Part 9

Here is a chance for the boys and girls of America to be good neighbors.

The Settlement. Some one says, “I have often heard about settlements, but what do they do?” The Church of All Nations carries on a church and settlement work on the lower East Side of New York. If you were to pay it a visit during a week day this is what you might see. By 8.30 o’clock in the morning there would be a patter of little feet and a babel of children’s voices and we would know the Italian boys and girls were coming for the daily kindergarten. At nine o’clock the office bell begins to ring; just sit in the office and listen to the people who call. One says, “I need to go to the hospital”; another, “I want to get a friend out of prison”; a big able man says, “I want work”; some are in need of clothes or food, or a lawyer, or are discouraged and have come to talk over their troubles. These last keep coming during the morning office hour and, in fact, all day and into the night.

In the afternoon there is a mother’s meeting for Italians, or Hebrews, or some other nationality, with an address of a religious nature or a brief talk on some topic that helps make the mothers better able to care for their children. American boys and girls may think all mothers know how to take care of children, because their mothers took such good care of them. It would surprise them to know that in the fall some of the immigrant mothers sew a suit of clothes on their child and expect that suit to stay on through the winter—it is not to come off at night, either. Many Italian mothers wrap up their little babies until they look like a mummy that you may have seen in a museum. The baby can move its hands but not its feet; it can also move its big black eyes, and laugh or cry. We know better than these mothers, so we try to teach them wiser ways of caring for their children.

At three o’clock there may be sessions of the sewing-school, or game room, or gymnasium classes for the younger boys who are not allowed to come at night. In the evening there are club meetings under chosen leaders, bowling contests, basket ball games, and night school for Italians, Chinese, Hebrews or Russians. In other parts of the building may be illustrated lectures or motion pictures. So you see a Settlement has a very busy and varied sort of day’s work, and is a good neighbor to the immigrant.

Other Good Neighbors. In addition to the good neighbors mentioned, many other forces assist in the Americanizing of the foreigner. America itself, the streets, the stores, the factories, the public institutions, the work at which he is employed and the conditions under which he toils, all have a marked effect upon the stranger. Those who have studied the matter say that the Jew is developing a better physical type than at home, while the Italian, used to open air peasant life, is running down in stature.

While the immigrant is a stranger in a strange land he is by no means a stranger in a friendless land. America is not only rich in dollars, it is rich in kindness and sympathy. Our fathers were pilgrims and strangers; some of us were ourselves strangers. We should, therefore, try to carry out Christ’s story of the good neighbor, and, if we find our immigrant brother in need of help or protection, we should be among the first to have compassion on him.

VIII

GOOD NEIGHBORS AND BAD

“Lead on, O King eternal, The day of march has come: Henceforth in fields of conquest Thy tents shall be our home. Through days of preparation Thy grace has made us strong, And now, O King eternal, We lift our battle song.”

VIII

GOOD NEIGHBORS AND BAD

THE CHURCH. The Protestant church in America is a good neighbor to the immigrant. The trouble is that many immigrants refuse to permit it to be their friend.

We have seen that the chief reason that the church cannot do what it would among the Jews, Russians, Italians and Chinese, the people we are studying, is because these people do not understand that the church in America is different from the church in their home countries. They do not know that American Christianity is a friend of liberty, and is really trying to aid the common people.

When the Irish immigrants came in such multitudes to America they thronged the Catholic Churches. Their church had been their loyal champion in Ireland, and they knew it would be the same friend in America. The same loyalty was shown by the Lutheran to his church when he came from Germany to America.

But the million and more Jews that have flowed into America want to have nothing to do with the church, and the multitudes of Italians, when loyal to any church, belong to the Church of Rome. The Russians are often exiled from home because of the church.

To be the best of good neighbors to these people, it is necessary, first, for the church to know their history. Only in that way can church people understand how the foreigner feels toward the church and how most wisely to approach him.

