the immigrant laborers who seek employment. Some form of the system is found among all non-Englishspeaking races. It is most highly developed, however, and is most usually followed, by the South Italians. In the majority of cases the padrone is a labor agent, who agrees to furnish and control a certain supply of labor for a specified work, in return for which he is to receive certain privileges, as, for example, the commissary or housing privileges in a railway or other construction camp. In other cases he acts merely as the representative of the laborers in negotiations with employers or other persons, and for this service each laborer in his gang regularly pays him the specified and understood amount.

Racial Classification of Railroad and Other Construction Laborers

Disregarding geographical lines, it may be said, in general, that foreign-born wage-earners constitute slightly more than three-fourths of the entire number of persons engaged in railway and other construction work. Native white Americans and native negroes each make up about one-tenth of the working forces. The remaining part consists of English, Irish, Germans and persons of native birth but of foreign father. Thirty-seven races were represented among the immigrant wage-earners of this class investigated by the Immigration Commission. Scarcely any English or Germans are found in the railroad construction camps, but a small proportion of Irish, amounting to 2.4 per cent. of the entire operating forces, are in supervisory and responsible positions. Of the recent immigrants the South Italians, North Italians, Croa

tians, Poles and Greeks, in the order named, are employed in the greatest numbers. The South Italians, as a rule, constitute about one-third of the unskilled workers, the North Italians and Croatians each onetenth, and the Greeks, Poles and Bulgarians about onetwentieth each. Other races which appear in small numbers are the Russians, Rumanians, Magyars and Herzegovinians. In all sections of the country, the South Italians form the highest proportion of laborers employed on railroad construction work. The Bulgarians, Greeks and Rumanians are principally employed in the Middle West, Northwest, South and Southwest. The Slovaks, Russians, Poles, Magyars, Lithuanians and Herzegovinians are almost exclusively at work in the Eastern States. The Croatians are found in largest proportions in the East and the Middle West, and the North Italians in the Eastern and Southern States. About one-third of all the employees in the South are native negroes.

Period of Residence of Immigrant Workmen in the United States

Most of the Southern and Eastern European construction workers are of recent arrival in the United States. About three-fourths of all the races combined, and all of the Herzegovinians and Rumanians, have been in this country less than five years. This period of residence applies in the East and Middle West to about 85 per cent. of the Croatians; in the East and South to more than three-fifths of the North Italians; and in the East, Middle West and South to from 71 per cent. to 86.1 per cent. of the South Italians. The laborers of more recent arrival in the United States

have usually been first employed in the East and South and have afterward moved westward.

Earnings

A study of more than 5,000 wage-earners in all sections of the country showed that the average daily earnings of native white Americans were $2.43 and of immigrants $1.68. The highest average daily earnings of any race of southern and eastern Europe were shown by the North Italians, the members of this race earning on an average $1.86 each day, while no other recent immigrants had average daily earnings in excess of $1.59. The Irish of foreign birth averaged $2.33 per diem. Excepting the North Italians, very few southern and eastern Europeans, as contrasted with native white Americans and British and northern European immigrants, appeared in the groups of those earning $2.00 or over per day. More than three-tenths of the native white Americans and more than one-fourth of the Irish of foreign birth, as against only onetwentieth of the recent immigrant employees, earned $3.00 or more each day. About one-tenth of the native Americans and foreign-born Irish, about two-tenths of the native-born Irish and practically none of the recent immigrants, showed daily earnings in excess of $4.00. Three-fifths of the immigrant laborers in the East, South and Southwest, and more than four-fifths of those in the Middle West and Northwest, earned as much as $1.50 each. On the other hand, none of the southern and eastern Europeans in the Middle West, only 11.8 per cent. of those in the South and Southwest, and 29 per cent. of those in the Eastern States, earned $2.00 or more each day.

Characteristics of the Labor Supply

The recent immigrant laborers are marked by a high degree of illiteracy. More than two-fifths, 44 per cent., could not read or write. The greatest illiteracy was exhibited by the Croatians and South Italians, of whom more than one-half could not read in any language.

Fifty-five per cent. of the immigrant wage-earners were married, but more than three-fourths of these had left their wives and families in their native countries. Practically all of the married Bulgarians, Greeks and Rumanians had migrated to this country without their wives and children. About three-fifths of the immigrant employees were under thirty years of age.

As regards the small extent to which the southern and eastern Europeans exhibit any tendency toward progress and assimilation, it was found that practically none of the recent immigrants except the North and South Italians, and only one-tenth of these, were fully naturalized. Moreover, only about one-third of the wage-earners of foreign birth could speak English. In the case of some races the proportion was much smaller, only about 12 per cent. of the Russians and Rumanians, 8 per cent. of the Bulgarians, and about 6 per cent. of the Herzegovinians being able to speak the English language.

Housing and Living Conditions in the West

Housing and living conditions vary little even among the various communities in the Middle West and Northwest. Freight cars in railroad construction and maintenance work fitted up inside with

from eight to ten bunks, are used as sleeping quarters. Separate cars are used as kitchens and as dining-rooms. The bunks in the sleeping cars are roughly put together, four in either end of each car. There is usually a table in the space in the middle where the men play cards and sometimes eat instead of in the regular mess car. Even with ten men in one car, they could not be described as crowded.

The kitchen car is fitted with a range, tables, an ice-chest, and numerous lockers in which the provisions are kept. The cook or cooks sleep here in one end of the car, and sometimes an interpreter is with them. The mess car is always next to the kitchen. Through its entire length, in the middle, runs a plain board table, a bench of equal length on either side, with lockers on the walls where the tableware is kept. Usually these cars are found to be neatly kept, for this is the business of the cooks (about one to each thirty men), and they have no work other than this and their cooking. There is always drinking water in plenty, supplied in buckets by the water boys, iced when spring water is not available.

The Greeks and Italians are the most unclean in their living arrangements. The Italians are fond of decorative effects, hanging out flags and gaily-colored rags, and sometimes the outsides of their cars are lined with growing plants in boxes.

The camps are on sidings, ladders being raised to the open doorways. So long as the work is within a few miles of the camp, the car is not moved, the men traveling to and fro on hand cars; but when necessary, a switch-engine appears and hauls the entire camp to the next siding, or switch, causing the men no other inconvenience than, in case of those who bake