The
country owes large debt to the immigrants of earlier days. Their
children and descendants are loyal Americans. It is true, on the other
hand, that many have come from unfortunate conditions in the Old World
only to fall into quite as unfortunate ones in the New; and they and
their descendants have swollen the pauper and criminal class. The
statistics prove that a large proportion of our criminals and convicts
are of foreign birth. It is still more significant to note that, in the
opinion of expert observers, the first generation of foreign-born
parentage, in the cities at least, make a worse record than the
migrating parents.
[Sidenote: Bad Effects of New Environments]
If this be so, the new environment is producing deterioration and
degeneracy instead of improvement. An Italian of education, working
among his people, told the writer that the Italian boys and girls born
here, or coming at a very early age, were much more lawless and
disorderly and difficult to deal with than their fathers and mothers.
They had imbibed all the worst features of our life, its independence,
its defiance of parental authority, its selfishness, rudeness, and
vices, while they lacked the reverence, courtesy, and spirit of
obedience native to the Italian-born.
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