Part 4
With annexation in 1900 contract labor was abolished, and the j.a.panese, freed from servitude, indulged in "an epidemic of strikes." The j.a.panese government retained paternal oversight of its laborers migrating to foreign lands, which is done through some thirty-four emigrant companies chartered by the government. Since opening up Korea for settlement j.a.pan has granted but a limited number of pa.s.sports to its citizens destined for the mainland of America, so that almost the entire immigration comes first to Honolulu through arrangements made between the emigrant companies and the planters. But the planters are not able to keep them on the island on account of the higher wages on the Pacific coast. Since the alien contract-labor law does not apply to immigrants from Hawaii, a _padroni_ system has sprung up for importing j.a.panese from that island.
As a result, the arrivals at Honolulu are equalled by the departures to the mainland, and Hawaii becomes the American side entrance for the j.a.panese.[57] This evasion has been stopped by the law of February 20, 1906.
Hawaii also is showing another Asiatic race the opening to America. The growing independence of the j.a.panese led the planters to seek Koreans, since the Chinese exclusion law came into force with annexation. In this effort to break down j.a.panese solidarity some eight thousand Koreans have been mixed with them during the past five years, and these also have begun the transit to California.
Although the Chinese, j.a.panese, and Koreans are the familiar examples often cited of low standards of living, yet their wages in their native countries are higher than those of the South Italians and equal to those of the Slavs. They earn $4 or $5 a month and spend $2 or $3 for living.
In Hawaii they get $18 to $20 a month, and on the Pacific coast $35 to $50.
In the past two or three years a tiny dripping of immigration has found its way from another vast empire of Asiatic population--India. Some two hundred are admitted each year. The populations of that land are growing discontented as they see Indians returned from Natal, where they earned $20 to $35 a month, while at home they get only $3 to $7 under a penal contract system. The American consul at Calcutta reports ten st.u.r.dy Punjab Mohammedans inquiring the way to America and telling of their friends at work on American dairy farms. In his judgment they are stronger and more intelligent than the Chinese coolies and are preferable for work on the Panama Ca.n.a.l. The self-governing British colonies have educational restrictions designed to prevent Asiatic immigration, whether of British subjects or aliens;[58] other colonies have contract labor. The unrest of India therefore turns the native eyes towards America.
While America has been welcoming the eastward and backward races she has begun to lose her colonial stock and her Americanized Teutonic stock.
These pioneer elements have kept in front of the westward movement, and now that the American frontier is gone they seek a new frontier in Canada. The Canadian government for several years has sought to fill its vast Western plains with Teutonic races and to discourage others. It has expended many thousand dollars for advertising and soliciting in the British Isles, and has maintained twenty to thirty immigration agents in our Western states. The opportunities of British Columbia are now well known, and the American farmers, with agricultural land rising enormously in value, sell out to the newcomer or the acclimated immigrant and betake themselves to double or treble the area for cultivation under the flag of England. They push onward by rail and by wagon, and the ingress of millions of immigrants is reflected in the egress of thousands of Americans.[59]
=Indigenous Races.=--It is not enough that we have opened our gates to the millions of divergent races in Europe, Asia, and Africa; we have in these latter days admitted to our fold new types by another process--annexation.
The Hawaiians are the latest of these oversea races to be brought under our flag, although in the course of eighty years they have been brought under our people. Nowhere else in the world has been seen such finished effect on an aboriginal race of the paradoxes of Western civilization--Christianity, private property, and s.e.xual disease. With a population of some 300,000 at the time of discovery they had dwindled by domestic wars and imported disease to 140,000 when the missionaries came in 1820, then to 70,000 in 1850 when private property began its hunt for cheap labor, and now they number but 30,000. A disease eliminating the unfit of a race protected by monogamy decimates this primitive people on a lower stage of morals. Missionaries from the most intellectual type of American Protestantism converted the diminishing nation to Christianity in fifty years. A soil and climate the most favorable in the world for sugar-cane inspired American planters and sons of missionaries to displace the unsteady Hawaiians with industrious coolies, and finally to overthrow the government they had undermined and then annex it to America. Although acquiring American citizenship and sharing equally the suffrage with Caucasians, the decreasing influence of the Hawaiians is further diminished by the territorial form of government.
The Spanish War added islands on opposite sides of the globe, with races resulting from diametrically opposite effects of three centuries of Spanish rule. From Porto Rico the aboriginal Carib had long disappeared under the slavery of his conquerors, and his place had been filled by the negro slave in sugar cultivation and by the Spaniard and other Europeans in coffee cultivation. To-day the negro and mulatto are two-fifths of the million population and the whites three-fifths.[60] In the Philippine Islands the native races have survived under a theocratic protectorate and even their tribal and racial subdivisions have been preserved. Two-fifths of their population of 7,600,000 belong to the leading tribe, the Visayans, and one-fifth to another, the Tagalogs. Six other tribes complete the list of "civilized" or Christianized peoples, while 10 per cent remain pagan in the mountains and forests. Four-fifths of the population are illiterate, a proportion the same as in Porto Rico, compared with less than half of the negroes and only one-sixteenth of the whites in the United States.[61]
CHAPTER V
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 ma.s.ses 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 a.s.sert dogmatically the relative weight of each, yet to one who has carefully noted all the circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.senger 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts, advanced transportation, and contracts for indentured service by way of reimburs.e.m.e.nt. In the nineteenth century new forms of induced migration appeared. Victims of the Irish famine were a.s.sisted 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] j.a.panese coolies, much later, came under contract with immigration companies chartered by the j.a.panese 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]
===============+========+=========+==================+==========================
s.e.xES
AGES
OCCUPATIONS[65]
+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+----+----+----+----
TOTAL,
TOTAL,
Professional RACE OR PEOPLE
100
Under
14-45
Over
100
Commercial
PER CENT
M
F
14
years
45
PER
Skilled
years
years
CENT
Unskilled ---------------+--------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+-------+----+----+----+---- 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 Bohemian and
Moravian
12,958
57.3
42.8
20.7
73.9
5.4
7,985
1.3
1.2
43.6
53.9 Bulgarian,
Servian, and
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 Croatian and
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 Dalmatian,
Bosnian, and
Herzegovinian
4,568
95.1
4.9
1.7
96.3
2.0
4,373
0.1
0.3
7.7
91.9 Dutch and
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 j.a.panese
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 Pacific
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 Spanish
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 West Indian
(except
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 const.i.tute 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 a.s.similate, 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 compet.i.tive 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 compet.i.tors 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 j.a.panese 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 compet.i.tion of races, but the compet.i.tors see their wages and jobs diminish. The increase of wealth intensifies the difference and raises up professional cla.s.ses 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 compet.i.tion and begins to join in measures of race protection.
This hostility is not primarily racial in character. It is the compet.i.tive 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 cla.s.s 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 compet.i.tion, 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.ses. The law is directed against prepayment of transportation, a.s.sistance, 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 compet.i.tion of wage-earner against wage-earner.
Consider first the bearing of immigration on the production of wealth.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PROPORTION OF s.e.xES. 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 s.e.xes 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 ent.i.tled "Industrial Relations of Immigrants."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 cla.s.sed 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.
