Frederic C. Howe 



MONTENEGRINS IN THEIR NATIVE COSTUMES 



Mountaineers by birth and environment, the people of Montenegro are a tall, upstanding, 

 sinew}* - race. Physical perfection must be inherited, but education may be acquired, and the 

 Montenegrin bequeaths the one and a desire for the other to his American-born posterity. 



vians are now occupied by the Italians, 

 the Slavs, and the immigrant Jew. Their 

 coming has permitted the foreign born 

 who came in earlier decades to command 

 better positions and to live under better 

 conditions than they otherwise could have 

 done. 



From whatever country the immigrant 

 comes, he is. as a rule, above the average 

 of the working classes in his community ; 

 for money is scarce in southern and east- 

 ern Europe, and the peasant who can ac- 

 cumulate enough to bring him to the 

 United States must have some purpose in 



life, a fair share of ambition, and no little 

 ability to practice self-denial. The great 

 majority have come from the small vil- 

 lages in the rural districts. 



That the alien's children are less illit- 

 erate than he is : that they commit less 

 crime than he does, and have less ten- 

 dency to insanity than he is shown by the 

 statistics gathered by the United States. 

 Bureau of the Census and by the Immi- 

 gration Commission of 191 1. 



Furthermore, these statistics prove that 

 his grandchildren are about as free from 

 illiteracy as the American child of na- 



113 



