PART III.-DETAILED STUDY OF RAILROAD AND OTHER CONSTRUCTION WORK IN THE EAST.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

Explanation of study-Description of localities studied-Employees for whom information was secured-[Text Table 33 and General Table 14].

EXPLANATION OF STUDY.

The investigation of construction work in the East was made in the States of New York and New Jersey. The work covered was railway and other construction for the completion of which from two to eight years was required. Twenty-eight camps and two trains of camp cars were visited. This data, secured during the summer of 1909, is intended to show the nationality and general class of labor employed on construction work. Individual schedules were secured as far as possible from all the laborers in the camps and cars visited and descriptive notes made of the methods of employing and treatment of immigrants and of their manner of living. In ordinary railroad construction the bulk of the labor is performed by unskilled laborers. Although much of the work is done by machinery, large forces of men are also employed. Such occupations as dumping the dirt trains, moving the tracks, on which these trains run, picking the slopes of the cuts and digging out foundations require only the unskilled labor which are all classed under the general term of pickand-shovel laborers. In making this investigation more stress was laid on the importance of securing individual schedules than other kinds of data. The method followed in securing these cards was such as to carry the investigators into the camps rather than the office of the employers. The attempt was made at first to have the employers secure individual schedules and a visit was made to the office of each contractor or firm and schedules left, but on the return trip it was found that few of them had been secured, and the investigator in most cases either employed one of the office clerks to obtain them at night and at odd times, or went among the men on the work and in camp, thus securing them himself. The data obtained by means of these cards afford the statistical basis of the present report.

DESCRIPTION OF LOCALITIES STUDIED.

The majority of the camps visited were engaged in work which was being done in a thickly settled dairy-farming district. The surrounding country was mountainous, but the construction camps and

work were in the rolling country or valleys. A network of railways, some crossing and some paralleling the line of the work, together with a good system of macadamized roads, furnished ample transportation facilities. Dairy farming and potato raising were the chief industries in the immediate section. There were small towns and villages within a few miles of each other throughout the district traversed by the railroad on which these construction camps were visited, but the construction work was the only attraction for the foreign-born laborers. The climate was not especially favorable to this kind of work, as some of the operations had to be discontinued during the three winter months. The bulk of it, however, was comparatively convenient to New York City, where the immigrant laborers returned when thrown out of work.

EMPLOYEES FOR WHOM INFORMATION WAS SECURED.

The extent of the data secured for individual employees in the East is exhibited by the following table, which shows the number and percentage of male employees of each race for whom information was secured.

TABLE 33.-Male employees for whom information was secured, by general nativity and

CHAPTER II.

RACIAL DISPLACEMENTS.

Period of residence in the United States of foreign-born employees-Racial composition of employees at present time [Text Tables 34 and 35 and General Table 15].

PERIOD OF RESIDENCE IN THE UNITED STATES OF FOREIGN-BORN

EMPLOYEES.

The character of recent and past immigration employed in construction work in the East is exhibited by the following table, which shows, by race, the percentage of foreign-born male employees who had been in the United States each specified number of years:

TABLE 34.- Per cent of foreign-born male employees in the United States each specified number of years, by race.

(STUDY OF EMPLOYEES.)

[By years in the United States is meant years since first arrival in the United States. No deduction is made for time spent abroad. This table includes only races with 40 or more males reporting. The total, however, is for all foreign-born.]

The above table shows that of the foreign-born male employees for whom information was secured 68.9 per cent have been in the United States under five years, 19.8 per cent from five to nine years, and only a small proportion ten years or over. All of the Herzegovinians and a larger proportion of the Russians, Croatians, and Poles than of the individuals of any other race have been in this country under five years and a larger proportion of Magyars, North Italians, Slovaks, and South Italians than of the individuals of any other race have been here from five to nine years.

RACIAL CLASSIFICATION OF EMPLOYEES AT THE PRESENT TIME.

The racial composition of the labor force at the present time is set forth in the table following, which shows the number and percentage of male employees of each race for whom information was secured."

TABLE 35.-Male employees for whom information was secured, by general nativity and

The preceding table shows that of the total number of employees for whom information was secured 78.5 per cent were foreign-born, 10.3 per cent were native-born whites of native father, 6.1 were negroes who were native-born of native father, and 5.1 were native-born of foreign father.

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