ITALIANS
202
ITALIANS
Italians in the United States. — Christopher Co-
Uimbus, an Italian, was the leader of those who in suc-
ceeding centuries were led by the Providence of God,
through economic necessities, to propagate the Faith
in the New World. The immediate Italian followers
of Columbus were John Cabot, the first navigator to
reach the coast of North America, his son Sebastian,
who reached Labrador, Amerigo Vespucci, who gave
his name to the continent, and Verrazzano, the dis-
coverer of New York Bay and of the Hudson River.
Previous legendary discoveries did not open the conti-
nent to Christian civilization, as did the discovery of
Columbus and the explorations of those Italians who
followed him. It is true, however, that the expedi-
tions of Columbus and his successors were not made in
the service of Italian States, and therefore the first
settlers were not Italian. It is a curious fact that the
history of Massachusetts supplies a number of family
names which have led some investigators to claim
that Italians or persons of Italian origin fixed their
homes there at a very early date. The supporters of
this view hold that the Cabots of Massachusetts are
descendants of the explorer Sebastian Cabot. They
also point to the .spelling Beqeln, which occurs in the
diary of Samuel Sewall (1674-1729), as the oldest
form of the well-known New England name of Bigelow,
and to such other names as Mico, Brisco, Cotta, Tenno,
and Bristo, which are of a more or le,ss marked Italian
type. Even if these speculations be well founded, it
is certain that the bearers of these names soon lost
their national identity among their far more numer-
ous Puritan neighbours. Still, although the stream
of Italian immigration did not .set in until much later,
completeness demands some mention of the few dis-
tinguished Italians who came to the American col-
onies, or United States, as scattered precursors of the
great latter-day tide. Among those who found their
way to America in the eighteenth century was Lo-
renzo da Ponte (q.v.), the librettist of Mozart's "Le
Nozze di Figaro" and "Don Giovanni". Another
name worthy of note is that of Constantino Brumidi
(q.v.), who produced many noteworthy paintings,
among them tho.se in the Capitol at Washington,
where he died in 1S80. Father Joseph M. Finotti
(q.v.), the author of " Bibliographia Catholica Amer-
icana " and several other widely known works, came to
this country from Italy in 1S45. There have been
several other early Italian immigrants worthy of note.
At the time of the Revolution of '48 many well-known
Italians came to the LTnited States and lived there for
some time. The best known of these was Garibaldi,
who resided two years on Staten Island working in a
candle factory.
Since the year 1880, when Italian immigration to America began to assume its present enormous pro- portions, the problems arising out of it have become extremely grave for both the Italian and the United States Governments. At first, owing to the great den- sity of the population of Italy — 257 to the square mile in 1881, and 294 to the square mile in 1901 — this move- ment of the surplusage was regarded in the mother country as a great relief. Now, however, both agri- cultural labourers and those availalile for huililing and manufactures having become scarce, in projiortion to the larger demands of a growing industrial and com- mercial activity, the Italian Government has become seriously alarmed at this continued drain upon the population. Laws have been enacted, or are being prepared, ostensibly for the protection of the emi- grants, but in reality to preserve for Italy the fruit of the labour of her children. It is true that many mil- lions of dollars are sent to Italy every year by the Ital- ians residing in America, but this sum, which is placed by some authorities at as high a figure as sixty mil- lions, hardly repays Italy for the loss she sustains, first in having nurtured and partly educated hundreds of thousands of men who have afterwards given their
labour to a nation to which they cost nothing;
second, in losing a great part of the industrial pro-
duction which she might have had, and which, con-
sidering the difference in the standards of living and
of wages, would have amoimted to an immense sum
for Italy. As a compensation for these los.ses Italy
receives back a certain number of emigrants who,
after having lived abroad for a number of years, re-
turn to their country with what appears there to be a
little fortune. It is natural that this should be
regarded with favour in Italy. For this reason the at-
titude of the Italian Government is passive. It per-
mits people to emigrate, but emigrants are still sub-
ject to conscription, and they are more or less under
the eye of the consuls and partly protected by so-
cieties subsidized by the commissioner of emigration,
an official of the ministry of foreign affairs in Rome.
For obvious reasons America regards this move- ment from a very different point of view. It is true that even the immigrants who, after a stay of .some years, return to Italy with their .=avings have con- tributed to the wealth of the United States a great deal more than the sums they take away, but America does not need money as much as she needs good citizens, although it is always desirable for the sake of national economy that the money accumulated in America should be there invested. Both nations, though in different ways, are equally interested in Italian migration. Its cause, it must be emphati- cally stated, is economic. Those who repeat that Italians emigrate to America because of their desire of more liberty and political opportunity forget that forty years ago Howells wrote that it is "difficult to tempt from home any of the homekeeping Italian race ". The race remained homekeeping during the long period of foreign domination and during the troublesome and disorderly period of the Revolution; it began to feel the need of emigrating many years after the unification of Italy, and the reasons that induced the Italians to become a migratory race are entirely economic. The system of conscription, the new bu- reaucracy, the type of the new Government, the dif- fusion of popular education, the improvement in the means of transportation, the progress of industrial en- terprises, lead many of the Italian peasantry to leave, first, their native villages, then the province, and, at last, the country. The con.struction of great railroads has attracted thousands of un.^ikilled laliourers to the borders of Italy, where they can earn much more than they could in their native hamlets. France, Germany, South America, then began to attract these labourers, who, however, after one season, would return home with their savings. They would, of course, ultimately be attracted to those countries which offered them the highest pay and the most constant employment. The LTnited States thus attracted these emigrants, espe- cially those of Southern Italy.
This fact can also l)e explained by other economic causes. Prof. Pantaleoni (in the "Giornale degli Economist!") affirms that during the year 1891, when the emigration from Italy reached 100,000, Northern Italy, with 48 per cent of the national wealth, paid 40 per cent of the taxes; Central Italy, with 25 per cent of the national wealth, paid 2S per cent of the taxes; Southern Italy, with only 28 per cent of the national wealth, paid 32 per cent of the national taxes. The system of taxation was the chief cause of the lack of enterprise in agricultural pursuits. The owners of the land did not improve it for fear that the tax might be increased, and to these heavy taxes the monopoly of tobacco and the family tax were added, rendering the situation of the agrarian classes almost unendurable. Italy was then the weakest of Euro- pean nations, and the bleeding of the masses became a necessity in order to maintain the Government. The young nation paid $200,000 a day for interest on the p\il)lic debt, and. after paying this, as well as the sal-
