200,000 Italian immigrants are now landing at this port during
every twelve months. These immigrants are almost entirely poor peasants
who cannot speak our language. In order that these people may get a fair
start in this new and, to them, strange country, and that they may
become familiar as soon as possible with our laws, habits, and customs,
help and instruction of various kinds must be given them. To furnish
these either freely or at the lowest possible cost, is the object of The
Society for Italian Immigrants.

[Sidenote: A Real Service]

"Accordingly, in its work the Society employs agents to look after the
needs of the immigrants at Ellis Island; it runs an escort service, by
which competent persons are furnished, at nominal cost, to take
immigrants to their destination; it conducts an employment agency; it
maintains an information bureau; it cooeperates with the United States
authorities to enforce the Immigration Laws; it manages labor camps for
contractors; it wages war on all persons engaged in swindling
immigrants; it is engaged in breaking up the padrone system in all its
forms; and lastly and generally, it does all it can to help immigrants,
so that as soon as possible they may become self-supporting and
self-respecting citizens, a benefit and not a detriment to this
country."

[Sidenote: Grants from Italian Government]

The Society is supported by voluntary contributions, and by grants to
the amount of about $7,000 a year from the Italian government. The
Society has met with the approval of the police department of the city,
the United States authorities at Ellis Island, and the Italian Royal
Department of Emigration, and of all individuals who have made
themselves familiar with what it is doing. There is also a Boston
Italian Society, organized in 1902, to protect newcomers from sharpers,
thieves, and fraudulent persons; also from the frauds of bankers and
padrones. The Italian government has given $1,000 a year to this
Society.

[Sidenote: Hebrew and Other Societies]

A similar work is done by the United Hebrew Charities, and the Removal
Bureau established by the Jews in New York in 1901. Through this agency
in the past three years over 10,000 of the Russian or Roumanian Jews
have been kept from increasing the overcrowded population of the ghetto
and swelling the sum of sweat-shop misery. While the number distributed
is small compared with the steady inflow (5,525 sent out in 1903, while
43,000