of some natural resource, such as coal, iron ore, or copper, or by reason of the extension of the principal manufacturing industries of the country. They are usually communities clustering around mines or industrial plants, and their distinguishing feature is that a majority of their inhabitants, often practically all, are of foreign birth, the population being composed of Slavs, Italians, Magyars, and other peoples of recent immigration. Illustrations of this type of immigrant communities are common in the bituminous and anthracite coal-mining regions of Pennsylvania and in the coal-producing areas of Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, and Öklahoma. In the Mesabi and Vermillion iron-ore ranges of Minnesota, as well as in the iron-ore and copper-mining districts of Michigan, many communities of this character are found. Although not so numerous, they are not infrequently established in connection with the leading industries, such as the manufacture of iron and steel, glass, cotton and woolen goods, etc. As representative types of this class in different sections of the country there may be cited West Seneca or Lackawanna City, near Buffalo, New York, a steel town 10 years old, with a total population of 20,000, more than 80 per cent of which is foreign-born; Hungary Hollow, near Granite City and Madison, Illinois, another steel-producing community, established during the past seven years, which is the center of a Bulgarian colony of 15,000 persons; and Charleroi, Kensington, Tarentum, and Arnold, Pennsylvania, and Ford City, Ohio, which furnish illustrations of glass-manufacturing communities of this description. Charleroi, Pennsylvania, is at present a city having a population of 10,500, composed chiefly of French and French Belgians, with an admixture of races of recent immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The community was established in 1890, when the first glass factory was erected, and has grown in size and importance as the glass industry within its borders has been extended. Numerous other communities of this type might be mentioned, but the foregoing examples will serve to set forth the general situation.

In both classes of communities there has resulted a distinct segregation of the immigrant population which has been attracted to the focality by the opportunities for work. Between the immigrant colonies which have affixed themselves to the industrial centers, such as the New England textile manufacturing cities or the iron and steel manufacturing localities of Pennsylvania, and the older native-born portion of the towns or cities there is little contact or association beyond that rendered necessary by business or working relations. The immigrant workmen and their households usually live in sections or colonies according to race, attend and support their own churches, maintain their own business institutions and places of recreation, and have their own fraternal and beneficial organizations. There is some association of the immigrant wage-earners with native Americans in the necessary working relations of the industrial establishments, and, in the case of communities where labor unions prevail, the different races of employees are brought together for a common purpose. Even in the mines and industrial establishments, however, there is a sharp line of division in the occupations or the departments in which recent immigrants and persons of native birth are engaged, and in unskilled labor the immigrant workmen are as a rule brought together in gangs composed of one race or closely related races. Even in industrial

1

localities which are strongly unionized, the extent of the affiliation of immigrant workmen with native Americans is small. A large proportion of the children of foreign-born parents mingle with children of native birth in the public schools, but a considerable proportion are also segregated by race in the parochial schools. The women of recent immigrant races, beyond the small degree of contact which they obtain by work in factories or as domestic servants, in many cases live in a condition entirely removed from Americanizing influences. As a consequence of this general isolation of immigrant colonies, the tendencies toward assimilation exhibited by the recent immigrant population are small, and the maintenance of old customs and standards leads to congestion and insanitary housing and living conditions. The native-born elements in the population of the type of industrial communities under discussion are in most cases ignorant of conditions which prevail in immigrant sections, and even when aware of them are usually found to be indifferent so long as such conditions do not become too pronounced a menace to the public health and welfare. Agencies for the Americanization and assimilation of the immigrant wage-earners and their families are still inadequate, though a number of agencies have recently developed to meet this need. As a rule, under normal conditions there is no antipathy to the immigrant population beyond the feeling uniformly met with in all sections that a certain stigma or reproach attaches to working with the recent immigrants or in the same occupations.

