when immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe began to come in, the number of native employees of every nativity more than doubled. For every one additional American workman engaged in 1880-1890, eight new American workmen were added to the labor forces in 1890-1900, and there was still room for immigrants.

TABLE 32.

NUMBER OF IRON AND STEEL WORKERS IN THE UNITED STATES, BY RACE AND NATIVITY (THOUSANDs), 1880, 1890, AND 1900.1

As stated above, an increase of the total number of native workmen in the United States does not preclude the possibility of local displacements of native workmen by immigrants. As an actual fact, however, no evidence of such displacements can be discovered by a comparison of the distribution of iron and steel workers by States in 1890 and 1900. In two States only the census returns for 1900 showed a decrease of native white iron and steel workers since 1890, viz., in Montana 100 men, and Nebraska 300 men; total, 400 men. Neither of these States holds an important place in the iron and steel industry. Both

1 Compiled from the Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, pp. 21-22, Tables 14 and 15, and vol. 1, pp. 784, 785, Table 4.

States show a general decline of the number of iron and steel workers from 1890 to 1900, viz., Montana from 600 to 300 and Nebraska from 1000 to 500. This decline affected foreign-born as well as native workers. Alabama alone shows a displacement of the majority of colored iron and steel workers (1300 out of a total of 1700) by immigrants. But while the aggregate decrease of the number of native white and colored workers through racial displacement and other causes did not exceed 1700 men in three States, the total increase of the number of native-born iron and steel workers in the United States was as high as 99,000, distributed over all important iron- and steel-producing States.1

We may go one step further, following the lead of the Immigration Commission into four of the principal centers of the iron and steel industry, but we shall look in vain for evidence of "racial displacement. The results of the comparison are presented in Table 33.

TABLE 33.

INCREASE OF THE NUMBER OF IRON AND STEEL WORKERS IN THE PRINCIPAL CITIES OF THE MIDDLE WEST BY RACE AND NATIVITY,

1XII. Census, Occupations, Table 41, PP. 220-423; XI. Census, Population, Part II., pp. 530-627.

2

Computed from Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 9, p. 9, Tables 559 and 560.

In every one of the four cities chosen for comparison by the Commission we find an actual increase in the number of native workers of native and foreign parentage, white and colored. Of course, this fact does not mean that every individual worker of old American stock who had been employed in the iron and steel mills of Chicago or Cleveland in 1890 was holding his old place in 1900. Some surely have left the mills and gone to other occupations, while their particular places may have been filled by immigrants, which gives occasion to old-timers to speak in a reminiscent' mood of "racial displacement." But the scientific investigator must look beyond individual life stories to the movements of population as reflected in great numbers. The effect of immigration upon the distribution of the native- and foreign-born labor forces is shown in Table 34 next following, compiled from material collected by the Immigration Commission.

"In this table skilled laborers are arbitrarily considered to be those who are receiving more than $1.45 per day (142 cents per hour), and unskilled laborers those receiving $1.45 or less per day. The classification is made upon the basis of the wage-scale of the steel company, which provides for a maximum payment of $1.45 for a day of tên hours to unskilled or common laborers."

The effect of immigration upon the distribution of the labor forces in the iron and steel industry is apparent from the following table; all but one tenth of the native and Northern and Western European workmen have been shifted to skilled occupations, while nine tenths of all unskilled positions have been filled by new immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. "The change is sometimes described as a forcing out of the American and Americanized foreign employees. That is hardly accurate, however," says the Immigration Commission, "for the

1

TABLE 34.

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF SKILLED AND UNSKILLED LABORERS IN ONE IRON AND STEEL CONCERN, 1907.1

I

Compiled from the Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, p. 350, Table 252.

II

immigrant does not appear to underbid the American, or at the present time to be even competing with him in any serious way for the better-paid positions. In reality, the "racial displacement" has manifested itself in that

a part of the earlier employees who remained in the industries in which they were employed before the advent of the Southern and Eastern European, have been able, because of the demand growing out of the general industrial expansion, to rise to more skilled and responsible executive and technical positions which required employees of training and experience ...

The same tendency asserts itself in the distribution of employees according to race in bituminous coal mines, where all occupations of a higher grade are filled by native Americans or older immigrants and their children, while the Southern and Eastern Europeans are confined to pick mining and unskilled and common labor. The same situation exists in other branches of manufacturing enterprise.

This racial distribution of the operating forces has developed a deep social tendency which constitutes the main distinction between American and European labor conditions. It is pretty generally accepted by European economists, nowadays, that concentration of industry has reduced the ratio of proprietors to wage-earners and thereby diminished the probability of a wage-earner working his. way up to the status of a proprietor; at the same time the introduction of machinery has reduced the relative number of skilled mechanics to a minority of the operating force, leaving to the mass of unskilled laborers few opportunities for advancement on the scale of occupations. As a result, the average European laborer has come to regard his place in the industrial system as fixed. Such has not been the . attitude of the American wage-earner. Though the introduction of machinery has had the tendency in the United States, as in Europe, to reduce the relative number of skilled mechanics, yet the rapid pace of industrial expansion has increased the number of skilled and supervisory positions 'Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, p. 583. 'Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 195, 196.