BOOK II IMMIGRATION CHAPTER VII ECONOMIC FACTORS - Causes of European emigration, 243. - The industrial significance of recent immigration, 264. · Recent expansion of American industry, 264. — Reasons for the employment of recent immigrants, 268. — Industrial communities, 271.- - Salient characteristics of the immigrant labor supply, 274.- Effect of immigrant competition on the American workman, 278. - Racial displacements in industry, 281. — Immigration and labor organizations, 297. — Effect of immigration upon industrial organization and methods, 309.- Working relations, 312.- Wages and hours of work, 312.- Establishment of new industries, 313.- Annual earnings of immigrant families, 315.- - Occupations of the first and second generations of immigrants, 317. — The occupational distribution of the labor supply, 319. — Influence of immigration upon the native American birth rate, 321. [Population problems in the United States are made more complicated and perhaps more difficult of practical solution than elsewhere because of the heterogeneity of our racial composition. So long as we continue to be a grain-exporting country, and so long as intensive farming has made no more progress than hitherto in this country, we cannot be said to be facing any immediate danger of overpopulation. But the decreasing exports of foodstuffs, the actual decreasing productivity of vast areas of our soil, and the rising expense of living, to say nothing of the more local problems of congestion of recent immigrant stocks in the cities. and industrial communities of the northeastern states, give room for consideration of the history of immigration, both with regard to its amount and to its character, and for a careful comparison of the economic and social efficiency of the older and the newer racial stocks represented in the immigration statistics. A great deal of attention has been centered upon the social and political effects of immigration, the relative contribution of foreign- and native-born to crime, pauperism, delinquency, and political corruption, as well as upon the treatment of the immigrant during transit and after arrival in this country. These are all matters of great importance, either to the immigrant or to the country as a whole, but the foundation for a proper understanding of the immigration problem, and for its practical solution, lies in a knowledge of industrial conditions and economic forces as influenced by immigration. The kernel of the problem is the economic standard of living and its maintenance and elevation. The simple, universally recognized fact is that where low wages, lack of organization, poor housing, overcrowding, and poor food are found there exist also alcoholism, political corruption, low physical, intellectual, and moral standards, and social stagnation. If immigration tends to raise the economic standard of living of the masses in this country, it is a beneficial movement; if it tends to lower the economic standard or to prevent its rise, it must be considered fundamentally detrimental to the social and political, as well as to the economic, destinies of the country.] 22. CAUSES OF EMIGRATION FROM EUROPE1 PRIMARY CAUSES The present movement of population from Europe to the United States is, with few exceptions, almost entirely attributable to economic causes. Emigration due to political reasons and, to a less extent, religious oppression, undoubtedly exists, but even in countries where these incentives prevail the more important cause is very largely an economic one. This does not mean, however, that emigration from Europe is now an economic necessity. At times in the past, notably during the famine years in Ireland, actual want forced a choice between emigration and literal starvation, but the present movement results, in the main, simply from 1 Adapted from Report of the United States Immigration Commission on Emigration Conditions in Europe (61st Cong., 3d Session, Sen. Doc. No. 748), 1911, pp. 53-67. a widespread desire for better economic conditions rather than from the necessity of escaping intol tab on s. In other words the emigrant of to-day comes to the United States not merely to make a living, but to make a better livin is possible at home. With comparatively few exceptions the emigrant of to-day is essentially a seller of labor seeking a more f vorable market. To a considerable extent this incentive is a panied by a certain less definite ambi spirit of unrest and adventure and a more tion for general social betterment, but po by the movement is accounted for by the fact that the reward of labor is much greater in the United States than in Europe. The desire to escape military service is also a primary cause of emigration from some countries, but on the whole it is relatively unimportant. It is true, moreover, that some emigrate to escape punishment for crime, or the stigma which follows such punishment, while others of the criminal class deliberately seek supposedly more advantageous fields for criminal activity. The emigration of criminals of this class is a natural movement not altogether peculiar to European countries and, although vastly important because dangerous, numerically it affects but little the tide of European emigration to the United States. In order that the chief cause of emigration from Europe may be better understood, the Commission has given considerable attention to economic conditions in the countries visited, with particular reference to the status of emigrating classes in this regard. It was impossible for the commissioners personally to make more than a general survey of this subject, but because an understanding of the economic situation in the chief immigrant-furnishing countries is essential to an intelligent discussion of the immigration question, the results of the Commission's investigation in this regard have been supplemented by official data or wellauthenticated material from other sources. The purely economic condition of the wageworker is generally very much lower in Europe than in the United States. This is especially true of the unskilled-laborer class, from which so great a proportion of the emigration to the United States is drawn. Skilled labor also is poorly paid when compared with returns for like service in the United States, but the opportunity for continual employment in this field is usually good and the wages sufficiently high to lessen the necessity of emigration. A large proportion of the emigration from southern and eastern Europe may be traced directly to the inability of the peasantry to gain an adequate livelihood in agricultural pursuits, either as laborers or proprietors. Agricultural labor is paid extremely low wages, and employment is quite likely to be seasonal rather than continuous. In cases where peasant proprietorship is possible the land holdings are usually so small, the methods of cultivation so primitive, and the taxes so high that even in productive years the struggle for existence is a hard one, while a crop failure means practical disaster for the small farmer and farm laborer alike. In agrarian Russia, where the people have not learned to emigrate, a crop failure results in a famine, while in other sections of southern and eastern Europe it results in emigration, usually to the United States. Periods of industrial depression as well as crop failures stimulate emigration, but the effect of the former is not so pronounced for the reason that disturbed financial and industrial conditions in Europe are usually coincidental with like conditions in the United States, and at such times the emigration movement is always relatively smaller. The fragmentary nature of available data relative to wages in many European countries makes a satisfactory comparison with wages in the United States impossible. Unfortunately, too, these data are missing for countries which are now the chief sources of European emigration to the United States. It is possible, however, to show the relative wages and hours of labor at a comparatively recent date in some leading occupations in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France, and as the economic status of wageworkers is much higher in the three latter countries. than in southern and eastern European countries the approximate difference between wages in such countries and in the United States may be inferred. WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR IN HANG OCCUPATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, GREAT IRITAIN, GERMANY, AND FRANCE, 1903 [Compiled from Bulletin of the United States Bureau of I ober, No. 54, pp. 1120-1125] In the above table the figures for the United States cover a wide area, representing the smaller as well as the larger centers of industry, while those for the European countries were taken in two or three of the larger centers of industry in each country. As before stated, there are available but little official data relative to wages in southern and southeastern Europe, but it is a well-known fact that they are very much lower there than in Great Britain, Germany, or France. The Commission found this to be true in the portions of Italy, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Russia, and the Balkan States visited. In fact, it may safely be stated that in the latter countries the average wage of men engaged in common and agricultural labor is less than 50 cents per day, while in some sections it is even much lower. It is true that in some countries agricultural laborers receive from employers certain concessions in the way of fuel, food, etc., but in cases of this nature which came to the attention of the Commission |