8

The Emigration of Italian Workers

(1899)

This presentation was made by Bishop Scalabrini at the XVI Italian Catholic Congress held in Ferrara in 1899. It was first published in Atti e Documenti del XVI Congresso Cattolico Italiano, Opera dei Congressi e dei Comitati Cattolici in Italia (Proceedings and Documents of the XVI Italian Catholic Congress, organization of Catholic Conventions and of the Catholic Committees in Italy), Venice, 1889. The Organization of Catholic Conventions and of Catholic Committees in Italy had the task of uniting Italian Catholics in a common and coordinated action in defense of the rights of the Holy See and of the rights of Catholics to participate in religious and social events during a time of tense relations between Church and State after the political unification of Italy and the loss of the temporal power of the Papacy. As a result of Bishop Scalabrini’s talk – who, contrary to his host, favored reconciliation between Italy and the Vatican, the Organization voted to promote assistance to emigrants.

Bishop Scalabrini says that emigration is a natural right, a security valve to reestablish balance between a nation’s resources and its productive capacity. The increasing emigration flow from Italy entails material, moral, and religious risks for the people moving abroad. Fortunately, Parliament debated some new emigration bills that would eliminate emigration agents, protect remittances, and substitute civil service among the migrants for military service for would be missionaries. The Bishop also asks that Italian Catholics become officially engaged in assistance to emigrants and that the leaders of the Organization should introduce in their regional, diocesan and parochial committees and

explicit concern for the religious, economic and civil welfare of so many brothers and sisters compelled to emigrate.

I have always ardently desired that Italian Catholics would also concern themselves with our emigration in these solemn meetings. New light would be shed on this serious problem; help and comfort would come to our brethren overseas; new blessings would pour over the already much-deserving institution of Catholic Congresses in Italy.

Imagine then, gentlemen, with how much pleasure I accepted the invitation to address you now on this topic! I will speak informally, as is done among friends, asking right now for your indulgence.

I intend to give you an idea of this vast problem. Therefore, I beg the distinguished President not to check his watch too much and to let the bell rest. . . . In any case, I will be discreet. Although emigration deserves attention, as it is for the first time a topic in our Congresses, it does not have the right to annoy, and much less to steal the place of other not less important issues. Without further ado, I start my exposition.

Emigration, gentlemen, is a law of nature. The physical as well as the human world are subject to the mysterious force of nature. This force shakes and mingles the elements of life, without destroying them. It transports the organisms born in a specific place and scatters them through space, changing them and perfecting them in such a way that the miracle of creation is renewed in every instant. The seeds emigrate on the wings of winds. Plants emigrate from continent to continent, carried by water currents. Birds and animals emigrate. More than all others, man emigrates, now as part of a group, now individually. Always, however, he is an instrument of that Providence that presides over human destiny and guides it, even through catastrophes, toward the ultimate goal, that is the improvement of man on earth and the glory of God in heaven.

Divine Revelation tells us this. History and modern biology teach us this. Only by drawing from this triple source of truth will we be able to deduce the laws regulating the migration phenomenon and to establish norms of practical wisdom that should govern it in all its rich variety of forms.

These sources tell us that emigration is a natural, inalienable right. It is a safety valve that sets a balance between the wealth and the productive power of a people.

It is a source of prosperity for those who leave and those who remain; it relieves the land of excessive population and enhances the value of the manpower that stays. In short, it can be a national or individual good or evil, depending on the manner and conditions under which it takes place. It is, however, almost always a human good, since it opens new avenues to commerce; it facilitates the diffusion of the findings of science and industries; it merges and perfects civilizations and broadens the concept of fatherland beyond physical boundaries by making the world man’s fatherland. Above all, it is good because like the ancient greatness of the Roman Empire prepared by heaven for the easier and more rapid diffusion of Christianity, it wonderfully serves to extend everywhere the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.

The Italians scattered in the various parts of the world, in the cities of the Mediterranean, in the South and North of far away Australia, in the scorched African plains, and in the endless prairie of the pampas and of the United States, surpass three million in number. This immense army of workers is fed by a large emigration flow that reaches four hundred thousand annually. About two hundred thousand seasonal workers, a true ebb and flow of people, provide the international labor market with active and intelligent workers who bring back home hard-earned savings and deserved praise. Almost as many are these who, pushed by misery, cross the ocean in the hope of quick fortune. In most cases, however, they end up by settling in the host country and forming a new fatherland, if not for themselves, then for their children.

