The Italians in every income group expended more for food than the Hungarians and Slavs. In every income group below $900 per year, they expended more for food than any other nationality, including native Americans.' Among the families with an income from $900 to $1000, the Italians expended as much as the Teutons and the Irish, and more than the Bohemians who are regarded as "desirable" immigrants. In the highest group the Italian expended more than the Celts and the Teutons. According to Professor Underhill, of Yale University, who has made a study of the nutritive value of various foods, 22 cents per man per day must be regarded as the minimum upon which physical existence can be maintained. It appears from the preceding table, that the Irish were the only race which denied themselves that minimum when their earnings were low. To sum up, Professor Chapin's analysis gives no indication of a sliding scale of racial standards of living.

All the native Americans but one were sons of native fathers, or of immigrants from Northern and Western Europe. The one exception was the son of a Bohemian father, but Bohemians are not among the “undesirable.”—Chapin, loc. cit., P. 39.

The most extensive investigation of its kind, comprising more than 25,000 family budgets, was made by the United States Bureau of Labor ten years ago. Table 79, compiled from its report, is a comparative statement of food expenditures of "normal" families classified by annual income and country of birth. A "normal" family, it will be remembered, is one supported solely by the earnings of husband and father. All families with abnormally low incomes (under $400 annually) have been excluded from this comparison. No nationality with less than ten families in each income group is shown separately, but all foreign-born are included in the total.

TABLE 79.

EXPENDITURES FOR FOOD IN NORMAL FAMILIES WITH AN INCOME FROM

$400 TO $700, CLASSIFIED BY NATIVITY AND INCOME.'

The lowest expenditures for food within the same income group were found among native white workmen with incomes under $500 and above $600; in the middle group the lowest place was held by the Italians, the next to the lowest by native white Americans. The highest expendi

1 Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Table V D. pp. 560-563.

tures were reported by the Russians in the two groups with incomes of $500 and over. In the lowest income group the highest expenditure for food was found among natives of Austria-Hungary, while the Russians were on a par with the English and above the Irish, the Canadians and the Germans. In the other two groups, the natives of AustriaHungary expended more than the native Americans and more than any of the "old immigrants." The Italians expended more than the native Americans in the two extreme groups, and only $10.00 less per year, i. e., three cents a day less per family in the middle group. It is possible that the higher expenditure for food among the "undesirable" races is accounted for by the size of the family, but the earnings of the head of the family must cover the expense of supporting all its members. It is therefore, the total expense rather than the average per individual that may, by supposition, affect the rate of wages.

Still, if we turn to the comparative table of the same report in which the expenditure for food of native and foreign families is reduced to a uniform basis of units of consumption, we observe the same tendency as shown by the comparison of total expenditures. We learn from that table:

I

(1) That among the families having no children the natives of Russia expended $145.24 per one hundred units of consumption, while the natives of the United States expended only $119.85;

(2) That among the families with two children, the Russians expended $107.35 as against $95.24 expended by Americans;

(3) That among families with three children, the average expense of the Russians was $108.11, whereas the Americans expended only $85.06;

(4) That an Italian family with one child expended on an average $124.73, while an American family of the

1 Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commission of Labor, Table V D., p. 102.

same size was contented with $109.94, an English family with $107.19, and a Norwegian with $87.53;

(5) That an Austro-Hungarian family without children or with one child expended more for food than a Scotch family of the same size;

(6) That an Austro-Hungarian family with two children needed $117.22, while a native American family of the same size could exist on $95.24, and an English family on $105.86; (7) That an Austro-Hungarian family with three children, expended $98.65 per one hundred units of consumption as compared with $85.00 expended by an average American family of the same size, and with $85.20 expended by an average English family;

(8) That an Austro-Hungarian family with four or five children, expended more than a Scotch family;

(9) That the Scotch were in every group inferior to the Russians;

(10) That English families with less than five children had a lower expenditure for food than Russian families of equal size.1

These budgets have been quoted here as the best evidence that has been collected on the comparative standards of living of native and foreign-born wage-earners. Still, large as the number of individual families included in the canvass of the Bureau of Labor may look at a superficial glance, it affords too narrow a foundation for nice distinctions. Food expenditures vary with the size and the income of the family, and with geographical location affecting the prices of food-stuffs. If the food expenditures are to be compared by nationality, under uniform conditions as to location, size of family, and income, some of the groups must be so minute as to preclude the possibility of any reliable generalizations. The last table commented upon may serve as an illustration; among the foreign nationalities, there is no group of more than seventeen

Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commission of Labor, p. 631, Table

families, while most of the groups contain less than ten families, and twenty-one consist of only one family. Variations in individual cases, however, are very wide. The only conclusion that is warranted by such statistics as are available is a negative one, viz., that the existence of a race standard of living determining the rate of wages for every race is not proven. "The actual standard that prevails is set primarily by the wages paid and the prices charged. "I

E. Clothing

In no other respect is the assimilation of the immigrant accomplished so rapidly as in the matter of dress. The mandates of Herbert Spencer's "ceremonial government' cannot be disobeyed. "Many of the recent immigrants," says the Immigration Commission, "still have some articles of clothing which they brought with them from Europe. Most of their clothing, however, practically all, is made in this country and purchased by them here." The prices which the alien workman must pay in an American department store for shoes and clothes are fixed, not by his imported individual or racial psychology, but by the American manufacturer, the American railway manager, and the American department store proprietor, every one of them eager to make an American profit, in order to maintain an American standard of living for himself.

The Immigration Commission has secured the transcripts of store accounts, which show that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe pay from $10.00 to $15.00 for a suit of clothes, from $3.00 to $3.25 for a pair of shoes, from sixty cents to $1.00 for an overshirt, from $2.00 to $3.10 for a suit of flannel underwear, $1.50 for a hat, etc.3 These prices are the same as advertised in Washington, D. C.,

Chapin, loc. cit., pp. 249-250.

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 9, p. 81.

3 The following prices were paid by Southern and Eastern European workmen: "Shoes are purchased at prices ranging from $1.75 to $3.00, the former being for work and the latter for dress. Summer underwear