The number of those admitted who receive assistance from organized charity in cities is relatively small. In the Commission's investigation, which covered the activities of the associated charities in 43 cities, including practically all the larger immigrant centers except New York, it was found that a small percentage of the cases represented immigrants who had been in the United States three years or under, while nearly half of all the foreign-born cases were those who had been in the United States twenty years or more. This investigation was conducted during the winter of 1908-9 before industrial activities had been fully resumed following the financial depression of 1907-8, and this inquiry showed that the recent immigrants, even in cities in times of relative industrial inactivity, did not seek charitable assistance in any considerable numbers. Undoubtedly conditions would have been otherwise had it not been for the large outward movement of recent immigrants following the depression, but however that may be, it is certain that those who remained were for the most part self-supporting.

CONGESTION OF IMMIGRANTS IN CITIES.

Of late years the general impression that owing to immigration the poorer districts of the large cities are greatly overcrowded and that in consequence the living conditions are insanitary and even degrading, has been so prevalent that it seemed desirable to make a very thorough investigation of this question. In consequence, in seven cities-New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee a very careful study was made of the conditions prevailing in the poorer quarters of the city inhabited by immigrants of various races. As was to be expected, many extremely pitiful cases of poverty and overcrowding were found, at times six or even more people sleeping in one small room, sometimes without light or direct access by window or door to the open air. On the whole, however, the average conditions were found materially better than had been anticipated. Moreover, a comparison of the conditions in a great city like New York or Chicago with those in some of the smaller industrial centers, such as mining or manufacturing towns, shows that average conditions as respects overcrowding are very materially worse in some of the small industrial towns than in the large cities. For example, the per cent of households having six or more persons per sleeping room of the race which showed the worst conditions in these large cities was only 5.2, whereas in the industrial centers. studied in several cases the proportion was higher than this and in the case of one race as high as 9.5 per cent.

Moreover, in the large cities the population changes much more frequently than is generally thought. New immigrants are attracted to these poorer residential quarters by the presence of friends or relatives and the necessity of securing living quarters at the lowest possible cost, but as their economic status improves after living in this country for some time, they very generally move to better surroundings. The undesirable districts of the cities that are now inhabited largely by recent immigrants were formerly populated by persons of the earlier immigrant races. Few of these are now found

a See Vol. II, pp. 87-157.

See pp. 435 and 746.

there, and these remnants ordinarily represent the economic failures the derelicts-among a generation of immigrants which, for the most part, has moved to better surroundings.

In many instances, too, where deplorable conditions were found they were due in part, at any rate, to circumstances over which the inhabitants have little direct control, such as a poor water supply or insanitary drainage-matters that should be attended to by the city authorities.

While instances of extreme uncleanliness were found, the care of the households as regards cleanliness and an attempt to live under proper conditions was usually found unexpectedly good, about fivesixths of all the families visited in the poorer quarters of these large cities keeping their homes in reasonably good or fair condition.

There seems to be little doubt that the various races, owing presumably to their differing environments in Europe, differ somewhat as regards overcrowding and the care of their apartments, but the differences are less than might have been anticipated. The reports seem to indicate clearly that the chief cause of the overcrowding is a desire of the families to keep well within their income or to save money, even at the expense of serious discomfort for the present, in order that they may better their condition in the future. The worst conditions were found among those who live in boarding groups, largely unmarried men, whose purpose in the main is to save money in order that they may send it back to their home country or return thither themselves as soon as a sufficient amount has been secured.

Although, as has been intimated, the average conditions are distinctly better than had been anticipated, the bad conditions still prevail to such an extent that the city authorities, as well as landlords and philanthropic people, have rich opportunities of improving them. It should not be forgotten that the bad conditions can not be estimated by the number of people that live on a square acre, but rather by the number of people per room and per sleeping room, by the amount of air space, the opportunities for light and ventilation, and the care that is taken of the rooms. Conditions in New York, where the largest number of people live per acre, were found, generally speaking, distinctly better than in some of the other cities where less care had been taken to pass or enforce proper laws and ordinances.

