CHAPTER V_Races and Immigrants in America

INDUSTRY

In preceding chapters we have seen the conditions in their foreign homes

which spurred the emigrants to seek America. We have seen religious

persecution, race oppression, political revolution, militarism,

taxation, famine, and poverty conspiring to press upon the unprivileged

masses and to drive the more adventurous across the water. But it would

be a mistake should we stop at that point and look upon the migration of

these dissatisfied elements as only a voluntary movement to better their

condition. In fact, had it been left to the initiative of the emigrants

the flow of immigration to America could scarcely ever have reached

one-half its actual dimensions. While various motives and inducements

have always worked together, and it would be rash to assert dogmatically

the relative weight of each, yet to one who has carefully noted all the

circumstances it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that even more

important than the initiative of immigrants have been the efforts of

Americans and ship-owners to bring and attract them. Throughout our

history these efforts have been inspired by one grand, effective

motive,--that of making a profit upon the immigrants. The desire to get

cheap labor, to take in passenger fares, and to sell land have probably

brought more immigrants than the hard conditions of Europe, Asia, and

Africa have sent. Induced immigration has been as potent as voluntary

immigration. And it is to this mercenary motive that we owe our manifold

variety of races, and especially our influx of backward races. One

entire race, the negro, came solely for the profit of ship-owners and

landowners. Working people of the colonial period were hoodwinked and

kidnapped by shippers and speculators who reimbursed themselves by

indenturing them to planters and farmers. The beginners of other races

have come through similar but less coercive inducements, initiated,

however, by the demand of those who held American property for

speculation or investment. William Penn and his lessees, John Law, the

Dutch East India Company, and many of the grantees of lands in the

colonies, sent their agents through Western Europe and the British Isles

with glowing advertisements, advanced transportation, and contracts for

indentured service by way of reimbursement. In the nineteenth century

new forms of induced migration appeared. Victims of the Irish famine

were assisted to emigrate by local and general governments and by

philanthropic societies, and both the Irish and the Germans, whose

migration began towards the middle of the century, were, in a measure,

exceptions to the general rule of induced immigration for profit.

Several Western states created immigration bureaus which advertised

their own advantages for intending immigrants, and Wisconsin,

especially, in this way settled her lands with a wide variety of races.

After the Civil War, induced migration entered upon a vigorous revival.

The system of indenturing had long since disappeared, because

legislatures and courts declined to recognize and enforce contracts for

service. Consequently a new form of importation appeared under the

direction of middlemen of the same nativity as that of the immigrant.

Chinese coolies came under contract with the Six Companies, who advanced

their expenses and looked to their own secret agents and tribunals to

enforce repayment with profit.[62] Japanese coolies, much later, came

under contract with immigration companies chartered by the Japanese

government.[63] Italians were recruited by the _padroni_, and the bulk

of the new Slav immigration from Southeastern Europe is in charge of

their own countrymen acting as drummers and middlemen.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS OF IMMIGRANTS--1906[64]

===============+========+=========+==================+==========================

| | SEXES | AGES | OCCUPATIONS[65]

| +----+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+----+----+----+----

RACE OR PEOPLE | 100 | | |Under|14-45|Over | 100 | |Commercial

|PER CENT| M | F | 14 |years| 45 | PER | | |Skilled

---------------+--------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+----+----+----+----

