65 per cent, in Kansas it reached 100 per cent. The comparative growth of trade-unionism in New York and Kansas in 1900-1909 must accordingly reveal the effects of

TABLE 99.

TOTAL WAGES PAID TO FACTORY OPERATIVES IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN THE STATES OF NEW YORK AND KANSAS (MILLIONS OF DOLLARS), 1899 AND 1909.1

industrial expansion upon the progress of organization among the wage-earners, with and without the availability of the recent immigrant.

Table 100 shows the ratio of organized workers in each of the two States to its total urban population. The relative number of organized workmen is higher in New York with a large and growing immigrant population drawn from Southern and Eastern Europe than in Kansas with a small and decreasing foreign-born population. Prior to the recent crisis the percentage of organized workmen in New York was more than twice as high as in Kansas. The industrial depression of 1909 reduced the percentage of organized workmen in New York, while in Kansas the year 1908 was a record year for labor organizations. Yet even then the proportion of organized workmen in New York remained higher than in Kansas.

1 XIII. Census, vol. viii. Manufactures, Table III, pp. 542, 543. 'Urban population is defined by the census as "that residing in cities and other incorporated places of 2500 inhabitants or more." (XIII. Census, vol. i. Population, p. 53.) The population for 1900 is that enumerated by the census. The urban population for each subsequent year is estimated in accordance with the method followed by the United

TABLE 100.

PER CENT RATIO OF TRADE-UNION MEMBERSHIP TO URBAN POPULATION IN NEW YORK AND KANSAS, 1900-1909.1

The preceding ratios may be affected by the character of the urban population in the two States: if the proportion of wage-earners to the whole population in New York was higher than in Kansas, the difference might in a measure account for the higher percentage of organized workmen. These doubts are resolved by Diagram XXI., which shows for each State the ratio of union membership to the number of industrial wage-earners at the XII. Census.* The curve for New York runs throughout the whole period above that for Kansas.

These differences are by no means accidental. In the early period of trade-unionism in the United States, when it was generally regarded as a "foreign" plant and denounced as "un-American," contemporary observers sought to explain the aloofness of the native American wage-earners from labor organizations by their "indisposition to identify themselves permanently with any class.

The foreign workman has the tradition of many generations and the walls of caste to restrain him within certain limits as to his occupation;

States Bureau of Statistics, by adding to the population of the preceding year one tenth of the increase from 1900 to 1910.

'See Appendix, Table XXIV.

2

Ibid.

XXI. Male union membership in the states of New York and Kansas, 1900-1909; Per cent. ratio to the number of in

dustrial wage-earners in 1900.

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 Report of the Illinois Bureau of Statistics of Labor (1886), p. 228.

* Massachusetts Labor Bulletin, No. 10, April, 1899, p. 55.

Pratt, loc. cit., p. 99.

TABLE 101I.

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 300,000.2

The figures are for the year 1900. 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., l., 15. Occupations, XII. Census, Tables 41 and 43.

• Hourwich, loc. cit.. Journal of Political Economy, April, 1911, p. 324.