the place of speculation. After a study of the racial composition of the operating forces in the principal industries, based upon information received for more than half a million wage-earners in mines and manufactures, the Commission discovered no evidence "that it was usual for employers to engage recent immigrants at wages actually lower than those prevailing at the time of their employment in the industry where they were employed."*

One of the most striking facts indicated by a comparison of the earnings of the races in the different industries [say Professors Jenks and Lauck] is that earning ability is more the outcome of industrial opportunity or conditions of employment than of racial efficiency and progress. This fact becomes evident when the average weekly earnings of the members of a race, or several races, in the cotton or woolen and worsted goods industry, are considered in connection with the earnings of the same race or races in other industries. The Lithuanians, for example, earn an average of $12.24 weekly in the manufacture of agricultural implements and vehicles, $11.60 in clothing, $13.60 in copper mining and smelting, $9.87 in furniture, $12.89 in iron and steel, $11.98 in iron-ore mining, $9.50 in leather, $12.85 in oil refining, $10.87 in shoes, $10.67 in sugar refining, but only $7.86 in cotton and $7.97 in woolen and worsted manufacturing. The same condition of affairs is shown by other races in different industries.2

That the economists who directed the investigations of the Immigration Commission regard it as a "striking" fact that earning ability is the outcome of economic conditions rather than of racial characteristics, indicates that they expected to find the opposite, viz., that earning ability was determined by racial factors. Yet, notwithstanding the "evident fact" brought to light by the investigations of the Commission, that individuals of the same race, with presumably the same "racial standards," are paid varying rates of wages in different industries, the Commission persists in the view that the rate of wages is determined by the standard of living of the wage-earners. The statistics of the Commission show that the earnings of the immigrants

* Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 494, 541.

increase with the length of residence in the United States; there is a ready explanation that "the immigrants of long residence have acquired a higher standard of living and, consequently, demand a higher wage." It would seem as though wages were regulated in accordance with the communistic ideal, "to everybody according to his wants." The question arises, however, why should the employer grant the demand of the immigrant of long residence for a higher wage when there is said to be an "oversupply" of recent immigrants willing to accept "almost any wage above that affording a mere subsistence"? The statistics of the Commission give no answer to this question, because the basis of its classification is race, not character of employment, each race being treated as a homogeneous unit. The real explanation of the variation in wages among individuals of the same race is that the immigrant of long residence has advanced on the scale of occupations and is paid a higher wage for a higher grade of labor. Since he receives a higher wage, he has "consequently" acquired a higher standard of living.

The primary cause which has determined the movement of wages in the United States during the past thirty years has been the introduction of labor-saving machinery. The effect of the substitution of mechanical devices for human skill is the displacement of the skilled mechanic by the unskilled laborer. This tendency has been counteracted in the United States by the expansion of industry: while the ratio of skilled mechanics to the total operating force was decreasing, the increasing scale of operations prevented an actual reduction in numbers. The growing demand for unskilled labor was supplied by immigration.2 Of course,

* Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 2, p. 370.

• Prof. Commons, in the Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 305, says: "In manufactures, mining, and transportation there has been a rapid advance in machinery and a better organization and division of labor, whereby the resources of the country are made more productive. This advance in machinery and division of labor often appears in itself to be a means of displacing labor and so of

this readjustment did not proceed without friction. While, in the long run, there may have been no displacement of skilled mechanics by unskilled laborers in the industrial field as a whole, at certain times and places individual skilled mechanics were doubtless dispensed with and had to seek new employment. As the unskilled laborers who replaced them were naturally engaged at lower wages, and as most of them were immigrants, the change reflected itself in the minds of the displaced American mechanics as substitution of cheap immigrant labor for highly paid American labor.