IMMIGRANTS IN MANUFACTURING AND MINING.

A large proportion of the southern and eastern European immigrants of the past twenty-five years have entered the manufacturing and mining industries of the eastern and middle western States, mostly in the capacity of unskilled laborers. There is no basic industry in which they are not largely represented and in many cases they compose more than 50 per cent of the total number of persons employed in such industries. Coincident with the advent of these millions of unskilled laborers there has been an unprecedented expansion of the industries in which they have been employed. Whether this great immigration movement was caused by the industrial development or whether the fact that a practically unlimited. and available supply of cheap labor existed in Europe was taken advantage of for the purpose of expanding the industries, can not well be demonstrated. Whatever may be the truth in this regard it is certain that southern and eastern European immigrants have

almost completely monopolized unskilled labor activities in many of the more important industries. This phase of the industrial situation was made the most important and exhaustive feature of the Commission's investigation, and the results show that while the competition of these immigrants has had little, if any, effect on the highly skilled trades, nevertheless, through lack of industrial progress and by reason of large and constant reinforcement from abroad, it has kept conditions in the semiskilled and unskilled occupations from advancing.

Several elements peculiar to the new immigrants contributed to this result. The aliens came from countries where low economic conditions prevailed and where conditions of labor were bad. They were content to accept wages and conditions which the native American and immigrants of the older class had come to regard as unsatisfactory. They were not, as a rule, engaged at lower wages than had been paid to the older workmen for the same class of labor, but their presence in constantly increasing numbers prevented progress among the older wage-earning class, and as a result that class of employees was gradually displaced. An instance of this displacement is shown in the experience in the bituminous coal mines of western Pennsylvania. This section of the bituminous field was the one first entered by the new immigrants, and the displacement of the old workers was soon under way. Some of them entered other occupations and many of them migrated to the coal fields of the Middle West. Later these fields also were invaded by the new immigrants, and large numbers of the old workers again migrated to the mines of the Southwest, where they still predominate. The effect of the new immigration is clearly shown in the western Pennsylvania fields, where the average wage of the bituminous coal worker is 42 cents a day below the average wage in the Middle West and Southwest." Incidentally, hours of labor are longer and general working conditions poorer in the Pennsylvania mines than elsewhere. Another characteristic of the new immigrants contributed to the situation in Pennsylvania. This was the impossibility of successfully organizing them into labor unions. Several attempts at organization were made, but the constant influx of immigrants to whom prevailing conditions seemed unusually favorable contributed to the failure to organize. A similar situation has prevailed in other great industries.

Like most of the immigration from southern and eastern Europe, those who entered the leading industries were largely single men or married men unaccompanied by their families. There is, of course, in practically all industrial communities a large number of families of the various races, but the majority of the employees are men without families here and whose standard of living is so far below that of the native American or older immigrant workman that it is impossible for the latter to successfully compete with them. They usually live in cooperative groups and crowd together. Consequently, they are able to save a great part of their earnings, much of which is sent. or carried abroad. Moreover, there is a strong tendency on the part of these unaccompanied men to return to their native countries after a few years of labor here. These groups have little contact with American life, learn little of American institutions, and aside from

"See p. 534.

the wages earned profit little by their stay in this country. During their early years in the United States they usually rely for assistance and advice on some member of their race, frequently a saloon keeper or grocer, and almost always a steamship ticket agent and "immigrant banker," who, because of superior intelligence and better knowledge of American ways, commands their confidence. Usually after a longer residence they become more self-reliant, but their progress toward assimilation is generally slow. Immigrant families in the industrial centers are more permanent and usually exhibit a stronger tendency toward advancement, although, in most cases, it is a long time before they even approach the ordinary standard of the American or the older immigrant families in the same grade of occupation. This description, of course, is not universally true, but it fairly represents a great part of the recent immigrant population in the United States. Their numbers are so great and the influx is so continuous that even with the remarkable expansion of industry during the past few years there has been created an over supply of unskilled labor, and in some of the industries this is reflected in a curtailed number of working days and a consequent yearly income among the unskilled workers which is very much less than is indicated by the daily wage rates paid ;" and while it may not have lowered in a marked degree the American standard of living, it has introduced a lower standard which has become prevalent in the unskilled industry at large.

