settlers by the new-comers. And yet the element of crowding out, even in a metaphorical sense, might be wholly absent. The abandonment of the New England farms may serve as an illustration. No one "displaced" the New England farmer; the population of many a town fell off, but few new settlers, native or foreign-born, came to take the places of those who had gone. The old homesteads were left to decay and their proprietors went West, where they found better opportunities. And now we witness the same movement in Iowa, whose population has decreased since 1900, the farmers being attracted by cheaper lands in Western Canada.

Is it not possible that a similar process has been going on in manufacturing, in mining, in railroading? Where there was a wilderness thirty years ago, several new States with a substantial population have grown up. The railroads of the West needed employees, who had to come from the East. From 1879 to 1909, the manufactures of New England and the Middle Atlantic States added one and a half million wage-earners to their personnel, whereas the industrial development of the rest of the country created opportunities for two and one third million new hands, as shown in Table 25 next below. The manufactures in the West and South grew much faster than in the East and drew some of the native workers and earlier immigrants from the older manufacturing States. Still the demand for labor in those States also grew. The places left vacant by the old employees who had gone westward had to be filled by new immigrants. The term "displacement" would be misapplied to such a migration of wage-earners, as much as in the case of the migration of the New England farmer.

Let us see what light can be thrown upon this question by the statistics of occupations. According to the figures of the XII. Census, covering the whole area of the United States, the economic stratification within the principal

elements of the white population in 1900 exhibited very characteristic differences, as appears from Table 26.

TABLE 25.

AVERAGE NUMBER OF WAGE-EARNERS EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTURES (THOUSANDS), 1879-1909.1

PER CENT DISTRIBUTION OF MALE BREADWINNERS 21 YEARS OF AGE AND OVER, BY NATIVITY AND CLASS OF OCCUPATIONS, 1900.a

The majority of Americans of native parentage, in 1900, were engaged in farming, in business, in the professions, and in all sorts of commercial and clerical pursuits. The majority of the immigrants, on the other hand, were industrial wage-earners. 4

The question is, was this adjustment of native and foreign elements on the scale of occupations attended by actual "racial displacement"? Comparing the numbers

1 XII. Census, vol. vii., pp. clxxii-clxxiii.—XIII. Census, Manufactures, vol. viii., p. 542.

2 Isaac A. Hourwich, "The Social-Economic Classes of the Population of the United States." The Journal of Political Economy, April, 1911, p. 3] 327. 3 Including farming. Speaking of the immigrants in a "representative" coal-mining community (Shenandoah, Pa.), the Immigration Commission states

of persons engaged in each occupation at the censuses of 1900 and 1890, we find a decrease of native breadwinners in the following occupations:

TABLE 27.

OCCUPATIONS IN WHICH THE NUMBER OF NATIVE-BORN DECREASED,

Male:

1890-1900.1

Native-born of native parentage.

Carpenters and joiners.....

Boot- and shoe-makers and repairers

Woodworkers, including cabinet makers and coopers..

Masons.....

Boatmen, canalmen, pilots, and sailors.

Dairymen.

Brick and tile makers

Tailors..

All others.

Female:

Seamstresses...

Tailoresses..

Textile mill operatives..

Dairywomen...

Total.

76

9

I

2

I

that they "have done practically nothing in the way of initiating new industries. . . . A few small candy and cigar factories and blacksmith shops have been established by foreigners, but these are insignificant in number and size. (Reports, vol. 16, p. 655.) All schools of political economy agree that "initiating new industries" is the function of capital. But the majority of the foreigners are wage-earners.

'See Appendix, Table X.

In all, from 1890 to 1900, 94,000 native breadwinners dropped out of the occupations enumerated in the preceding table. If we were to assume that this figure represents actual displacement (which it does not, as will presently be shown), it would amount to only 2.5 per cent of the total immigration for the decade 1890-1900. At the same time the increase of native white of native parentage in all occupations, exclusive of farming, exceeded two and a half millions. It means that there were twenty-five other opportunities for every position given up by the native breadwinners of the above enumerated classes.

The figure 94,000 must not be mistaken, however, for the number of individuals discharged from their former positions. In the first place, an allowance must be made for decrease by death. Taking those occupations which are specified in the statistics of mortality at the XII. Census, we obtain the following comparative ratios:

TABLE 28.

DECREASE FROM ALL CAUSES, COMPARED WITH LOSS BY DEATH AMONG NATIVE WHITE MALES OF NATIVE PARENTAGE, IN SELECTED

'XII. Census, Vital Statistics, vol. i., p. ccix. Occupations at the XII. Census, Table 3. Compendium of the XI. Census, Part III: Population, Table 78.

-16.9

- 9.4

7.5

The decrease of the number of native white males of native parentage in all but the last occupation included in the preceding table is accordingly accounted for by the fact that the new accessions from that class were insufficient to fill the places of those who died.

On the other hand, an actual decrease of the number of American workmen of native stock was found among shoemakers and repairers. On closer scrutiny, however, it appears that this decrease was merely a part of a general decline of the trade, which manifested itself in a decrease of the number of foreign-born shoemakers as well. Among other occupations of the same class were brick and tile makers, whose total number was reduced by 10,000, and dairymen whose number was reduced by 8000; more than one half of those reductions affected foreign-born workers (7000 in the former and 4000 in the latter occupation). The same is true of the other occupations specified in Table 27. As far as can be judged from census figures, there was consequently no "displacement" of native by foreign workmen.

Coming to female wage-earners, we find that while there was a decrease of 13,000 American women of native stock and of 2000 native of immigrant parentage employed as seamstresses, tailoresses, textile mill operatives, and dairywomen, the number of servants and waitresses showed a decrease of 41,000 foreign-born, contemporaneous with an increase of 16,000 white American girls of native stock and 47,000 native daughters of immigrants. It may be inferred from these figures that the women of the "new immigration" showed a tendency to prefer factory work to domestic service, while the tendency among native American girls was in the opposite direction.1

'Most of the female factory workers being young, the decrease by mortality may be disregarded. On the other hand, however, women enter industry only temporarily. The census shows that the great majority of them who are at work are between 16 and 30 years of age— that is, they are in industry until they get married." (Nearing: Wages