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The English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish miners, e. g., for some time successfully resisted the introduction of machinery. Their resistance was overcome by the employment of Slavs and Italians. The impression was thus created that the introduction of machinery was the effect of Slav and Italian immigration. According to Professors Jenks and Lauck, "the lack of skill and industrial training of the recent immigrants in the United States has stimulated the invention of mechanical methods and processes which might be conducted by unskilled industrial workers as a substitute for the skilled operatives formerly required."2 This idea had been anticipated by Mr. Leiserson, who expressed the belief that one of the effects "of the influx of Slavs is that lack of intelligence makes improved machinery and a perfected organization of the mining processes absolutely essential. There is a direct connection between the increasing number of unintelligent mining laborers and the use of mining machinery during the last ten or fifteen years. The author is ready to accept at face value the contention of the coal operators "that the scarcity of intelligent labor compelled them to adopt machinery wherever possible."3 Presumably, but for the immigration

depressing wages, and such would be the case if industry as a whole were not continually expanding.”

* Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. xxiii., xxxiv. * Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 186-187.

William M. Leiserson: "Labor Conditions in the Mines of the Pitts

of the "unintelligent" Slavs, American industry might have gone on forever without improved machinery, and instead of perfecting the organization of the mining processes the mine operators would have encouraged the "arts and crafts" movement in bituminous coal mining.

This theory ignores the elementary proposition of political economy, that the main object of labor-saving machinery is to dispense precisely with "intelligent," i. e., high-priced labor, and that, on the contrary, an abundant supply of cheap labor would retard the introduction of improved machinery.1

The conditions in the coal mines of West Virginia may serve as an example: "The low level of wages in West Virginia may be inferred from the low rate of introduction of machinery," says Prof. John R. Commons. This fact, according to him, is of special significance because burgh District.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1909, pp. 318-319.

...

"If labor is cheap . somewhat more labor will be employed and somewhat less machinery installed. . . . If wages are high... more machinery will be introduced and somewhat less labor employed." C. J. Bullock, Assistant Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University, The Elements of Economics, pp.79-80.—"Higher wages for labor will induce entrepreneurs to economize in the use of labor. ... In the printing industry, for example, a rise in wages would make it profitable for employing printers to use more labor-saving machinery." Outlines of Economics, by Richard T. Ely, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Wisconsin, revised and enlarged by the author and Thomas S. Adams; Max O. Lorenz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science in the University of Wisconsin; Allyn A. Young, Ph.D., Professor of Economics in Leland Stanford Junior University (New York, 1909), p. 369.—"Every rise of wages will have a tendency to determine the saved capital in a greater proportion than before to the employment of machinery. Machinery and labor are in constant competition, and the former can frequently not be employed until labor rises." David Ricardo: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (London, 1891), p. 386.—"Where abundance of cheap labor... can be obtained, . the development of machinery has been generally slower." John A. Hobson: The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, p. 69; also p. 81. Cf. also Karl Marx: Capital, Book I., Chapter XV: Machinery and Modern Industry, Sec. 2.

"the miners of West Virginia are mainly native Americans, who have only recently turned from home industry to mining."

It is patent that the movement of labor from agriculture to mining and manufactures would, even in the absence of all immigration, have overcome the resistance of the English-speaking miners to the introduction of machinery. The number of mines is not fixed. New mines are continually being opened. The operator of a new machineequipped mine need not face the resistance of old pickminers; he can engage an entirely new force of operatives, free from any traditions. His competition will ultimately force the owners of old mines to introduce machinery or go out of business. The resistance of English-speaking miners might have some time been strong enough to prevent the introduction of machinery, but at no time could it have forced a mine operator to run his mine at a loss. The shutting down of the unprofitable mines would have put an end to the resistance of the pick-miners. Absence of immigration might have retarded the growth of American industry, but it could not have checked the introduction of machinery.

Machinery has so radically changed the technique of all industries that a comparison between past and present wages is beset with extreme difficulties. Many old occupations are gone, and even though the name may have remained the same, the substance has changed: a steelworker to-day is not the same as a steel-worker thirty years ago. A comparison of average wages or earnings for two different periods may therefore be quite misleading. It is possible for the average to show a decrease, though in reality the wages may have increased. This will be clear from the following example in which all figures are purely

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Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 410.

* For a discussion of this subject see R. Mayo-Smith: Statistics and Economics, pp. 91-102. (Publications of the American Economic Association, vol. iii., Nos. 4, 5.)