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It is clear from this example that the tendency toward the apartment house or tenement house has no connection with immigration. It is in line with the general tendency toward concentration characteristic of modern times.1

This has come to be recognized by industrial experts. In the opinion of Mr. Henry Wright, an architect who during the war was town planner of Emergency Fleet Corporation towns and has since made a study of housing conditions for the community planning committee of the American Institute of Architects, the time has come for "a scientific revolution of our methods of building houses." Speaking of the present housing situation to a writer for. the Globe of New York, he was quoted (in the issue of June I, 1920) to have said:

"'Own Your Own Home' campaigns to-day are essentially buncombe. They cannot provide houses for the laboring classes; under present conditions no one belonging to the laboring classes can afford to 'own his own home.' . . . We must do away with the old sales system and its single lot, single family house, and surplus street, and come to group and multi-family house building with its savings of billions for the country in street maintenance, constructional costs, and proportion of land to houses."

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CHAPTER XII

EFFECT OF IMMIGRATION ON WAGES

HAT wages in many occupations are barely sufficient to provide for the necessities of life, has been established by all investigations of the cost of living. That unskilled labor receives a lower wage than skilled labor, is a truism. That the standard of living of unskilled laborers must be lower than that of skilled mechanics, is the necessary consequence of the difference in the rates of their compensation. Inasmuch, however, as the skilled mechanics are mostly native Americans and older immigrants, whereas the unskilled laborers are mostly new immigrants, the average man with a prejudice against the foreigner overlooks the difference in the grade of the service rendered, and jumps to the conclusion that the American mechanic commands higher wages because he insists upon maintaining an American standard of living, whereas the foreign unskilled laborer is willing to accept lower wages, because he is satisfied with a lower standard of living.

It has been shown, however, that the standard of living of the new immigrants is not lower than that of their predecessors in the same grades of employment, or than that of the present generation of native Americans engaged in unskilled labor in the South, where there is practically no competition of immigrant labor. Granting that the standard of living determines the rate of wages, there is no escape from the conclusion that the wages of the new immigrants can not be lower than those of the past generation of immigrants who in their day were engaged in un

skilled labor. In other words the logical deduction from the premises is, that the new immigration could not have depressed the rate of wages.

On the other hand, though the standard of living of the native or Americanized foreign-born wage-earners be higher than that of the new immigrants, this difference is not necessarily indicative of a higher rate of wages: the higher standard may be maintained on the earnings of several members of the family.

As a matter of fact, present-day industrial families in the United States find it necessary to add to the earnings of the husband through the employment of wives and children outside the home and the keeping of boarders and lodgers within the home. The native American and older immigrant employees maintain an independent form of family life, but the earnings of the heads are supplemented by the wages of the wives and children. On the other hand, the Southern and Eastern European families have recourse to the keeping of boarders and lodgers as a supplementary source of family income. . . . That contributions of children are less general in the latter class of families is probably due to the fact that children of these households have not in any considerable proportions reached working age.1

It is argued that the newly-arrived immigrant must have work at once and is therefore eager to accept any terms:

Another salient fact in connection with the recent immigrant labor supply has been the necessitous condition of the newcomers upon their arrival in America's industrial communities. Immigrants from the South and East of Europe have usually had but a few dollars in their possession when their final destination in this country has been reached.

Consequently, finding it absolutely imperative to engage in work at once, they have not been in a position to take exception to wages or working conditions, but must obtain employment on the terms offered or suffer from actual want."

Still, the investigations of the United States Bureau of Labor have shown that only one half of the families of native American wage-earners (51.25 per cent) are able to save, whereas one third (32.2 per cent) are barely able to

'Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 157–158, 161. 2 Ibid., pp. 183–184.

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make both ends meet, and about one in every seven (15.55 per cent) have a deficit. Only after the annual income of the native American wage-earner with a normal family has reached $700 is there a surplus left over average expenses.2 Making allowance for unemployment, an annual income of $700 may be taken as equivalent to about $2.50 a day, which is approximately the dividing line between skilled and unskilled labor. It thus appears that one half of the native American wage-earners, or roughly speaking all unskilled laborers, have no savings and are therefore in the same "necessitous condition" as "the newcomers upon their arrival": they "must obtain employment on the terms offered or suffer from actual want." The terms of competition are therefore not changed by the arrival of the immigrant.

It is further argued that the immigrant is at a particular disadvantage, being a stranger in a strange land:

The immigrant unfamiliar with American conditions, often not even understanding the language in which he must make his contract, and ignorant of the working methods which are new to him, while naturally preferring the best that he can get, is often willing to work under conditions and at wages which would not appeal to American workingmen, but which to him seem ample and satisfactory, because they are so much better than he has ever known before. Moreover, when the wage-earner is one unfamiliar, as are most immigrants, with American conditions, he is likely to be eager, perhaps too eager, to secure work at almost any wage above that affording a mere subsistence. Usually he is not in touch with the American workingman or with trade unions, and does not know what he could do by proper effort. He is not a member of their trade organization, and cannot bargain through officials who know the conditions. Moreover, if he is one who is expecting as soon as possible to return to his home country with his savings, what he dreads most of all is lack of work, and he is willing to take low wages and bad working conditions, rather than be idle even for a short time and see any of his savings disappear. In the large majority of cases, doubtless, the immediate inducement to the emigrants to leave home and sail for America comes in the form of a personal letter from friends or members of their own families already in the United States. It is thus

• Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 68. • Ibid., p. 592.

that they learn of the much higher wages and the better living conditions; and usually they are practically sure of a job almost as soon as they arrive, at wages which seem to them more than satisfactory.'

This statement contains its own refutation. If the immigrants "usually are practically sure of a job almost as soon as they arrive," then there is no occasion for them "to be eager to secure work at almost any wage, etc." Since "in the large majority of cases" the immigrants come in response to "a personal letter from friends or members of their own families already in the United States," it is erroneous to say that they are "not in touch with the American workingman," unless the term "American" be used in the narrow sense of native American. But the immigrant loses nothing in a pecuniary way by not being in touch with the native workman, since the latter usually works at a skilled trade, whereas the former in most cases seeks employment as a common laborer. On the other hand, in all establishments employing immigrant labor the new applicant, as a rule, finds some one through whom he makes his contract in his native language. It has been shown in the discussion of the standard of living that the new immigrant has obligations which do not permit him "to work at any wage above that affording a mere subsistence." As for affiliation with trade unions, it must be borne in mind that they comprise only a small minority of all wage-earners, native as well as foreign-born, and are mostly confined to skilled trades, whereas most of the immigrants are unskilled. Lastly, it is recognized by the Immigration Commission that "it is inaccurate to speak of the immigrant population as being only temporary in this country": most of the recent immigrants come to stay.2

The object for which the Immigration Commission was created was to supply statistical facts which should take

'Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 18-19.

'See supra, p. 74.-Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, p. 657.

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