Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/213

ITALIAN IMMIGRATION INTO THE UNITED STATES 197 In the three years under consideration—except the first—the urban population, made up of skilled workmen and professionals, represents less than 40 per cent.; the remainder consists of farm laborers more or less skilled in the art of agriculture. Thus it is readily seen that the Italians in large majority should find their way to the fields of agriculture, the ground adapted to the development of their activitesactivities [sic]. There they would find the greatest advantage with the least proportionate sacrifice, and at the same time would be able to contribute most effectively to the increasing productivity and wealth of the United States.

Before observing the actual direction taken by the Italians once disembarked, it is well to note what capital, in addition to their personnel, they bring with them. This investigation gives the following results:

Year

Amount of Money Shown by the Italian Immigrants

Average per Capita

1 00 1 ..

i. 521.284

$12.67

1002.

3.018.641

14.47

IQ01.

2.1 2 1.623

11.00

IOO4.

1.100.664

20.0O

The figures reported show a progressive improvement in the amount of money brought by the Italians. These figures, it must be observed, cannot be considered exact, because the Italian peasant in general, and the southern Italian in particular, is diffident toward strangers and obstinate in refusing to make known his personal affairs, and still more so when it is a question of money in his possession. It can well be imagined, then, that a large number of immigrants have kept hidden the exact amount of money they possessed; so much the more so owing to the widespread opinion among them that $10 is a sufficient sum to own up to at the port in order to obtain admittance into the country.

Allowing for this, however, it is but just to say that the Italian immigration is composed principally of poor people in the strictest sense of the word people who have not enough money to pay transportation expenses from the ports of disembarkation, and who must find work immediately upon disembarking.