The factory workers of Massachusettes gained during the period of the new immigration an average reduction of 7.3 hours a week, or about an hour and a quarter per day. In the woolen mills the gain in time was even slightly above the average, although forty years ago the mill operatives were mostly Irish immigrants, whereas lately the mills have been run with a polyglot help made up of all the races of Southern and Eastern Europe and Asiatic Turkey (as has been brought to public attention by the recent strike at Lawrence). The conditions in the textile mills of Massachusetts are certainly far from ideal; nevertheless fifty-eight hours a week are a great stride in advance since the period when the customary time was from sunrise to sunset, "as long as they could see." And it cannot be "said that all improvements in conditions" of the textile workers "have been secured in spite of the presence of the recent immigrant," because there was no one else to secure those improvements for them.

Taking the United States as a whole, we find that since the beginning of the "new immigration" the hours of labor have been gradually reduced; "the decrease in the hours of labor in 1907, as compared with 1890, was 5.7 per cent." This fact shows at least that the recent immigrant has not hindered the movement toward better conditions of employment. It would require some proof to sustain the contention of the Immigration Commission that "his availability and his general characteristics and attitude have constituted a passive opposition which has been most effective."3

The Commission has made no investigation on the subject of hours of labor, except in a casual way. There is a table giving the hours of work in one unnamed steel concern. It appears that in the blast furnace department all hands, skilled and unskilled alike, work twelve hours. In all other departments the unskilled laborers work ten hours, whereas

I

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. I, p. 541

2 Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 77, p. 4.

3 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. I, p. 541.

I

the hours of the skilled and semi-skilled employees vary as follows: in 7 occupations, 8 hours; in 143 occupations, 10 hours; in 269 occupations, 12 hours. In the coal mines operated by the same concern, the laborers work 10 hours, whereas the skilled and semi-skilled employees in 34 out of 42 occupations work 12 hours, and only in 8 occupations 10 hours. The unskilled laborers in the mines and mills are mostly recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, whereas the skilled and semi-skilled positions are filled almost exclusively by native Americans and old English-speaking immigrants. The Immigration Commission itself says that "the immigrant does not appear . . at the present time to be even competing with him [the American] in any serious way for the better-paid positions." It is evident that the longer hours of the English-speaking employees are not the result of recent immigration, since the recent immigrants themselves work shorter hours.

The report on the cotton industry shows that in 1845 the working day in the cotton mills averaged 12 hours and 10 minutes; the shortest days were in December and January, averaging 11 hours and 24 minutes, and the longest in April were as high as 13 hours and 31 minutes. At the time the report was written, the working hours were 56 per week, i. e., 10 hours per day with a half holiday on Saturday. Thus sixty years of immigration have been attended by a reduction of 2 hours and 50 minutes in the length of the working day in the cotton mills.

The most complete statistics of hours of labor are contained in the reports of the factory inspectors of the State of New York, covering an average of nearly a million factory employees annually, for 1901-1910. New York is affected by immigration more than any other State in the Union. The period under consideration has witnessed the greatest volume of immigration known in the history of the United

2

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, Table 281, pp. 377381. Ibid., vol. 8, p. 583. 3 Ibid., vol. II, pp. 273 and 290.

States, and the bulk of that immigration has been from the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe. The reports on factory inspection in the State of New York, therefore, offer the results of observation, under conditions best calculated to bring out the effects of immigration. Moreover, the figures for the city of New York can be compared with those for the rest of the State. In the city of New York the foreign-born population furnished in 1900, 50.7 per cent of all persons engaged in manufactures and mechanical pursuits, while in the State outside of New York the ratio was only 22.9 per cent. The natives of Southern and Eastern Europe constituted in the same year 16.1 per cent of the total population of New York City, and 2.1 per cent of the total population of the State outside of New York City. By 1910 their proportion in New York City increased to 23.9 per cent and in the remainder of the State to 6.6 per cent.1

The per cent distribution of factory operatives by the number of hours of work in and outside of New York City is given in Table 92 on the next page. The figures show:

(1) That the decade of the heaviest immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was marked by a gradual reduction of the hours of labor in the State of New York;

(2) That the percentage of factory operatives working ten hours or less on week days with a half-holiday on Saturday was much greater in New York City with its large colonies of alien workers than in the remainder of the State with a working population predominantly native;

(3) That after a decade of "undesirable immigration" more than two thirds of all factory workers in New York City work ten hours or less on week days with a half holiday on Saturday, whereas in the remainder of the State the majority still work longer hours.

The preconceived notions about the "general character

1 XIII. Census Bulletin. Population: United States. Advance statement on population issued by the Director of the Census to the newspapers, May 13, 1912.

istics" of the recent immigrant do not stand the scrutiny of incontrovertible statistical figures.

TABLE 92.

PER CENT DISTRIBUTION OF FACTORY OPERATIVES BY WEEKLY HOURS OF LABOR IN NEW YORK CITY AND IN NEW YORK STATE OUTSIDE OF

1 Annual Report of the New York Bureau of Labor, vol. ii., 1910, Table 31, p. xlvi.

CHI

CHAPTER XIV

CHILD LABOR

HILD labor has a depressing effect upon the rate of wages. Thousands of children of immigrants are employed in the mills of New England and the Middle Atlantic States. The inference which readily suggests itself to the popular mind is that child labor is the product of 'immigration. It is a historical fact, however, that child labor originated in the United States with the introduction of the factory system during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Early writers on economic subjects favored the employment of children in factories, because it would save adult male labor for agriculture, fishing, shipping, and the skilled trades. Child labor was advocated on religious and philanthropic grounds. The various immigrant races which succeeded one another in the nineteenth century found child labor as an integral part of the factory system in the United States.

During the ten-year period from 1899 to 1909, with its unprecedented immigration, the average number of children employed in factories remained stationary, viz., in 1899161,000, in 1909-162,000, while the relative number decreased from 3.4 per cent to 2.5 per cent of all wage-earners.2

Carlton, loc cit., pp. 380-385.

2 XIII. Census Bulletin. Manufactures, p. 19. It is probable that the number of children at work has decreased as well. The number of wage-earners for 1899, owing to the method of computation followed at the XII. Census, was considerably underestimated: The average number was computed "by using 12, the number of calendar months, as a divisor into the total of the average numbers reported for each month." The effect of this method is shown in the case of twelve