African (black)| 3,786|62.2|37.8| 9.1| 86.8| 4.1| 2,921| 3.0| 2.6|45.6|48.8

Armenian | 1,895|75.1|24.9| 11.8| 84.3| 3.9| 1,390| 3.4| 5.1|38.5|53.0

Moravian | 12,958|57.3|42.8| 20.7| 73.9| 5.4| 7,985| 1.3| 1.2|43.6|53.9

Montenegrin | 11,548|96.2| 3.8| 1.9| 96.2| 1.9| 11,025| 0.1| 0.3| 3.7|95.9

Chinese | 1,485|94.1| 5.9| 4.5| 81.5| 14.0| 1,261| 6.9|66.0| 1.5|25.6

Slovenian | 44,272|86.5|13.5| 3.8| 94.1| 2.1| 40,125| 0.1| 0.1| 3.7|96.1

Cuban | 5,591|67.4|32.6| 17.2| 73.2| 9.6| 2,842|10.3|19.1|55.9|14.7

Herzegovinian| 4,568|95.1| 4.9| 1.7| 96.3| 2.0| 4,373| 0.1| 0.3| 7.7|91.9

Flemish | 9,735|67.0|33.0| 17.6| 76.4| 6.0| 5,849| 5.2| 7.9|30.1|56.8

East Indian | 271|93.0| 7.0| 5.5| 90.5| 4.0| 222| 9.9|52.7| 5.4|32.0

English | 45,079|62.1|37.9| 13.5| 75.3| 11.2| 28,249|10.8|13.5|51.3|24.4

Finnish | 14,136|67.4|32.6| 7.1| 90.8| 2.1| 11,959| 0.4| 0.3| 7.2|92.1

French | 10,379|57.1|42.9| 8.6| 81.7| 9.7| 6,823|16.5|12.9|31.3|39.3

German | 86,813|59.2|40.8| 15.1| 78.6| 6.3| 55,095| 4.3| 6.7|29.7|59.3

Greek | 23,127|96.3| 3.7| 3.1| 95.9| 1.0| 21,615| 0.5| 2.6| 9.4|87.5

Hebrew | 153,748|52.1|47.9| 28.3| 66.3| 5.4| 76,605| 1.4| 5.6|66.7|26.3

Irish | 40,959|50.9|49.1| 4.6| 90.9| 4.5| 35,387| 1.7| 2.9|15.1|80.3

Italian (North)| 46,286|78.9|21.1| 8.6| 87.9| 3.5| 36,980| 1.4| 2.3|19.4|76.9

Italian (South)| 240,528|79.4|20.6| 11.1| 84.3| 4.6|190,105| 0.4| 1.3|16.0|82.3

Japanese | 14,243|89.6|10.4| 1.0| 97.1| 1.9| 11,797| 2.2|10.3| 2.8|84.7

Korean | 127|81.1|18.9| 16.5| 81.1| 2.4| 80| 6.3|15.0| 2.5|76.2

Lithuanian | 14,257|66.1|33.9| 8.9| 89.5| 1.6| 11,568| 0.2| 0.2| 9.2|90.4

Magyar | 44,261|71.8|28.2| 9.0| 87.5| 3.5| 34,559| 0.6| 0.5| 9.3|89.6

Mexican | 141|66.0|34.0| 14.9| 74.5| 10.6| 65|23.1|35.4|24.6|16.9

Islander | 13|76.9|23.1| 7.7| 76.9| 15.4| 9|33.3| 0.0|66.7| 0.0

Polish | 95,835|69.3|30.7| 9.3| 88.5| 2.2| 77,437| 0.2| 0.2| 7.7|91.9

Portuguese | 8,729|58.4|41.6| 20.9| 70.7| 8.4| 5,815| 0.5| 1.1| 4.8|93.6

Roumanian | 11,425|92.5| 7.5| 2.0| 94.0| 4.0| 10,759| 0.2| 0.2| 2.5|97.1

Russian | 5,814|81.7|18.3| 10.0| 86.8| 3.2| 4,591| 3.2| 2.4|10.8|83.6

Ruthenian | 16,257|75.7|24.3| 3.6| 93.9| 2.5| 14,899| 0.1|[66]| 2.7|97.2

Scandinavian | 58,141|62.1|37.9| 9.1| 86.4| 4.5| 47,352| 1.8| 1.6|23.5|73.1

Scotch | 16,463|66.1|33.9| 12.9| 78.8| 8.3| 11,207| 5.7| 9.9|62.8|21.6

Slovak | 38,221|69.6|30.4| 8.9| 88.4| 2.7| 29,817|[66]| 0.1| 4.9|95.0

Spanish | 5,332|83.6|16.4| 7.1| 84.6| 8.3| 4,211| 5.7|19.2|44.4|30.7

American | 1,585|69.7|30.3| 17.0| 74.4| 8.6| 790|23.7|37.1|21.1|18.1

Syrian | 5,824|70.4|29.6| 15.2| 80.9| 3.9| 4,023| 1.1|11.1|19.9|67.9

Turkish | 2,033|95.7| 4.3| 1.9| 96.0| 2.1| 1,914| 1.5| 4.4| 8.3|85.8

Welsh | 2,367| 7.1|29.9| 12.5| 78.2| 9.3| 1,639| 4.9| 6.7|62.4|26.0

Cuban) | 1,476|58.9|41.1| 14.8| 76.1| 9.1| 900| 7.6|15.0|49.4|28.0

Other Peoples | 1,027|94.5| 5.5| 2.6| 96.0| 1.4| 932| 1.2| 4.1|18.0|76.7

---------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+----+----+----+----

