case of the Slavic Jewess as one who has certainly arrived. From
others the gift has still to come. From the Italian girl it will come
in good time, for they are beginning to enter the unions now, and from
the lips of their own fellow-countrywomen even Italian mothers will
learn to accept for their daughters the gospel they will not listen to
from foreigners like ourselves. The most severely handicapped of all
the nationalities so far, to my thinking, is the Polish. They are what
is called pure Slavs, that is, with no Jewish blood. They are peasant
girls and cannot be better described than they are in a pamphlet
on "The Girl Employed in Hotels and Restaurants," published by the
Juvenile Protective League to Chicago.

In these places Polish girls are chosen for the following reasons:

1. Because they come of strong peasant stock, and accomplish a large
amount of work.

2. They are very thorough in what they do.

3. They are willing to take low wages.

4. They are very submissive, that is, they never protest.

5. They are ignorant of the laws of this country, and are easily
imposed upon.

6. They never betray their superiors, no matter what they see.

What a scathing indictment of the American people is set forth in this
brief summing up!

The trades that swallow up these strong, patient, long-enduring
creatures are work in the meat-canning plants, and dish-washing and
scrubbing in restaurants and hotels. These really valuable qualities
of physical strength and teachableness, unbalanced by any sense of
what is due to themselves, let alone their fellow-workers, prove their
industrial ruin.

It is only when they are fortunate enough to get into a better class
of work, and when they chance upon some well-organized establishment
and are drawn into the union as a matter of course that we find Polish
girls in unions at all. Intellectually they are not in the running
with the Russian Jewess and the peasant surroundings of their
childhood have offered them few advantages. One evening, for instance,
there were initiated into a glove-workers' local seventeen new Polish
members. Of these two only were able to read and write English, and of
the remainder not more than half were able to read and write Polish.
As to what is to be the later standing and the ultimate contribution
of the Polish girl, I cannot hazard a guess. I only know that she
possesses fine qualities which we are not utilizing and which we may
be obliter