The figures given are huge. However, gentlemen, the emigration phenomenon doesn’t seem to have reached its height. In spite of the difficulties created by the law enacted two years ago that limits the action of the emigration agents, the disillusionment and cries of sorrow that once in a while cross the Atlantic and make us shudder and blush, and the government prohibition, the sorrowful exodus continues. The fact is, gentlemen, that Italian emigration, that had and has increased because of our sad conditions especially in agriculture, that was and is incited beyond measure by the emigration agents and by the necessity of hands to replace Brazil’s freed slaves, responds at the same time to a true need of the Italian people and correlates with the annual increase in population. It is not then, gentlemen, a question of a passing phenomenon, but of a phenomenon with all the characteristics of a permanent fact. Italians are a people with a higher annual population increase. They increase

by 11 and 12 per thousand, in this surpassed only by the Netherlands which boasts an excess of births over deaths of 13 per thousand.

Despite the great emigration, the population of the Kingdom increases and in a few years our beautiful country will have a maximum density.

According to exact calculations, if the population grows as in the past twenty years, in a century there will be 100 million Italians. Even if we grant that, given a large internal relocation, ten million more could be hosted within the boundaries of the Kingdom and thus reach 45 to 50 million. Italy could contain such a number if all its regions had the population of another Lombardy where there will always remain an immense population of 50 million. In the next century, this population will disperse throughout the world, pushed by an irresistible force, the fight for life: 50 million Italians, gentlemen, scattered on the face of the earth like leaves carried off by a whirlwind!

But where is this great mass of people, this flood of Italian blood going?

The majority of them, sad to say, do not know where they are going. For them America is the country where those that leave the motherland in search of fortune go South or North, in temperate or tropical zones, in healthy or pernicious climates, on fertile lands or lands more sterile than those they abandon, in populated centers or in deserted areas, they don’t know. They go to America, often with the added burden of a signed blank contract that places, if not their person, then their work at the disposal of any master.

In this way, emigration agents sent a rather large number of emigrants to Brazil to take the place of the already insufficient manpower for the needs of agriculture, made even more inadequate, as I said, by the abolition of slavery. Thus, in New York the so-called patron system, condemned by a bill of the Senate of the United States, massed together an immense number of migrants, attracted there by a thousand promises, unworthily exploited and then abandoned, so as to make room for the new arrivals, new victims of sordid gains. In this way, finally, in Chile, not to mention many other cases, several thousands of our countrymen, lured to go there by ridiculous lies, find neglect and destitution. Here in the motherland ignorance and poverty make them easy victims of emigration agents. Down there isolation and destitution make them very easy prey of exploitation, always and everywhere without feelings of compassion,

and there more than in other places. Thus, instead of appropriate and well-paid work, instead of abundant and healthy nourishment, those unfortunates find a rough job – when they find it – a remuneration that is a real mockery, given the toil, the dangers, the rising cost of basic necessities. Then, they find the little improvement in diet paid at a high price with the frequent lack of a civilized life.

But who could describe, gentlemen, the dangers our poor emigrants meet with regard to their religious life? All is said by saying that for the most part they live there without ever seeing the face of a priest and the cross of a bell tower. Abandoned therefore to themselves, they either give in to the most disheartening indifference or they desert the faith of their fathers. I will tell you something, gentlemen, that constricts the heart to think of it. In sixty years, according to official calculations, 40 million Catholics emigrated to a great American Republic. Now, even supposing that 20 million returned, which never happened, Catholics living there should reach the figure of at least 20 million, taking into account births and deaths. Instead, according to the last ecclesiastical census, the number of Catholics does not reach, or certainly it did not reach then, eight million. Where did the other 12 million go?

