The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1895-11-16
THE TROUBLESOME HUNS
Their Unsightly and Unruly Colo
niles In Pennsylvania.


ing Srt1Cle ON the Ee0u6y1v9018 nuns
by w. F. Gibbons. These troublesome
residents Of the Keystone state are not
genuine Msgyars, not, strictly speak
ing, Of the Hungarian race, but Slavs,
like Russians and Poles. Their first
introduction in Pennsylvania was the
work of employing corporations, which
imported them to cheaper labor. The
law soon interposed a barrier against
this importation, but the immigration
OF Huns was not interrupted. The
wages they get in Pennsylvania, al
though too small for Americans to live
on, are greater than they receive at
home, SO they continue to arrive. Coal
miners meet them in New York and
offer them work in Pennsylvania.
Mr.. Gibbons cites the census tables,
showing that at the latest enumeration
Pennsylvania contained 24,9O1 Huns,
and the United States but 81, ,425. The
Pennsylvania Huns are mostly collected
in the comparatively small anthracite
coal regions of the Wyoming and
Schuylkill valleys. A single county.
Lucerne, contained in 1890 as many
Huns as the entire state of Ohio. Since
1890, despite hard times and the return
Of many immigrants to their own coun-
try, the number of Huns has largely in
creased.
The mining towns where these peo-
pie live are like the slums of our great
cities. The streets are filled with gar
bage, and riots, often resulting in homi-
cides, are expected on the Sunday after
every pay day. OF course most of the
original Inhabitants have left. They
did not stand upon the order Of their
going, but got out with dispatch. In some
towns only a few voters remain. The
murder of a Hun by one of his own race
creates no demand for justice in the
minds of his surviving countrymen. ''lf
the survivors be approached" says Mr.
Gibbons, s'and urged to call in the law
they will grunt expressively and re-
mark with more or less distinctness:
Dead Hungari no good.'" Indeed, an
ordinary murder passes almost with
out comment"
But these people are not incapable of
learning some lessons in the school of
experience. They have been cheated
and 'blackmailed outrageous1y by dis
honest officials at the mines and by
English-speaking miners, but they have
gotten their eyes open at last and are
extremely alert. They have learned
the art OF saloon keeping and they are
getting into politics. Mr.. Gibbons says
that already in some communities there
is s'the shadow of the coming Hum
garian political boss" s'In every list
Of honorary vice presidents at the great
political meetings prominent places are
given the men bearing such names as
Arsenius Tsrnoievitch or Kubo Zlotlor-
zinski." Huns have been made post
masters in some places and have begun
to elect their own justices of the peace.
It is noted as a hopeful indication that
they have begun to leave the company
houses and the boarding houses and to
establish themselves in homes of their
own. Some of them have grown rich
that is, rich for Huns
The second generation is not, in Mr..
Gibbons opinion, an improvement on
the first. He states that the immi-
grants, with few exceptions, could read
~AA~AA WA ASsA6 Oo8Os 0uV UaAoV 1AACA
children are taken from school and put
to work before they have made much
progress in rudimentary education.
Few OF them go to the public schools
and there is slim attendance at the
parochial schools. These are the newt
able results of the great reduction of
wages in the coal and coke regions.
Almost every evil is productive Of
some good. The Huns are better of in
Pennsylvania than they were in their
own country. But it will strike the
general reader that Pennsylvania has
paid, is paying and win long con-
tinue to pay . heavy price for the
betterment of the Huns condition
Washington Post.