the demand. The entrance of the United States into the war withdrew more than two million workers from industry. Officers of the American Federation of Labor and avowed friends of labor were put in charge of the various war boards which were entrusted with the function of regulating wages in the leading industries. If the economic condition of the American wage-earner could be improved by suspension of immigration, its beneficial effects should have materialized during the war.

Volumes of statistics on every aspect of the economic situation during the war period have been published. They show a growth of production much in excess of the rate of the pre-war years. This unparalleled growth of industry was marked by extraordinary profits, which were far beyond anything that was necessary to stimulate initiative and enterprise.

At the same time, the growth of population lagged behind the industrial expansion. To meet the abnormal demand for common labor caused by the cessation of immigration, the Secretary of Labor, a former labor leader, was obliged to suspend the law to permit mine operators and other employers in the Southwest to import Mexican laborers under contract.

This abnormal condition brought about an unprecedented mobility of labor. Reports from every section of the country to Bradstreet's complained of employees "constantly being enticed from their jobs by competition between employers."1 Employers were offering high rates of wages to union and nonunion workers alike.

What, then, was the effect of this most favorable combination of economic factors upon the condition of the American wage worker?

In such war-time industries as munition plants, some of the occupations enjoyed increases in wages more than sufficient to compensate for the increase in the cost of living.

1 The Literary Digest, December 1, 1917, p. 80.

On the other hand, the wages of the railroad workers, coal miners, and farm laborers, lagged behind the increase in prices. On the whole, wages did not keep pace with the increasing cost of living. The workers merely struggled to keep their old standards of living, and even in this struggle they did not always succeed.

The most telling corroboration of the decline in real wages is furnished by the investigations of medical authorities, which show a decided increase of the proportion of underfed school children during the World War.

We have thus witnessed a repetition of the labor conditions which prevailed during the Civil War. This lagging of wages behind the advancing cost of living cannot be explained by the alleged submissiveness of the immigrant wage-workers, who are said to be willing to acquiesce in the terms offered to them by the employers. The statistics of strikes during the World War show that during the three years 1916-1918 the number of strikes per year was more than twice the annual average for the period from 1881 to 1905. More than four fifths of the war-time strikes were led by unions. The annual average number of strikers rose to the unprecedented figure of 1,310,000. Moreover, during the war, the principle of collective bargaining was recognized, under the pressure of the government, by all employers engaged on government orders or in the production of essentials.

That the foreign worker can not be held responsible for the decline of real wages is further proved by the fact that the real wages of common laborers in the iron and steel industry, most of whom are foreign born, went up, whereas those of locomotive firemen, most of whom are native-born Americans, declined to a point much below the minimum budget under American standards.

Among the potent factors in the decline of real wages must be noted the movement of labor from agriculture to urban industries. As a result, agricultural production during the war remained almost stationary, while the demand for bread

stuffs was increased by exports abroad. The big interests which control the produce market were thereby enabled to raise the prices of food. What the wage-earner gained in money wages he was forced to surrender in the higher prices of necessities of life.

Let us now examine what were the substitutes for immigrant labor during the war years. The movement of workers from agriculture to urban industries has already been adverted to. Public attention was attracted by the migration of Negroes from the agricultural South to the industrial North. The volume of that migration is officially estimated at nearly half a million. Agricultural regions of the Southern states began to suffer for want of the Negro worker. Another substitute for immigrant labor was found in the increased employment of women and children. The main force which was driving children into industry was the excessive cost of living. Labor commissioners and factory inspectors complained of the difficulty experienced during the war years in administering child-labor laws. The scarcity of adult labor made the employer ready to take minors into his employ.

What, then, is the outlook in the light of the experience of labor in the late war? We are passing through one of the cyclical disturbances of modern industry with their attendant acute unemployment. But this crisis will be over, and American industry will resume its usual course. If restriction of immigration is to become the settled policy of the United States, substitutes for immigrant labor will be sought.

The mines and mills of the Southern states which have failed to attract immigrants utilize the labor of farmers and their sons. The millions of tenant-farmers offer great possibilities as an industrial reserve available during the winter months. The farm being their main source of subsistence, they have been willing to offer their labor during the idle winter months more cheaply than freshly landed immigrants. The efforts of trade-union organizers among this class of English-speaking workers have met with scant success. The

substitution of the cheap labor of the American farmer for the labor of the Slav or Italian immigrant, would tend to weaken the unions and to keep down wages. A stimulated movement of labor from the farm to the factory would check the growth of farming; the prices of foodstuffs would rise in consequence, which would tend to offset the advantages to the wage-earners from a possible rise of money wages.

The discontinuance of fresh supplies of immigrant labor for the mills and factories of New England would give a new impetus to the establishment of factories in the South, where there is an abundant supply of child labor.

Still, should all the substitutes for immigration prove inadequate, it does not necessarily follow that scarcity prices would rule in the American labor market. It must be borne in mind that capital is international. Billions of American capital are already invested in foreign enterprises. Heretofore these investments could not compare with the profits of American industries annually reinvested at home. If, however, a permanent scarcity of labor were created in the United States, more American capital would seek investment abroad. The increased investment of American capital in the industrial development of foreign countries, with cheap labor, must eventually react upon labor conditions in the United States. Certain of the most important American industries depend in part upon the export trade. A scarcity of labor in the United States would induce many American manufacturers to follow the example of their European competitors, who have found it more profitable to establish factories in foreign countries than to export their products to those countries. It is learned from an official report of the Commercial Secretary of the British Embassy in Berlin, that arrangements have been in progress between American capitalists and German corporations, looking toward the investment of American capital in German industry. There are other reports to the same effect. Such an emigration of American capital would materially affect the export trade of

the United States and eventually cut off the avenues of employment for a number of American wage-earners.

It is evident that while restriction of immigration can limit the supply of labor, it is powerless to prevent a corresponding limitation of the demand for labor.

The true cause of the decline of real wages during the late war is to be found in the fact that advances in wages are the outcome of the slow process of collective bargaining, with occasional industrial warfare, whereas the prices of commodities are controlled by monopolistic combinations, which promptly shift every advance in wages to the consumer. Thus the rise of wages in one industry or occupation is, in effect, charged up to the working class as a whole. What is wanted in order to secure to the worker a real advance in wages is regulation of profits in the interest of the consumers, of whom the wage-earners are the most numerous element. Restriction of the supply of labor does not touch the problem of price control. Immigration laws can prevent the American capitalist from employing foreign labor in the United States. But he may find it as profitable to employ the same labor in Europe in the manufacture of goods for the world market. The reduction of the supply of labor will be neutralized by a reduction of the demand for labor in the United States.