J

Southern and Eastern Europeans," does not fit the facts of American economic history.

The facts brought to light by the investigations of the Immigration Commission furnish ground for the assumption-paradoxical as it may seem at a superficial glance— that the availability of the large supply of recent immigrant labor has prevented a reduction of the wages of the older employees.

The prime force which has made industrial expansion so rapid in recent times has been the general introduction of labor-saving machinery. The immediate effect of the introduction of every new machine has been the displacement of the trained mechanic by the unskilled laborer. To be sure, the cheapness of machine-made products stimulates consumption of manufactured goods and creates an increased demand for labor, which in the long run offsets the loss of employment caused by the introduction of machinery. But this is true only on the assumption of a considerable industrial expansion. To use bituminous coal mining as an example: in the mines of West Virginia a team of two skilled pick-miners can produce 10 tons of coal a day; but, where machine mining has been introduced, one machine runner with one helper and eight loaders can turn out 50 tons a day. Accordingly, if a force of 100 skilled pickminers produced 500 tons of coal per day, the same output would be produced with the aid of machinery by a force of 20 skilled machine men and 80 laborers. It may be assumed that the requisite number of common laborers would be found in the home market. In order to provide skilled work for the 80 pick-miners displaced by the machine, the daily output of coal must be increased to 2500 tons, which would require an additional supply of 320 unskilled laborers. Suppose, through restriction of immigration, the additional supply of unskilled labor were cut down one half. The total available supply of labor would then consist of the 20 pick

1 Annual Report of the Department of Mines, West Virginia (1909), pp. xi., 73, 152, 153.

miners who might find employment as machine runners and helpers, the 80 laborers who would displace an equal number of pick-miners, the 80 pick-miners displaced by the machine, and an additional supply of 160 unskilled immigrant laborers, in all 340 men. The force of operatives could then be increased only to 34 teams, consisting of 68 skilled miners and 272 laborers; there would be only 48 vacancies of a higher grade for the 80 skilled miners displaced by machinery; and the remaining 32 would have to accept employment at loading coal-of course at the usual wages paid for common labor. The fact noted by the Immigration Commission, that only “a small part" of the old employees, consisting of the inefficient element, are in competition with the recent immigrants, is of course the "result of the expansion of the industry," which has opened to "the larger proportion" opportunities for "advancement to the more skilled and responsible positions." These opportunities, however, were conditional upon the availability of a proportionate supply of immigrant labor for unskilled and subordinate positions.

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, p. 236.

CHAPTER XIII

HOURS OF LABOR

VERY reduction of the hours of labor, even when not

accompanied by an increase of the daily or weekly wage, is equivalent to an increase of the hourly wage. Moreover, a reduction in the day's work, all other things being equal, provides more days of work for every employee, which brings a direct increase of earnings. The length of the working day accordingly offers a fair measure of the effects of immigration on labor conditions. It is not complicated by the variations of the purchasing power of money, nor is it affected by the uncertainties of the index numbers. A reduction of hours is an unerring arithmetical fact. And, fortunately, the publications of the Federal and State labor bureaus furnish ample material for a comparative study of the hours of labor from the beginnings of the factory system in the United States.

There is unconscious humor in the first report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics on early factory conditions:

The earliest operatives in our mills were of the home population—an active, intelligent, industrious, thrifty, well-educated, orderly, and cleanly body of young men and women, . . . daughters of independent farmers, educated in our common schools, (for years they supplied a periodical with articles written wholly by themselves,) who could think and act for themselves, who knew right from wrong, fair treatment from oppression, and who would be grateful for the one, and would not submit to the other.'

1 Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1869-1870, pp. 91-92.

Interpolated amid this eulogy of "the American element' is the following matter-of-fact statement: "The system of long hours was first adopted. . . . The general length of time per day was 14 or 15 hours." Further on it is related that "the customary time" was "from sunrise to sunset, which, in one half of the year, would give from sixteen to twelve hours, and in the other half, from nine hours to twelve."

The subject is treated more thoroughly in the recent report of the United States Bureau of Labor on "Woman and Child Wage-Earners."

The hours of labor in textile factories in the early part of the nineteenth century were much longer than within recent years. In Massachusetts in 1825 the "time of employment" in incorporated manufacturing companies was "generally 12 or 13 hours each day, excepting the Sabbath." Of the places which reported the number of hours in that year, at only two, Ludlow and Newbury, were the hours as low as II a day. At Duxboro the hours were from sunrise to sunset, and

at Troy (Fall River) and Wellington the employees worked "all day.' In 1826, 15 or 16 hours constituted . . . the working day at Ware, Mass.

...

By the thirties the hours appear to have been, if anything, longer. At Fall River, about 1830, the hours were from 5 a.m., or as soon as light, to 7:30 p. m., or till dark in summer, with one half hour for breakfast and the same time for dinner at noon, making a day of 131⁄2 hours. In general the hours of labor in textile factories in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts in 1832 were said to be 13 a day. But at the Eagle Mill, Griswold, Conn., it was said that 15 hours and 10 minutes actual labor in the mill were required.

At Paterson, N. J., in 1835, the women and children were obliged to be at work at 4:30 in the morning. They were allowed half an hour for breakfast and three-quarters of an hour for dinner, and then worked as long as they could see. . . . At Manayunk, Philadelphia, in 1833, the hours of work were said to be 13 a day. And a little later the hours at the Schuylkill factory, Philadelphia, were "from sunrise to sunset, from the 21st of March to the 20th September, inclusively, and from sunrise until 8 o'clock p. m. during the remainder of the year." One hour was allowed for dinner and half an hour for breakfast during the first-mentioned six months, and one hour for dinner during the other half year. On Saturdays the mill was stopped "one hour before sunset for the purpose of cleaning the machinery."

Overtime, too, was frequent. Many of the corporations at Lowell . . . ran "a certain quantity of their machinery, certain portions of the year, until 9, and half past 9 o'clock at night, with the same set of hands.". . . Even the operatives were often against a reduction of hours, believing that it would result in a reduction of wages. Harriet Farley, editor of the Lowell Offering . . . thought it would work hardship to widows who were toiling for their children, to children who were toiling for their parents, and to many others.

Toward the close of the '30's Irish immigration began to pour into the mills of Massachusetts. "Under, the prejudice of nationality . . . the American element . . . retired from mill and factory."2 The retirement of the "daughters of independent farmers" and their replacement by Irish immigrants was followed by a reduction of the hours of labor in the textile mills. In 1872 the working day averaged II hours. A generation before, in 1835, it was only after a strike that the native American mill hands at Paterson, N. J., won a reduction of the working day to an average of 111⁄2 hours.4 Later immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe brought new racial elements to the mills and factories of Massachusetts. The effect of the "new immigration " upon hours of labor is shown in Table 91.

TABLE 91.

WEEKLY HOURS OF LABOR IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1872 AND 1903.5

Report of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in United States, vol. ix., pp. 62-63, 66.

2

Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1869-1870, pp. 91-92. 3 See Table 91.

4 Report of Woman and Child Wage-Earners, vol. ix., p. 63.

5 Figures computed from Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1872, pp. 119–217; Nineteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Table V.