he has no possibilities beyond a given sphere, and is trained and developed within it. Thus environed, his career and ambitions lie in the paths his fathers have trod, and his associations with his fellow craftsmen make the trade union his natural and necessary place. Transported to this country he brings his feelings for the union and his class associations with him as a habit. But the American mechanic's boy is born to no conditions in life from which he may not rise, or hope to rise, or which at least he may not abandon for better or worse. All the precepts of the schools and teachings of observation suggest other ways of making a living, or at least other avenues in life, than those of his father.'

In a later publication of the Massachusetts Labor Bureau the unstable character of trade unions in New England up to 1880 is explained by the fact "that early New England workmen seldom regarded their condition as journeymen as likely to be permanent. They nearly all looked forward with some degree of hope to a time when they would become employers."2

This condition still exists in smaller communities where many of the native American wage-earners are home-owners, 3 and in country districts where the factory workers are drawn from the farms of the neighborhood. As a result, we find labor better organized in New York City with a high percentage of recent immigrants than in the remainder of the State of New York, with a predominantly native population.

In Table 101, the distribution of male trade-union membership between the city of New York and the remainder of the State is presented in parallel columns with the distribution of male breadwinners in non-agricultural pursuits.

In New York City one half of all breadwinners in 1900 were foreign-born, whereas in the remainder of the State three fourths were of native birth. At the same time New York City had more than its proportionate share of trade

1 Fourth Annual Repori of the Illinois Bureau of Statistics of Labor (1886), p. 228.

* Massachusetts Labor Bulletin, No. 10, April, 1899, p. 55. 3 Pratt, loc. cit., p. 99.

TABLE 101.

COMPARATIVE UNION MEMBERSHIP IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 1900.1

union membership. The margin in favor of New York City would be still greater if instead of all breadwinners industrial wage-earners alone were considered, the proportion of the latter being larger outside of the great cities than in cities with a population of over 300,000.1

The figures are for the year 1900, no later occupation statistics as yet being available. The conditions have not changed since, as appears from Table 102 on p. 343.

The membership of the trade unions in New York City more than doubled from 1900 to 1910, whereas in the remainder of the State it increased by less than three fifths. This difference was not due to a proportionate increase of the population of New York City compared with the urban population of the remainder of the State: while the population of New York City increased somewhat faster than the urban population outside of New York City, the relative number of organized workers in New York City increased still faster. The figures furnish unmistakable evidence of greater progress of trade unions at the gate of the United States, parallel with the growth of the foreign-born popu

I

Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1910, vol. ii., pp. xlix., 1., 15. Occupations, XII. Census, Tables 41 and 43.

Hourwich, loc. cit., Journal of Political Economy, April, 1911,

P. 324.

TABLE 102.

COMPARATIVE UNION MEMBERSHIP IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 1900-1910.1

lation, than in the remainder of the State where eight ninths of the population are American-born.

Still, the strength of organized labor is measured above mere numbers by its ability to marshal its forces in contests ever terms of employment. The strike statistics which have been collected by the United States Bureau of Labor do not extend to the period prior to 1881, but there are official figures for Massachusetts going as far back as 1830, and for Pennsylvania as far as 1835. The data are presented in Table 103.

1 Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1910, vol. ii., pp. xlix., l., 15. Advance statement issued to the press by the Director of the Census on the foreign-born population of New York; XIII. Census Bulletin on Population of Cities.

• Complete census returns for 1910 not being available, the ratio of foreign-born to urban population outside of New York City was computed on the assumption that all foreign-born resided in urban territory. The percentage of foreign-born outside of New York City is accordingly exaggerated, and the contrast between New York City and the rest of the State is in reality even more pronounced than appears from this table.

TABLE 103.

NUMBER OF STRIKES IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1830-1905, AND PENNSYLVANIA,

Making every allowance for the incompleteness of the reports of early strikes, we see once more from the figures for two of the leading industrial States that in the days of "the old immigration" the labor movement was negligible: the average number of strikes in Pennsylvania during one year since 1881 exceeds the total for the preceding half-century.

In order to trace the effect, if any, of the new immigration upon the strike movement, the period 1896-1905, when immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe became predominant, is next compared with the ten-year period next preceding.

Table 104 shows an increase of the number of strikers in general, and of organized strikers in particular. Taking the number of industrial wage-earners in 1890 as the average for 1886-1895 and the number in 1900 as the average for 1896-1905, we find an increase of 34 per cent2; the annual average number of strikers increased at the same time 29 per cent, and the annual average of organized strikers 38 per cent. In other words the strike movement kept

Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Massachusetts, 1880, p. 65. Report of the Secretary of the Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania, Part III., Industrial Statistics, 1880-1881, p. 388. Twenty-first Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1906, pp. 492– 495.

2 Hourwich, loc. cit. Journal of Political Economy, March, 1911, p. 213.

pace with the growing number of industrial wage-earners. The percentage of unsuccessful organized strikes decreased. The movement was apparently not affected either by the increase of immigration, or by the change in its racial make-up.

2

Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe have at times acted as strike breakers, but so have native Americans. In 1904, during the strike of the miners of the Alabama district, "the operators brought in Magyars, Slovaks, Greeks, Servians, Italians, and Finns, as well as native whites, as strike breakers. "3 It is a matter of common

1 XXI. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Table IV, pp. 478– 479, and Table V, pp. 490–491. Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1903-1905. Summary of Commerce and Finance, June 1903, pp. 4422-4423. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, p. 246, Table 150.

In the big strike of 1877 "many American girls, it was said, acted as strike breakers, replacing Bohemian women. In the cigar industry, in general, "when immigrant women went on strike they were replaced with comparative ease by American girls."-Report of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, vol. ix., p. 199–201.

3 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 9, p. 197. In 1908, "during the strike [of the miners of Birmingham], considerable numbers of immigrants were brought in as strike breakers, but in not so great a proportion as native whites from other coal-mining sections." —Ibid., p. 200.