boasted forces for assimilating the foreign-born element have not been working as efficaciously as our optimistic ignorance of the facts had led us to believe. We have learned through sad experience that these forces need intelligent attention and direction; we have been taught that they must be given greater vigor if we are to become a homogeneous people and thus escape the danger of an internal division among ourselves. Of even greater importance, possibly, is the fact that there are millions of alien subjects among us who have not become and who do not intend to become American citizens.

In consequence of all this, as a nation and as a people we must now consciously and intelligently face a wholly new group of problems arising out of immigration. These problems are inextricably interwoven into our national destiny; they are a part of the working out of our democratic institutions; their solution depends upon our powers of economic and social assimilation. For many years to come the American people should solve every problem of immigration from the point of view of its relation to or its effect upon this assimilative ability. Our eyes should henceforth be focused upon this one solution; all other aspects of immigration should be made subordinate to it. It should consciously become of the very greatest importance to us as a people that the immigrants whom we welcome into our society to participate in the blessings and duties of our institutions should be an integral part of that society and not foreign to it. This view safeguards the permanent welfare of the alien who comes here to become a homogeneous part of us as well as the welfare of the people of the United States themselves.

There is abundant evidence that this view is coming to be that of the American people. It is reflected in the pass

age by Congress of the literacy test over the Presidential veto and in the present activities of innumerable societies and organizations which are being directed towards the Americanization of the alien. Manufacturers' associations, labor unions, religious bodies, societies of foreign born, boards of education, state and city Americanization departments or boards, the War and Interior Departments of the National Government, women's clubs, colleges and universities, libraries, community centers and service organizations, civic committees, the Boy Scouts of America, the Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations, Knights of Columbus, American Red Cross, and a host of similar organizations are now engaged in this laudable and very necessary work if America is to mean to the immigrant and the immigrant is to mean to America all that is necessary and vital to a homogeneous people. Recently a four days' session of an Americanization Conference was held in Washington under the auspices of the federal Department of the Interior.

While there may be differences as to the meaning of Americanization and disputes as to the best means to be employed to attain it, the principle of assimilation should be the fundamental rule of measurement to be applied to immigration generally as well as to any particular racial group within the immigration stream. It should be the basis of any additional legislation on immigration by Congress. Our more than one hundred years' experience of the effects of immigration has taught us the racial groups that do not assimilate American customs and do not become a homogeneous part of our population. Then, again, we know without question that if those who do assimilate more or less readily under favorable conditions are permitted to

(b) So far as possible, the aliens excluded should be those who come to this country with no intention to become American citizens or even to maintain a permanent resi

dence here, but merely to save enough, by the adoption, if necessary, of low standards of living, to return permanently to their own home country. Such persons are usually men unaccompanied by wives and. children.

(c) So far as possible the aliens excluded should also be those who, by reason of their personal qualities or habits, would least readily be assimilated or would make

the least desirable citizens.

In considering the bearing of immigration on industrial conditions and relations, the broad, fundamental principles enunciated by the Immigration Commission are still worthy of acceptation without reservation. The actual conditions which it found before the war do not exist at present, but the dominant tendency is toward a revival of these conditions. Whatever our constructive program for immigration may be, it should, above everything else, provide measures for the prevention of the development of such industrial conditions as unrestricted immigration had produced before the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in 1914.

THE EFFECTS OF THE WAR During the four years of the war immigration practically ceased as compared with the prewar period. It has been calculated that if immigration had continued at the same rate during the five years beginning July 1, 1914, as it had been during the five years preceding that date, a total of 6,316,425 newcomers would have entered the United States as contrasted with actual arrivals to the number of only 1,172,679. When the net immigration is considered the excess of immigrant arrivals over aliens leaving the country -the small accretion to our population and working forces during the

war period becomes even more apparent. During the five fiscal years, beginning with 1914 and ending with 1919, the net immigration was only 431,884, as against 3,316,146 during the five years preceding the war.1

A

This decline in the annual addition to our labor supply occurred in the face of an unprecedented industrial expansion to meet the requirements of the war and when the working forces of our mines, mills and factories were being reduced to supply men for our fighting forces. As a consequence, the excess in the labor supply quickly disappeared and finally the demand outran the supply. Through the attempted standardization of wages and working conditions by the government procurement agencies, recent immigrant workmen were arbitrarily placed on the same basis as the native born. Their earning power increased. permanent interest in the industries in which they worked and in the communities in which they lived was aroused by pronounced efforts towards their industrial assimilation and general Americanization which had hitherto been entirely lacking. Those who were called to the colors were taught to speak and write English and were thrown into daily contact with native Americans. Labor unions during the war period also successfully organized and brought to a practical belief in their tenets an unprecedented number of foreign-born workmen, as is shown by the growth in the textile, clothing, mining, iron and steel and other unions, and the part played by the immigrant workmen in the recent steel strike. In may be said in brief that the war period made possible a large measure of industrial assimilation of the recent immigrant workers. At the time of the signing of the Armistice, organized

1Immigration and the Labor Supply, by F. Leslie Hayford, Dupont Magazine, August. 1920.

labor, and the American wage-earners in general, had attained a position where they were exerting a far-reaching influence upon the foreign-born workers. The immigrants already resident here had ceased to be a menace to the aspirations of trade unionists, or to American standards of work and compensation.

