amilies be imported,
and then as soon as their contracts expired they left the planters to
become small farmers, and are now the backbone of the coffee industry.
They and their children are nearly half of the "Caucasian" element of
30,000. In Massachusetts they are of two distinct types, the whites from
the Azores and the blacks from the Cape Verde Islands, the latter
plainly a blend of Portuguese and Africans. Their standards of living
are similar to those of the Italians, though they are distinguished by
their cleanliness and the neatness of their homes.

=Syrians and Armenians.=--That the recruiting area of American immigration
is extending eastward is no more clearly evident than in the recent
migration of Syrians and Armenians. These peoples belong to the
Christian races of Asiatic Turkey, whence they are escaping the
oppressions of a government which deserves the name of organized robbery
rather than government. Within the past thirty years many thousand
Syrians of Mount Lebanon have emigrated to Egypt and other
Mediterranean countries, to the dependencies of Great Britain and South
America. Six thousand of them came to the United States in 1906. They
belong mainly to the Greek Church or the Maronite branch of the Roman
Catholic Church, and it is mainly American missionary effort that has
diverted them to the United States. Unlike other immigrants, they come
principally from the towns, and are traders and pedlers. Broadly
speaking, says an agent of the Charity Organization Society of New York,
"the well-intentioned efforts of the missionaries have been abused by
their proteges.... It is these alleged proselytes who have contributed
largely to bring into relief the intrinsically servile character of the
Syrian, his ingratitude and mendacity, his prostitution of all ideals to
the huckster level.... As a rule they affiliate themselves with some
Protestant church or mission, abandoning such connections when no longer
deemed necessary or profitable."[54]

The Armenian migration began with the monstrous Kurdish atrocities of
recent years, instigated and supported by the Turkish government.
Armenians are a primitive branch of the Christian religion, and at an
early date became separated from both the Greek and Roman churches. They
are among the shrewdest of merchants, traders, and money-lenders of the
Orient, and, like the Jews, are hated by the peasantry and persecuted by
the government. Like the Jews also, religious p