Total 1,100,735|69.5|30.5| 12.4| 83.0| 4.6|815,275| 1.8| 3.1|21.7|73.4

===============+========+====+====+=====+=====+=====+=======+====+====+====+====

These labor speculators have perfected a system of inducements and

through billing as effective as that by which horse and cattle buyers in

Kentucky or Iowa collect and forward their living freight to the markets

of Europe. A Croatian of the earlier immigration, for example, sets up a

saloon in South Chicago and becomes an employment bureau for his

"greener" countrymen, and also ticket agent on commission for the

steamship companies. His confederates are stationed along the entire

route at connecting points, from the villages of Croatia to the saloon

in Chicago. In Croatia they go among the laborers and picture to them

the high wages and abundant work in America. They induce them to sell

their little belongings and they furnish them with through tickets. They

collect them in companies, give them a countersign, and send them on to

their fellow-agent at Fiume, thence to Genoa or other port whence the

American steerage vessel sails. In New York they are met by other

confederates, whom they identify by their countersign, and again they

are safely transferred and shipped to their destination. Here they are

met by their enterprising countryman, lodged and fed, and within a day

or two handed over to the foreman in a great steel plant, or to the

"boss" of a construction gang on a railway, or to a contractor on a

large public improvement. After they have earned and saved a little

money they send for their friends, to whom the "boss" has promised jobs.

Again their lodging-house countryman sells them the steamship ticket and

arranges for the safe delivery of those for whom they have sent. In this

way immigration is stimulated, and new races are induced to begin their

American colonization. Eventually the pioneers send for their families,

and it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of the immigrants in recent

years have come on prepaid tickets or on money sent to them from

America.[67]

The significance of this new and highly perfected form of inducement

will appear when we look back for a moment upon the legislation

governing immigration.

=Immigration Legislation.=--At the close of the Civil War, with a vast

territory newly opened to the West by the railroads, Congress enacted a

law throwing wide open our doors to the immigrants of all lands. It gave

new guaranties for the protection of naturalized citizens in renouncing

allegiance to their native countries, declaring that "expatriation is a

natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment

of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."[68]

In the same year, 1868, the famous Burlingame treaty was negotiated with

China, by which Americans in China and Chinese in America should enjoy

all the privileges, immunities, and exemptions enjoyed by citizens of

the most favored nation. These steps favorable to immigration were in

line with the long-continued policy of the country from the earliest

colonial times.

But a new force had come into American politics--the wage-earner. From

this time forth the old policies were violently challenged. High wages

were to be pitted against high profits. The cheap labor which was

eagerly sought by the corporations and large property owners was just as

eagerly fought by the unpropertied wage-earners. Of course neither party

conceded that it was selfishly seeking its own interest. Those who

expected profits contended that cheap foreign labor was necessary for

the development of the country; that American natural resources were

unbounded, but American workmen could not be found for the rough work

needed to turn these resources into wealth; that America should be in

the future, as it had been in the past, a haven for the oppressed of all

lands; and that in no better way could the principles of American

democracy be spread to all peoples of the earth than by welcoming them

and teaching them in our midst.

The wage-earners have not been so fortunate in their protestations of

disinterestedness. They were compelled to admit that though they

themselves had been immigrants or the children of immigrants, they were

now denying to others what had been a blessing to them. Yet they were

able to set forward one supreme argument which our race problems are

every day more and more showing to be sound. The future of American

democracy is the future of the American wage-earner. To have an

enlightened and patriotic citizenship we must protect the wages and

standard of living of those who constitute the bulk of the citizens.

This argument had been offered by employers themselves when they were

seeking a protective tariff against the importation of "pauper-made"

goods. What wonder that the wage-earner should use the same argument to

keep out the pauper himself, and especially that he should begin by

applying the argument to those races which showed themselves unable

rapidly to assimilate, and thereby make a stand for high wages and high

standards of living. Certain it is that had the white wage-earners

possessed the suffrage and political influence during colonial times,

the negro would not have been admitted in large numbers, and we should

have been spared that race problem which of all is the largest and most

nearly insoluble.

