The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-06-17
OUR ITALIANS.
Eighty Per Cent. of Them UnskiIIed
LabOrers.

j. G.. Speed, in Ainslee's Magazine.
The Italians who have taken the place
in the field of labor formerly occupied by
the Irish constitute very important part
of our foreign population, and as they are
still coming in great numbers their pres
ence with us Is the cause of much interest
ing speculation. In 1890 the Italians were
only 1S25S0. OF these 11S,106 were in the
north Atlantic States, 1884 in the south
Atlantic q ,s37 in the north central; in the
south central 12.314 and in the Western a.
GA. There is a general impression that
these Italians. most of them men. come
and then go back to live in easy idleness
on their savings. There may be something
in this. for they do go back and forth a
great deal. For instance, in 1897 there were
So 31 Italian arrivals, and of these 1898
had been in the United States before. 1t
may be depended upon that most OF those
thus returning come to stay permanently.
In the nine years since the census was
taken 554,o72 italians have come into this
country as immigrants and reimmigrants.
If half of those who were here in 1890 have
gone back and one-fourth of those who
have since arrived have also returned then
the Italian population may be set down as
ST., S44. This, however, is mere guess work
and has no statistical value. But from
what 1 am told by the officials of the
Bureau of immigration | fancy that the
guess is pretty accurate and that the
Italian population In America is not far
on either side from half a million. They
do not bring as many women as other I'M
migrants. so 1t is only. natural for those
who mean to make permanent homes to go
back for their sweethearts and their fami-
lies. OF the 1910 Italians who came last
year only %, 400 were females. They are
more illiterate than any other immigrants
that we have, only about half of them
can read. The Russians (Hebrews) crowd
the Italians pretty closely in this regard.
as IL per cent. of them are illiterate. these
Hebrews, however, set about learning to
read very quickly when they are still young
enough, while comparatively few of their
children are suffered TO grow up without
going to school.
1.-The Italians, as / have said before are
the public-works laborers of the time They
work diligently with the pick and shovel
and the Irish bosses make them perform
prodigious tasks with these implements
which the Irish have in great measure dis
carded. Probably 50 per cent. of the Italian
immigrants are unskilled laborers. But
they take to other things very kindly. They
have actually driven the negroes out of the
bootblacking field, and even the Irish por-
tiers now at the best hotels no longer have
a monopoly of polishing the boots of the
guests. They are an amiable people and
very apt to be law-abiding. They are hot
tempered, Ii Is true, or rather quick-tem-
pered. Their fights, however, are eener-
ally among themselves, and in nearly nine
cases out of ten these the result of
Jealousy. IL may be that when there are
women enough to go around they will leave
of using the stiletto entirely In New
York, at least, they are no longer extern
sively i'm the fruit business, which they
once almost monopolized. The itinerants
who now polish apples and carry them
about In carts are nearly all Greeks. At
any rate, the Italians are now doing very
useful work in America. work that II would
be difficult to find others to do unless we
opened the doors TO the Chinese"