machinery has resulted in the gradual displacement of the small proprietor by the wage-earner, in American agriculture, on the contrary, the machine has tended to eliminate the wage-earner. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century the agricultural methods of the American farmer differed little from those of his ancestors. Grass was mowed with a scythe. Grain was cut with a sickle and threshed with a flail. Flailing and winnowing grain was the chief farm work of the winter. Corn was planted by hand, cultivated with the hoe, and shelled by scraping the ears against the handle of a frying pan. The cultivation of a farm in this primitive way sustained a demand for steady farm help in all seasons. To-day there is some implement or machine for every kind of farm work. It is estimated that the quantity of labor saved by machinery represents the services of one and a half million men working every week day in the year.

In consequence of limited demand, agricultural labor is the least remunerative of all occupations. The hours of labor on the farm are longer than even in the steel mills of Pennsylvania. Small pay, long hours, and irregular employment is what the immigrant can expect on a farm. His preference for city work which pays better can be easily explained without delving into the mysteries of race psychology. It merely confirms the rule that immigration follows the demand for labor.

The effect of immigration upon labor in the United States has been a readjustment of the population on the scale of occupations. The majority of Americans of native parentage are engaged in farming, in business, in the professions, and in clerical pursuits. The majority of the immigrants, on the other hand, are industrial wage-earners. Only in exceptional cases has this readjustment been attended by actual displacement of the native or Americanized wageearner. In the course of industrial evolution some trades have declined owing to the introduction of new methods of production. In such cases there was naturally a decrease of

home and go back to the soil, argues against the assumption of a "racial" dislike for agriculture. The real cause of the ⚫ concentration of immigrants in the cities is economic. Even the "desirable" immigrant from Northern and Western Europe who lands with a capital of fifty and odd dollars lacks the funds to rent a farm. At best he can obtain employment only as a farm hand. Since the early days of Irish and German immigration, however, the growing industries of the cities have offered a better market for labor than agriculture.

The industrial development of the United States has manifested itself in a relative, and in some sections an absolute, depopulation of rural territory. There is a large migration of native Americans of native stock from country to city. This movement is the result of the revolution in American farming conditions and methods, which has tended to reduce the demand for labor on the farm. The American farm of the first half of the nineteenth century was the seat of a highly diversified industry. The members of a farm household made their own tools and part of the furniture; they were spinners and weavers; they made their own clothes, and soap and candles for their own use. With such a variety of occupations there was work for a hired man at all seasons of the year. But industrial differentiation has removed from the farm one industry after another. The time during which a hired man can be kept employed on the farm has been reduced in consequence to a few months in the year. Still until the middle of the nineteenth century the mills were quite commonly run by water power, which made for decentralization of manufactures. The small country towns accordingly offered to the farm laborer a prospect of employment when work was scarce on the farm. But the general substitution of steam for water power led to the removal of factories from small towns to great commercial centers. The opportunity to earn a full year's wages in a rural community was gone.

While in manufacturing the invention of labor-saving

machinery has resulted in the gradual displacement of the small proprietor by the wage-earner, in American agriculture, on the contrary, the machine has tended to eliminate the wage-earner. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century the agricultural methods of the American farmer differed little from those of his ancestors. Grass was mowed with a scythe. Grain was cut with a sickle and threshed with a flail. Flailing and winnowing grain was the chief farm work of the winter. Corn was planted by hand, cultivated with the hoe, and shelled by scraping the ears against the handle of a frying pan. The cultivation of a farm in this primitive way sustained a demand for steady farm help in all seasons. To-day there is some implement or machine for every kind of farm work. It is estimated that the quantity of labor saved by machinery represents the services of one and a half million men working every week day in the year.

In consequence of limited demand, agricultural labor is the least remunerative of all occupations. The hours of labor on the farm are longer than even in the steel mills of Pennsylvania. Small pay, long hours, and irregular employment is what the immigrant can expect on a farm. His preference for city work which pays better can be easily explained without delving into the mysteries of race psychology. It merely confirms the rule that immigration follows the demand for labor.

The effect of immigration upon labor in the United States has been a readjustment of the population on the scale of occupations. The majority of Americans of native parentage are engaged in farming, in business, in the professions, and in clerical pursuits. The majority of the immigrants, on the other hand, are industrial wage-earners. Only in exceptional cases has this readjustment been attended by actual displacement of the native or Americanized wageearner. In the course of industrial evolution some trades have declined owing to the introduction of new methods of production. In such cases there was naturally a decrease of

the number of native as well as of foreign-born workers. As a rule, however, the supply of immigrant labor has been absorbed by the increasing demand for labor in all industries without leaving a surplus sufficient to displace the native or older immigrant wage-earner. There were but a few occupations which showed an actual, not a relative decrease of native Americans of native stock. This decrease was due to the disinclination of the young generation to follow the pursuits of their fathers; the new accessions from native stock were insufficient to replace the older men as they were dying off, and the vacancies were gradually filled up by immigrants. But for every position given up by a native American there were many new openings filled by native American wage-earners.

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The westward movement of American and Americanized wage-earners and the concentration of immigrants in a few Eastern and Central States have been interpreted as the "displacement" of the English-speaking workmen from the mills and mines of the East by the new immigration. examination of the figures shows, however, that during the past thirty years mining and manufacturing grew much faster in the West and South than in the East and drew some of the native workers and earlier immigrants from the older manufacturing States. But the demand for labor grew in

the old States as well. The places left vacant by the old employees who had gone westward had to be filled by new immigrants.

The desertion of mills and factories by native American girls has also been explained as their "displacement" by immigrants. The motive assigned is not economic, but racial: it is the social prejudice against the immigrant that has forced the American girl to quit. It seems, however, that this explanation mistakes cause for effect: the social stigma attaching to working association with immigrants is not the cause but the effect of the desertion of the mills and

factories by native American women. The psychological interpretation overlooks one of the greatest economic

changes that has taken place in the United States since the Civil War: the admission of women to most of the pursuits which were formerly regarded as peculiarly masculine. For every native woman of American parentage who left the mill or clothing factory there were forty women of the same nativity who found new openings. The increase of the number of native American professional women was nearly five times as great as the decrease of the number of native American factory girls. The marvelous progress of the American educational system has fitted the native American woman for other work than manual labor and has at the same time opened to her a new field in which she does not meet the competition of the immigrant.

There is absolutely no statistical proof of an oversupply of unskilled labor resulting in the displacement of native by immigrant laborers. No decrease of the number of common laborers among the native white of native or foreign parentage appears in any of the great States which serve as receptacles for immigration. The same is true of miners. In none of the States affected by the new immigration has there been a decrease in the number of native miners. Such States as Pennsylvania and Illinois showed large increases in the number of native miners, both of for eign and native parentage. The iron and steel mills are another industry from which the recent immigrants are popularly believed to have forced out the native workmen and older English-speaking immigrants.. The fact is, that in the earlier period of the industry, when immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was negligible, the number of American employees increased very slowly; during the recent period, on the contrary, since the immigrants from¦ Southern and Eastern Europe have been coming in large numbers, the number of American-born employees of every nativity has more than doubled. The increased employment of native Americans is recorded in the figures for every important iron- and steel-producing State, as well as for every city holding a leading place in the iron and steel industry.