I find good, bad,
and indifferent people in all races. But I dissent from the current
notion that the southern Italian is so much inferior to the northern. As
a people there is more illiteracy among them; but when he goes to school
the southern Italian holds his own with the northern. Another fact of
promise is that Italians have not lost the spirit of service. They are
good workmen. Not long since, asking a contractor who was building a
sewer in the city why he had only Italians in his employ, he replied,
'Because they are the best workmen, and there are enough of them. If an
Italian down in that ditch has a shovelful of earth half way up when the
whistle blows for dinner, he will not drop it; he will throw it up; the
Irishman and the French-Canadian will drop it. And when the lunch hour
is over, when the clock strikes the Italian will be leaning on his
shovel ready to go to work, but the Irishman will be out under that tree
and he will be three minutes getting to his job, and three minutes each,
for 150 men, is not a small item. The Italian does not regard his
employer as his natural enemy. He has the spirit of kindly service."
[Sidenote: Cheerful and Responsive]
The writer can confirm this from personal observation.
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