increase with the length of residence in the United States; there is a ready explanation that "the immigrants of long residence have acquired a higher standard of living and, consequently, demand a higher wage." It would seem as though wages were regulated in accordance with the communistic ideal, "to everybody according to his wants." The question arises, however, why should the employer grant the demand of the immigrant of long residence for a higher wage when there is said to be an "oversupply" of recent immigrants willing to accept "almost any wage. above that affording a mere subsistence"? The statistics of the Commission give no answer to this question, because the basis of its classification is race, not character of employment, each race being treated as a homogeneous unit. The real explanation of the variation in wages among individuals of the same race is that the immigrant of long residence has advanced on the scale of occupations and is paid a higher wage for a higher grade of labor. Since he receives a higher wage, he has "consequently" acquired a higher standard of living. The primary cause which has determined the movement of wages in the United States during the past thirty years has been the introduction of labor-saving machinery. The effect of the substitution of mechanical devices for human skill is the displacement of the skilled mechanic by the unskilled laborer. This tendency has been counteracted, in the United States by the expansion of industry: while the ratio of skilled mechanics to the total operating force was decreasing, the increasing scale of operations prevented an actual reduction in numbers. The growing demand for unskilled labor was supplied by immigration. Of course, 2 1Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 2, p. 370. * Prof. Commons, in the Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 305, says: "In manufactures, mining, and transportation there has been a rapid advance in machinery and a better organization and division of labor, whereby the resources of the country are made more productive. This advance in machinery and division of labor often appears in itself to be a means of displacing labor and so of this readjustment did not proceed without friction. While, in the long run, there may have been no displacement of skilled mechanics by unskilled laborers in the industrial field as a whole, at certain times and places individual skilled mechanics were doubtless dispensed with and had to seek new employment. As the unskilled laborers who replaced them were naturally engaged at lower wages, and as most of them were immigrants, the change reflected itself in the minds of the displaced American mechanics as substitution of cheap immigrant labor for highly paid American labor. The English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish miners, e. g., for some time successfully resisted the introduction of machinery. Their resistance was overcome by the employment of Slavs and Italians. The impression was thus created that the introduction of machinery was the effect of Slav and Italian immigration. According to Professors Jenks and Lauck, "the lack of skill and industrial training of the recent immigrants in the United States has stimulated the invention of mechanical methods and processes which might be conducted by unskilled industrial workers as a substitute for the skilled operatives formerly required."2 This idea had been anticipated by Mr. Leiserson, who expressed the belief that one of the effects "of the influx of Slavs is that lack of intelligence makes improved machinery and a perfected organization of the mining processes absolutely essential. There is a direct connection between the increasing number of unintelligent mining laborers and the use of mining machinery during the last ten or fifteen years." The author is ready to accept at face value the contention of the coal operators "that the scarcity of intelligent labor compelled them to adopt machinery wherever possible."3 Presumably, but for the immigration depressing wages, and such would be the case if industry as a whole were not continually expanding." * Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. xxiii., xxxiv. 2 Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 186-187. 3 William M. Leiserson: "Labor Conditions in the Mines of the Pitts of the "unintelligent" Slavs, American industry might have gone on forever without improved machinery, and instead of perfecting the organization of the mining processes the mine operators would have encouraged the "arts and crafts" movement in bituminous coal mining. ) This theory ignores the elementary proposition of political economy, that the main object of labor-saving machinery is to dispense precisely with "intelligent," i. e.,, high-priced labor, and that, on the contrary, an abundant supply of cheap labor would retard the introduction of improved machinery.' The conditions in the coal mines of West Virginia may serve as an example: "The low level of wages in West Virginia may be inferred from the low rate of introduction of machinery," says Prof. John R. Commons. This fact, according to him, is of special significance because burgh District." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1909, pp. 318–319. I "If labor is cheap somewhat more labor will be employed and somewhat less machinery installed. . . . If wages are high . . . more machinery will be introduced and somewhat less labor employed." C. J. Bullock, Assistant Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University, The Elements of Economics, pp.79-80.