They lose the sense of nationality, and with that, it hurts the heart to think about it, the sense of the Catholic Faith. They fall victim to Protestant propaganda, unfortunate victims of the sects, more active and numerous there than in other places. Gentlemen, allow a Bishop to weep before you over such misfortune! The lack of the spiritual bread that is the word of God, the impossibility of reconciliation with Him, the absence of worship and of every encouragement to do good, exercise a deadly influence, gentlemen, on the morale of the people. An educated person is also subjected to such a danger, but to a lesser degree: his education, culture, doctrinal knowledge of religion somehow help in safeguarding him from cold indifference. He can, if nothing else, associate himself in mind to the divine mysteries celebrated elsewhere and nourish his mind with moral readings. But how could a poor peasant rise to such sublime thoughts? For him, more than for others, the idea of religion is inseparably united to that of Church and priest. Where every visual religious display is silent, little by little he forgets his duties toward God, and Christian life weakens and dies in his heart. The thirst for truth and the desire for the infinite, however, do not die in him! “Man,” says a modern unbelieving philosopher, “naturally needs religion and

worship. He is religious by nature, as he is rational by nature. Better yet, he is religious because he is rational.” This need is more deeply felt as it is less possible to satisfy it. This is evident among our migrants, even where the most despicable materialism reigns supreme due to the lack of priests. Imagine, then, gentlemen, how much that need must be alive among those – and they are the majority – who still feel the dignity of their own person and hear the claims of their own conscience.

Inside me still resounds with sorrow the choice of a poor Lombard peasant, who came to Piacenza two years ago from the far away Tibagy Valley of Brazil, to personally request a Missionary in the name of that large colony – “Father,” he said to me with a moving voice, “if you knew how much we have suffered! How much we have wept at the bedside of our dying dear ones, who bewildered asked us for a priest . . . and we could not have him! Oh God, we can no longer live, we can no longer live this way!” The poor man continued with a clumsy yet eloquent language describing really heartrending scenes. I do confess it: never before as in that moment I wished I had the vigor of my youth. I never regretted so much as in that moment the impossibility of changing the golden cross of the Bishop with the wooden one of the Missionary so as to fly and assist those unfortunates, truly unfortunate, because to the other dangers is added for them that of falling into the abyss of desperation.

At enormous cost every year our poor immigrants send several delegations to Piacenza to implore religious assistance. Missionaries and sometimes even consuls claim an increase of personnel.

It is then that I beg God to stir up in our young priests the ancient spirit of apostolate, imperishable glory of the Italian clergy. Vocations, unfortunately, are not adequate to the needs, and missionaries must be formed seriously, solidly.

Ten years ago, when for the first time I took note of the plight of our countrymen abroad in a pamphlet that had so much repercussion in the hearts of good people and found so much agreement in words and deeds among every category of persons, I could not imagine, gentlemen, the mountain of evils and all the dangers the poor immigrant has to face. One can even say that everything conspires against him, and that his troubles often begin before the exodus from his humble hovel when the emigration agent causes him to leave by flashing before his eyes the easy conquest of wealth and directs him where he wishes it and finds it convenient, not where the interest of the immigrant would suggest. His troubles

follow him along the often disastrous journey and accompany him at his arrival in places ravaged by terrible diseases and in jobs for which he is often unprepared, under employers made inhuman either by the insatiable greed for gold or by the habit of considering the workers as an inferior being. These troubles worsen on account of the thousand snares that wickedness holds out for them in foreign countries whose language and customs they don’t know and where they live in an isolation that is often the death of body and soul.

I could cite numerous facts to demonstrate how salty and by how many tears the bread of the wretched immigrants is soaked. Lured down there by vain hopes or by false promises, they find troubles on all sides: abandonment, hunger, and not rarely death, where they thought of finding paradise. The mirage colored by their need made them see El Dorado without thinking that the violent simoon of reality scatters in an instant the enchanted cities of dreams. Unfortunates! Exhausted by fatigue, climate, insects, they fall down disheartened on the earth made fruitful by their sweat at the edge of virgin forests that they knew how to clear, but not for themselves or their children. Struck by that tragic and gentle illness that is nostalgia, perhaps dreaming of the motherland that was unable to give them bread, they asked in vain for the minister of the holy religion of their fathers that would soothe the terrors of agony with the immortal hopes of faith.

