sions of labor, in order, by a diversity of tongues, to prevent concerted action on the part of employees, has made unionization of the immigrant almost impossible. This custom, of course, is in no way inconsistent with the opposite practise found in different circumstances of grouping the races separately to prevent disturbances arising from race hostilities. (See page

224.

The significant result of the whole situation has been that the influx of the southern and eastern Europeans has been too rapid to permit of their ready absorption by the labor organizations which were in existence before their arrival. In some industries the influence and power of the labor unions are concerned only with those occupations in which the competition of the southern and eastern European has been only indirectly or remotely felt, and consequently the labor organizations have not been very seriously affected. In the occupations and industries in which the pressure of the competition of the recent immigrant has been directly felt, either because the nature of the work was such as to permit of the immediate employment of the immigrant or because the invention of improved machinery made his employment possible in occupations which formerly required training and apprenticeship, the labor organizations have been, in a great many cases, completely overwhelmed and disrupted. In other industries and occupations in which the elements of skilled training and experience were requisite, such as in certain divisions of the glass-manufacturing industry, the effect of the employment of recent immigrants upon labor organizations has not been followed by such injurious results.

Racial Displacement as a Result of Immigrant Competition

Competition of the southern and eastern European has led to a voluntary or involuntary displacement, in certain occupations and industries, of the native American and of the older immigrant employees from Great Britain and northern Europe. These racial displacements have manifested themselves in three

ways:

(a) A large proportion of native Americans and older immigrant employees from Great Britain and northern Europe have left certain industries, such as bituminous and anthracite coal mining and iron and steel manufacturing.

(b) A part of the earlier employees who remained in the industries in which they were employed before the advent of the southern and eastern European, have been able, because of the demand growing out of the general industrial expansion, to rise to more skilled and responsible executive and technical posi tions which required employees of training and experience. In the larger number of cases, however, where the older employees remained in a certain industry after the pressure of the competition of the recent immigrant had begun to be felt, they relinquished their former positions and segregated themselves in certain other occupations. This tendency is best illustrated by the distribution of employees according to race in bituminous coal mines. In this industry all the so-called "company" occupations, which are paid on the basis of a daily, weekly, or monthly rate, are filled by native Americans or older immigrants and their children, while the southern and

eastern Europeans are confined to pick mining and the unskilled and common labor. The same situation exists in other branches of manufacturing enterprise. The stigma which has become attached to working in the same occupations as the southern and eastern European, as in the bituminous coal mining industry, has led to this segregation of the older class of employees in occupations which, from the standpoint of compensation, are less desirable than those occupied by recent immigrants. In most industries the native American and older immigrant workmen who have remained in the same occupations in which the recent immigrants are predominant are the thriftless, unprogressive elements of the original operating forces.

(c) Another striking feature of the competition of southern and eastern Europeans is the fact that in the case of most industries, such as iron and steel, textile and glass manufacturing, and the different forms of mining, the children of native Americans and of older immigrants from Great Britain and northern Europe are not entering the industries in which their fathers have been employed. Many classes of manufacturers claim that they are unable to secure a sufficient number of native-born employees to insure the development of the necessary number of workmen to fill the positions of skill and responsibility in their establishments. This condition of affairs is attributed to three factors: (1) General or technical education has enabled a considerable number of the children of industrial workers to command business, professional, or technical occupations apparently more desirable than those of their fathers. (2) The conditions of work which have resulted from the employment of recent

immigrants have rendered certain industrial occupations unattractive to the wage-earner of native birth. (3) Occupations other than those in which southern and eastern Europeans are engaged are sought for the reason that popular opinion attaches to them a more satisfactory social status and a higher degree of respectability. Whatever may be the cause of this aversion of older employees to working by the side of the new arrivals, the existence of the feeling has been crystallized into one of the most potent causes of racial substitution in manufacturing and mining occupations.

Immigration Has Checked Increase in Wages

As regards the effects of the employment of recent immigrants upon wages and hours of work, there is no evidence to show that the employment of southern and eastern European wage-earners has caused a direct lowering of wages or an extension in the hours. of work in mines and industrial establishments. It is undoubtedly true that the availability of the large supply of recent immigrant labor has prevented the increase in wages which otherwise would have resulted during recent years from the increased demand for labor. The low standards of the southern and eastern European, his ready acceptance of a low wage and existing working conditions, his lack of permanent interest in the occupation and community in which he has been employed, his attitude toward labor organizations, his slow progress toward assimilation, and his willingness seemingly to accept indefinitely without protest certain wages and conditions of employment, have rendered it extremely difficult for the older classes of employees to secure improvements in con

ditions or advancement in wages since the arrival in considerable numbers of southern and eastern European wage-earners. As a general proposition, it may be said that all improvements in conditions and increases in rates of pay have been secured in spite of their presence. The recent immigrant, in other words, has not actively opposed the movements toward better conditions of employment and higher wages, but his availability and his general characteristics and attitude have constituted a passive opposition which has been most effective.

Industrial Depression

The recent immigrant, of all classes of employees, is usually the residual sufferer in times of industrial depression. His presence also tends to intensify the unfavorable conditions which have arisen from other causes. The statement that the influx and the outgo of foreign-born workmen automatically adjusts itself to activity or stagnation in mining and manufacturing is only partly true.

During a period of general curtailment of work, as in the case of the financial and industrial breakdown of 1907, married men with families and Americans are given the preference. As a result, recent immigrant wage-earners in large numbers are thrown out of employment. Those who have saved enough to pay their passage, or who have received remittances from home, return to their native lands. Only those remain who have come to this country on the eve of the depression and are unable to secure work or to save enough to return, or those who are unable, as in the case of many Bulgarians and Macedonians, to