7. It would give resident labor in the cities a chance to organize at the lower levels and develop the discipline of selfgovernment instead of mob.action.

8. It would put a new and constructive pressure on employers to cut down by invention the bulk of unskilled occupations, the most wasteful and humanly destructive of all work.

9. It would bring about a fair living, a household wage, in such routine and semi-skilled occupations as remained.

10. It would tend to change mining settlements and mill towns from sleeping and feeding quarters into communities.

IMMIGRATION AND THE LIVING WAGE

THE

JOHN MITCHELL

HE present year has witnessed an immigration to this country greater than any that has ever occurred in the history of any nation. During the year ending June 30, 1903, 857,000 people from various parts of the world landed at the ports of the United States and either settled in the seaboard cities or made their way into the interior. At no time in the history of the world has a movement of such stupendous proportions taken place. The immigrants to this country in the single year 1903 were probably much in excess of the total number of arrivals in the present territory of the United States during the two centuries from 1607 to 1820.

The movement of immigrants from Europe to the United States during the last three generations has dwarfed by comparison all former movements of populations. During this period over twenty million immigrants have landed on these shores. These men, hailing from all the countries of Europe and of the world, have peopled the vast territory of the United States, have intermarried with one another and with the native stock, and have formed, the American nation as it exists to-day. In the cities of our seaboard, in the Middle West, on the transMississippi prairies, and throughout the broad expanse of our Northwest, in almost every state north of Mason and Dixon's line, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, large sections of the population are either foreign-born or the children of immigrants. In the year 1900 there were over ten million persons in the United States of foreign birth and over twenty-six million of foreign birth or foreign parentage. About two fifths of all the white inhabitants of the United States are the sons or daughters of parents one or both of whom are foreign-born. These immigrants and children of immigrants represent some of the best elements in the American population, and the American

citizens of foreign birth and parentage are, on an average, as patriotic, as loyal, and as valuable citizens as those of native ancestry.

The tide of immigration to the United States has had many ebbs and flows. Immigration has steadily increased, reaching a maximum point in periods of prosperity and falling off greatly in periods of depression. In the year 1854 immigration reached a high water mark with the arrival of 428,000, and in 1882 789,000 landed. This point was not again reached until the present year, 1903, when 857,000 immigrants arrived.

Within the last two decades a change has taken place in the character of immigration, which in the eyes of many people portends evil for American workmen. In the early years of immigration, when it was difficult, if not actually dangerous, to come to the United States, there was a natural selection of the best and hardiest inhabitants of the old world, men willing to risk their all in going to a new country. The greater ease and cheapness of transportation have now given a stimulus to large classes of persons who in former years could not have come. The cost of transportation and the time required have, upon the whole, been reduced, and the sources of immigration have also shifted. Formerly, the great majority of immigrants came from England, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, from countries, in other words, where conditions of life and labor were, to some extent, comparable to those of the United States. At the present time, the source of immigration has shifted from northern and western to eastern and southern Europe, and from men with a higher to men with a lower standard of living. I do not desire to state that the moral character and mental capacity of the new immigrants are lower than those of the immigrants of former days; but it is quite clear that the standard of living has been reduced in consequence of the change in the source of immigration from countries in which wages are high to countries in which wages are low. The amount of money which the average immigrant brings with him has steadily decreased, and the immigrant from southern and eastern countries has, at the start, a smaller sum to protect him from starvation or the sweatshop than has the immigrant from northern or western Europe. The illiteracy of the immigrant has also become

more pronounced. This illiteracy, amounting in some cases from sixty-five to seventy-five per cent, debars the newly arrived immigrant from many trades, makes it more difficult for him to adapt himself to American conditions and American manners of thought, and renders it almost inevitable that he fall into the hands of the sweater and exploiter. The efforts made by steamship companies to incite and overstimulate the immigration of thousands of illiterate peasants tend to inject unnaturally into the American labor market a body of men unskilled, untrained, and unable to resist oppression and reduced wages.

The practically unrestricted immigration of the present day is an injustice both to the American workingman, whether native or foreign-born, and to the newly landed immigrant himself. As a result of this practically unrestricted and unregulated immigration, the congestion of our large cities is so intense as to create abnormally unhealthy conditions. In New York, which has at present a foreign-born population of over one and one quarter millions, the congestion has resulted in the erection of enormous tenement buildings, in the fearful overcrowding of the slums, and in the normal presence of an oversupply of unskilled labor. The arrival in great numbers of immigrants without knowledge of English, without the ability to read or write the language of their own country, without money, and sometimes without friends, renders it inevitable that they accept the first work offered them. The average immigrant from eastern and southern Europe brings with him from eight to ten dollars, which is about the railroad fare from New York to Pittsburg and is hardly sufficient to support him for two weeks. It is inevitable, also, that he remain where he lands and take the work offered him on the spot. The result is a supply of labor in the large cities in excess of a healthy demand, and a consequent lowering of wages, not only in the cities in which the immigrants remain, but in those in which the articles are produced that compete with the sweatshop products.

From the point of view of the great employers of labor there is an apparent advantage in keeping the doors wide open. The great manufacturers of the country, while anxious to shut out the products of the pauper labor of Europe, desire to have as much cheap labor within their own factories as possible. The

great mine owners have eagerly taken advantage of the ever flowing current of low-priced labor, not only to reduce wages,but to hold this reserve army of unskilled workers as a club over the head of the great mass of employees. The immigrant who comes here in the hope of bettering his condition, is subjected to the exhausting work of the sweatshop, is forced to toil excessively long hours under unsanitary conditions, or is compelled to perform work under the padrone system, and is liable to be exploited and defrauded in many ways. The apprenticeship of the newly arrived immigrant is hard indeed, but it could very well be remedied if the state should so regulate immigration as to enable the newcomer to protect himself from extortion and exploitation.

The extent to which immigration, if unrestricted, might go was foreshadowed by the influx of Chinese which began about a generation ago. For a number of years the doors of the United States were thrown wide open to the importation of immigrants, practically, if not legally, under contract, from a country with a population of four hundred millions. The result of this immigiation was seen in a reduction of the wages of labor upon the Pacific coast; and there can be no doubt that the admission of Chinese, if unchecked, would have resulted in the creation of an enormous Mongolian population in our West and the practical industrial subjugation of that portion of the country by the Chinese. It is a well-known fact that the cheaper worker, when he is able to compete tends to drive out the better, just as in the currency of a nation, bad money will drive out good money. Through the activity of the trade-unions, however, the Chinese were, in 1882, excluded and in 1902 this law was reenacted.

The trade-unions also secured, in the year 1885, the enactment of a law rendering illegal the importation of workmen under contract. Formerly, in the case of a strike, the employer was able to contract for the importation of large numbers of foreigners, who, with lower ideals and without any knowledge of American trade-unionism, took the places of the strikers and effectually aided the employer. The trade-unions have also been energetic in their attempts to secure a further regulation of the conditions of immigration in such a manner that both the present inhabitants of the United States and the immigrants who come