284                    THE ITALIAN CONTRIBUTION

CHAPTER XXVI

SOME POSITIVE MEASURES OF REFORM

HOW TO  ECONOMICALLY PRESERVE THE HIGH  PHY¬
SICAL   POWERS   OF   THE   RAW   IMMIGRANT   AND
FACILITATE THE PROCESS OF SYNTHETIZATION

ABOLITION OF "PADRONE" SYSTEM—As the
symposium in an earlier chapter showed, one of the
chief sources of value that the Italian immigrant has for
us is "labor." He has contributed the brawn that has
made possible the physical upbuilding of this nation and
the creation of America's physical wealth.

America however has been careless of this gift. The
Italian Consul for Western Pennsylvania reported in one
year over 500 deaths due to industrial accidents and as
Dr. Stella has shown, the loss of life that is entirely pre¬
ventable is higher among these people than among any
other of all the different races in America.

In Italy the immigrant never experienced such a
shocking waste of his offspring. Himself possessed of a
robust constitution and rugged fund of health he passed
on to his progeny substance and vitality of a like kind.
The social system however that permits such hygienic
conditions as is described by Dr. Stella, Dr. Guilfoy and
others makes great inroads upon this native fund of
health. In fact the very font itself is contaminated. For
it is true that in this country conditions not very long
ago permitted labor to be used for ten hours and even
more a day.* Relative to this Dr. Stella says, "I must
make mention of the effects of the extreme severity of

* Apart from the item of occupational diseases incurred thru
the slow wearing down of the human organism, there is the
important question of industrial accidents. While it is true
in America today fatalities arc few, only 2,337 out of 280,308
mishaps resulting in loss of life, nevertheless as W. C. Fisher
points out in his review of existing compensation laws in the
United States. . . . "there are hundreds of thousands injured....
which causes a more or less serious impairment of productive
power and earning capacity." (Vide Quarterly Journal of Eco¬
nomics, Vol. 30, p. 53.)                                                            .   ij^