the immigrant might then be a more serious matter for the unions and might subject them to a disastrous competition from unorganized workers accustomed to a lower standard of living, ... but that is not the condition at present.... As regards the attitude of the immigrants toward the unions, when they advance to the skilled, organized occupations, even if they do not join the unions, they do not oppose the organization or cut under the unions' wages. . . . At the time of strikes the recent immigrants come into the unions in large numbers. . . . In times of strikes these foreigners have stood by the unions, even though previously they may not have been members.'

The recent immigrants have not been used as strike-breakers.2

The only specific strike described in the report of the Commission took place in Lowell, Mass.,3 in 1903. It is characterized as "the only serious controversy between the cotton manufacturers and the operatives" of that city. The history of that controversy is briefly as follows. The mill owners having refused an increase in wages, the unions declared a strike. The mill owners on the same day responded by a lockout. While the mills remained closed, pro-union meetings were held among the Greeks, the Poles, and the Portuguese, and organizations were formed among them. "At the commencement of the agitation for a ten per cent increase in wages, the membership of the unions constituted but a small fraction of the employees in the mills; gradually, however, this membership increased as the strike sentiment grew." The unions were defeated, however, by an unexpected turn in the cotton market.

The price of raw cotton began to rise to such an extent that the manufacturers who had provided themselves with the necessary supply in advance were able to sell at a considerable profit. One mill actually declared a 4 per cent dividend, on the basis of raw cotton sold at a good advance, due to the high prices during the strike. In this way it would have been possible for them to minimize, or even neutralize entirely

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 10, pp. 124, 125. Ibid., vol. i, p. 538.

• For some unknown reasons, the name of the city is hidden under the designation of "Community A." The disguise is betrayed, however, in Table 125 on p. 232, which is a reproduction of Table 24 on p. 45, where Lowell, Mass., is named.

the loss occasioned by the idleness of their plants caused by the strike. It thus became a matter of indifference to them whether work was resumed or not. When this situation generally became known the strike was doomed."

After a suspension of work lasting nine weeks the manufacturers reopened the mills. From one third to two thirds of the locked-out operatives returned to the mills on the first day. The ranks of the strikers began to weaken, and after staying out for three weeks the unions unanimously voted to call the strike off.1

To form a fair judgment of the endurance shown by the Lowell strikers, the length of time they stayed out must be compared with the average duration of strikes in the cotton mills of Massachusetts. The races of Southern and Eastern Europe in 1909 supplied 34 per cent of the total number of operatives in the Lowell cotton mills. 3 In the State at large the proportion of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia among the mill operatives of the State varied as follows:

TABLE 113.

PERCENTAGE OF IMMIGRANTS FROM SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE AMONG THE TEXTILE MILL OPERATIVES OF MASSACHUSETTS, 1880

The average duration of strikes in the cotton mills of Massachusetts for the twenty-year period from 1881 to 1900 was only thirty-six days. Thus the length of time

• Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 292, 293. • Ibid. Ibid., Table 130, p. 237.

Ibid., Tables 14, 17, and 19.

$ Sixteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Table 3, p. 216.

the Lowell strikers stayed out in 1903 was three quarters in excess of the average for the period when nearly all the operatives were of the English-speaking races. Going over the annals of the strikes in the cotton mills of Massachusetts from 1881-1890, when there were scarcely any immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia among the operatives, we find only one strike that can compare in extent with the Lowell strike of 1003; it was in 1889, when 9000 weavers in thirty-four mills at Fall River struck for a 10 per cent increase in wages. After staying out only seventeen days they returned to work on the old

terms. '

Thus when the Greek, Portuguese, and Polish strikers in 1903 surrendered after nine weeks of idleness, during which they received no aid from the unions, they gave an exhibition in endurance and adherence to a common purpose, that was far above the average for any race of cotton-mill operatives. Moreover, since the proportion of the strikers who returned to the mills on the first day varied from one third to two thirds, whereas the proportion of Southern and Eastern Europeans among the operatives was less than one third, it is evident that a good many of the English-speaking operatives must have surrendered simultaneously with the Southern and Eastern Europeans. The history of this strike is prefaced by the Commission with the following remark:

