"The streets in which the Italians live are the most neglected. It is claimed that cleanliness is impossible where the Italian lives. The truth is that preparation for cleanliness in our foreign colonies is wholly inadequate. The police despise the Italian except for his voting power. He feels the contempt, but with the wisdom of his race he keeps his crimes foreign, and defies this department more successfully than the public generally knows. He is a peaceable citizen in spite of the peculiar race crimes which startle the public. The criminals are as one to a thousand of these people. On Sundays watch these colonies. The streets are literally packed with crowds from house line to house line, as far as the eye can see, but not a policeman in sight, nor occasion for one. Laughter, song, discussion, exchange of epithet, but no disturbance. They mind their own business as no other nation, and carry it to the point of crime when they protect the criminal."[73] [Sidenote: Possibilities of Uplifting] This is testimony directly from life and has especial value. It reveals the difficulties, and at the same time the possibilities, of reaching and Americanizing these immigrants, who are better than their surroundings, and promising if properly cared for. [Sidenote: Sources of Degradation] The impression that steadily deepens with observation and study is that of the evil and degrading surroundings. Not only are there the evil moral influences of overcrowding, but also the contact with elements of population already deteriorated by a generation of tenement house life. The fresh arrivals are thrown into contact with the corrupt remnants of Irish immigration which now make up the beggars, drunkards, thugs, and thieves of those quarters. The results can easily be predicted. The Italian laboring population is temperate when it comes to this country; but under the evil conditions and influences of the tenement district disorderly resorts have been opened, and drinking and other vices are spreading. The Hebrews show tendencies to vices from which formerly they were free. The law does not protect these immigrants, and it is charged that the city permits every kind of inducement for the extension of immorality, drunkenness, and crime. Thus the immigrant is likely to deteriorate and degenerate in the process of Americanization, instead of becoming better in this new world. He has indeed little chance. If he does not become a pauper or criminal or drunkard, it will be because he is superior to his environment. _III. The Sweat-shop Peril_ [Sidenote: An Awful Peril]