. The Slavic race forms here a predominating element 

 among a population greatly mixed in other ways. The modern Greeks 

 are largely of Slavic origin. They are not the descendants of the an- 

 cient Greeks. That noble race, greatly mixed with barbarian blood 

 during the middle ages, was almost completely destroyed in the course 

 of the frequent uprisings against Turkish rule. Slavic immigrants 

 gradually repeopled the country. The same intense mixture of different 

 races we find in Asia Minor and Syria, countries which send consider- 

 able numbers of immigrants to our shores. The least mixed of all these 

 races are the Slavs of Bussia. Yet this people has little in common 

 with the race that settled America. The Bussians are behind all other 

 nations of Europe in social and political development. The mass of 

 the people is ignorant, servile, superstitious, and, according to the 

 opinion of a close observer, unfit for self-government. 11 



The broad-headed Jews are not as pure a race as has commonly been 

 supposed. They have been greatly mixed with the peoples among whom 

 they lived. Especially is this true of the Bussian and Bolish Jews, who 

 form such a large portion of the American immigrants. The best type 

 of all these various peoples are probably the brachycephalic Hungarians. 

 Though dissimilar from the other races of Europe, they possess valuable 

 qualities; they are preeminently an intellectual people and well fitted 

 for self-government. 12 



These are the peoples from whom the later immigration to the United 

 States is recruiting itself. All differ among themselves as much as they 



10 The immigration from this region is much smaller than from southern 

 Italy. 



11 Carl Schurz, "Reminiscences," V., I. 

 "Ripley, "Races of Europe," p. 431. 



