When the only information concerning the opportunities for employment in the United States offered to Europeans came through occasional books by travelers or letters from friends and relatives, it was not to be expected that the illiterate working population of eighteenth-century Europe would look for the chance for temporary employment across the ocean. Nor were

such opportunities available in the United States. Capital for large undertakings was scarce and the digging of canals offered the first opportunity for the employment of low-grade labor upon a large scale. From about 1840 date the large constructive operations of this country. Even if the demand for the "bird of passage" had existed in this country previous to 1850 and this demand had been known throughout Europe, it is improbable that it could have been met, because a means of cheap and rapid ocean transportation had not been provided. Transportation was slow, expensive, and, with the facilities at that time, inconvenient and dangerous. The possibility of typhus fever was not to be encountered lightly nor with the possibility of small financial advantage. The population of Europe was land hungry and it was the opportunity offered by the cheap, fertile land of this\ country which attracted settlers. Labor was scarce and wages high in the United States but this was due rather to the presence of unoccupied land than to the demands of industry. It has been only since the Civil War that the conditions of demand and supply have been favorable to the "bird of passage" and it is not surprising that we should be confronted with an international movement of considerable magnitude. Although most students of immigration seem to be united in their belief that this country should welcome able-bodied, normal persons of decent habits who desire to settle permanently in the United States, there is a general feeling that the "bird of passage" forms a conspicuous exception to this rule and that this migrant to the United States is not be encouraged. The objections which have been raised against him can be grouped under four heads:

I. Since he does not intend to settle in this country he is not likely to be interested in American institutions, to adopt American customs, or to acquire American ideals. He furnishes an alien element in our body politic.

2. The money which he saves in this country is not deposited in American banks to be used to develop our industries, but is sent abroad. This constitutes a permanent drain upon our resources, amounting to millions of dollars annually.

3. The competition of this laborer, accustomed to foreign standards, tends to lower the American standard of living and makes it difficult for the American laborer to compete with him.

4. The presence of a supply of migratory laborers tends, by stimulating the overproduction of commodities, to lead to industrial crises. If the supply of labor in a country were fixed, the increase in the demand for laborers would lead to increased wages which would make entrepreneurs more careful about increasing production.

There undoubtedly is truth in each one of these objections, but there are accompanying advantages which have been but little emphasized by students of this problem. There is little doubt that this large number of temporary migrants tends to reduce the variations in the price of labor by keeping the ratio of demand to supply more nearly constant. When the coming of industrial prosperity causes an increase in the demand for labor, this demand is met, in part, by the immigration of Europeans. When the demand falls off and a period of depression approaches, the supply is diminished by the return of these immigrants to their home country. The statistics of the arrival and departure of immigrants for the past few years show this conclusively. The arrival of tens of thousands of this class in good seasons undoubtedly tends to limit the rise in the rate of wages in this country and thus furnishes grounds for the criticism of labor leaders, but when hard times come these same laborers return home and reduce the supply at the very time when the demand is beginning to fall off. Those who return are not the ones who have saved the most money and made the greatest advance in this country, but those whose departure is hastened by the insecurity of their position here. During the depression of 1907 nearly three thousand Italians left New Haven, Conn., for the home country, and a careful investigation showed that those to depart were the ones who felt themselves in the poorest position to withstand a period of depression. They earned their money in a country of high prices, but when employment ceased they preferred to spend their earnings in a country of low prices. The result of such migration during the crisis is to limit the fall in wages and to free the community from the necessity of supporting a number of unemployed who have made scant provision for the future. The labor union leaders were never so successful in combating a fall in the rate of wages during a period of industrial depression as in 1907-8, and it may be seri

ously asked whether this was not due in part to the reduction in the supply of labor caused by the withdrawal over-sea of so many thousands of temporary migrants.

It is undoubtedly true that wages in this country during prosperous times are kept at a lower level than would be the case if immigration were prohibited. It may be that crises are hastened since entrepreneurs are not warned by an increase in the rate of wages that stormy times are ahead. But it is also true that certain of the most unfortunate effects of hard times, a decrease in the rate of wages and a great increase in the number of dependents upon charity, are less apparent when the supply of laborers decreases at the time when the demand for them reaches a low point. It is also difficult to prove that industrial crises are most frequent or most severe in those countries which are receiving these temporary migrants in large numbers.

