The Lehi banner. [volume] (Lehi, Utah) 1891-1917, 1897-10-19
THE TROUBLESOME HUNS
Their Unsightly and Unruly Colo
MES in Pennsylvania.
Mining Towns That Are Like the Slums
of Our Great Cities-LawIessness
and Bloodshcd on Sunday
and Pay Day.

and Pay Day.
A recent number of the American
Magazine of Civics contains an interest
ing article on the Pennsylvania Huns
by w. f. Gibbons. These troublesome
residents of the keystone state are not
genuine Magyars, 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 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 citeH tie census tables.
showing that at the latest enumeration
pennsylvania contained 24,00l 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 Hun by one of his own race
creates no demand for justice in the
minds OF his surviving coIntrymen. "If
the survivors be approached" saws Mr.
Gibbons, 'and urged to cali in the law
they will grunt eXpressively and re-
mark with more or less distinctness:
Dead EIungari no good" Indeed. an
ordinary murder passes almost with
ont comment"
But these people are not incapable of
learning some lessons in the school of
experience. They have been cheated
and blackmailed outrageouslv by dis
honest officials at the mines and by
English-spealling 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. MIR. Gibbons saws
that already in some communities there
is 1.-THE shadow of the coming Hum
garian political boss" "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-
zlnskl." Huns have been made post
masters in some places and have begun
to elect their own justices of the peace
IL is noted as 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. lie states that the immi-
grants, with few exceptions, could read
their own language, but that their
children are taken from school and put
to work before they have made much
progress in rudimentary education
Few OF them 80 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 off in
Pennsylvania than they were in their
own country. But it viii strike the
general reader that Pennsylvania has
paid, is paying and will long con-
tinue to pay heavy price for the
betterment of the Huns condition.
Washington Post.