Ignorant people are all low. People
say now that I am clever and fine in conversation. There is a little
expense for charity, too. If any worker is injured or sick we all give
money to help."[74]
[Sidenote: Possibilities]
Surely this is good material. A changed and Christian environment would
make shining lights out of these poor immigrants, who are kept in the
subways of American life, instead of being given a fair chance out in
the open air and sunlight of decently paid service.
[Sidenote: A Foreign System]
Practically all of the work in tenements is carried on by foreign-born
men and women, and more than that, by the latest arrivals and the lowest
conditioned of the foreign-born. Tenement-house legislation has been
practically forced upon New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, whose
ports of entry receive the first impact of immigration, by two of the
races that have been crowding into the cities--the Italian and Hebrew.
The Italian woman, working in her close tenement, has by her cheap labor
almost driven out all other nationalities from that class of work still
done in the home, the hand sewing on coats and trousers. Of the 20,000
licenses granted by the New York factory inspector for "home finishing"
in New York City, ninety-five per cent.
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