began in the home in Poland.
Little was needed by the widow and her child, but even soup, black
bread, and onions they could not always get. At thirteen the girl was
handy at housekeeping, but the rent fell behind, and the mother decided
to leave Poland for America, where, "we heard, it was much easier to
make money. Mother wrote to Aunt Fanny, who lived in New York, and told
her how hard it was to live in Poland, and Aunt Fanny advised her to
come and bring me." Thousands could tell a similar story to that.
"Easier to make money" has allured multitudes to leave the old home and
land.

[Sidenote: A Russian]

A Lithuanian (Russian) tells how it was the traveling shoemaker that
made him want to come to America. This shoemaker learned all the news,
and smuggled newspapers across the German line, and he told the boy's
parents how wrong it was to shut him out of education and liberty by
keeping him at home. "That boy must go to America," he said one night.
"My son is in the stockyards in Chicago." These were some of his reasons
for going: "You can read free papers and prayer books; you can have free
meetings, and talk out what you think." And more precious far, you can
have "life, liberty, and the getting of happiness." When time for
military service drew near, these arguments for America prevailed and
the boy was smuggled out of his native land. "It is against the law to
sell tickets to America, but my father saw the secret agent in the
village and he got a ticket from Germany and found us a guide. I had
bread and cheese and vodka (liquor) and clothes in my bag. My father
gave me $50 besides my ticket." Bribery did the rest, and thus this
immigrant obtained his liberty and chance in America. The American idea
is leavening Russia surely enough.

[Sidenote: An Italian]

An Italian bootblack who already owns several bootblacking
establishments in this country, was trained to a beggar's life in
Italy, and ran away. "Now and then I had heard things about
America--that it was a far-off country where everybody was rich and that
Italians went there and made plenty of money, so that they could return
to Italy and live in pleasure ever after." He worked his passage as a
coaler, and was passed at Ellis Island through the perjury of one of the
bosses who wring money out of the immigrants in the way of commissions,
getting control of them by the criminal act at the very entrance into
American life.

A Greek peddler, a graduate o