machinery has resulted in the gradual displacement of the small proprietor by the wage-earner, in American agriculture, on the contrary, the machine has tended to eliminate the wage-earner. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century the agricultural methods of the American farmer differed little from those of his ancestors. Grass was mowed with a scythe. Grain was cut with a sickle and threshed with a flail. Flailing and winnowing grain was the chief farm work of the winter. Corn was planted by hand, cultivated with the hoe, and shelled by scraping the ears against the handle of a frying pan. The cultivation of a farm in this primitive way sustained a demand for steady farm help in all seasons. To-day there is some implement or machine for every kind of farm work. It is estimated that the quantity of labor saved by machinery represents the services of one and a half million men working every week day in the year.

In consequence of limited demand, agricultural labor is the least remunerative of all occupations. The hours of labor on the farm are longer than even in the steel mills of Pennsylvania. Small pay, long hours, and irregular employment is what the immigrant can expect on a farm. His preference for city work which pays better can be easily explained without delving into the mysteries of race psychology. It merely confirms the rule that immigration follows the demand for labor.

The effect of immigration upon labor in the United States has been a readjustment of the population on the scale of occupations. The majority of Americans of native parentage are engaged in farming, in business, in the professions, and in clerical pursuits. The majority of the immigrants, on the other hand, are industrial wage-earners. Only in exceptional cases has this readjustment been attended by actual displacement of the native or Americanized wageearner. In the course of industrial evolution some trades have declined owing to the introduction of new methods of production. In such cases there was naturally a decrease of

the number of native as well as of foreign-born workers. As a rule, however, the supply of immigrant labor has been absorbed by the increasing demand for labor in all industries without leaving a surplus sufficient to displace the native or older immigrant wage-earner. There were but a few occupations which showed an actual, not a relative decrease of native Americans of native stock. This decrease was due to the disinclination of the young generation to follow the pursuits of their fathers; the new accessions from native stock were insufficient to replace the older men as they were dying off, and the vacancies were gradually filled up by immigrants. But for every position given up by a native American there were many new openings filled by native American wage-earners.

The westward movement of American and Americanized wage-earners and the concentration of immigrants in a few Eastern and Central States have been interpreted as the "displacement" of the English-speaking workmen from the mills and mines of the East by the new immigration. An examination of the figures shows, however, that during the past thirty years mining and manufacturing grew much faster in the West and South than in the East and drew some of the native workers and earlier immigrants from the older manufacturing States. But the demand for labor grew in the old States as well. The places left vacant by the old employees who had gone westward had to be filled by new immigrants.

The desertion of mills and factories by native American girls has also been explained as their "displacement" by immigrants. The motive assigned is not economic, but racial: it is the social prejudice against the immigrant that has forced the American girl to quit. It seems, however, that this explanation mistakes cause for effect: the social stigma attaching to working association with immigrants is not the cause but the effect of the desertion of the mills and factories by native American women. The psychological interpretation overlooks one of the greatest economic

changes that has taken place in the United States since the Civil War: the admission of women to most of the pursuits which were formerly regarded as peculiarly masculine. For every native woman of American parentage who left the mill or clothing factory there were forty women of the same nativity who found new openings. The increase of the number of native American professional women was nearly five times as great as the decrease of the number of native American factory girls. The marvelous progress of the American educational system has fitted the native American woman for other work than manual labor and has at the same time opened to her a new field in which she does not meet the competition of the immigrant.

There is absolutely no statistical proof of an oversupply of unskilled labor resulting in the displacement of native by immigrant laborers. No decrease of the number of common laborers among the native white of native or foreign parentage appears in any of the great States which serve as receptacles for immigration. The same is true of miners. In none of the States affected by the new immigration has there been a decrease in the number of native miners. Such States as Pennsylvania and Illinois showed large increases in the number of native miners, both of foreign and native parentage. The iron and steel mills are another industry from which the recent immigrants are popularly believed to have forced out the native workmen and older English-speaking immigrants.. The fact is, that in the earlier period of the industry, when immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was negligible, the number of American employees increased very slowly; during the recent period, on the contrary, since the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe have been coming in large numbers, the number of American-born employees of every nativity has more than doubled. The increased employment of native Americans is recorded in the figures for every important iron- and steel-producing State, as well as for every city holding a leading place in the iron and steel industry.

The effect of immigration upon the occupational distribution of the industrial wage-earners has been the elevation of the English-speaking workmen to the status of an aristocracy of labor, while the immigrants have been employed to perform the rough work of all industries. Though the introduction of machinery has had the tendency to reduce the relative number of skilled mechanics, yet the rapid pace of industrial expansion has increased the number of skilled and supervisory positions so fast that practically all the Englishspeaking employees have had the opportunity to rise on the scale of occupations. This opportunity, however, was conditioned upon a corresponding increase of the total operating force. It is only because the new immigration has furnished the class of unskilled laborers that the native workmen and older immigrants have been raised to the plane of an aristocracy of labor.

Yet, while the number of native American workmen in all industries has increased, it is true that in some occupations there has been an actual decrease of the number of English, Welsh, Irish, and German workers, which has been construed as "displacement" of Americanized workers by immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe with a lower standard of living. This interpretation overlooks the fact that native workers of native parentage, presumably with as high a standard of living as the Irish, are found in the same occupations in larger numbers than formerly. Another fact that contradicts the popular view is the increase of the number of Scotch immigrants in those very occupations which show a decline in the number of English and Irish. Judged by any standard, the Scotch are not inferior to other immigrants from the United Kingdom. The increased employment of the Scotch in the principal occupations, including even common laborers, warrants the conclusion that the decline in the numbers of English and Irish must have been due to other causes than the competition of recent immigrants with lower standards of living. A further fact that must be considered in this connection is that the

English, Welsh, and Irish farmers exhibit a greater decrease, both absolute and relative, than any other occupational group among the same nationalities. Evidently no new farmers came to fill the places of their countrymen who were carried off by death, although the aliens from Southern and Eastern Europe kept away from the farming sections and left the field open for English, Welsh, and Irish immigrants.

The real explanation of the decrease in the number of immigrants from Northern and Western Europe in the occupations which rank lowest in the social scale is that the earlier immigrants have worked their way upward. Among the breadwinners born in Northern and Western Europe, farmers, business men, professional men, and skilled mechanics outnumber those who are employed in the coarser grades of labor. The latter have been left to immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.

There has been a great deal of speculation to the effect that had immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe been kept out of the United States, the immigrants from Northern and Western Europe would, as of old, have supplied the demand of American industry for unskilled labor. The fallacy of this assumption is apparent from a consideration of the comparative growth of population in the United States and in the countries of Northern and Western Europe, as well as of the economic conditions in those countries. As stated before, immigration in the long run bears a constant relation to the population of the United States. Inasmuch, however, as the latter increases faster than the population of Europe, especially that of the emigration countries, the rate of emigration from those countries must increase much faster than their population in order to supply the American industries with the number of immigrants they can employ. Yet the volume of emigration from any country can not increase beyond a certain limit set by the size of its population. When that point is reached, further industrial expansion in the United States must draw upon