Barring the
agent herself, there was not a native-born individual in the court. The
answer was characteristic of the cosmopolitan character of lower New
York, very nearly so of the whole of it, wherever it runs to alleys and
courts. One may find for the asking an Italian, German, French, African,
Spanish, Bohemian, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish, and Chinese colony.
The one thing you shall ask for in vain in the chief city of America is
a distinctively American community."
[Sidenote: The Peril of Poverty]
The immigrant is nearly always poor, and is thrust into the poverty of
the city. We must distinguish between pauperism and poverty. As Mr.
Hunter points out, in his stirring chapter on this subject,[76]
"pauperism is dependence without shame, poverty is to live miserable we
know not why, to have the dread of hunger, to work sore and yet gain
nothing." Fear of pauperism, of the necessity of accepting charity,
drives the self-respecting poor insane and to suicide. It is to be said
that the majority of the immigrants are not paupers, but self-respecting
poor. Moreover, the new immigration is not nearly so ready to accept
pauperism as are the Irish, who make up the largest percentage of this
class, as already shown.
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