The Jew and the Church. What does the Jew regard as the cause of the sorrow which has sent him to America? I have seen old Russian Jews stand in front of a Christian church at night, when they thought no eye saw them, and shake their fist at the cross over the door, spit at it, curse it, and go their way. “If,” said a Jewish woman, “the Christians want to be friends with the Jews why do they forever preach that the Jews killed Jesus? We know our nation was the cause of His death, but how many Christians have died in the religious wars between themselves?” She laid the persecution of her race at the door of Christianity.

Speaking one day of the religious fervor of an old Hebrew, his daughter said: “Yes, he is religious, but none of the rest of us have any use for it. I think it is through religion that most trouble comes into the world.” “Now,” she continued, “the best friend I have in America has just gone out angry because when she came in she found a fire in my house, and this is a Jewish fast day. Religion drove us out of Poland with the loss of everything. I believe we would be better off if religion was out of the world.” I tried to show her that true Christianity was not guilty of these cruel persecutions of her people, that it was the lack of true Christianity that caused them; yet I doubt if I convinced her.

Even when Jewish children are allowed to attend Christian religious institutions to get them off the streets they are often forewarned. I noticed one day that a boy who sang lustily some of the hymns stopped at the word “Jesus,” or else substituted the word, “Moses.” “Curley,” I said, “why don’t you sing the name Jesus?” “My mother told me not to say it or my tongue would turn black,” came the prompt reply. Another boy attending our classes reached up and kissed a gold cross that hung on a chain around the neck of one of our workers. He had no sooner done so than he cried across the room to his sister, “It never hurt me.” “What did you expect would hurt you?” said the teacher. “My mother told me I could come to class but if I said the name of ‘Jesus’ it would turn my tongue black, and if I touched the cross, it would kill me, and I didn’t believe her.” This was especially sad, for the boy said his mother had told him a falsehood.

The Russian and the Church. The Russian dislikes the church. He does not know the Protestant church of America. All he knows is that the church of Russia is at least no friend of liberty. He wants nothing to do with what he considers a similar enemy in America.

The Chinese and the Church. The most devoted Chinese we ever had in our work after he became a Christian, had a similar feeling. His idea of Christianity came from the Catholics of Mexico, who have treated the Chinese very cruelly. He came to our school because he hoped to learn English and not because he wanted to hear of Christ.

The Italian and the Church. The church in Italy is more or less a political machine. The Italian knows how the Roman church opposed the liberty of Italy and this makes him fear or hate all churches. Great churches in Italy are often found with but a baker’s dozen in attendance. The only times on which they are thronged are when a “festa” is being held, a festival in honor of some saint.

Brave Christians. Numbers of the immigrants who become Christians are real heroes. The story of the persecutions they suffer would be a surprise to most Christian Americans. The Jewish daily papers sometimes publish the names of the Jewish attendants at Christian meetings that they may incite their Jewish neighbors against them, and the tenement has so bitter a tongue that it often drives the family out of the neighborhood.

Young people who are baptized are mourned for as dead, cast out of their homes, and made practically orphans, and Christian workers must find homes for them. Spies are sent into Christian meetings to secure the names and addresses of Hebrews present, and then letters, or visits, or both, follow. Bibles of young converts are taken from them and burned. While the streets are filled with children with no religious instruction, the whole Ghetto is stirred over one convert to Christ.

One leading Russian revolutionist told me that if he were to come out openly in favor of the Christian church his business would be ruined.

The country founded by men who sought it for liberty of conscience is not a free country to every one and men who have found an asylum here from the oppressor of Europe become in turn oppressors themselves.

The greatest need of all these people is Christ.

The Need of Christ. The non-Christian Chinese are at times cruel and merciless beyond description. Slavery is common among them, women being bought and sold like merchandise. The treatment of little “servant” girls is sometimes so inhuman that they commit suicide. These little girls are bought by the Chinese and then frequently sold by them when 12 or 15 years of age. The picture of two of these little “servant” girls, rescued by the Church of All Nations, appears opposite this page.