For it must be observed in general that race antagonism occurs on the

same competitive level. What appear often to be religious, political,

and social animosities are economic at bottom, and the substance of the

economic struggle is the advantage which third parties get when

competitors hold each other down. The Southern planter was not hostile

to the negro slave--he was his friend and protector. His nurse was the

negro "mammy," his playmates were her children, and the mulatto throws

light on his views of equality. It was the poor white who hated the

negro and fled from his presence to the hills and the frontier, or sank

below his level, despised by white and black. In times of freedom and

reconstruction it is not the great landowner or employer that leads in

the exhibition of race hostility, but the small farmer or

wage-earner.[69] The one derives a profit from the presence of the

negro--the other loses his job or his farm. With the progress of white

democracy in place of the old aristocracy, as seen in South Carolina,

hostility to the negro may be expected to increase. With the elimination

of the white laborer, as seen in the black counties, the relations of

negro and planter are harmonious.[70]

So it is in the North. The negro or immigrant strike breaker is

befriended by the employer, but hated by the employee. The Chinaman or

Japanese in Hawaii or California is praised and sought after by the

employer and householder, but dreaded by the wage-earner and domestic.

Investors and landowners see their properties rise in value by the

competition of races, but the competitors see their wages and jobs

diminish. The increase of wealth intensifies the difference and raises

up professional classes to the standpoint of the capitalists. With both

of them the privilege of leisure depends on the presence of servants,

but the wage-earners do their own work. As the immigrant rises in the

scale, the small farmer, contractor, or merchant feels his competition

and begins to join in measures of race protection.

This hostility is not primarily racial in character. It is the

competitive struggle for standards of living. It appears to be racial

because for the most part races have different standards. But where

different races agree on their standards the racial struggle ceases, and

the negro, Italian, Slav, and American join together in the class

struggle of a trade-union. On the other hand, if the same race has

different standards, the economic struggle breaks down even the

strongest affinities of race. The Russian Jew in the sweat-shop turns

against the immigrant Jew, fleeing from the very persecution that he

himself has escaped, and taking his place in the employment of the

capitalist German Jew.[71] It is an easy and patriotic matter for the

lawyer, minister, professor, employer, or investor, placed above the

arena of competition, to proclaim the equal right of all races to

American opportunities; to avow his own willingness to give way should

even a better Chinaman, Hindu, or Turk come in to take his place; and to

rebuke the racial hatred of those who resist this displacement. His

patriotism and world-wide brotherhood cost him and his family nothing,

and indeed they add to his profits and leisure. Could he realize his

industrial position, and picture in imagination that of his

fellow-citizens, their attitude would not appear less disinterested than

his own. The immigrant comes as a wage-earner, and the American

wage-earner bears the initial cost of his Americanization. Before he

acquired the suffrage his protest was unheard--after he gained political

power he began to protect himself.

The first outbreak of the new-found strength of the American wage-earner

was directed against a race superior even to the negro immigrants in

industry, frugality, intelligence, and civilization--the Chinese. And

this outbreak was so powerful that, in spite of all appeals to the

traditions and liberties of America, the national government felt driven

to repudiate the treaty so recently signed with the highest

manifestations of faith, good-will, and international comity.

Very early in the settlement of California the Chinaman had encountered

hostile legislation. The state election had been carried by the

Knownothings as early as 1854. Discriminating taxes, ordinances, and

laws were adopted, and even immigration was regulated by the state

legislature. But the state and federal courts declared such legislation

invalid as violating treaties or interfering with international

relations. Then the wage-earning element of California joined as one man

in demanding action by the federal government, and eventually, by the

treaty of 1880 and the law of 1888, Chinese laborers were excluded.[72]

Thus did the Caucasian wage-earner score his first and signal victory

in reversing what his opponents proclaimed were "principles coeval with

the foundation of our government."

