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Immigration and Labor

representing the English-speaking immigrants and their native-born children? Suppose the 10 per cent contingent of recent immigrants forced out as many Americans, there were still 90 per cent of the places in the mills to be filled, and the contest for these places was between native Americans of native parentage and English-speaking immigrants and their children. Detailed figures are given in Table 115.

TABLE 115.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE OPERATIVES OF BOTH SEXES IN THE WOOLEN AND WORSTED MILLS OF LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS, BY PARENT

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It is only since the federal census of 1900 that the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Syria have become a conspicuous element among the woolen-mill operatives of Lawrence. The report of the Immigration Commission contains figures which "are practically a census of the local establishments" for 1909. According to those figures, 35.5 per cent of the operatives were immigrants Occupations at the XII. Census, Table 43.

from Southern and Eastern Europe and Turkey. But the proportion of native Americans of native parentage was 6.9 per cent, as against 5.2 per cent in 1900. Since the advent of the "new immigrants" the number of native Americans of native parentage employed in the woolen and worsted mills of Lawrence has more than doubled. The proof of this fact is given in Table 116 next following:

TABLE 116.

NUMBER OF NATIVE AMERICANS OF NATIVE PARENTAGE EMPLOYED IN THE WOOLEN AND WORSTED MILLS OF LAWRENCE, 1900 AND 1909.

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The only inference justified by the figures of the Immigration Commission is that the same economic conditions which have brought the recent immigrants to the Lawrence woolen mills have also induced increasing numbers of native Americans of native stock to accept employment in the same mills. In 1909, the average number of wage-earners in the worsted mills was 20,668, as against an average number of 12,216 employed in 1904.3 These figures are

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Occupations at the XII. Census, Table 43. Report of the Immigration Commission, vol. 10, Table 81, p. 742. The same figures are duplicated in Table 85, p. 752.

2 As some of these operatives may have been employed in woolen and worsted mills, their total number is included in this comparative table. The percentage of increase is thereby reduced below the actual figure. 3 XIII. Census Bulletin on Manufactures in Massachusetts, Table 1, pp. 34-45.

indicative of a great expansion of the industry in recent years, which has created new places both for native Americans and for new immigrants.

What has been the effect of this expansion upon the rates of wages? Professor Lauck, speaking for the Immigration Coinmission, holds that "the rate of wages in the presence of a large supply of immigrant laborers tends to decline." This obiter dictum, however, is unsupported by figures. The statistics of wages quoted further in the report decidedly contradict the opinion of their compiler. In the thirteen occupations selected by him for comparison, "these figures indicate an apparent increase of 19.65 per cent in the rate of weekly wages . . . during the past twenty years." In another mill the average earnings of weavers show "an increase of 75 per cent. If there be such a tendency as that enunciated by Professor Lauck, its operation has apparently been suspended at Lawrence during the past twenty years.

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The statistics of the Immigration Commission furnish material for a comparison of the variation in the rates of wages in the presence and in the absence of the recent immigrant labor supply, viz., from 1889 to 1899 and from 1899 to 1909. In 1890 the population of Lawrence numbered in all 159 immigrants from Austria, Portugal, Italy, Russia, and Turkey. By 1900, as stated, their number in the woolen mills reached only 8.6 per cent of all operatives. Their presence in the mills was certainly a negligible factor in determining the rates of wages. In the ten years following, however, their numbers increased to 35.5 per cent of the total force. As elsewhere, they have taken over "the simpler, cruder processes," while the English-speaking operatives have been assigned to the higher grades of work. 4 It is therefore, possible to observe the effect of recent immigration upon the rates of wages for unskilled labor, as well as the effect of the absence of the competition of recent

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 10, p. 773.

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2

Ibid., pp. 773, 774.

3 Ibid., p. 750.

4 Ibid., p. 772.

immigrants upon the rates of wages in those occupations to which they are not admitted. The comparative rates of increase in the wage scales are presented in Table 117.

TABLE 117.

PER CENT INCREASE IN THE RATES OF WAGES PAID BY ONE OF THE TWO LARGEST WORSTED MILLS IN LAWRENCE TO SKILLED AND

UNSKILLED OPERATIVES, IN 1889-1899, AND 1899-1909.1

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The preceding table demonstrates:

(1) That from 1889 to 1899, the rates of wages of the skilled operatives remained stationary, and that they increased from 1899 to 1909, i. e., during the period of the great influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Turkey;

(2) That in three of the unskilled occupations the rates of wages remained stationary in 1889-1899, in the absence of "the new immigration," and increased in 1899-1909, in the presence of that immigration; that the wages of spinners were raised during the earlier period 5.3 per cent and during

The percentages have been computed from the rates per week and per hour quoted in the Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 10, p. 774. Occupations for which two or more rates were given in 1899 and only one in 1889 and 1909 have been omitted.

the recent period from 8.3 to 34.3 per cent; that the wages of doffers increased during the first period 16.7 per cent and during the second 31.2 per cent;

(3) That since the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey have begun to enter the unskilled occupations in large numbers, the percentage of increase in the wages of unskilled operatives has been greater than the percentage of increase in the rates of skilled workers, who are practically all of the English-speaking races.

If the rates of wages are affected by the racial characteristics of the immigrants, then the preceding figures admit of no other conclusion than that the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey have a racial "tendency" to push the wages upward, whereas the English-speaking workmen are willing to acquiesce for a long time (10 years) in such wages as the recent immigrants would consider unsatisfactory. This palpably unsound conclusion is the logical consequence of the false assumption underlying the report of the Immigration Commission on immigrants in manufacturing. The only other possible interpretation of the preceding table of variations in the rates of wages is that the wages remained stationary in 1889-1899 because the growth of the woolen industry was slow during those years and that the wages increased in 1899-1909 owing to the rapid expansion of the woolen industry, which created an active demand for labor. The rapid increase of the number of recent immigrant employees was the effect of the increased demand for labor at higher wages.

The growth of a Western city, like Los Angeles, from a city of 102,000 inhabitants in 1900 to one of 319,000 in 1910 through migration of native citizens, is accepted by the American public as a matter of course. But the average

American, being out of touch with the strange peoples whom he sees filling the mills of his growing city, does not realize the simple fact that "the channel of communication between the economic opportunity or labor demand in the

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