... Italian immigrants. . . . Another large railway system reported an 'ncrease of 44 per cent in this class of workers in 1906 over 1905. The increase of one company was 24 per cent in this class of common labor. An iron and steel company with a total of 147,343 employees in 1904 increased it to 180,158 employees in 1905 and to 217,109 in 1906. Conditions are perhaps best summed up in this extract from a letter received from the President of one of the largest railroads: Our work was delayed in both years—1905 and 1906—by the inability to get workmen. This is true not only of railroads but of the industries along our lines. Our patrons were constantly giving as the excuse for not promptly unloading cars that they are unable to get the laborers to do the work. There was not only a scarcity of common laborers in the country, but we found it impossible, under existing conditions, to get an adequate number of workmen for our shops.1 Statements of employers of labor, however, are discounted; what is meant by "a scant labor supply" is simply, it is thought, "the inability of the manufacturers and mine operators to secure labor at the same wages in the face of the growing labor needs of the country." Aside from the admission implied in this interpretation, that the demand for labor is growing faster than the supply, there is unim peachable evidence to the same effect in the report of the Bureau of Labor, to which reference has been made above. The Bureau's investigator examined the books of a number of employment agencies for 1906 and found that they had been unable to supply more than a fraction of their orders for help.3 'Frank J. Sheridan: "Italian, Slavic, and Hungarian Unskilled Immigrant Laborers in the United States." Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 72, pp. 424-425. 'Junks and Lauck, loc. til., pp. 17, 140. "A personal examination of the books of record of another agency, covering a period of eight months, from April I to November 30, 1906, showed that 165 employers in the States of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia made application for 8668 Italian laborers from this one agency. The agency supplied fewer than 1500. Another agency, where no fees were charged, had applications Doubtless, demand and supply in the labor market are fluctuating. During the twenty-year period under consideration, this country has gone through two industrial crises, when great numbers of wage-earners were suddenly thrown out of employment. The question is, what, if any, is the interdependence between the vicissitudes of the labor market and immigration? The Industrial Commission, in 1901, from a comparative study of the number of immigrants and price index numbers for a period of sixty years, arrived at the conclusion that "immigration follows business conditions in obedience to the opportunities for employment: In times of business expansion, when capital is seeking investment and the resources of the country are being eagerly developed. immigrants enter in increasing numbers to take a share of the increasing wages and employment, but in times of business depression their numbers decline." The report of the Industrial Commission appeared after a decade of declining immigration. Has the unprecedented immigration of recent years changed its relation to business conditions in this country? A comparative view of the fluctuations of business and immigration for the past thirty years, since the tide has set in from Eastern and Southern Europe, can be gained from a glance at Diagram I. It will be observed that the curves representing the production of coal, the volume of railway freight, bank clearings, and immigration run in in seven months for 37,058, and could supply but 3705 newly arrived Italian immigrants. One effect of the scarcity is reported by an Italian agency as follows: "'Since about July, 1906, on account of the great scarcity, employers pay from $3.00 to $5.00 per man for common laborers. Not for twentytwo years have there been such high fees offered. Since the demand set in the laborer pays no fees."" (Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 72, pp. 424-425.) • Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. 308, 309. See also chart opposite p. 305. 2 • Based upon the figures of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. harmony. On the other hand, the decrease of immigration from 1880 to 1899 runs almost parallel with the increase of commercial failures, and vice versa. During the following years of prosperity the amount of commercial failures showed little variation, and the curve of immigration was following the lines of industrial expansion. The years since the last panic again show a parallelism between the decline of immigration and the increase of failures, on the one hand, and industrial activity, on the other. It must be borne in mind that the immigration figures represent gross additions to the population of the United States. Attention has frequently been called, however, to the vast disparity between the increase of the foreignborn population from one census to another and the total immigration for the intervening period. The latest figures on the subject are given in Table 7. Reports of the immigration Commission, vol. 1., pp. 64, 135.-XIII. Census. Popu lation, vol. i., p. 781. The comparative figures for the last decade do not include Orientals, the preliminary returns of the XIV. Census made public by the Bureau of the Census being confined to foreign-born white. The to al number of thite immigrants for the period from July 1, 1910, to June 30, 1920, has been computed from the Report of the CommissionerGeneral of Immigration for 1920, Table XV., pp. 181–182. The difference between gross immigration and the net increase of the foreign-born population is the combined result of mortality and emigration. As the foreign-born population increases, an ever larger number of new arrivals |