The next step was the Alien Contract Labor law of 1885 and 1888, placed

on the statute books through the efforts of the Knights of Labor and the

trades-unions. As early as 1875 Congress had prohibited the immigration

of paupers, criminal, and immoral persons, but the law of 1885 went to

the other extreme and was designed to exclude industrial classes. The

law is directed against prepayment of transportation, assistance, or

encouragement of foreigners to immigrate _under contract_ to perform

labor in the United States, and provides for the prosecution of the

importer and deportation of the contract immigrant. This law has been

enforced against skilled labor, which comes mainly from northwestern

Europe, but, owing to the new system of _padroni_ and middlemen above

described, it cannot be enforced against the unskilled laborers of

Southern and Eastern Europe, since it cannot be shown that they have

come under contract to perform labor. By the amendment and revised law

adopted in 1903, after considerable discussion, and an effort on the

part of the labor unions to strengthen the law, it was extended so as to

exclude not only those coming under contract but also those coming under

_offers_ and _promises_ of employment.[73]

From what precedes we see that there are two exactly opposite points of

view from which the subject of immigration is approached. One is the

production of wealth; the other is the distribution of wealth. He who

takes the standpoint of production sees the enormous undeveloped

resources of this country--the mines to be exploited, railroads and

highways to be built and rebuilt, farms to be opened up or to be more

intensively cultivated, manufactures to be multiplied, and the markets

of the world to be conquered by our exports, while there are not enough

workmen, or not enough willing to do the hard and disagreeable work at

the bottom.

He who takes the standpoint of distribution sees the huge fortunes, the

low wages, the small share of the product going to labor, the

sweat-shop, the slums, all on account of the excessive competition of

wage-earner against wage-earner.

Consider first the bearing of immigration on the production of wealth.

[Illustration: AGE GROUPS, FOREIGN AND NATIVE-BORN]

=Immigration and Wealth Production.=--Over four-fifths of the immigrants

are in the prime of life--the ages between fourteen and forty-five. In

the year 1906 only 12 out of every 100 were under fourteen years of age,

and only 4.5 out of every 100 over forty-five years of age. The census

of 1900 offers some interesting comparisons between the native-born and

the foreign-born in this matter of age distribution. It shows quite

plainly that a large proportion of the native-born population is below

the age of industrial production, fully 39 per cent, or two-fifths,

being under fifteen years of age, while only 5 per cent of the

foreign-born are of corresponding ages. On the other hand, the ages

fifteen to forty-four include 46 per cent of the native and 58 per cent

of the foreign-born. This is shown in the diagram based on five-year age

periods. The native born are seen to group themselves in a symmetrical

pyramid, with the children under five as the wide foundation, gradually

tapering to the ages of eighty and eighty-four, but for the foreign-born

they show a double pyramid, tapering in both directions from the ages of

thirty-five to thirty-nine, which include the largest five-year group.

Thus, immigration brings to us a population of working ages unhampered

by unproductive mouths to be fed, and, if we consider alone that which

produces the wealth of this country and not that which consumes it, the

immigrants add more to the country than does the same number of native

of equal ability. Their home countries have borne the expense of rearing

them up to the industrial period of their lives, and then America,

without that heavy expense, reaps whatever profits there are on the

investment.

[Illustration: PROPORTION OF SEXES. NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN WHITES,

1900, AND IMMIGRANTS 1906]

In another respect does immigration add to our industrial population

more than would be done by an equal increase in native population,

namely, by the large excess of men over women. In 1906, over two-thirds

of the immigrants were males and less than one-third were females. This

is shown on the accompanying diagram, as well as the fact based on the

census statistics that among the foreign-born the men predominate over

the women in the ratio of 540 to 460, while among the native-born

population the sexes are about equal, being in the proportion of 507

males to 493 females.

This small proportion of women and children shows, of course, that it is

the workers, not the families, who seek America. Yet the proportions

widely vary for different nationalities. Among the Jews 48 per cent are

females and 28 per cent children. This persecuted race moves in a body,

expecting to make America its home. At the other extreme the Greeks send

only 4 per cent females and 3 per cent children, the Croatians 13 per

cent females and 4 per cent children, the South Italians 21 per cent

females and 11 per cent children. These are races whose immigration has

only recently begun, and naturally enough the women and children, except

in the case of the Jews, do not accompany the workmen. A race of longer

migration, like the Germans, has 41 per cent females and 15 per cent

children. The Irish have a peculiar position. Alone of all the races do

the women equal the men, but only 5 per cent are children. Irish girls

seeking domestic service explain this preponderance of women.

Significant and interesting facts regarding other races may be seen by

studying the table entitled "Industrial Relations of Immigrants."

