The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-08-22

lSIdctlOn ana are rapidly Crowding the
negro back from the sugar district. In |
all the districts Immediately around
New Orleans, where the negro fur
nlshed nine-tenths of the labor ten
years ago, the Italians are in major
! Ity today. New Orleans was a white
oasis in the midst of population over
whelmingly negro at the last census:
| the new enumeration Will show that
Plaquemine and ST. Bernard below.
Jefferson and st. John above Terre-
bonnie, Lafourche, Iberia and ST Mar
! tins on the west have become white:
that is, have a majority of white popu-
iatlon-thanks TO the immi gratiOn of
the Italians and the rapid increase of
the Acadfans brethren of Evangelinel
the two races which are doing the most
10 support the Southern theory of
white supremacy" but who are looked
down on with contempt by the Ameri-
cans, the creoleS and the other white
races.
The position of the Italian in LQuisi-
lana IS very anomalous because Of the
race, or, rather, the negro, question.
Neither the whites nor the negroes
know how to class him-he is, as il
were, link connecting the white and
black races. Swarthy in color, the
and quadroOns, the negro half-breeds
of Southern Louisiana, but they are
undoubtedly white. On the other hand,
they are willing to live in the same
Quarters with the negroes and to work
side by side with them, and seem Who'll
ly destitute of that anti-negrO preju-
dice which is one of the distinguishing
features of all the white races in the
South. 1t cannot be said that this at
ttitude of the Sicilians toward the negro
has won his gratitude. He looks upon
the Italian with pretty much the same
feeling as he entertained of old toward
the poor white trash. He has no re-
spect for the Italian and refuses to
treat him with the respect and defer
ence shown to other white men. He
will not take off his hat to him or call
him Mister" a word which is never
Iapplied under any circumstances to
the negro in the South, even when Col
onel and Judge are used, and which the
negro always uses of the whites.
1t is the same with the whites. The
average man will classify the popula-
ton as whites, dagoes and negroes.
This is the explanation of the lynch
ing of Italians in Louisiana. Not 80
per cent but 100 per cent of the white
men lynched in this State have been
| Italians. There have been wholesale
Italian lynchings in New Orleans, ST.
! CharleS, st. John and Madison. The
lunwritten law of the South is that
white man shall not be lynched. No
matter what his crime, he is entitled
to trial by law and legal execution.
The only exception is the Italian, who,
in this respect has been placed on terms
of equality with the negro. If the 1tal-
ian kills white man; that is, non
Italian, he is likely to be lynched for it.
This rule has prevailed in all parts
of the State. AS long as the Italians
in New Orleans confined their killings
to their own race no especial attention
was paid to the matter. When, how
ever, they killed an American, the
Chief of Police, Hennessy, eleven were
lynched 1t should be said, by the way,
that the excuse given by the Italians
for the Hennessy assassination was
that he interfered in an Italian quar-
rel. The ProvenZanOs and MatrangaS
! had quarrelled and declared a vendetta
against each other. Hennessy, who
was a friend of the Provenzanos, inter-
fered bringing himself, so the Italian
assassins said under the Italian ven
delta code 1t was the same in st,
John the Baptist, where the killing of
a creole by an Italian resulted in the
lynching of all the Italians in the par
ish Jail; while in Madison the mere
assault on DR.. Hodge was considered
good ground for wholesale lynching.
Perhaps the situation there was never
better eXemplified than in the inter-
views with leading citizens of Madison,
who declared that the hanging of the
Italian prisoners was necessary in the |
interest of white supremacy" al |
though just where white supremacy"
the battlecry of the North Louisiana
1Anglo-Saxons, was involved in the kill
ing of white men by Other white men,
it is difficult to explain.
In the matter of law and order there |
has been marked Improvement
among the Italians. If the Malta ever
existed, it is thoroughly dead now. 1t
was believed in by the Italians them
selves, and many of the better class
paid blackmail to those who used the
name of Malta to brighten them with.
The vendetta prevails among the new
ly arrived immigrants, but they soon
drop it and go to law to settle their dis
putes. Formerly it was considered dis
honorable and cowardly for Sicilian
to testify in a court against an oppres-
sor: but now all do So The amount
of crime among them is small and is
decreasing. Their worst weakness is
the hereditary tendency to take imme-
date vengeance for a wrong with the
knife, pistol or the shotgun. In the
second generation the Italian-American
is an American, industrious, progress
i've and public-spirited.
Such is the race which now consti-
tutes the largest foreign element in the
population of Louisiana, and offers the
State the best assurance that it will
not become second Africa, like the
coast country of South Carolina. 1t has
been difficult to get white immigrants {
to settle in the bottom lands of the
Mississippi. Other foreigners will not
come. They fear the heat and the ma
laria. The men from the North and
West who have lately come into Louis