diced student of the immigration problem should address itself.

NOTE: THE STATISTICS OF ITALIAN ILLITERACY

The Immigration Commission concedes that "it is impossible," from a comparison of Italian statistics of illiteracy with our own statistics of illiteracy among Italian immigrants, "to determine whether the proportion of illiterates among Italian immigrants to the United States is greater or less than among corresponding classes in Italy." It immediately seeks to weaken this conclusion by selecting for comparison the statistics of illiteracy among persons contracting marriage, on the assumption that "in the matter of age the marriage group would probably correspond rather closely to the immigrant group." As a result of this selection it appears "that in 1905 36.9 per cent of the total population contracting marriage and 48.8 per cent of the immigrants were illiterate." A comparison of the tables in question (28 and 32) shows that the ratio of illiteracy among persons contracting marriage in 1901 was 32.7 per cent for males and 46.1 per cent for females, whereas among the population at large 21 years of age and over the ratio of illiteracy was 43.9 per cent and 60.4 per cent respectively. This difference is readily accounted for by the fact that the marriage group is younger than the adult population as a whole, and the younger generations have had the benefit of the progress of education in Italy; the ratio of illiteracy among the adult population of both sexes in 1901 was 52.3 per cent, as compared with 63.4 per cent in 1882.

On the other hand, while the immigrants contain a large percentage of young men of marriageable age, yet there are among them quite a number of men who have been married several years. Moreover, "the marriage group. . . is drawn from all sections of the country and from all classes of the population, while immigrants are largely from the peasant class of the more southern compartimenti." It is evident that a comparison of the marriage group with the immigrant group must be unfavorable to the latter. If the immigrants are compared with the total population 21 years of age and over, the results are quite different. The percentage of illiteracy in Northern Italy, according to the census of 1901, fluctuated between 16.8 and 46.8 per cent for males and between 28.8 and 59.6 per cent for females 21 years of age and over, whereas among North Italian immigrants of both sexes 14 years of age and over, for the fiscal year 1901, the ratio of illiteracy was only 15.3 per cent. In Southern Italy the percentage of illiteracy among adults widely differs from one district to another; in some the

* Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 4, p. 192. • Ibid., Table 27.

Ibid., Tables 28 and 33.

ratio of illiteracy is lower, in some higher than among South Italian immigrants.

Even if the marriage group furnished a proper standard for comparison the variations of the illiteracy rate by administrative divisions would make the results uncertain. In two districts the ratio of illiteracy would be below and in two others above the percentage of illiteracy among the North Italian immigrants. In Southern Italy two districts show a higher percentage of illiteracy among males than the average among South Italian immigrants of both sexes, and the percentage of illiterates among women is in all but three districts higher than among the immigrants of both sexes. The Commission would have been on safer ground, had it adhered to its original conclusion, instead of specu lating on the basis of such incommensurable figures.

THE

CHAPTER IV

IMMIGRATION AND THE LABOR MARKET

HE main question in all present discussion of immigration is: Does immigration injure the economic interests of the American wage-earner? The demand for restriction of immigration proceeds from the assumption that immigration overcrowds the American labor market, hordes of willing workers being driven by fear of starvation to compete for one job. To remedy this evil foreign immigration must be restricted: keep the "undesirable" immigrants out, and the American workingmen will be kept busy. The more consistent advocates of this view, as previously stated, regard all immigrants as undesirable. It is an echo of the Malthusian theory, that population increases faster than the means of subsistence, with this modification, however, that the cause of the disproportion is found, not in the natural propagation of the human species, but in immigration, which is believed to outrun the opportunities of employment. In order to test the accuracy of this assumption, let us first take an inventory of the industrial progress of the United States compared with the growth of population for the last twenty years.

The population of the continental United States increased between 1890 and 1910 from 63,000,000 to 92,000,000, i. e., 46 per cent. During the same period, the production of coal in the United States more than trebled, the increase being from 140,000,000 to 448,000,000 long tons.1 As the exports of coal from the United States are insig1 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1911, Table 335.

nificant,' these figures indicate that to-day three times as much coal is consumed in this country as twenty years ago. Coal is the foundation of modern industry. The increased consumption of coal indicates that the consumption of steam has increased threefold, i. e., that the whole American industry has grown in proportion. The production of steel, another basic article of modern industry, increased during the twenty-year period 1889-1909 seven-fold, from 3,400,000 to 24,000,000 long tons. The production of copper more than quadrupled, viz., from 101,000 to 488,000 tons. The number of ton-miles of freight carried over American railways nearly trebled from 1890 to 1909, the increase being from seventy-seven billions to two hundred and nineteen billions. The total amount of bank clearings in the United States likewise nearly trebled in the twentyyear period between 1890 and 1910, having grown from $58,000,000,000 to $169,000,000,000. The increase in the amount of bank clearings may be accepted as a fair index of the aggregate industrial expansion. Thus, while the economic activities of the people of the United States have trebled during the last twenty years, population has increased by less than one half.

The introduction of labor-saving machinery has lessened the potential demand for new laborers, yet the pace of industrial development has been faster than the progress of invention. The growing demand for bituminous coal necessitated an increase of the working force from 192,000 in 1890 to 556,000 in 1910.4 The number of railway employees increased from 749,301 in 1890 to 1,502,823 in 1909,

The exports of bituminous coal from the United States in 1891-1910 fluctuated between 1.5 and 3.1 per cent of the annual production. —Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, p. 541.

Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, Table No. 335.

3 Professor Irving Fisher estimates that the total trade of the United States increased from $191,000,000,000 to 1387,000,000,000 in the thirteen years 1896-1909.—The Purchasing Power of Money, p. 304.

4 Mineral Resources of the United States, 1908, pp. 25, 41. United States Geological Survey. The Production of Coal in 1910, p. 41.

i. e., exactly 100 per cent.' The average number of wageearners employed in manufactures increased between 1889 and 1909 from 4,200,000 to 6,600,000, i. e., 57 per cent.

The unbiased testimony of figures shows that the demand for labor within the last twenty years has outrun the growth of population, both through natural increase and through immigration. The investigators of the Immigration Com. mission sought to ascertain from employers of labor the reason for employing immigrants," and were told that "they found it necessary either to employ immigrant labor or delay industrial advancement."3 A number of specific instances are quoted in the Commission's reports. In the Birmingham iron and steel district, Alabama, where the number of immigrants is insignificant, "the largest employers of labor ... state that under normal conditions, at the present stage of the industrial development of the district, the ordinary labor supply which may be relied upon continuously affords about 50 per cent of the total necessary to operate all plants and mines at their full capacity."4 In the centers of immigration, on the other hand, the clothing manufacturers likewise claim "that the industry has developed faster than the number of clothing workers has increased." With the revival of business after the depression of 1908 they found it "almost impossible to keep their pay-rolls full."5

According to an investigation made by the United States Bureau of Labor,

the demand for laborers of all kinds in all lines of industry greatly exceeded the supply during the year 1906. One of the great lines of railroad reported an increase in its construction and track gangs of 41 per cent in 1906 over 1905. The men employed were all

...

Interstate Commerce Commission, Twelfth Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways, p. 40, and Twenty-second Annual Report, p. 34. * Bureau of the Census, Manufactures, 1905, Part I., p. xxxvi. Census Bureau's Preliminary Summary for 1909. Advance Statement to the Press of October 18, 1911. 3 3 Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., p. 140.

4 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 9, p. 151.

Ibid., vol. II, p. 411.