Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/395

 GREEKS IN CHICAGO 381

the Bulgarians; here too, is the combination Greek bank, steam- ship-ticket office, notary pubHc, and employment agency, and the coffee-houses, where the men drink black Greek coffee, play cards, speculate on the outcome of the next Greek lottery, and in the evening sing to the accompaniment of the Greek bag-pipes or — evidence of their Americanization — listen to the phono- graph. On Halsted Street, south of Harrison, almost every store for two blocks has Greek characters on the windows, and recalling one's long-forgotten college Greek, one learns that the first coffee-house is the "Cafe Appolyon," and that their news- paper "The Hellas" is published next door, A block west on Blue Island Avenue one finds the "Parthenon Barber Shop" and the Greek drug store. H an American were to visit this neighborhood on the night of Good Friday when the stores are draped with purple and black and watch at mid- night the solemn procession of Greek men march down the street carrying their burning candles and chanting hymns, he would probably feel as though he were no longer in America, but after a moment's reflection he would say that this could be no place but America for the procession was headed by eight burly Irish American policemen and along the walks were "Americans" of Polish, Italian, Russian Jewish, Lithuanian, and Puritan ancestry watching with mingled reverence and curiosity this celebration of Good Friday, while those who marched were homesick and mourning because "this was not like the Tripolis." Although the Greeks have scattered much more widely over the entire country than the Italians and most other immigrants, still they are little known or understood. They have suffered both here and in Europe from extravagant praise or unreasonable criticism. With the glory of ancient Greece and Byron's roman- tic championship of the modern Greek in mind, one is shocked when he meets for the first time a representative of that people in the thrifty, good natured, and polite keeper of a fruit-stand or "shoe-shine parlor." Before the Civil War in the days when the Native American or Know Nothing Party flourished, many good Americans were afraid that the immigrants who then came principally from Germany and northern Europe were going to