It may be unfortunate that many employments are seasonal and that many operations can be conducted only in warm weather. But we must make the best of things as they are. There will continue to be a demand for seasonal labor in agriculture and construction in this country. This demand can best be met by single men, who, unhampered by family ties, feel free to accept temporary employment. Most of these laborers spend the winters in the cities where there is a continual surplus of unskilled labor. It is difficult to see how the interests of this country can be injuriously affected if these surplus laborers choose to return to the home country, there to remain until there is a demand for their services in the United States.

Our country certainly owes a debt to Europe in that every group of returning immigrants contains some whose vitality has been impaired by severe labor. Others have been the victims of industrial accident and return to the home country with maimed bodies. Compensation for such injuries is a farce in many cases and if they have succeeded in saving something from their wages, and wish to spend their remaining days in a country of low prices, we should not consider that we have been wronged by such action. They came to us in the prime of life, filled with hope and enthusiasm, they performed heroic service in our mines and factories, and now are "scrapped" to increase the number of non-efficients at home. Perhaps we find it cheaper to import our workers than to raise them. It may be cheaper to send home the worn-out and disabled industrial veterans than to support

them here. In either case we owe something to the "bird of passage" and the country which reared him.

That financial system is generally considered the best which is most elastic. A system which will not meet the fluctuations of trade is unsatisfactory. In the matter of employment the "bird of passage" serves as a sort of floating dock to rise and fall with the tides of industrial ebb and flow and render more stable the rate of wages.

Immigration and Labor; a Summary

Isaac A. Hourwich

There is no real ground for the popular opinion that the immigrants of the present generation are drawn from a poorer class than their predecessors. It is a historical fact that prior to 1820 the great majority of the immigrants were too poor to prepay their passage, which never cost as much as $50 per steerage passenger; the usual way for a poor man to secure transportation for himself and family was to contract to be sold into servitude after arrival. The next generation of immigrants was not much better off. According to contemporary testimony, the millions of Irish and Germans who came in the middle of the nineteenth century were ignorant and accustomed to a very low standard of living. Since the races of southern and eastern Europe have become predominant among immigrants to the United States, the steerage rates have been doubled, the increase being equivalent to a heavy head tax. The higher cost of transportation must have raised the financial standard of the new immigration, as compared with the immigrants of the 70's and the early 80's. This inference is borne out by the fact that the percentage of illiteracy is much lower among the immigrants than among their countrymen who remain at home. Illiteracy is generally the effect of poverty. The higher literacy of the immigrant may be accepted as evidence that economically the immigrant must be above the average of his mother country.

The complaint that the new immigrants do not easily "assimilate" is also as old as immigration itself. Today the Germans are reckoned by courtesy among the "English-speaking races." But as late as the middle of the nineteenth century the growth of German colonies in all large cities caused the same apprehen

sion in the minds of their American contemporaries as the Jewish, the Italian, and the Slav colonies of our day. Statistics show, however, that the new immigrant races number among them as large a percentage of English-speaking persons as the Germans who have lived in the United States the same length of time.

The only real difference between the old immigration and the new is that of numbers. To the workman who complains that he has been crowded out of his job by another, it would afford little comfort to feel that the man who had taken his place was of Teuton or Celtic, rather than of Latin or Slav stock. The true reason why the "old immigration" is preferred is that there is very much less of it.

As stated, the demand for restriction proceeds from the assumption that the American labor market is overstocked by immigration. Comparative statistics of industry and population in the United States show, however, that immigration merely follows opportunities for employment. In times of business expansion immigrants enter in increasing numbers; in times of business depression their numbers decline. The immigration movement is further balanced by emigration from the United States. As a rule, the causes which retard immigration also accelerate the return movement from this country. It is customary to condemn the "bird of passage," but so long as there are variations in business activity from season to season and from year to year, the American wage-earner has no cause to complain of the immigrants who choose to leave this country temporarily while there is no demand for their services, thereby reducing unemployment in its acutest stage.

It is broadly asserted by restriction advocates that the hundreds of thousands of Slav, Italian, Greek, Syrian, and other immigrant mine and mill workers have been "imported" by capitalists—in other words, that they are all contract laborers. This belief offers to the student of folk-lore a typical example of twentieth century myth-building. None of the official investigations of immigration has disclosed any evidence of importation of laborers under contract on a large scale, although prior to the enactment of the law of 1885 excluding contract laborers there was no reason to conceal the fact. It is quite conceivable that in the case of a strike a great corporation might have resorted to the importation of a large force of strikebreakers