It is not thought that the presence of immigrants in such large numbers in Community A has exerted a decisive influence upon the success of tradeunionism in the community. The weakness of the unions in Community A is to be traced to less general causes of a local character.3

The reader is at a loss to reconcile this conclusion, and the facts leading up to it, with the general statement, * Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, vol. I, Table I, pp. 364-414.

In 1909 the proportion was 34 per cent, but in 1900 only 13.2 per cent; the proportion in 1903 must have been somewhere between these two figures. Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 10, p. 291.

quoted above from the abstract of the reports on immigrants in manufacturing and mining, to the effect that "the more recent immigrant employees from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia. . . have been a constant menace to the labor organizations, and have been directly and indirectly instrumental in weakening the unions and threatening their disruption."

Considering:

(1) That the unskilled operatives have at no time been organized;

(2) That the recent immigrants seldom advance to the skilled crafts;

(3) That when they do advance to skilled occupations they either join the unions of their crafts or stand by the unions though not affiliated with them;

(4) That with the machinery heretofore in use there has been no room for competition between organized skilled operatives and unorganized immigrant unskilled laborers;

(5) That in past strikes the recent immigrants have stood by the strikers and have never acted as strike-breakers:—

It is evident that the presence of recent immigrants has been no hindrance to union activity. The failure of the unions to secure better terms from the mill corporations than they did must therefore be due to other causes than immigration.

The real cause of low wages in the cotton mills of New England is the competition of the Southern cotton mills. The subject is only hinted at in the report of the Immigration Commission. No immigrants being employed in the Southern mills, the latter were apparently considered beyond the scope of the Commission's investigation. A

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. i., p. 537. Unfortunately, the full report on cotton manufacturing has been printed only as a Senate document and is accessible to a very limited number of readers, whereas the misleading conclusions of the abstract on immigration in manufacturing and mining have received wide circulation through the free mailing list of the Commission.

thorough discussion of the subject is found in the report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1906.

Comparing labor conditions in New England and Southern mills, the Massachusetts report says, by inference, that when the sons and daughters of the farmers of the surrounding country were replaced in the Northern mills by foreigners, strikes and lockouts followed, and the doors were opened to the trade unions, with the result that hours of labor were reduced, wages were increased, and child labor was restricted. The development of the cotton manufacturing industry in the South, with its natural advantages and "cheap labor," has made successful competition impossible for Massachusetts mills, unless Massachusetts will "retrograde and increase its hours of labor, reduce its wages, and employ its children to meet the South in a battle on its own ground."

The 'cheap labor" of the Southern cotton mills is the labor of the native white of native stock, who constitute 99 per cent of all cotton-mill operatives in North Carolina, 97 per cent in Georgia and Alabama.3 The average yearly earnings of the Southern operatives compared as follows with those of the New England operatives, many of whom were Southern and Eastern European, Armenian, and Syrian immigrants:

"When the native stock is all employed, the South must look to the immigrant, and then will come the test of her ability to withstand the enactment of just labor laws. She will be compelled to readjust her hours of labor, increase her wages, discharge her child labor, and open her doors to the trade union. She will go through the same experience as the North. The North's first operatives were the sons and daughters of the native farmers round about, but the grandchildren would not follow in their parents' footsteps, preferring to go into other business. This the South is finding to be the case with the children they are attempting to educate, and foreigners must soon be taken to replace them. Then will come a repetition of the experience of the Northern mills. Strikes and lockouts will follow." Thirty-Sixth Annual Report Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor (1906), Part II: Cotton Manufactures in Massachusetts and the Southern States, p. 102.

Ibid., p. 106.

Occupations at the XII. Census, Table 41 (computed).