-"Higher wages for labor will induce entrepreneurs to economize in the use of labor. ... In the printing industry, for example, a rise in wages would make it profitable for employing printers to use more labor-saving machinery." Outlines of Economics, by Richard T. Ely, Professor of Political Economy in the University of Wisconsin, revised and enlarged by the author and Thomas S. Adams; Max O. Lorenz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science in the University of Wisconsin; Allyn A. Young, Ph.D., Professor of Economics in Leland Stanford Junior University (New York, 1909), p. 369.—“Every rise of wages will have a tendency to determine the saved capital in a greater proportion than before to the employment of machinery. Machinery and labor are in constant competition, and the former can frequently not be employed until labor rises." David Ricardo: Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (London, 1891), p. 386.—"Where abundance of cheap labor . . . can be obtained, the development of machinery has been generally slower." John A. Hobson: The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, p. 69; also p. 81. Cf. also Karl Marx: Capital, Book I., Chapter XV; Machinery and Modern Industry, Sec. 2. "the miners of West Virginia are mainly native Americans, who have only recently turned from home industry to mining." It is patent that the movement of labor from agriculture to mining and manufactures would, even in the absence of all immigration, have overcome the resistance of the English-speaking miners to the introduction of machinery. The number of mines is not fixed. New mines are continually being opened. The operator of a new machineequipped mine need not face the resistance of old pickminers; he can engage an entirely new force of operatives, free from any traditions. His competition will ultimately force the owners of old mines to introduce machinery or go out of business. The resistance of English-speaking miners might have some time been strong enough to prevent the introduction of machinery, but at no time could it have forced a mine operator to run his mine at a loss. The shutting down of the unprofitable mines would have put an end to the resistance of the pick-miners. Absence of immigration might have retarded the growth of American industry, but it could not have checked the introduction of machinery. Machinery has so radically changed the technique of all 1 industries that a comparison between past and present wages is beset with extreme difficulties. Many old occupations are gone, and even though the name may have remained the same, the substance has changed: a steelworker to-day is not the same as a steel-worker thirty years ago. A comparison of average wages or earnings for two different periods may therefore be quite misleading. It is possible for the average to show a decrease, though in reality the wages may have increased. This will be clear from the following example in which all figures are purely ▪ Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 410. 2 For a discussion of this subject see R. Mayo-Smith: Statistics and Economics, pp. 91-102. (Publications of the American Economic Association, vol. iii., Nos. 4, 5.) arbitrary. Suppose, the working force of a mill in 1882 consisted of 1000 men, of whom 750 were skilled mechanics whose wages averaged $3.50 a day, and 250 were unskilled laborers hired at $1.25 a day. The average wage for all mill workers was, accordingly, $3.00 per day. Suppose, further, that in the thirty years that have elapsed since, the business of the mill has grown and two new departments have been added, with 1000 men in each. But owing to the installation of new machinery the same 750 skilled mechanics have been distributed over the three plants, and the additional force of 2000 men consists solely of unskilled laborers. Suppose, the wages of the skilled mechanics have been raised from $3.50 to an average of $5.00 per day, and the wages of unskilled laborers from $1.25 to an average of $2.00 per day. The average for the three plants, however, would be $2.75 per day, i. e., twenty-five cents less than thirty years ago, notwithstanding the substantial gain in the wages of all employees. The same defect is inherent in the latest refinements of the average, the "median," the "quartile," the "decile," etc. Moreover, our wage statistics present a huge mass of fragmentary and heterogeneous data, which in their present undigested form "are well-nigh inaccessible." The use Nearing: Wages in the United States, p. 7. The defects of our wage statistics are well stated by Professor Nearing in the following paragraphs: "At every turn the need arose for an accurate, concise statement of the wages being paid in the various parts of the United States, yet to date no study has been made which supplies the need. Ryan's Estimate is old, and at best incomplete; Mrs. Moore's statement, like the statement in the 1903 Report of the Commissioner of Labor, is of standards of living primarily, and only incidentally of wages. In neither case is the ground covered sufficiently to warrant valuable wage deductions. The Wage Study accompanying the Census of 1900 is old, and rather inadequate, as the compilers themselves point out. . . . The available data on the subject of wages exist chiefly in the reports of State bureaus of labor, and are unfortunately of such a nature as to render comparison with data of a decade since (in the few cases where such data exist) most unsatisfactory. . . . New York wage statistics |