THE POST-WAR PERIOD

During the two years which have elapsed since the cessation of hostilities this situation has entirely changed. Early in 1919 an exodus of foreign-born workmen began. Great numbers who had been debarred from communication with their home countries for several years were anxious to return to renew relations with their families and friends. Others wished to take the savings which they had accumulated during the war and purchase farms, homes or businesses, under the advantageous conditions offered in their devastated or impoverished home countries. Still others who elected to remain in this country used their savings to send for their wives, children or relatives. On the other hand, the people of Europe were turning their faces towards America as the hope of escape from oppressive taxes, unsatisfactory political conditions, or as the means of repairing the losses which they had suffered during the war. The net result was that, immediately following the Armistice, immigration began to grow in volume, but for many months the incoming tide was offset by the unprecedented number of departures of alien immigrants who had been here before the war, and the net gain in population was small. Moreover, the new arrivals consisted of an unusually large proportion of women and children, and as a consequence, no important additions were made to our skilled or unskilled labor forces.

Not until the beginning of the present year was there any noteworthy gain in arrivals over departures. For the entire fiscal year ending June 30, 1920, the excess of immigrant aliens admitted over immigrant aliens departing was only 141,686. The net gain in immigrant males was slightly less than 10,000, while the excess of female arrivals over departures was more than 150,000. During the past six months, however, there has been a steady growth of immigration which has overtaxed the government's facilities for handling the new arrivals, and which indicates a volume of immigration which will surpass all prewar records. The most significant aspect of the situation also consists in the reports from abroad as to what the future developments will be unless measures are taken by this country to restrict the incoming tide. Steerage accommodations are booked for months ahead, thousands of others from the countries of southern and eastern Europe are reported to be seeking passage, and the peoples of central Europe are stated to be awaiting the formal arrangement of peace and the removal of the existing barriers to embark for this country in unprecedented numbers.

Since the signing of the Armistice, discussion of the immigration question has passed through two distinct phases. The first centered around an agitation for the encouragement of immigration to replenish the unskilled labor supply which had been depleted during the war and by the unusual exodus of foreign-born workmen after the war. Estimates as to the labor needs of the country as put forward by the various interested persons and organizations ranged between three and four million unskilled workmen. Measures have been taken to encourage immigration and educational ef

forts have been made to persuade immigrant workmen already resident here that their real interests would be best subserved by permanent residence in the United States and not by returning to their home countries. These activities have evidently arisen from the belief of certain groups of large employers that in immigration not only lies the way for further industrial expansion but also for weakening the power of labor oragnizations and in destroying the ascendancy which wage-earners in general had secured from the war-time curtailment of the labor supply.

In the face of these conditions, labor until recently has appeared indifferent and inert. The increasing volume of immigration during the past few months, however, the rapid development of unemployment and the widespread propaganda which is being conducted by certain interests for an alleged open shop, has recently aroused the labor organizations to strong protests and to the demand for legislative action. The general recommendation has been made that the Congress should absolutely exclude all forms of immigration for a period of time sufficient for the formulation of a permanent policy which would permit the industrial assimilation according to American standards of the incoming immigrant labor supply. Thus far no specific or detailed proposals as to a permanent policy have been submitted. The general impression seems to be that the present session of the Congress, because of the pressure of fiscal matters, will not have time to prepare immigration legislation, and, pending real constructive action, temporary measures for restriction or absolute exclusion should be adopted.

The existing situation is undoubtedly fraught with the greatest significance, not only from the standpoint

of the relations between capital and labor, but also from the public point of view. Although the public is interested in the proper recruiting of our labor supply, the continuance of the present flow of immigration in the face of the existing business depression will lead to destitution and suffering in our industrial communities and in a large number of foreign-born workmen becoming public charges as was the case during the latter half of 1907 and the winter of 1908. winter of 1908. Even if unemployment were not developing, because of the absolute absence of housing facilities, deplorable congestion, unsanitary living conditions and general unwholesome conditions in industrial localities would inevitably follow a sudden influx of immigrants at this time. Our educational and other facilities for the Americanization of the newcomers from abroad are also woefully lacking. There is also the political danger from extreme, revolutionary agitation, which will be intensified if industrial conditions do not improve.

The menace to labor is acute and immediate. Unrestricted immigration will mean an oversupply of labor and the danger of a lowering of standards of work and compensation. What is of greater significance, it will make possible the weakening of labor organizations in general, and the probable disruption of unionism, as it has done in the past in certain sections of our basic industries, as in coal-mining, iron and steel, and textile manufacturing, where great masses of immigrant workmen can be used with practically no previous training or experience. Unrestricted immigration also holds forth the danger of the destruction of an intelligent, constructive, evolutionary control of the labor movement, and the substitution for the present liberal, but sound, leadership of organized labor of a revolutionary and impractical régime,