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CHAPTER VI

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S far back as 1901 Prof. John R. Commons, in his report on immigration prepared for the Industrial Commission, reached the conclusion that immigrants come to this country "in obedience to the opportunities for employment." Still the force of statistics must apparently yield to the living proof, furnished by the ever-present "army of the unemployed," that there are already more men than jobs in the United States. There seems to be no escape from the conclusion that every new immigrant, in order to live, must take away the job from some one else who has been here before. A study of the sources of unemployment shows the fallacy of the premises upon which the popular argument is based.

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Unemployment in its present form is a problem peculiar to our industrial system, but alternations of work and involuntary idleness were incidents of the life on the old New England farm as well. The disappearance of slavery in New England was in no small degree due to the long winters during which the time of the negro slave could not be fully

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Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 309.

2 "The popular conception is of industry as rigidly limited-a sphere of cast iron in which men struggle for living room; in which the greater the room taken by any one man the less must there be for others; in which the greater the number of men the worst must be the case of all."-W. H. Beveridge: Unemployment, a Problem of Industry, p. 11.

employed. The introduction of the factory system in New England at the close of the eighteenth century was advocated on the ground that it would "give employment to a great number of persons, especially females who now eat the bread of idleness.

On the old farm, however, work and leisure were shared by all members of the household and all were supported by the work of the busy months. The differentiation of lumbering, dairying, slaughtering, tool making, canning, spinning, weaving, dressmaking, etc., from farming has destroyed the former co-ordination of those occupations. Nowadays, whenever work in any of them grows scarce, some of the workers are cut off from the pay-roll and become "unemployed."

The most generally recognized cause of unemployment is seasonal variation of business activity. According to the census of 1900, among masons and plasterers more than one half were out of work a portion of the year. Next follow brick- and tile-makers, of whom nearly one half were at times unemployed. Among paper-hangers, the proportion was 44 per cent; among carpenters and painters, over 40 per cent; among fishermen, about one half; among sailors, one third. All these occupations are dependent upon the weather. Other trades are dependent upon and decline with these. Then there are trades dependent partly upon the weather and partly upon social customs; more than one fourth (27 per cent) of all tailors were out of work at some period during the year 1900.2 In the busiest season the supply of labor in such trades may oftentimes be short of the demand, necessitating overtime work;

Helen L. Sumner: "History of Women in Industry in the United States," Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in United States, vol. ix., p. 43. See also pp. 38, 39. In the early years of the nineteenth century the mills employed many farm girls who were "not constantly at work, but as they had leisure from other household employment."-Ibid., p. 47. See also Simons: Social Forces in American History, p. 172 et seq.

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Occupations at the XII. Census, Tables LXXXVII., and

yet even this shortage of labor will not save a portion of the force engaged in such trades from idleness at other times of the year. A reduction of the number of competitors for positions in such trades would obviously not relieve the situation. Masonry may serve as an example. Out of every 1000 masons 555 were unemployed some time during the census year 1900 and there was steady work all year around for only 445. Could the number of masons in the United States have been reduced to the 445 who had steady work in 1900, unemployment would thereby not have been eliminated. On the contrary, many of the 445 who were employed all year around when there were 555 more masons in busy times would have lost part of their working time with the exclusion of their competitors. The explanation of this apparent paradox is that there is steady work on a building for about one half of the total number employed at the busiest time-probably inside work which does not depend upon the weather. But a building cannot be constructed all inside. If the number of masons were reduced from 1000 to 500, the building operations at the busiest season would necessarily have to be reduced one half, with the result that during the slack season there would be only enough inside work for 250 and the other 195 of the 445 who had steady work in 1900 would now go idle. same condition exists to a greater or lesser degree in many other industries.

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In order to eliminate unemployment it would be necessary to dovetail the busy and the slack seasons in the various industries upon such a plan as would produce an even distribution of the work of the nation over all seasons of the year. This might be possible if all mines, mills, and transportation lines were operated by one nation-wide combine. Such an adjustment of half a million independent business establishments, however, is not feasible for more than one reason. In the first place, the periods of the highest and lowest demand for labor are largly contemporaneous, in * Occupations at the XII. Census, p. commi, Table CX

all industries (see Diagram V).1

The highest number employed in manufactures, in the United States as a whole as well as in every one of the principal States, is found in the spring and in the fall, the lowest in winter. The workman who is laid off in January has, as a rule, no opportunity to secure other work.

In the second place, even when the slack period in one industry coincides with the busiest period in another, the mobility of labor is quite limited. The skilled trades admit of no shifting from one occupation to another. May was the busiest month of the year 1899 (see Diagram V). In 51 industries an additional force of 400,000 men was at work in excess of the permanent force employed at all times of the year, including the slack season. On the other hand, there were four industries for which May was the dullest month, but the aggregate number laid off in those industries was less than 7000. And yet with all that demand for labor some of them must have remained out of work. There were, e.g., 1924 idle jewelry workers. Help was wanted in brick yards, 74,000 men; carpenter shops, 71,000; custom tailoring shops, 16,000; carriage and wagon shops, 14,000; planing mills, 13,000; cigar factories, 6000; cheese factories, 5000, etc. There was not a single industry, however, among the 51, which could furnish employment to the 1924 idle jewelry workers. Had every one of the extra 400,000 men been deported to Europe, the 1924 idle jewelers would nevertheless have remained unemployed. Even if all the laborers in the brickyards were of unadulterated Puritan stock, a jewelry worker would consider it beneath his social status to do rough work in a brickyard while waiting for the resumption of work at Tiffany's. The natural tendency is for the fact of seasonal fluctuation to be recognized as a normal incident of the industry and to be allowed for in the standard of wages.

The only class of labor which is capable of shifting from 'Based upon figures of XII. Census Report on Manufactures, vol. I, Table 3, p. 62. See Appendix, Table II.

DIAGRAM V.

Scale for States: 1 unit = 10,000. For the United States: 1 unit=100,000.

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V. Average number of male wage-earners employed in manufactures in the United States and the principal States, by months, 1899.

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