would probably have the effect of reducing labor costs of manufacturing and of making possible a greater diversification of industries. In addition to the prevailing system of manufacturing comparatively lowgrade articles upon a quantitative basis, the tendency would be toward the promotion of industries for the production of more finished and special commodities which are now sold in our own and the world markets by foreign manufacturers.

At this point it is worth noting that, without any additions to our existing labor supply, due to the cutting off of immigration by war conditions, the United States has been able to increase its production in almost every line of activity to unprecedented totals. This clearly shows that there must have been present a large amount of slack labor at the opening of the war, which needed to be taken up before any real shortage of labor could be said to exist. The situation, as it developed, gave striking and conclusive evidence to the accuracy of the conclusions reached by the Immigration Commission regarding the labor situation, especially that of the unskilled in this country. There is no doubt that the condition of labor, in fact general social conditions, have been vastly improved as a result of the temporary cutting off of immigration from foreign. countries.

Our political and social conditions also are sure to be profoundly influenced by the great war, tho it is yet too early to make an accurate forecast. The democratic revolution in Russia, the similar revolt in favor of more popular government in Greece, the earnest declaration of the governments involved in favor of more recognition of the will of the people, all will be certain to make their influence felt. The Socialistic.

workmen in Russia are certain to have a determining effect upon the policy of that government, and whatever terms of peace may be finally agreed upon they will recognize to a marked degree the wishes of the wage-earning classes. All these facts will certainly change greatly the viewpoint of European workers. This in time will affect not only new immigrants, but also those already here.

The present situation is also developing social and political dangers which demand immediate action. The hopelessness of the wage-earner under existing conditions leads him to receive radical teachings with increasing eagerness, and to follow blindly the revolutionary programs of over-zealous political, social, and economic propagandists. The remarkable spread of socialism in all its forms, the extraordinary growth of such un-American organizations as the Industrial Workers of the World, together with the recent strikes in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Paterson, New Jersey, and other industrial communities, are but an earnest of what may be expected in the future unless some attempt is made to improve existing industrial conditions.

Not only the economic welfare of the American wage-earner but the maintenance of our political and social institutions are threatened, and a necessary preliminary, or first step toward amelioration of the present condition of industrial affairs, would seem to be the adoption of a policy of restricted immigration. Without such action, all other measures will certainly be much less effective.

Since this chapter was written Congress, in 1917, prepared for the future by the passage of a bill embodying the literacy test. The overwhelming vote re

corded in favor of the reading test showed conclusively that the leaders of this country had come to the decision that restriction on the grounds stated in the previous paragraphs was an absolute necessity for the preservation of American standards. Altho the literacy test is not ideal, it will no doubt serve the purpose of holding in check a considerable amount of undesirable immigration and especially that portion of it which has done most to undermine sound and wholesome industrial conditions. It will undoubtedly do much to keep in check those immigrants who have gone so largely into our large floating labor supply, which every official investigation, including that of the United States Immigration Commission and those subsequent to it, had shown to be much too large for the normal needs of this country. The action of Congress in favor of restriction will go a long way in preventing the overstocking of the unskilled labor market as was present in this country for a number of years and up to the outbreak of the present war.

XII

EUROPEAN AND MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS ON THE PACIFIC COAST

Assimilation

In the discussion of European immigration into the United States, as already pointed out, the chief factor to be taken into account is economic. What is the normal effect of the immigration upon the wages and living conditions of the American? Inasmuch as the races, particularly those of northern Europe, are generally similar to those of the inhabitants of the United States, the question of assimilation is much less difficult than in the case of Orientals. Ordinarily, even if the members of the first generation can not be easily assimilated, those of the second and later generations, under the influence of our public schools and the social circumstances which surround them, are eventually assimilated.

RACE PREJUDICE

On the other hand, when the immigrants are members of races widely different from Americans, as are the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hindus, the question of race and race prejudice becomes an extremely important problem.

The untrained man is likely to assume that those people who differ widely from himself in appearance, in habits of living or of working, are members of a lower and not merely of a different race. He is ac

customed to speak of the Italian, for example, with contempt, as a "dago." Still more emphatic is he in his denouncement of the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Hindus as members of an inferior race. Of course, the cultivated man, especially one who has traveled widely, knows better. As Professor Steiner has so well reminded us, the first immigrant to America was a dago named Columbus, a man of learning and of the highest cultivation. Moreover, when at the present day Americans go to Europe to study art and architecture they are very likely to go to the land of the great dagoes, Michelangelo, Giotto, Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci, and others of similar rank. Nowhere in the world have we been able to find in centuries past, or do we find in the world to-day, people of higher cultivation than the Italians. Moreover, if instead of turning our eyes to Europe, we go to the Far East, and visit the Chinese and Japanese, we are equally imprest, as we meet members of the wealthier and more cultivated classes in society, with their high degree of intelligence, with their intellectual training, and especially, perhaps, with the personal qualities which have made them the world over models of courtesy and of manners that characterize the gentleman.

ARE OTHER RACES INFERIOR?

It is hardly to be expected, however, that people who have not traveled and who have not read widely should recognize that the ordinary workingmen from the Orient with whom they come into keen competition, and who often underbid them in wages, especially in doing work of the most arduous type, belong to cultivated races; and it is natural that they