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labor does not feel strong enough to make demands which would involve large outlays by employers for safe equipment.

Organization of labor is nowadays generally recognized in the United States as the most effective of all existing agencies for the increase of wages and improvement of working conditions. It would therefore be a cause for grave concern if it were true, as claimed, that the recent immigrants were not organizable, and that their employment threatened the existing labor organizations with disruption. The fact is, however, that the origin and growth of organized labor in the United States are contemporaneous with the period of "the new immigration," and that the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe are the backbone of some of the strongest labor unions. A notable example is the coal-mining industry, where the mine workers' organization has gained strength only since the Southern and .

nonsense! Eastern Europeans have become the predominant element among them. One of the most troublesome problems which the organization of these immigrants has had to face has been the competition of the unorganized Americans of native stock.

noise!!!

Before 1880 all labor organizations were small in membership and their effect upon economic conditions was negli- . gible. Like everywhere, during the infancy of organized labor, a union would spring into existence under the impulse of a strike, would flourish for a while, if successful, and would soon disintegrate. The work of organization has since been proceeding at an ever increasing pace. During the first decade of the new immigration, 1880-1890, more labor unions were organized than throughout the previous history of the United States. The majority of the trade-unionists and Knights of Labor were of foreign birth, whereas the native Americans contributed less than their quota to the membership of labor organizations. The greatest success rewarded the efforts of union organizers during the first decade of the present century, the membership of labor

organizations growing faster than the number of wageearners. Thus the greatest activity in the field of organization coincided with the unparalleled immigration of the past decade. The best field for observation of the effects of immigration upon trade-unionism is the State of New York, which receives more than its proportionate share of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. A comparative study of trade-union statistics compiled by the New York Bureau of Labor and of the federal immigration statistics shows that union membership rises and falls with the rise and fall of immigration. The fluctuations of union membership depend upon the business situation, which likewise determines the fluctuations of immigration. The harmonious movement of immigration and organization among wage-earners is thus accounted for by the fact that both are stimulated by business prosperity and discouraged by business depression.

The question arises, however, whether the progress of trade-unionism would not have been greater had there been no immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe during the past decade of industrial expansion. An answer to this question is furnished by the comparative growth of tradeunion membership in New York and in Kansas. The ratio of foreign-born in Kansas has been steadily decreasing since 1880. At the same time Kansas has shared in the recent industrial expansion. Statistics show that the relative number of organized workmen is much higher in New York with its large and growing Southern and Eastern European population than in Kansas, where more than nine tenths of the population are of native birth.

These comparisons prove that recent immigration has not retarded the progress of trade-unionism, except, of course, where it is the policy of the unions to exclude the recent immigrants by prohibitive initiation dues and other restrictive regulations intended to limit the number of competitors within their trades.

Language is nowadays no longer a bar to organization

immigrant. It is therefore taken for granted that the effect of the great tide of immigration in recent years has been to reduce the rate of wages or to prevent it from advancing. The fallacy of this reasoning is due to the attempt to compare the wages and standard of living of the unskilled laborer with those of the skilled mechanic. In order to prove that the new immigrants have introduced a lower standard of living, the latter ought to be compared with the standard of living of unskilled laborers in the past. Housing conditi ns have been most dwelt upon in the discussion of the standard of living of the immigrant, because they strike the eye of the outsider. Historical studies of housing conditions show, however, that congestion was recognized as a serious evil in New York City as far back as the first half of the nineteenth century. The evil was not confined to the foreign-born population. American-born working-women lived on filthy streets in poorly ventilated houses, crowding in one or two rooms which were used both as dwelling and workshop. No better were the living conditions of the daughters of American farmers in the small mill towns of New England. They lived in company houses, half a dozen in one attic room, without tables, or chairs, or even washstands. Comparative statistics of house tenancy in Boston show that in the middle of the nineteenth century the tenement-house population was as numerous, in proportion, as in our day. The conversion of the old single-family residence into a tenement house, where a whole family was jammed in every room, was productive of filth. The inconvenience suffered by the people of New York City during the recent strike of the street cleaners was but a faint reminder of the normal conditions of the immigrant sections of New York or Boston half a century ago. These conditions are a thing of the past. The typical tenement house in the Jewish and Italian sections of New York to-day is a decided improvement upon the dwellings of the older immigrant races in the same sections a generation or I two ago. On the other hand, in the South, where many of

the coal mines are operated without immigrant labor, and native white Americans are employed as unskilled laborers, their homes are primitive and insanitary.

It is evident that the cause of bad housing conditions is not racial, but economic. Congestion in great cities is produced by industrial factors over which the immigrants have no control. The fundamental cause of congestion with all its attendant evils is the necessity for the wageworker to live within an accessible distance from his place of work. In mining towns the mine company is usually the landlord, and the mine worker has no choice in the matter of housing accommodations. In so far, however, as housing conditions might affect the rates of wages of native and immigrant workmen, it is the amount of rent, not the equivalent in domestic comfort, that has to be considered. And here it is found that immigrants have to pay the same rent as, and often a higher rent than, native American wageearners. A certain proportion among the immigrants seek to reduce their rent by taking in boarders, but the practice is not universal, and the wages of the others must therefore provide for the payment of normal rent. Moreover, the recent immigrants are mostly concentrated in great cities, where rent is high, while the native American workmen live mostly in small towns with low rents.

Nor are the food standards of the recent immigrant inferior to those of native Americans with the same income. Meat, the most expensive article of food, is consumed by the Slav in larger quantities than by native Americans. Rent and food claim by far the greater part of a workman's wages. It is thus apparent that whatever may have been the immigrant's standard of living in his home country, his expenditure in the United States is determined by the prices ruling in the United States. Contrary to common assertion, the living expenses of the native American workman in small cities and rural districts are lower than those of the recent immigrants in the great industrial centers. It is therefore not the recent immigrant that is able to underbid

the native American workman, but it is, on the contrary, the latter that is in a position to accept a cheaper wage.

There is, of course, a difference between the expenses of a single and of a married workman. The necessary expenses of a single man are lower than those of one who has a family to support, and a large proportion of the recent immigrants are either single or have left their families abroad. But, while an unmarried American workman may either save or spend the difference, the recent immigrant is obliged to save a part of his earnings. He must repay the cost of his own passage; if he has left a family at home, he must save up money to pay for their passage, besides supporting them in the meantime. So when the recent immigrant is seen to deny himself every comfort in order to reduce his personal expenses to a minimum, it is a mistake to assume that he will accept a wage just sufficient to provide for his own subsistence, The Italian section hand who lives on vegetables does not save money for the railroad company. The economic interests of the American wage-earner are therefore not affected by the tendency of the recent immigrant to live as cheaply as possible and to save as much as possible. Whether he spends his wages for rent and dress, or saves his money to buy steamship tickets for his family; whether he invests his savings in a home in the United States or sends them to his parents for improving the home farm, his wants in one case are as urgent as in the other, and he must demand a wage which will enable him to satisfy them.

On the other hand, though the standard of living of the native or Americanized wage-earners be higher than that of the new immigrants, this difference is not necessarily indicative of a higher rate of wages: the higher standard is very often maintained with the earnings of the children, whereas the Southern and Eastern European immigrants are mostly young people whose children have not reached working age. The supposed difference in the standard of living can therefore have no effect upon the comparative rates of wages of English-speaking workmen and of recent immigrants.