In the case of the second type of immigrant industrial communities, those which have recently come into existence through industrial development and which are almost entirely composed of foreign-born persons or in which the foreign-born elements are predominant, a situation exists where an alien colony has been established on American soil, often composed of a large number of races, living according to their own standards and largely under their own systems of control, and practically isolated from all direct contact with American life and institutions. The Americanization of such communities, as compared with the immigrant colonies of old-established industrial towns and cities, must necessarily be slow. As serious as are the problems, therefore, presented by the first-mentioned type of immigrant communities which are the result of recent industrial expansion, those of the second type, which have arisen from the same cause, are much greater. In both cases these problems, however, are the general ones which confront a self-governing republic as a result of the influx of an immigrant population of alien speech, standards, and customs, and may be more properly considered in another connection. In the present discussion of the purely industrial aspects of immigration it is sufficient to note that these immigrant communities and the problems which they present are the direct outcome of the extraordinary industrial development which has been in progress in this country within recent years. The succeeding discussion will be limited to a consideration of the effects of recent immigration (1) upon native American and older immigrant wage-earners, (2) upon labor organizations, (3) upon industrial organizations and methods, and (4) upon the establishment of new industries.

a See Children of Immigrants in Schools. Reports of the Immigration Commission, vols. 29-33. (S. Doc. No. 749, 61st Cong., 3d sess.)

SALIENT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RECENT IMMIGRANT LABOR SUPPLY.

a

The real significance of the entrance of recent immigrants into American industry can not be fully comprehended, however, without taking into account the personal and industrial characteristics of the wage-earners from southern and eastern Europe who have been employed in such large numbers. Preliminary to the discussion of the industrial effects of recent immigration, therefore, it will be necessary to review briefly the salient qualities of the recent immigrant labor supply. The data substantiating the following characterization appear elsewhere in minute detail, and consequently in the present connection the characteristics of wage-earners of foreign birth are set forth in a summary form as the basis for the subsequent discussion: " (a) From a strictly industrial standpoint, one of the facts of greatest import relative to the new arrivals has been, as already pointed out, that an exceedingly small proportion have had any training or experience while abroad for the industrial occupations in which they have found employment in this country. The bulk of recent immigration has been drawn from the agricultural classes of southern and eastern Europe and most of the recent immigrants were farmers or farm laborers in their native lands. In this respect they afford a striking contrast to immigrants of past years from Great Britain and northern Europe, who were frequently skilled industrial workers before coming to the United States and who sought positions in this country similar to those which they had occupied abroad.

(b) In addition to lack of industrial training and experience, the new immigrant labor supply has been found to possess but small resources from which to develop industrial efficiency and advancement. The southern and eastern Europeans have, as a rule, given evidence of industriousness and energy, but, unlike the races of older immigration, they have been unable to use the English language, and a large proportion have been illiterate. Practically none of the races of southern and eastern Europe have been able to speak English at the time of immigration to this country, and, owing to their segregation and isolation from the native American population in living and working conditions, their progress in acquiring the language has been very slow. The incoming supply of immigrant labor has also been characterized by a high degree of illiteracy. Of a total of 290,059 industrial workers of foreign birth for whom detailed information was secured, 17 per cent were unable to read and write and 14.8 per cent could not read. In the case of the races from southern and eastern Europe, the proportions unable to read and write were even larger. (c) Still another salient fact in connection with the recent immigrant labor supply has been the necessitous condition of the newcomers upon their arrival in American industrial communities in search of work. Recent immigrants have usually had but a few dollars in their possession when they arrived at the ports of disembarkation. Consequently they have found it absolutely imperative to engage in work at once. They have not been in position to take

a See section entitled "Statistical summary of results,'' pp. 315-489; also the separate reports dealing in detail with the different industries.

exception to the wages or working conditions offered, but must needs go to work on the most advantageous terms they could secure.

(d) The standards of living of the recent industrial workers from the south and east of Europe have been low, and the conditions of employment, as well as the rates of remuneration in American industry, have not as a rule constituted to them grounds for dissatisfaction. During the earlier part, at least, of their residence in the United States, they have been content with living and working conditions offered to them, and it has only been after the most earnest solicitation, or sometimes even coercion, upon the part of the older employees, that they have been persuaded or forced into protests.

