wage groups of the "total native-born" show a concentration of laborers in the three groups covering earnings of from $2 to $3.50 per day, but the percentage here is 70.3 as compared with 89.7, the corresponding percentage for the "grand total" as stated above. This difference is explained by the relatively large proportion of the native-born who receive $3.50 or over, as the percentage receiving less than $2 is exactly the same (i. e., 3.1) as the corresponding percentage for the grand total. The most striking feature of the distribution of the foreign-born, taken collectively, is the large proportion found in the $2 to $2.50 wage group. This group includes 522, or 75.4 per cent, of the 692 foreign-born employees. The percentage for the three wage groups covering earnings of $2 to $3.50 per day is therefore somewhat higher than the similar percentage for the total native-born. The percentage of foreign-born receiving over $3.50 per day is only 3.3, as compared with 10.5 for persons nativeborn of native father and 12.7 per cent for persons native-born of foreign father.

Examining the data for foreign-born persons in detail we find, as stated at the beginning of this section, that the northern European races tend toward the higher paid occupations. The southern Europeans, on the other hand, are largely concentrated in the principal earnings group of $2 to $2.50. The most striking example of group concentration, however, is that afforded by the Mexicans. Of the 360 reported individuals of this race, 346 are found in the $2 to $2.50 group. Thirteen earned more while one earned less.

Race changes.

Few important race changes were found to have taken place. With one exception the sugar-beet factories of California have employed the various white races and Mexicans in the southern California districts, already noted, from the beginning of the industry. The exception is the factory referred to on page 128 as now employing Portuguese to the extent of 80 per cent of the working force. This factory began operations about 1872. For the first fifteen years of its existence it employed Chinese exclusively, save for the supervisory, clerical, and mechanical occupations, because Chinese labor, then both cheap and plentiful, was used in most industries of a similar nature. In 1887, after fifteen years of little success, the factory passed into the hands of a new management and the business was reorganized. The Chinese in the factory were discharged and replaced by white labor. This step was largely due to a violent anti-Chinese agitation then active in the cities about San Francisco Bay.

The white laborers who replaced the Chinese, arranged in the order of their numerical importance for the first few years, were as follows: Danish, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Spanish, and the Englishspeaking races. The Portuguese are said to have constituted only 15 per cent of the total during these years. Subsequently, however, the distribution of races has gradually changed until now the Portuguese, as already stated, include 80 per cent of the total working force. The

48296°-VOL 24-11-10

predominance of this race in this factory is due to the presence of a large Portuguese colony in the community, and the fact that many of the small beet growers are members of it. In such a case the beet grower feels that he has more or less of a vested right to share in the factory work with his relatives and friends when the necessities of the field work permit, and the factory finds by experience that it pays to let him do so because it increases his satisfaction with the industry as a whole, and thereby adds to the probability that he will continue to row beets for the company.

Race changes of a minor kind have occurred at several factories. For example, in one district where the industry was established in 1898, Swiss and Portuguese were predominant for several years because the district was then chiefly occupied by colonies of these two. races. As the industry has grown, however, the factory force has changed until in 1909 the Swiss and Portuguese, though still important racial elements, constituted together only a quarter of the total force and were outnumbered by a new element, the Italians.

Important changes have sometimes occurred in the kind of laborers who apply for work in successive campaigns. The experience of a beet-sugar factory which opened in 1906 may be cited. This factory was located in a rather sparsely settled farming community subject to a great deal of malaria. The only laborers the sugar company could secure for the factory work at first were "bums" and "hoboes" who proved to be very unreliable. This situation lasted for a year or two until the company, becoming better known as an employer of labor, was able to obtain more efficient and trustworthy help from the native white population of that and neighboring communities.

Experiments have also been made with other races than those now employed. One factory employed negroes for work at the limekilns and diffusion batteries four or five years ago. The results were satisfactory, but negroes can no longer be secured for this work. Another company experimented with Japanese for the rougher, heavier work in the factory and the yard, but found them ill-adapted to it. At the present time the company to which reference is made in the preceding paragraph is experimenting with Greeks for the work of the lime sheds and limekilns. The results are said to be very unsatisfactory.

There is no evidence of any attempts at direct underbidding among laborers in the beet-sugar factories of California. Wages, as a rule, have remained unchanged or have followed the general level. The only race displacement of any importance, that of Chinese by Portuguese in a single factory, was caused by race prejudice and resulted in a rise in wages rather than a fall. There is, however, more or less indirect underbidding. This is shown by the fact that in factories employing Mexicans these men are given work to do which a "white man" would refuse at the wages offered. In other factories similar work is done by Italians under similar conditions. Most companies. would prefer "American labor" for all of the factory work, but they employ recent immigrants to a considerable extent, because the "American laborer" will not accept the wages offered for the disagreeable work and long hours of the beet-sugar factory,

Comparing the history of races in the factories with that of the races employed in the beet fields, the most striking contrast is afforded by the almost entire absence of the Japanese from the factories. Their absence is due to several causes. From the employer's standpoint the Japanese is especially undesirable because of the antiJapanese sentiment often found among white workmen, who must necessarily be employed to a large extent for the more important mechanical and supervisory occupations. The Japanese, furthermore, is physically ill-adapted for the heavy lifting incidental to the work of the beet-sugar factory. Moreover, he is said not to be amenable to the necessary factory discipline. The Japanese himself, on the other hand, greatly prefers agricultural labor in which he can work by the piece, be his own boss," and possibly acquire control of land with his accumulated savings and become a beet grower. The Japanese is essentially an outdoor worker and is especially averse to the close supervision of foremen.