Gentlemen, the picture is not a happy one, but it is the true story of thousands and thousands of our countrymen overseas as I gathered it from the reports of my Missionaries, and as it has been written and reported to me by those who have been witnesses and part of those most sad emigrations.

In all this what saddens the most is the thought that the major part of the religious, moral, and economic ills to which our emigrations is exposed could be avoided or much reduced if the ruling classes of Italy were conscious of the duties that bind them to their expatriate brethren. In fact, gentlemen, the immense American countries are not so unhealthy as not to offer a tranquil corner to our emigration. Not all lands are so controlled by speculation that some fertile and reasonably priced could not be found still that could assure a fair reward to the workers. It is all a question of pointing them out to our emigrants. But when was this done in Italy? When was the emigrant told: be careful, the contract you are offered, the regions pointed out to you, ambushes are

hidden. Those regions are unsafe, unhealthy, sterile, or even if fertile, they are so cut off from every means of communication, so isolated from human contact that the fruit of your labor will remain unsold, leaving you rich and poor at the same time. I repeat, when was this done in Italy? At the most some shout a little, and some moan under the lash of events that offend national pride in those brothers of ours. There are cries and expression of compassion and even calls for some government measures. Then what? All is hushed up, all is forgotten, all is calmed down in the deceiving quiet of the wave that hides its victim and waits for new ones.

What should be done then?

The European nations, like England, France and Portugal, that derived from their emigration power, wealth and glory, and others, like Germany and tiny Belgium that have recently joined the number of colonizing countries, should serve us as incentives and examples.

Among these peoples there is a noble competition between governments and private agencies, and priests and laymen in planning and implementing new strategies. They want to direct those about to emigrate as well as come to the aide of those already gone, from the moment they leave their poor houses to the time they reach their destination. Even after their settlement these immigrants experience the beneficent hand of the motherland under the triple form of religion, power and assistance, that advises them, defends them, helps them. In this way, while preparing to leave their native village with perhaps a curse in their heart, under the beneficent influence of that care they change the curse into words of blessing and take along as a heavenly vision that pleasant memory. They take courage in life’s struggles and fearlessly and confidently face the future. In the middle of perils, even when they feel more lonely among new people, they know their far-away motherland, alert and provident, watches over them. Thus the ideas of motherland and nationality are not extinguished across the ocean. Rather, they are strengthened because of the continued contact with priests and teachers who share with the immigrants the sacred love of God, church and motherland.

Algiers and Tunis, gentlemen, are an eloquent proof of what the Catholic religion can do for the development and growth of national welfare and for the sanctification of souls in the colonies. Nobody ignores the great merit of that great man, Cardinal LaVigerie, who directed the entire religious organization of the French colonies with admirable wisdom

from the rebuilt walls of the glorious African metropolis. There, where in July 1830, there were only a few missionaries, confined within four walls and kept in sight by the diffident tyranny of a Muslim satrap, now flourishing dioceses rise. The chair of St. Augustine has been raised again and from the ruins where migrations had thrown it, churches, convents, schools, orphanages, and hospitals stand up. The beneficent action of the Cross of Christ comforts then the immigrants and reassures them. It keeps up and preserves their religious principles from a corruption that little by little would lead them to reject not only faith, but also their duty toward the country of origin.

Years ago I received a visit from a distinguished member of the German Parliament who worked for his migrant countrymen with great energy. He told me that in Germany and Belgium it would be difficult to find a parish without a committee for the protection of German migrants. In these parishes every year a collection is taken up in church exclusively for the schools and churches of their migrant brethren and every family, even the poorest, makes it a duty to contribute its donation. The deceased Bishop of Munster alone at different times sent 92 priests of his diocese to America. He united them in a congregation and made them take religious vows so that none should be tempted to work for himself, but all united should work together for their countrymen abroad. “My diocese,” once that saintly old man told me, “has lost nothing, because the apostolic spirit has been rekindled in my clergy and for every priest I send over there, almighty God sends me two clerics truly worthy of their missions.”

In these ten or twelve years, gentlemen, since so often one speaks of emigration and immigrants, what has been done among us? It would not be true to say that as much has been done as could and should have been done.

Thanks be to God, there is no lack of associations for religious and civil protection that emerged and divided this new field of activity among themselves by spontaneous selection.