RECENT IMMIGRANTS IN AGRICULTURE.

According to the census of 1900, 21.7 per cent of all foreign-born male breadwinners in the United States were engaged in agricultural pursuits, but the great majority of these were of the old immigration races. Up to that time comparatively few of the immigrants from the south and east of Europe had gone on the land, and, while during the past ten years some of the races have shown a tendency in that direction, the proportion is still small. Among the races of recent immigration which have shown a more or less pronounced tendency toward agriculture in States east of the Rocky Mountains are the Italians and Poles, while several Hebrew agricultural colonies have been established. A considerable number of the Italians are to be found in various parts of the East, the South, and the Southwest, where, as a rule, they have established communities, and on the whole have made good progress. In the East many have engaged in truck gardening in the vicinity of the largest cities, while in the South and Southwest they have entered fruit and berry raising and, to a lesser degree, general farming. The Poles have gone into general agriculture in many parts of the East and Middle West, while the Hebrews are, as a rule, located in the more populous States and usually near large cities. The small number of Hebrews who have engaged in agricultural pursuits have not been conspicuously successful, although in some localities they have made fair progress. The Polish farmers, as a rule, have succeeded, particularly in some of the eastern localities where they have purchased worn-out lands and succeeded in making them productive and profitable.

a See tables on pp. 371 and 407-408.

The Italians usually have been successful in general farming and especially so in truck gardening and small farming in the vicinity of large cities.

While encouragement is to be found in the experiences of the past few years, it is clear that the tendency of the new immigration is toward industrial and city pursuits rather than toward agriculture.

ARTIFICIAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS.

In making the larger cities and industrial communities their place of residence, aliens composing the new immigration movement have continued to follow a tendency which originated with the advent of such immigrants in considerable numbers. This may be ascribed to various reasons. A large part of the immigrants were agricultural laborers at home, and their immigration is due to a desire to escape the low economic conditions which attend agricultural pursuits in the countries from which they come. With no knowledge of other conditions it is natural, therefore, that they should seek another line of activity in this country. The destination of these immigrants in the United States on arrival is controlled by the fact that they almost invariably join relatives or friends, and few of these, even among earlier immigrants of the class, are engaged in agricultural pursuits. Remaining in the cities and industrial centers they follow a general tendency of the times. The law of 1907 provided for the establishment of a division of information in the Bureau of Immigration, the intent being that the division should disseminate among admitted immigrants information relative to opportunities for settlers in sections of the country apart from cities and purely industrial centers. It was hoped that the division could devise means of inaugurating a movement among immigrants which would eventually result in their more equitable distribution. The apparent result, however, does not indicate that the purpose of the law is being fulfilled. As conducted, the work of the division appears to be essentially that of an employment agency whose chief function is supplying individuals to meet individual demands for labor in agricultural districts. It does not appear that persons thus distributed have, as a rule, been distributed with the purpose that they would become permanent settlers in the districts to which they went, but rather that a more or less temporary need of the employer and employee was supplied through this agency.

No satisfactory or permanent distribution of immigrants can be effected through any federal employment system, no matter how widespread, because the individual will seek such social and economic conditions as best suit him, no matter where sent. What is needed is a division of information which will cooperate with States desiring immigrant settlers. Information concerning the opportunities for settlement should then be brought to the attention of immigrants in industrial centers who have been here for some time and who might thus be induced to invest their savings in this country and become permanent agricultural settlers. Such a division might also secure and furnish to all laborers alike information showing opportunities for permanent employment in various sections of the country, together with the economic conditions in such places.