200 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
than 80 per cent, of the Italians settle in the states of the northern divisions, and that from 75 per cent, to 85 per cent, of these concentrate in the large cities. Remembering now the arts and trades of the Italians, as established by the data given previously, it is seen that, while more than 60 per cent, of them are peasants and farmers, instead of going to the agricultural districts, they come to increase the urban populations of the United States.
The concentration of the Italians in the large cities is as detri- mental to themselves as it is to the United States. The peasant who establishes himself in a large American city cannot be any- thing but a laborer; all of his technical qualities are lost both to himself and to the country which harbors him. The Italian peas- ant, who has had centuries of experience in tilling the land, who understands all kinds of cultivation, who is not only expert in viniculture, but also in the culture of all the vegetables and fruits of his new country, is giving but the minimum part of his pro- ductive habits, i. e., his physical force.
The evils of concentration do not consist only in this disper- sion of energy, or rather this mistaken employment of forces ; they are not only economic evils, but they extend also to the moral and political fields. In fact, the Italian immigrant as a laborer, alternating only between stone-breaking and ditching, remains an alien to the country. The immigrant, to whatever nationality he may belong, does not feel himself a part of the collectivity as long as no ties, first economic, then moral, are formed to attach him to the new soil. The laborer cannot form these ties while he remains a machine, pure and simple, furnishing only brute force, and no special interest can be felt in the work he accom- plishes. Thus the Italian immigrant, thrust into the large cities, surrounded and outclassed by those who do not understand him and whom he does not understand, shuts himself in with his fellow-countrymen and remains indifferent to all that happens outside of the quarters inhabitated by them. Although renoun- cing the idea of repatriation, because he knows the economic conditions in his own country forbid, and becoming an American citizen, he remains always a stranger to the new country.
The crowding into the large American cities brings other
