organizations growing faster than the number of wageearners. Thus the greatest activity in the field of organization coincided with the unparalleled immigration of the past decade. The best field for observation of the effects of immigration upon trade-unionism is the State of New York, which receives more than its proportionate share of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. A comparative study of trade-union statistics compiled by the New York Bureau of Labor and of the federal immigration statistics shows that union membership rises and falls with the rise and fall of immigration. The fluctuations of union membership depend upon the business situation, which likewise determines the fluctuations of immigration. The harmonious movement of immigration and organization among wage-earners is thus accounted for by the fact that both are stimulated by business prosperity and discouraged by business depression.

The question arises, however, whether the progress of trade-unionism would not have been greater had there been no immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe during the past decade of industrial expansion. An answer to this question is furnished by the comparative growth of tradeunion membership in New York and in Kansas. The ratio of foreign-born in Kansas has been steadily decreasing since 1880. At the same time Kansas has shared in the recent industrial expansion. Statistics show that the relative number of organized workmen is much higher in New York with its large and growing Southern and Eastern European population than in Kansas, where more than nine tenths of the population are of native birth.

These comparisons prove that recent immigration has not retarded the progress of trade-unionism, except, of course, where it is the policy of the unions to exclude the recent immigrants by prohibitive initiation dues and other restrictive regulations intended to limit the number of competitors within their trades.

Language is nowadays no longer a bar to organization

among immigrants. The membership of every union includes a sufficient number of men of every nationality through whom their countrymen can be reached.

Many of the more recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe had acquired a familiarity with the principles of organization in their home countries. In Italy organization has lately made rapid progress not only among industrial workers but also among agricultural laborers. In Russia, previous to the revolution of 1905, labor organizations and strikes were treated as conspiracies, but the revolutionary year 1905 outmatched the labor-union record of any other country. The strikes of that year affected one third of all the factories employing three fifths of all factory workers. The total number of strikers, at a conservative estimate, exceeded three and a half millions. The strikers drew together wage-earners of all those nationalities which make up the bulk of our immigration from Russia: Hebrews, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians, and Ruthenians (Little Russians). In this connection, it is worthy of note that the organizations of clothing workers in New York City, nearly all of whom are Russian and Polish Jews and Italians, comprise a higher proportion of the total number employed in the industry than the average trade-union in the United States.

If organized labor in the United States has not succeeded in welding together a majority of the wage-earners, the fault is neither with immigration in general, nor with immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe in particular. The primary cause is the substitution of machinery for human skill, which is taking the ground from the craft union. The latter, however, as a rule, does not seek to organize the unskilled laborers. Situations have arisen where the interests of the craft union have been antagonistic to organization among the unskilled. That organization among the unskilled is feasible, however, has been demonstrated in the coal-mining industry and recently in the Lawrence strike.

Another obstacle to the progress of trade-unionism is that the principal industries to-day are controlled by combinations, which have reduced competition among employers of labor to a minimum. In a contest of endurance between a trust and a trade-union, the former is able to hold out longer, since it can shift the losses to the consumers. The only successful strikes against trusts have been those in which the majority of the strikers were immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, viz., the strikes in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania and in the woolen mills of Lawrence.

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One of the reasons for the greater power of resistance exhibited by the Southern and Eastern Europeans is the predominance among them of men without families. The single European wage-earner who manages to save a portion of his earnings can fall back on his savings, if necessary. This relieves the pressure upon the strike fund. On the other hand, the families of recent immigrants, being inured to the most simple life in their home countries, can more easily endure the hardships of a strike than the families of native American wage-earners. The Southern and Eastern European strikers are therefore able to hold out longer in a wage contest than the native wage-earner.

The defeat of many strikes is charged against the immigrant, who, though supposedly too tractable under normal conditions, is said to be inclined to violence when aroused. Suffice it to say that strike riots are as old as strikes in the United States.

On the other hand, however, the United Mine Workers of America, whose members are mostly immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, has put into practical operation an industrial parliament, with separate representation

The proportion of married men among the recent immigrants employed in bituminous coal mines varied from 49.4 per cent to 77.2 per cent; the proportion of married men whose families were living abroad averaged 27.9 per cent for all races, varying from 19.5 to 80.4 per cent.— Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, Tables 102 and 104.

for employers and employees, for the orderly regulation of the terms of employment. And lately, another organization of recent immigrants, the Union of Cloak, Suit, and Skirt Makers, has created a joint executive body for the sanitary control of workshops. It can not be said then "as a general proposition . . . that all improvement in conditions and increases in rates of pay have been secured in spite of the presence of the recent immigrant."

The results of the preceding discussion can be summed up as follows:

(1) Recent immigration has displaced none of the native American wage-earners or of the earlier immigrants, but has only covered the shortage of labor resulting from the excess of the demand over the domestic supply.

(2) Immigration varies inversely with unemployment; it has not increased the rate of unemployment.

(3) The standard of living of the recent immigrants is not lower than the standard of living of the past generations of immigrants engaged in the same occupations. Recent immigration has not lowered the standard of living of Americans and older immigrant wage-earners.

(4) Recent immigration has not reduced the rates of wages, nor has it prevented an increase in the rates of wages; it has pushed the native and older immigrant wage-earners upward on the scale of occupations.

(5) The hours of labor have been reduced contemporaneously with recent immigration.

(6) The membership of labor organizations has grown apace with recent immigration; the new immigrants have contributed their proportionate quota to the membership of every labor organization which has not discriminated against them, and they have firmly stood by their organizations in every contest.

There is consequently no specific "immigration problem." There is a general labor problem, which comprises many special problems, such as organization of labor, reduction of

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Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 541.

hours of labor, child labor, unemployment, prevention of work-accidents, etc. None of these problems being affected by immigration, their solution cannot be advanced by restriction or even by complete prohibition of immigration. The advocates of restriction are conscious of the fact that without immigration the industrial expansion of the past twenty years would have been impossible. But they believe that the pace of progresss has been too fast and that the interests of labor would be furthered by a slower development of industry which would dispense with Southern and Eastern European unskilled laborers. This is the gist of the recommendations of the Immigration Commission.

The weak point in this argument is that it takes no cognizance of the cardinal principle of modern division of labor, viz., that in every industrial establishment there is a fixed proportion of skilled to unskilled laborers. Were the immigration of skilled mechanics to continue as heretofore, while the expansion of the industry slowed down in consequence of a reduced supply of unskilled labor, a corresponding proportion of the skilled immigrants could find no emplo ment at their trades. The skilled crafts whose organizations favor the exclusion of unskilled immigrants would be the first to suffer in consequence. The effects of the disproportion in the immigrant labor supply would be temporary, but a slow growth of industry would tend to curtail the opportunities for advancement of the wage-earners who are already here.

On the other hand, the unemployed could gain nothing from a slow growth of industry. Seasonal and cyclical variations in the general demand for labor, as well as variations in the demands of individual employers would continue on a reduced scale of national production. The mere exclusion of unskilled immigrants, and even of all immigrants, will not provide employment for sailors in the winter, or for the full winter force of a Wisconsin logging camp in the summer; nor will it revolutionize the world of fashion. In order to provide regular employment for all workers, it