Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria, countries that have been thrust forcibly into the world’s vision by the Great War, have sent several hundred thousand of their hardy peasantry to the United States.  The Montenegrins and Serbians, who comprise three-fourths of this migration, are virtually one in speech and descent.  They are to be found in New England towns and in nearly every State from New York to Alaska, where they work in the mills and mines and in construction gangs.  The response which these people make to educational opportunities shows their high cultural possibilities.

The Croatians and Dalmatians, who constitute the larger part of the southern Slav immigration, are a sturdy, vigorous people, and splendid specimens of physical manhood.  The Dalmatians are a seafaring folk from the Adriatic coast, whose sailors may be found in every port of the world.  The Dalmatians have possessed themselves of the oyster fisheries near New Orleans and are to be found in Mississippi making staves and in California making wine.  In many cities they manage restaurants.  The exceptional shrewdness of the Dalmatians is in bold contrast to their illiteracy.  They get on amazingly in spite of their lack of education.  Once they have determined to remain in this country, they take to American ways more readily than do the other southern Slavs.

Croatia, too, has its men of the sea, but in America most of the immigrants of this race are to be found in the mines and coke furnaces of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.  In New York City there are some 15,000 Croatian mechanics and longshoremen.  The silver and copper mines of Montana also employ a large number of these people.  It is estimated that fully one-half of the Croatians return to their native hills and that they contribute yearly many millions to the home-folks.

From the little province of Carniola come the Slovenians, usually known as “Griners” (from the German Krainer, the people of the Krain), a fragment of the Slavic race that has become much more assimilated with the Germans who govern them than any other of their kind.  Their national costume has all but vanished and with it the virile traditions of their forefathers.  They began coming to America in the sixties, and in the seventies they founded an important colony at Joliet, Illinois.  Since 1892 their numbers have increased rapidly, until today about 100,000 live in the United States.  Over one-half of these immigrants are to be found in the steel and mining towns of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, where the large majority of them are unskilled workmen.  Among the second generation, however, are to be found a number of successful merchants.