8 The National Geographic Magazine 



in response to no demand for that which 

 they can bring, and are unfitted by lack 

 of physical development to enter the 

 general industrial field. They bring 

 with them, however, intellects which 

 are the products of thousands of years of 

 mental training and sharpened by exer- 

 cise among hostile surroundings. A Jew 

 has his face turned toward the future, 

 and, by virtue of the tremendous power 

 of his religion, has been able to impress 

 himself as a living force in every coun- 

 try in the world except China. Coming 

 to England ten years before they came 

 here, the same industrial problems of 

 crowding in certain trades and working 

 in sweat shops were manifested, but 

 there, as here, they have by organiza- 

 tion been able to practically free them- 

 selves. In New York today in the 

 sweating trades alone the Jew has been, 

 pushed upward by the Italians, and they 

 in turn are being uplifted by the Arme- 

 nian and Syrian coming into this indus- 

 trial field. 



The Polish immigration now amounts, 

 in round numbers, to about 67,000 per 

 year, equally divided between Russia 

 and Galicia, with about one thousand 

 from the Polish provinces of Germany. 



The woes of Poland have aroused 

 world-wide sympathy for a hundred 

 years. In the past its political dis- 

 turbances have given rise to an immi- 

 gration largely taking on the character 

 of exile. For thirty years the objec- 

 tions to Russia's policy in its Polish 

 provinces have been more sentimental 

 than practical, and Polish immigration 

 in its modern sense is due not to perse- 

 cution at home, but rather to the dis- 

 covery of a profitable field for employ- 

 ment here for laborers of the peasant 

 class. More, perhaps, than any other 

 element in this later immigration, ex- 

 cept the Hebrew, it comes here to stay. 

 As we see them they are illiterate, 

 strongly religious, and moderately am- 

 bitious to become citizens. In Buffalo, 

 for instance, where they have a large 



settlement, they are buying homes, and 

 their mortgages are regarded as the 

 most desirable sort of investment. 



We are now receiving every year close 

 upon 30, coo Slovaks, from the mount- 

 ainous regions of northern Hungary — 

 a Slavish people, speaking a tongue 

 akin to the Bohemian, living in their 

 own lands in mud huts without chim- 

 neys. 



They, too, are extremely illiterate, and 

 turbulent under leadership. These peo- 

 ple have, nevertheless, a strong instinct 

 of sincerity and honesty and a higher 

 degree of personal self-reliance than 

 most branches of the Slavish race. They 

 can call up no past record of prominence 

 in the milder arts, but point with pride 

 to a language and territorial boundary 

 which has remained intact through cen- 

 turies of attempted foreign aggression. 

 Sturdy, robust, and inured to hardships, 

 they have no difficulty in finding a place 

 in our industrial system. They exhibit 

 a strong and apparently increasing ten- 

 dency to return to their Hungarian 

 mountain sides, and have as yet given 

 little indication of the direction in which 

 their future influence upon this nation 

 will lie. 



The fertile country of central Hun- 

 gary furnishes no emigrants, but further 

 north, in the districts less favored by 

 nature, there is an emigration of Magyars 

 amounting to about 23,000 a year. They 

 are evidently induced by the example of 

 the Slovaks, whom they resemble in 

 every way except language, the former 

 being of Slavish and the latter of Tura- 

 nian origin. The same similarity con- 

 tinues here — both seek the same general 

 localities and enter the same field of 

 labor as the Poles and Lithuanians. 



The Croatians and Slovenians, from 

 the south of Austria, have only com- 

 menced to come to this country in the 

 last 15 years, and have already colo- 

 nies in southern California and Oregon, 

 with large numbers in the Pennsylvania 

 mines. 



