For recreation the foreign-born are limited to virtually the same resources as the natives of the working class. The dance hall, the moving picture show, the cheap theater, and the recreation park hold the prominent places. For the men of some races the saloon, and for others the imported coffeehouse, furnish a place for meeting and social relaxation. The need of recreational facilities for the working classes, so long neglected in this country, is beginning to be recognized and met in every up-to-date American city. In all such advantages the foreign-born will have their share. There are also other efforts, such as the revival of folk dancing among foreign groups, and the giving of dramas which appeal to the immigrants, which have the foreigner directly in view. These merit hearty commendation. Yet much remains to be done. The problem of recreation can be solved only in connection with the problem of general industrial conditions. The average adult worker in many of our industries is too much exhausted at the close of his day’s work to take much interest in recreation of any kind. All too often, also, the time and the pecuniary means are alike lacking for forms of recreation which would be of great value. There needs to be more recognition of the fact that the workman, though a foreigner, must have relaxation and diversion to promote his highest welfare, just as truly as those in higher stations.[[268]]
CHAPTER XV
CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE COUNTRY. WAGES. PAUPERISM. CRIME. INSANITY
Turning to those aspects of the immigration situation in this country which more immediately affect the life of the American people as a whole, we find that they group themselves under nine main heads, as follows: wages and standard of living, pauperism, crime, insanity, industrial efficiency and progress, amount and distribution of wealth, crises, social stratification, and politics. In each of these categories certain preliminary effects are already observable, and other much more extensive ones may be predicted on a theoretic and hypothetical basis.
As regards wages, we have already made a careful study of what may be taken as typical immigrant wages. The question now is, how have these wages affected the earnings of the great body of American workmen? Has this admittedly low wage scale of the foreign labor body exercised a depressing effect upon the remuneration of the native American, or has the latter been enabled, by relinquishing the lower grades of labor to the foreigner, to avail himself of higher and better paid positions?
This question, like many others of its class, involves the problem of determining what would have happened if history had been different in some single particular. It is a most perilous, and often profitless, field to enter. It is apparently impossible for statisticians to determine with certainty what has been the course of real wages within the past half century or so. There is no doubt that money wages have gone up. There is also no doubt that the average price of commodities has gone up. The question is whether average prices or average wages have gone up the faster. The most reliable tables covering this subject are probably those of the Bureau of Labor, and these have been discontinued since 1907. As far as the showing which they make can be depended upon, it seems to indicate that there has been a very slight rise in the purchasing power of full-time weekly wages since 1890.[[269]] Granting this, the question still remains, would not the American workman have enjoyed a much greater increase in real wages during this period, if he had been allowed to reap the full advantage of his economic position in the country, without having to meet the competition of vast numbers of foreign laborers? The answer to this question must rest on pure theory, as its statistical proof would involve a reënactment of past history, which is a manifest impossibility.
According to the established laws of economics there are two ways in which immigration may operate to lower wages. First, by increasing the supply of labor in the country, and thereby diminishing the amount of remuneration which the individual laborer can command. Second, by introducing a body of laborers whose customary wage in the countries they come from, and whose corresponding standard of living, is much lower than the prevailing standard in the new country. This factor operates, not by increasing the number of laborers bidding for employment, but by lowering the amount of the initial bid on the part of a sufficient number of laborers to fix the remuneration for the whole lot. As to the first of these ways, if the argument contained in Chapter XI is valid, it is not probable that in the long run immigration has materially increased the total population of the United States. But it has, from time to time, caused a marked temporary increase in the body of unskilled labor, and this, as will be shown later, is an important matter. However this may be, the second of these two ways has undoubtedly been by far the more instrumental in reducing the average wage of the American workman. It is not because he has had to compete with more laborers, so much as with cheaper laborers, that the American workman has failed to secure a higher remuneration for his services. It is what Professor Commons has called the “competitive struggle for standards of living”[[270]] which has been the determining factor, and the whole matter can be best understood by taking it up in the light of the general standard of living, rather than of mere wages.
