The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and FlowSteiner, Edward Alfred
History
The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow
Steiner, Edward Alfred
United States -- Emigration and immigration
Luigi told me frankly that he committed thefts first from the till of
his father, a shopkeeper, who, upon the discovery of his son's
pilfering, beat him half to death and drove him out of the house. After
that the boy stole from any one and any place; because the "Society for
the Liberation of the People of Italy" needed money, first, last and all
the time, to carry on its ambitious schemes. Ultimately he was caught
and sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
I know something of the horrors of Southern Italian prisons, and I could
well believe that three such years would ripen rebellious thoughts into
desperate ones. Luigi left the prison with vengeance in his heart, slew
the judge who had sentenced him, and fled to America.
I have purposely robbed his story of all its patriotic and picturesque
elements, for I do not wish to glorify Luigi. He is just a type, perhaps
not a very fair type, of many of his countrymen whose coming to America
disturbs us and whose leaving it causes no regrets.
Luigi's further history was interesting to me because he knew some
things about America which I did not know. He had lived a number of
years in the state of New Jersey, which seems to be a sort of haven of
refuge for Trusts and Anarchists. During those years he had been in
intimate relation with our courts, jails, prisons and police. He had
plotted for them, with them and against them, and now was being sent
back in irons because (he said) his remaining in the United States would
embarrass certain officials. Luigi saw no great difference between
prisons here and in Italy; between jailers there and jailers here;
between judges on this side the water and on the other side. The only
difference that Luigi _did_ see was that over here they are much smarter
than in Italy.
There was but one good thing which Luigi experienced in America. They
had been good to his "kid." Over and over again he told me that, and
over and over again he blessed the good women of a certain New Jersey
town for being good to his "kid." Often as he cursed the police (police,
state and nation are one in the mind of Luigi and his kind) so often did
he bless two women at the edge of that New Jersey town, who had truly
revealed the heart of a nation, whose conscience had been falsely
revealed to him by the police and the petty courts.
Looking over the railing, the cabin passengers watched the murderer as
eagerly as those in the steerage, and when I returned after my interview
with him, every one clamoured for a report of the conversation. Many of
the men sneered at my suggestion that the murderer might be a victim of
circumstances.
"He ought to be shot!" was the brief but conclusive argument of several.
"We're not strict enough with them," said the man from Boston; and added
the information that shooting is too good for these Black Hands and
Anarchists. He called me an "unpractical sentimentalist." The man from
the West, however, took my part.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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