Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Our Slavic Fellow Citizens No critic, perhaps, will be so alive to the defects of this study as is the author, yet it is hoped that the book may have a value of its own. It is at least based upon first hand inquiry both in Europe and in America; and both are necessary. Acquaintance with any immigrant people in America only is not enough. The naturalist might as well study the habits of a lion in a menagerie or of a wild bird in a cage. To understand the immigrant we should know him in the conditions which have shaped him, and which he has shaped, in his own village and among his own people; we should study the culture of which he is a living part, but which he is for the most part powerless to transport with him to his new home. He must, however, be known also as he develops in America in an environment curiously and intricately blended of old and new elements. Convinced of this, I spent the greater part of the year 1905 in Austria-Hungary, studying emigration on the spot, and over a year in visiting Slavic colonies in the United States, ranging from New York to Colorado, and from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Galveston. California was unfortunately not reached. One autumn was spent as a boarder in the family of a Bohemian workingman in New York City. Everywhere in Europe and this country, whether or not furnished with letters of introduction, I found Slavs of all classes and kinds ready to show me kindness and lend me intelligent and cordial assistance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.