I do not mention my work: it is sufficiently known to you and I don’t want to take advantage any longer of your patient kindness. I will only say that with confidence in God and His Providence, I undertook the difficult initiative to incite willing people to try something also in Italy, especially in the area of religious assistance. I thought if the clergy provides heroes who go to evangelize uncivilized peoples, how could it refuse

to give generous individuals who, with less danger, if not with less hardship, will go to assist our countrymen especially in the Americas among whom they may have perhaps friends and relatives, certainly fellow countrymen? To dry the tears of a moment, the rich and the poor of Italy vied in works of charity on many occasions: the first gave abundantly from their surplus, the others went short of food for themselves. What will they not do once they realize there is weeping to be stopped that has lasted for years and will continue for generations unless remedies are taken; once they consider there is a shame to be removed that shows us incapable in the eyes of foreigners and makes us contemptible before them?

Very soon I realized I had foreseen rightly. I met not only with applause and praise, but most importantly, with receptive hearts, generous spirits, vigorous wills, ready for action to the point of sacrifice.

First of all, I am pleased to mention the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII, in whose apostolic heart the sufferings of all his children find an echo. He decided to give his high protection to my work and, besides, was so kind as to praise and bless it, thus giving it the best support I could wish. Together with the Supreme Pontiff, support was given by the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith, the Italian Episcopate, the National Association for Assistance to Italian Missionaries. The public press, the most distinguished personalities among the laity, numberless priests, and not a few of you, gentlemen.

Three bills are about to be introduced in our Parliament, if no crises erupt: on emigration, on the protection of our immigrants’ savings, and on army recruiting. They contain excellent provisions and hopefully they will soon obtain government approval. Grievous abuses against our emigrants will be eliminated and a treacherous gap in our legislation will be filled.

Laws are not enough, however, to heal the wounds that afflict Italian emigration. Some of these wounds are in fact inherent in the nature of emigration; others come from remote causes that escape the control of laws. Such ills would not be uprooted even with the best laws of the world and numerous and perfect government officials. After all, everyone knows that governments and their officials are bound by customs and international practices, and either they cannot use certain remedies or, if they use them, they would only exacerbate the wounds they want to cure.

The work of the ruling classes, gentlemen, must begin right here where the work of law and government ends. How? First, through study and discussion of the great problem of emigration, (this is the prayer I address to

the leaders of the Catholic Movement), let religious, economic and civil welfare of all so many unfortunate brethren become an active concern of the action of parochial, diocesan and regional committees. Even material subsidies should be collected on behalf of the immigrants. Emigration should be strongly discouraged when it is recognized as disastrous; defended from snares and deceptive contracts, surrounded, in a word, by all those religious and civil aids that will make it strong, solid and I almost said invincible against its enemies, since in this case the security of one becomes the security of all.

In this regard, let us follow the generous thrust of our glorious Pontiff Leo XIII, whom God may preserve for many years in our affection, to the glory of the Church, the good of society. Let us help the Church in this work of redemption and salvation.

The church of Jesus Christ, which has pushed evangelical workers among the most savage people and to the most wild lands, has not forgotten and will never forget the mission entrusted to her by God to evangelize the children of the poor and the working classes. It will look always with a trembling heart to so many poor souls that, in forced isolation, are losing the faith of their fathers and with faith, every feeling of Christian and civil education. Yes, gentlemen, where the people are who work and suffer, there is the Church, because the Church is the mother, the friend, the patroness of the people and for them it will always have a word of comfort, a smile, a blessing.

At work, then, united and confident. The Holy Father has given us a most noble example and with his wise encyclical has set the limits of what is just and right in the social field. Within those limits Catholic action can and must develop without fear of mistakes.

In the midst of so many raging passions, class hatreds, physical and moral needs, the pacifying word of the clergy can be of critical importance for the triumph of good and truth. It can make the 19th century, that seems to want to go out among the sinister glares of a storm, end instead in a peaceful sunset that pretends a clearer and more tranquil dawn, where man may rest from so much conflict and may channel all his energies toward the peaceful development of true civilization and true progress.

Is it Utopia? Is it a dream? God forbid! In any case blessed again those who will have worked to achieve this goal: they will have well-deserved their religion and country.