The standard of living is the index of the comfort and true prosperity of a nation. A high standard is a priceless heritage, which ought to be guarded at all cost. The United States has always prided itself on the high standard of living of its common people, but has not always understood on what that standard rests. The standard of living is the resultant of two great factors, the stage of the arts, and the ratio of men to land. It may be improved by bettering the methods of production and utilization of natural resources, or by reducing the ratio between men and land, i.e. by limiting the increase of population. It may be lowered either by a retrogression in the stage of the arts—something which can hardly be conceived of under our present civilization—or by an increase in the ratio between men and land. Both of these suppositions assume that the amount of land remains stationary. If large tracts of good land are made available by any means, it gives opportunity for a decided improvement in the standard of living, and if we can conceive of large areas of good land being actually lost, there would be an inevitable lowering in the standard. In point of fact, standards of living are much more likely to go up than down. The history of civilization has been that of increasing standards. A retrogression in the stage of the arts is not likely to take place on a large scale; neither is it probable that, other things being equal, men will increase their rate of reproduction, for the very reason that such an increase would involve a lowering in the standard of living.
A standard of living, once established, has great tenacity, and people will suffer almost anything in the way of hardship before they will reduce it. If, for any reason, the dilemma is presented to a people of lowering their standard or of limiting their rate of increase, they will in general adopt the latter alternative. This will come about, not so much as the result of a conscious choice, as by the unconscious adaptation to surrounding conditions.[[271]] On the other hand, if natural conditions are gradually and steadily improving, it may frequently happen that the rate of reproduction will keep pace therewith, so that the standard of living will remain essentially the same. But if some sudden improvement in conditions appears—like the opening up of great stretches of new land, or some far-reaching improvement in the arts—the standard of living may rise appreciably before the forces of reproduction have had time to offset the new advantage. In other words, the rise of standards of living does not take place ordinarily by a steady and unvarying progress, so much as by successive steps or waves. The regular, continuous improvements in conditions account for lifted standards less than the exceptional, epochal occurrences. Such occurrences, being inherent in the cosmic laws and in the constitution of human nature, transpire with sufficient frequency to make possible great advances in standards of living over long periods of time.
Let us apply these principles to the case of the United States, and seek to determine what part immigration has played in their operation.[[272]] At the beginning of its career the United States was most favorably circumstanced as regards its standard of living. A people whose knowledge of the arts represented the highest product of the civilization of the day was set down in a practically uninhabited country, apparently unlimited in extent, and of marvelous fertility and abundance of natural resources. All of the old checks to population were removed, and there resulted a natural increase of numbers unprecedented for a corresponding area and extent of time in the annals of the race. But even this could not keep up with the development of natural resources, and a general standard of living was established far ahead of any other nation of the period.
Into this favored section of the earth’s surface have been introduced ever increasing numbers of the lower classes of foreign nations. What has been their effect upon the prevailing standard of living? As a major premise, it will be granted that the standard of living of the working classes of the United States has been and still is superior to that of the nations which have furnished the bulk of the immigrants. Common observation and general testimony establish this beyond the need of proof. Particularly at the present time, if this were not so, very few of our immigrants would come, for, as we have seen, this is the great incentive which draws them.[[273]] It is significant, however, that the bulk of immigration has been recruited from more and more backward races of Europe as the decades have succeeded each other. There is not now the relative advantage for the peasant of England, Germany, or Scandinavia that there was during the first two thirds of the nineteenth century.[[274]] As regards the new immigrants—those who have come during the last thirty years—the one great reason for their coming is that they believe that on the wage which they can receive in America they can establish a higher standard than the one to which they have been accustomed. And this wage for which they are willing to sell their labor is in general appreciably below that which the native American workman requires to support his standard.[[275]] What does this mean? It means in the first place that the American workman is continually underbid in the labor market by vast numbers of alien laborers who can do his work approximately as well as he. But it means more than this. It means that he is denied the opportunity of profiting by those exceptionally advantageous periods which as we have seen recur from time to time, and provide the possibility of an improved standard. From his point of view these periods include any circumstances which occasion a sudden increase in the demand for labor—such as the establishment of a great new industry or the opening up of new territory by the completion of a railroad or recurring “good times” after a period of depression. If this new demand must perforce be met by the labor already in the country, there would be an opportunity for an increase in wages to the working man. But the condition which actually confronts the American workman at such a time is this—not only is the amount of wages which can be successfully demanded by labor profoundly influenced by the number and grade of foreign workers already in the country, but there comes at once, in response to improved conditions, a sudden and enormous increase in the volume of immigration. Thus the potential advantage which might accrue to the laborers already in the country is wholly neutralized. The fluctuating nature of the immigration current is of vital importance to the American workman. It means that for him the problem is not that of taking the fullest advantage of a possibility of an improved standard, but of maintaining intact the standard which he has. We have seen that, in the long run, the only way in which he can do this is by limiting the size of his family.