[Illustration: SWEDEN GREECE GERMANY RUSSIA CHINA SCOTLAND AUSTRIA

AUSTRALIA CANADA ENGLAND ITALY ROUMANIA AMERICAN SCHOOL BOYS (From

_World's Work_)]

Such being the proportions of industrial energy furnished by

immigration, what is the quality? Much the larger proportion of

immigrants are classed as unskilled, including laborers and servants.

Omitting those who have "no occupation," including mainly women and

children, who are 30.5 per cent of the total, only 21.7 per cent of the

remainder who are working immigrants are skilled, and 73.4 per cent are

unskilled. The proportions vary greatly among the different races. The

largest element of skilled labor is among the Jews, a city people,

two-thirds of whom are skilled workmen. Nearly the same proportion of

the Scotch and Welsh and over one-half of the English and Bohemians are

skilled mechanics. Nearly one-third of the Germans and Dutch are

skilled, and one-fourth of the Scandinavians. At the other extreme, only

3 to 5 per cent of the Ruthenians, Croatians, Roumanians, and Slovaks

are skilled, and 8 to 10 per cent of the Magyars, Lithuanians, and

Poles. One-fifth of the North Italians and one-sixth of the South

Italians are skilled. These and other proportions are shown in the

statistical table.

The skilled labor which comes to America, especially from Northern and

Western Europe, occupies a peculiar position in our industries. In the

first place, the most capable workmen have permanent places at home,

and it is, in general, only those who cannot command situations who seek

their fortunes abroad. The exceptions to this rule are in the beginnings

of an industry like that of tin plate, when a large proportion of the

industry moved bodily to America, and the highly skilled tin workers of

Wales brought a kind of industrial ability that had not hitherto existed

in this country. As for the bulk of skilled immigrants, they do not

represent the highest skill of the countries whence they come.

On the other hand, the European skilled workman is usually better

trained than the American, and in many branches of industry, especially

machinery and ship-building, the English and Scotch immigrants command

those superior positions where an all-round training is required.

This peculiar situation is caused by the highly specialized character of

American industry. In no country has division of labor and machinery

been carried as far as here. By division of labor the skilled trades

have been split up into simple operations, each of which in itself

requires little or no skill, and the boy who starts in as a beginner is

kept at one operation so that he does not learn a trade. The old-time

journeyman tailor was a skilled mechanic who measured his customer, cut

the cloth and trimmings, basted, sewed, and pressed the suit. Now we

have factories which make only coats, others which make only vests,

others trousers, and there are children's knee-pants factories and even

ladies' tailor establishments where the former seamstress sees her

precious skill dissipated among a score of unskilled workers. Thus the

journeyman tailor is displaced by the factory, where the coat passes

through the hands of thirty to fifty different men and women, each of

whom can learn his peculiar operation in a month or two. The same is

true in greater or less degree in all industries. Even in the building

trades in the larger cities there are as many kinds of bricklayers as

there are kinds of walls to be built, and as many kinds of carpenters as

there are varieties of woodwork.

So it is with machinery. The American employer does not advertise for a

"machinist"--he wants a "lathe hand" or a "drill-press hand," and the

majority of his "hands" are perhaps only automatic machine tenders. The

employer cannot afford to transfer these hands from one job to another

to enable them to "learn the trade." He must keep them at one operation,

for it is not so much skill that he wants as cheap labor and speed.

Consequently, American industry is not producing all-round mechanics,

and the employers look to Europe for their skilled artisans. In England

the trade-unions have made it their special business to see that every

apprentice learns every part of his trade, and they have prevented

employers from splitting up the trades and specializing machinery and

thereby transforming the mechanic into the "hand." Were it not for

immigration, American industries would ere now have been compelled to

give more attention to apprenticeship and the training of competent

mechanics. The need of apprenticeship and trade schools is being more

seriously felt every year, for, notwithstanding the progress of division

of labor and machinery, the all-round mechanic continues to play an

important part in the shop and factory. American trade-unions are

gaining strength, and one of their most insistent demands is the

protection of apprenticeship. The bricklayers' and carpenters' unions of

Chicago even secure from their employers instruction for apprentices in

school. Not much headway in this line, however, has yet been made, and

American industry has become abnormal, we might almost say suicidal, or

at any rate, non-self-supporting. By extreme division of labor and

marvellous application of machinery it makes possible the wholesale

employment in factories of the farm laborers of Europe and their

children, and then depends on Europe for the better-trained types of the

skilled mechanic, who, on account of the farm laborer, have not been

able to learn their trade in America.