Employers' opinions of races employed.

"American labor," as was stated in the previous section, is generally preferred to that of immigrant races. The "American laborer" is regarded as more intelligent, efficient, and adaptable, though he is sometimes said to be less tractable than the immigrant laborer. The recent immigrant from northern Europe, especially from Great Britain, the Scandinavian countries, and Germany, is given second preference. These races, together with the Americans, furnish almost all of the foremen and mechanics as well as the men for the more responsible semiskilled occupations.

The Mexican is said to require a great deal of supervision because of a strong propensity to "soldier." For this reason he is usually classed among the least desirable of factory workers. Little is said, however, of the drunkenness and consequent irregularity at work of which so much complaint was made in the case of the Mexican field worker. Of adaptability and progressiveness, the earnings statistics given in a previous section show that the Mexican laborer possesses little.

The Portuguese is rated as inferior to the American and northern European in the factories in which he is employed. He is said to be less progressive, showing little aptitude for the mechanical trades or work of supervision, and is accused of being lazy. In the factory which employs the largest number of this race, constituting 80 per cent of the total force of that factory, Americans and northern Europeans are considered much superior to Portuguese. It is felt here that the best line of advance for the Portuguese is the regular work in the beet fields, as they are good teamsters and small farmers.

Of the minor races employed, the Swiss seem to be generally preferred to the Italians, the latter, perhaps, being considered about as desirable as the Portuguese. The Greeks, who have been tried at all extensively at only one factory, are said to be the least desirable of all races for the rough, heavy work which they were given to do.

FACTORY LABOR IN COLORADO.

Men employed.

The number of employees in beet-sugar factories in Colorado in 1909 was between 4,000 and 4,500, a number which, in proportion to the aggregate daily slicing capacity of the factories involved, is relatively larger than the total of 2,500 for California. This fact may be explained by the proportionately small number of men employed in the two largest factories in California. One of these, with a daily slicing capacity of 3,000 tons, employs only 650 men; the other, with a capacity of 2,000 tons per day, employs 550 men. In Colorado, on the other hand, three factories, with an aggregate capacity of only 3,600 tons, employ an aggregate of 1,250 men. Of course allowance must here be made for the possibility that the assumption that the factories considered were operating up to the limits of their capacities is not true, but the necessary correction is probably not large.

The supply of labor for the beet-sugar factories of Colorado is drawn almost entirely from the so-called "American" population. Not more than one-tenth of it is composed of German-Russians, Japanese, and Mexicans, the races most prominent in the beet fields of Colorado combined. Among the small number of recent immigrants employed the German-Russians are most conspicuous, but even their importance in single establishments is mainly limited to two southern Colorado factories. One of these, located in a large German-Russian beet-growing community, employed members of that race to the extent of more than one-half of its total force of 125, while the other located in an older community, employed 35 GermanRussians out of a total force of 400. In western Colorado where the German-Russians have a virtual monopoly of the field work, the employees of the one factory there are "Americans" from the vicinity almost to a man. Only occasionally is a German-Russian hired for factory work and then only to do the roughest common labor. In northern Colorado only a sprinkling of German-Russians are found on the pay rolls of the sugar factories. The Mexicans are of much less importance than the German-Russians, being found only in small numbers here and there doing rough common labor. In one case an immigrant Mexican held a contract for unloading beets and coal, employing his countrymen to help him with the work and paying them also on a piece basis. Their earnings were said to average $2.25 for a twelve-hour day. It is interesting here to contrast the almost negligible number of Mexicans employed in the sugar factories of Colorado with the much larger proportion in California factories. One reason for this difference is evidently the fact that the Mexicans employed in the beet-sugar industry of Colorado are brought largely from a considerable distance for the purpose of doing the hand work in the fields. In California, on the other hand, the factories which employ Mexicans are located near colonies of the race or near the city of Los Angeles, which is a distributing point for alien as well as native-born Mexican laborers. The Japanese play no larger part in the work of the sugar factories of Colorado as a whole than they do in those of California. One factory in northern Colorado, how

ever, which has experimented with the Japanese for the heavier work, reports the result of the experiment as favorable to them.

The average length of residence in the United States reported by sugar-factory employees in Colorado is approximately the same as the similar average for California. This is shown in a comparison of the following table with the corresponding table for California." TABLE 44.-Number of foreign-born male employees in the United States each specified number of years, by race: Colorado,

[By years in the United States is meant years since first arrival in the United States. No deduction is made for time spent abroad.].

This table includes accurate data compiled from selected individual slips for mechanics and common laborers and is believed to be representative. As in California, members of the northern European races have been in the country longest. The German-Russians have come into the United States chiefly in the last decade. Only 6 of 45 had been here fifteen years or longer, while 29 had resided in the country less than four years. The immigrant Mexicans have entered the United States almost altogether within the past decade. This was also found to be true in California.

Earnings.

Wages paid in Colorado for the various occupations of a beetsugar factory are practically the same as those obtaining in California and are subject in most cases to about the same deduction for accident insurance, and, as in California, board and lodging are never given in addition to money wages. In California differences in the earnings of different races are due to differences in occupations. This is also true of Colorado, where the German-Russians, the most important racial element among the recent immigrants employed in the beet fields, are given only the roughest unskilled labor to perform in the factories.

a Page 129.

66

In some instances the sugar company carries only an Employers' liability" policy, for which it exacts no charges from its employees.