The living conditions of southern and eastern Europeans and the members of their households is shown in the detailed studies of the various industries, the most significant indication of congestion and unsatisfactory living arrangements being the low-rent payments each month per capita. The recent immigrant males being usually single, or, if married, having left their wives abroad, have been able to adopt in large measure a group instead of a family living arrangement, and thereby to reduce their cost of living to a point far below that of the American or older immigrant in the same industry or the same level of occupations. The method of living usually followed is that commonly known as the "boarding-boss system. Under this arrangement a married immigrant or his wife, or a single man, constitutes the head of the household, which, in addition to the family of the head, will usually be made up of 2 to 20 boarders or lodgers. Each lodger pays the boarding boss a fixed sum, ordinarily from $2 to $3 per month, for lodging, cooking, and washing, the food being usually bought by the boarding boss and its cost shared equally by the individual members of the group. Another common arrangement is for each member of the household to purchase his own food and have it cooked separately. Under this general method of living, however, which prevails among the greater proportion of the immigrant households, the entire outlay for necessary living expenses of each adult member ranges from $9 to $15 each month. The additional expenditures of the recent immigrant wage-earners have been small. Every effort has been made to save as much as possible. The life interest and activity of the average wage-earner from southern and eastern Europe has seemed to revolve principally about three points: (1) To earn the largest possible amount of immediate earnings under existing conditions of work; (2) to live upon the basis of minimum cheapness; and (3) to save as much as possible. The ordinary comforts of life as insisted upon by the average American have been subordinated to the desire to reduce the cost of living to its lowest level.

(e) Another salient quality of recent immigrants who have sought work in American industries has frequently been that they have constituted a mobile, migratory, wage-earning class, constrained mainly by their economic interest, and moving readily from place to place according to changes in working conditions or fluctuations in the demand for labor. This condition of affairs is made possible by the fact that so large a proportion of the recent immigrant employees, as already pointed out, are single men or married men whose wives are abroad, and by the additional fact that the prevailing method of

living among immigrant workmen is such as to enable them to detach themselves from a locality or an occupation whenever they may wish. Their accumulations are also, as a rule, in the form of cash or quickly convertible into cash. In brief, the recent immigrants have no property or other restraining interests which attach them to a community, and a large proportion are free to follow the best industrial inducements. The transitory characteristic which has been developed as a result of these conditions is best illustrated by the racial movements from the larger industrial centers into railroad construction, seasonal and other temporary work, and by the development of a floating immigrant labor supply handled through labor agencies and padrones. There is also a pronounced movement, as in the racial migrations westward of bituminous coal-mine workers, from place to place or from industry to industry, due to the ascertainment of relatively better working conditions or other inducements. During the industrial depression of 1907-8 this migratory tendency was particularly noticeable in two ways: (1) By a large movement of southern and eastern Europeans out of the country because of the lack of employment, and (2) by the concentration of those who remained in this country in localities where there was opportunity for employment.

(f) To the above-described characteristics of recent immigrant wage-earners, should be added one other. The members of the larger number of races of recent entrance to the mines, mills, and factories as a rule have been tractable and easily managed. This quality seems to be a temperamental one acquired through present or past conditions of life in their native lands. When aroused by strikes or other industrial dissensions, some eastern European races have displayed an inclination to follow their leaders to any length, often to the point of extreme violence and disorder, but in the normal life of the mines, mills, and factories, the southern and eastern Europeans have exhibited a pronounced tendency toward being easily managed by employers and toward being imposed upon without protest, which has created the impression of subserviency. The characteristic of tractability, while strong, is confined, however, to the immigrant wage-earners of comparatively short residence.

EFFECT OF THE COMPETITION OF RECENT IMMIGRANTS UPON NATIVE AMERICANS AND OLDER IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES.

If the foregoing characteristics of the immigrant labor supply from southern and eastern Europe be borne in mind, the effect of the influx of recent immigrants upon native American wage-earners and those of older immigration from Great Britain and northern Europe may be briefly stated. The remarkable expansion in manufacturing and mining during the past thirty years, by creating a constant demand for a relatively small number of additional places for experienced and trained employees in supervisory and skilled positions, has undoubtedly led to the advancement in the scale of occupations of a relatively small proportion of native Americans and of English, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and members of other races who constituted the wage-earning classes before the arrival of recent immigrants. On the other hand, the entrance into the operating forces of American industries of such large numbers of wage-earners of the races of southern and eastern Europe