TABLE 102.

COMPARATIVE UNION MEMBERSHIP IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK, 1900-1910.1

lation, than in the remainder of the State where eight ninths of the population are American-born.

Still, the strength of organized labor is measured above mere numbers by its ability to marshal its forces in contests ver terms of employment. The strike statistics which have been collected by the United States Bureau of Labor do not extend to the period prior to 1881, but there are official figures for Massachusetts going as far back as 1830, and for Pennsylvania as far as 1835. The data are presented in Table 103 on the next page:

1 Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1910, vol. ii., pp. xlix., l., 15. XIII. Census. Population, vol. i., pp. 179, 191 (computed).

TABLE 103.

NUMBER OF STRIKES IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1830-1905, AND PENNSYLVANIA,

Making every allowance for the incompleteness of the reports of early strikes, we see once more from the figures for two of the leading industrial States that in the days of "the old immigration" the labor movement was negligible: the average number of strikes in Pennsylvania during one year since 1881 exceeds the total for the preceding half-century.

In order to trace the effect, if any, of the new immigration upon the strike movement, the period 1896-1905, when immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe became predominant, is next compared with the ten-year period next preceding.

Table 104 shows an increase of the number of strikers in general, and of organized strikers in particular. Taking the number of industrial wage-earners in 1890 as the average for 1886-1895 and the number in 1900 as the average for 1896-1905, we find an increase of 34 per cent2; the annual average number of strikers increased at the same time 29 per cent, and the annual average of organized strikers 38 per cent. In other words the strike movement kept

1 Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Massachusetts, 1880, p. 65. Report of the Secretary of the Internal Affairs of Pennsylvania, Part III., Industrial Statistics, 1880-1881, p. 388. Twenty-first Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1906, pp. 492– 495.

Hourwich, loc. tit. Journal of Political Economy, March, 1911, p. 213.

pace with the growing number of industrial wage-earners. The percentage of unsuccessful organized strikes decreased. The movement was apparently not affected either by the increase of immigration, or by the change in its racial make-up.

2

Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe have at times acted as strike breakers, but so have native Americans. In 1904, during the strike of the miners of the Alabama district, "the operators brought in Magyars, Slovaks, Greeks, Serbians, Italians, and Finns, as well as native whites, as strike breakers."3 It is a matter of common

'XXI. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Table IV, pp. 478479, and Table V, pp. 490-491. Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1903-1905. Summary of Commerce and Finance, June 1903, pp. 4422-4423. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, p. 246, Table 150.

2

In the big strike of 1877 "many American girls, it was said, acted as strike breakers, replacing Bohemian women. In the cigar industry, in general, "when immigrant women went on strike they were replaced with comparative ease by American girls."—Report of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, vol. ix., p. 199-201.

3 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 9, p. 197. In 1908, "during the strike [of the miners of Birmingham], considerable numbers of immigrants were brought in as strike breakers, but in not so great a proportion as native whites from other coal-mining sections." —Ibid., p. 200,

knowledge, however, that in many strikes of national dimensions, most of the participants were immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.

I

The Immigration Commission has given expression to the popular condemnation of the Southern and Eastern European immigrants for their alleged "tractability" and their "willingness seemingly to accept indefinitely without protest certain wages and conditions of employment." It is worthy of note that the same criticism was directed against English immigrants when they were among the "new immigration." The following, from a labor paper published in 1845, has a familiar sound:

Capital is striving to fill the country with foreign workmen. English workmen, whose abject condition in their own country has made them tame, submissive and "peaceable orderly citizens"; that is, work 14 and 16 hours per day, for what capital sees fit to give them, and if it is not enough to provide them a comfortable house to shelter their wives and children and furnish them with decent food and clothes, why they must live in cellars, go hungry and ragged.2

To-day the complaint against the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who are "mainly, unskilled laborers," is that "on the whole" they "have not shown the same readiness to join trade-unions . . . as have those coming from the older immigration from the north and west of Europe." In general, as shown, the supposed connection between trade-unionism and the points of the compass is not sustained by the statistics of the Immigration Commission. In regard to unskilled laborers, in particular, it must be borne in mind that "on the whole" they are not eligible "to join trade-unions," the latter being confined mainly to skilled crafts.

There is a tendency among certain theorists to idealize

* Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 531, 541. and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 191, 206-207.

Jenks

'Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. viii., 1840Voice of History, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Oct. 9, 1845.

1860.

the trade-union in the abstract as the economic organization of "the working class." The craft union, as it exists in real life, not in theory, partakes of the nature of the mediaval guild: its object is to assure work to its members. To accomplish this purpose, it seeks to limit the number of competitors.1

To criticise individual union leaders for this attitude is to betray a misconception of the essence of the craft union: its exclusiveness is not an "abuse," it is a policy. To organize "the working class" is not the aim of the trade union. It strives only to organize as many fellow-crafts

2

The policy of the flint-glass workers' union is thus described in the Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 325: "Being a highly skilled trade, it is not troubled by the immigration of unskilled laborers. Those who come to this country are mainly from Norway, Sweden, and Alsace-Lorraine, where they have learned their trade. There are two considerations which restrict the entrance of immigrants. First, the initiation fee imposed by the union. This fee was formerly $100 for foreigners, and $3 for Americans. The fee has been reduced to $50 for foreigners, the American fee remaining at $3. There is an opinion in the union that this extreme discrimination against foreigners is not advantageous, as it compels them to enter non-union shops instead of joining the union. This is known to have been the fact in at least one large non-union establishment manned mainly by foreigners." In this case discrimination was practised against highly skilled immigrants from Northern and Western Europe, usually classified as "desirable."

The philosophy of trade unionism is expressed without equivocation in the following quotation from the testimony of Mr. A. A. Roe, representing the railway brotherhoods, before the committee on Immigration and Naturalization:

"Mr. Roe. I take this position, without any hesitancy at all, that as I see it, the influx displaces the workman of this country, the wage-earner, and causes a competition for his position, increases the number of applicants for work. This brought into existence the organizations, drove men together. They had to get into the organizations to give them power to maintain their position, to save the comforts of their homes, and if you say that is a good thing, well and good.

"Mr. Sabath. It is a good condition: organization is a good con. dition, and if they are responsible for any improvements in the condition of the workingmen, then they are entitled to thanks.

"Mr. Roe. A better condition would be one that would not require the