Not only does immigration bring to America the strongest, healthiest,

and most energetic and adventurous of the work-people of Europe and

Asia, but those who come work much harder than they did at home.

Migration tears a man away from the traditions, the routine, the social

props on which he has learned to rely, and throws him among strangers

upon his own resources. He must swim or drown. At the same time he

earns higher wages and eats more nourishing food than he had ever

thought within reach of one in his station. His ambition is fired, he is

stirred by the new tonic of feeling himself actually rising in the

world. He pictures to himself a home of his own, he economizes and saves

money to send to his friends and family, or to return to his beloved

land a person of importance. Watch a gang of Italians shovelling dirt

under an Irish boss, or a sweat-shop of Jewish tailors under a small

contractor, and you shall see such feverish production of wealth as an

American-born citizen would scarcely endure. Partly fear, partly hope,

make the fresh immigrant the hardest, if not the most intelligent,

worker in our industries.

=Industrial Capacities of Different Races.=--But, however hard one may

work, he can only exercise the gifts with which nature has endowed him.

Whether these gifts are contributed by race or by civilization, we shall

inquire when we come to the problems of amalgamation and assimilation.

At present we are concerned with the varying industrial gifts and

capacities of the various races as they actually exist at the time when

immigration, annexation, or conquest takes place.

The mental and moral qualities suited to make productive workers depend

upon the character of the industry. It is not conceivable that the

immigrants of the present day from Southern Europe and from Asia could

have succeeded as frontiersmen and pioneers in the settlement of the

country. In all Europe, Asia, and Africa there was but one race in the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that had the preliminary training

necessary to plunge into the wilderness, and in the face of the Indian

to establish homes and agriculture. This was the English and the

Scotch-Irish. The Spaniards and the French were pioneers and

adventurers, but they established only trading stations. Accustomed to a

paternal government they had not, as a people, the self-reliance and

capacity for sustained exertion required to push forward as individuals,

and to cut themselves off from the support of a government across the

ocean. They shrank from the herculean task of clearing the forests,

planting crops among the stumps, and living miles away from their

neighbors. True, the pioneers had among their number several of German,

French, and Dutch descent, but these belonged to the second and third

generations descended from the immigrants and thrown from the time of

childhood among their English-Scotch neighbors. The French trappers and

explorers are famous, and have left their names on our map. But it was

the English race that established itself in America, not because it was

first to come, not because of its armies and navies, but because of its

agriculture. Every farm newly carved out of the wilderness became a

permanent foothold, and soon again sent out a continuous colony of sons

and daughters to occupy the fertile land. Based on this self-reliant,

democratic, industrial conquest of the new world the military conquest

naturally, inevitably followed.

But at the present day the character of industry has entirely changed.

The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw the vacant lands finally

occupied and the tribe of frontiersmen coming to an end. Population now

began to recoil upon the East and the cities. This afforded to

manufactures and to the mining industries the surplus labor-market so

necessary for the continuance of large establishments which to-day need

thousands of workmen and to-morrow hundreds. Moreover, among the

American-born workmen, as well as the English and Scotch, are not found

that docility, obedience to orders, and patient toil which employers

desire where hundreds and thousands are brought like an army under the

direction of foremen, superintendents, and managers. Employers now turn

for their labor supply to those eastern and southern sections of Europe

which have not hitherto contributed to immigration. The first to draw

upon these sources in large numbers were the anthracite coal operators

of Pennsylvania. In these fields the English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish

miners, during and following the period of the Civil War, had effected

an organization for the control of wages, and the outrages of a secret

society known as the Molly Maguires gave occasion for the importation of

new races unaccustomed to unionism, and incapable, on account of

language, of cooperation with English-speaking miners. Once introduced

in the mining industry, these races rapidly found their way into the

unskilled parts of manufactures, into the service of railroads and large

contractors. On the construction of the Erie Canal in 1898, of 16,000

workmen, 15,000 were unnaturalized Italians.[74] The census of 1900

showed that while the foreign-born males were one-fourteenth of the

laborers in agriculture, they were three-fourths of the tailors, more

than one-half of the cabinet makers, nearly one-half of the miners and

quarrymen, tannery workers, marble and stonecutters, more than

two-fifths of the boot and shoe-makers and textile workers, one-third of

the coopers, iron and steel workers, wood-workers and miscellaneous

laborers, one-fourth of the carpenters, painters, and plasterers, and

one-fifth of the sawmill workers.[75] The foreign-born females numbered

nearly two-fifths of the female cotton-mill operatives and tailors,

one-third of the woollen-mill operatives, one-fourth of the tobacco and

silk-mill operatives.

