These modern Greeks have retained much of their past, stored in their memories at least, and scarcely one of those whom I have met but knows the Iliad and the Odyssey, or whose black eyes do not sparkle proudly when he recounts the glory of those Attic days.
They are still eager to know, even more eager to tell what they know, and a brave front is not the least part of the equipment of the modern Greek. A consuming pride which amounts to conceit, shuts his eyes to his own faults as well as to the virtues of other races, and he will long hold himself aloof from the hopper which grinds us all into the same kind of grist.
“Where do these men come from, Mr. B?” I asked the keeper of the classic bar of the “Acropolis.” “They are all Athenians.” Every Greek is, although cradled in some island unrenowned either in the past or the present. “Why do they come to Chicago? To make money?” I answer my own question. “Oh, no!” replies the classic barkeeper, delicately ironical. “They are not poor, no Greek is ever poor, even if he cannot buy five cents’ worth of black olives.” “Do they come here because they have a better chance?” “Chance? why, everyone of these men was on the way to become a Demarch (Mayor). They have come here to learn American ways, and incidentally to enrich American culture by their presence.”
Full of this pride and confidence in themselves, they are nevertheless ready to blacken our boots for ten cents, and they do it remarkably well, displacing negroes and Italians, until later, they open stores and sell American candies to an undiscriminating public, hungry for the cheap sweets. No labour is too hard for them, although they prefer to stand behind the counter. More or less, all the Greeks will finally be in trades of some kind, and monopolists in all of them. At present, their eyes are on bootblacking and confectionery stores, nearly every town of any size in the United States being invaded by them, so that their presence is beginning to be felt.
The modern Greek still has the license of the poet, and he uses the license whether he has the poetry or not. I think he is happiest when he exaggerates to no one’s hurt; albeit, like the rest of us he does not always stop to ask whether it hurts or not. Conceit and deceit are as close relatives as poetry and lying, and to Greeks and Americans they often look strangely alike.