On the Pacific slope the Chinese and Japanese immigrants have filled the

place occupied by the southeast European in the East and the negro in

the South. They were the workmen who built the Pacific railroads, and

without them it is said that these railroads could not have been

constructed until several years after their actual completion.

The immigration of the Chinese reached its highest figures prior to the

exclusion laws of 1882, and since that time has been but an

insignificant contribution. In their place have come the Japanese, a

race whose native land, in proportion to its cultivable area, is more

densely populated than any other country in the world. The Chinese and

Japanese are perhaps the most industrious of all races, while the

Chinese are the most docile. The Japanese excel in imitativeness, but

are not as reliable as the Chinese. Neither race, so far as their

immigrant representatives are concerned, possesses the originality and

ingenuity which characterize the competent American and British

mechanic. In the Hawaiian Islands, where they have enjoyed greater

opportunities than elsewhere, they are found to be capable workmen of

the skilled trades, provided they are under the direction of white

mechanics.[76] But their largest field of work in Hawaii is in the

unskilled cultivation of the great sugar plantations. Here they have

been likened to "a sort of agricultural automaton," and it becomes

possible to place them in large numbers under skilled direction, and

thus to secure the best results from their docility and industry.

In the United States itself the plantation form of agriculture, as

distinguished from the domestic form, has always been based on a supply

of labor from backward or un-Americanized races. This fact has a bearing

on the alleged tendency of agriculture toward large farms. Ten years

ago it seemed that the great "bonanza" farms were destined to displace

the small farms, just as the trust displaces the small manufacturer. But

it is now recognized that the reverse movement is in progress, and that

the small farmer can compete successfully with the great farmer. It has

not, however, been pointed out that the question is not merely an

economic one and that it depends upon the industrial character of the

races engaged in agriculture. The thrifty, hard-working and intelligent

American or Teutonic farmer is able to economize and purchase his own

small farm and compete successfully with the large undertaking. He is

even beginning to do this in Hawaii since the compulsory labor of his

large competitors was abolished.[77] But the backward, thriftless, and

unintelligent races succeed best when employed in gangs on large

estates. The cotton and sugar fields of the South with their negro

workers have their counterpart in the plantations of Hawaii with their

Chinese and Japanese, and in the newly developed sugar-beet fields of

Nebraska, Colorado, and California, with their Russians, Bohemians,

Japanese, and Mexicans. In the domestic or small form of agriculture the

bulk of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe are not greatly

desired as wage-earners, and they do not succeed as proprietors and

tenants because they lack oversight and business ability. Where they are

located in colonies under favorable auspices the Italians have achieved

notable success, and in the course of Americanization they will

doubtless rival older nationalities. But in the immigrant stage they are

helpless, and it is the immigrants from Northwestern Europe, the Germans

and Scandinavians, whose thrift, self-reliance, and intensive

agriculture have made them from the start the model farmers of America.

The Jewish immigrant, particularly, is unfitted for the life of a

pioneer. Remarkably individualistic in character, his field of

enterprise is society, and not the land. Of the thirty thousand families

sent out from New York by industrial and agricultural removal societies,

nine-tenths are located in industry and trade, and the bulk of the

remainder, who are placed on farms, succeed by keeping summer boarders.

Depending on boarders, they neglect agriculture and buy their

food-stuff. Their largest colony of hoped-for agriculturists, Woodbine,

New Jersey, has become a clothing factory.[78] Yet the factory system,

with its discipline and regular hours, is distasteful to the Jew's

individualism. He prefers the sweat-shop, with its going and coming. If

possible, he rises through peddling and merchandising.

These are a few of the many illustrative facts which might be set forth

to show that the changing character of immigration is made possible by

the changing character of industry; and that races wholly incompetent

as pioneers and independent proprietors are able to find a place when

once manufactures, mines, and railroads have sprung into being, with

their captains of industry to guide and supervise their semi-intelligent

work.