It is inconceivable that in America, of all countries, any needed work should have to be neglected because of the lack of a foreign labor element, or because of a shortage of labor in general.[[312]] It is hard to see how in a nation the majority of whose citizens are healthy and intelligent there can be any real shortage of labor. What there can be, is a shortage of labor at a given wage. In a prosperous community there may be industries into which a sufficient number of laborers will not go, at the wages which the promoters are originally willing to pay. But if there is an actual social need for those industries, wages will rise to a point high enough to attract a sufficient number of workers, however irksome or disagreeable the employment. No self-respecting community ought to expect industries to be carried on within its borders for which it is not willing to pay such a price as will enable the workers to subsist in reasonable comfort and decency. If there are any industries carried on in the United States which, in the absence of a foreign labor supply, would have to be abandoned, because the native-born laborers or their children would refuse to go into them, it simply means that society is not yet ready to pay a fit price for the products of those industries.
This brings us to the question of the effect of immigration on the amount and distribution of wealth in the United States. It is frequently pointed out that we receive yearly a net increase of half a million or so of able-bodied laborers, for whose upbringing and education we, as a nation, have expended nothing. It is stated that it is cheaper to import laborers than to raise them. The truth of this assertion depends first of all on the quality of the laborer. It may be cheaper in the long run to rear laborers of the American type than to import Portuguese, Russians, and East Indians. Furthermore, while we do not pay directly for the laborers, we pay a great deal for their residence in this country. The estimated amount of money sent abroad by aliens in 1907, $275,000,000, is probably higher than the total for an average year. Suppose $200,000,000 be taken as an average amount.[[313]] These remittances do not represent commercial payments for imports, but are savings actually withdrawn from the wealth of this country and sent abroad to be expended there. So that for each able-bodied alien laborer who enters the country something like $400 goes out. In a sense a good deal of this money might be considered as actual payment for the importation of the laborers, since much of it goes for traveling expenses, debts incurred to provide for emigration, etc.[[314]]
Whether immigration has increased either the total or per capita wealth of the nation may be open to question. One thing, however, is certain—it has profoundly affected the distribution of wealth in the country. It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the successive waves of immigration have represented an ever cheapening labor supply. As the country has grown in wealth and prosperity the employers of labor have found that they could secure their workers at relatively, if not absolutely, lower rates decade after decade. Whenever conditions became such that the native laboring force, if left to themselves, might have successfully demanded better conditions or higher remuneration, there has appeared an inexhaustible supply of foreign laborers, ready and willing to take what was unsatisfactory to the natives, or less. The workman already in the country, whether native or foreign, has been continually robbed of his advantage. Thus the gap between capital and labor, between the rich and the poor, has grown ever wider. Not only have wages been kept from rising, but conditions of labor have persisted and been tolerated which an American laboring force would never have submitted to. The accounts of terrible accidents in mines and foundries arouse sincere feelings of sympathy in our breasts for the poor foreigners who have to suffer so. They would incite a storm of indignant protest which would not be stilled until remedies were provided, if those who are subjected to such conditions were our own kin brothers.[[315]]
There is still another characteristic feature of our economic life, between which and the immigration movement a close and peculiar connection can be traced. This is the frequent recurrence of economic depressions, or crises. The causal relation between these events and the variations in the volume of the immigration current has already been mentioned. There is also a causal relation between these conditions and the fluctuations in the outgoing stream of aliens. This fact has received no little attention of late years, and it has been frequently pointed out that a period of depression in this country is followed by a large exodus of the foreign-born.
The popular interpretation of this fact is that this emigration movement serves to mitigate the evils of the crisis by removing a large part of the surplus laborers, until returning prosperity creates a demand for them again. The Italian, who displays the greatest mobility in this regard, has been called the safety valve of our labor market. Thus the movements of our alien population are supposed to be an alleviating force as regards crises.
The question arises, however, in this connection, whether there is not a converse causal relation; in other words, whether the conditions of immigration are not, partly responsible for the recurrence of these periods. Professor Commons takes this view of the matter, and in his book, Races and Immigrants in America, demonstrates how immigration, instead of helping matters, is really one of the causes of crises. His conclusion is that “immigration intensifies this fatal cycle of ‘booms’ and ‘depressions,’” and “instead of increasing the production of wealth by a steady, healthful growth, joins with other causes to stimulate the feverish overproduction, with its inevitable collapse, that has characterized the industry of America more than that of any other country.”[[316]]
The few pages which Professor Commons devotes to this topic are highly suggestive, and show careful study of the subject. The author, however, at the time this book was written, was handicapped by the lack of data regarding the departures of aliens, which, as we have seen, have since become available. The fact that within the period since the collection of these figures began, the United States has experienced, and recovered from, a severe depression, makes the study of this matter at the present time particularly profitable.
First of all, it will be desirable to see just what the facts of immigration and emigration during this period are; then we shall be prepared to attempt their interpretation. The accompanying table (p. 349) gives the number of aliens admitted to and departed from the United States, and the net increase or decrease of population resulting therefrom, by months, from January, 1907, to December, 1910 (with the exception of the figures of departures for the first six months of 1907, which are not available).
The figures for arrivals given in this table include both immigrant and nonimmigrant aliens, a distinction which has been observed with some care since 1906. The column of departures also includes emigrant and nonemigrant aliens.[[317]]
| TABLE SHOWING THE NUMBER OF ALIENS ADMITTED TO AND DEPARTED FROM THE UNITED STATES, AND THE NET GAIN OR LOSS IN POPULATION RESULTING THEREFROM BY MONTHS, FROM 1907 TO 1910 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | 1907 | 1908 | ||||
| Admitted | Departed | Gain (+) or Loss (−) | Admitted | Departed | Gain (+) or Loss (-) | |
| January | 54,417 | 33,058 | 60,233 | − 27,175 | ||
| February | 65,541 | 30,266 | 50,688 | − 20,422 | ||
| March | 139,118 | 43,537 | 43,506 | + 31 | ||
| April | 145,256 | 55,220 | 65,721 | − 10,501 | ||
| May | 184,886 | 48,245 | 61,251 | − 13,006 | ||
| June | 154,734 | 41,094 | 60,482 | − 19,388 | ||
| July | 107,535 | 46,198 | + 61,337 | 37,133 | 51,508 | − 14,375 |
| August | 111,135 | 44,317 | + 66,818 | 39,606 | 47,569 | − 7,963 |
| September | 115,287 | 43,734 | + 71,553 | 56,635 | 43,884 | + 12,751 |
| October | 129,564 | 55,826 | + 73,738 | 60,715 | 41,916 | + 18,799 |
| November | 132,647 | 94,440 | + 38,207 | 50,965 | 38,609 | + 12,356 |
| December | 77,107 | 88,432 | − 11,325 | 61,111 | 33,416 | + 27,695 |
| 1909 | 1910 | |||||
| January | 54,975 | 18,061 | + 36,914 | 57,472 | 20,256 | + 37,216 |
| February | 81,992 | 15,100 | + 66,892 | 66,072 | 17,672 | + 48,400 |
| March | 135,040 | 22,550 | + 112,490 | 152,020 | 30,894 | + 121,126 |
| April | 138,382 | 24,315 | + 114,067 | 153,915 | 40,886 | + 113,029 |
| May | 127,139 | 31,190 | + 95,949 | 148,822 | 38,740 | + 110,082 |
| June | 100,542 | 32,274 | + 68,268 | 115,793 | 36,119 | + 79,674 |
| July | 77,944 | 27,940 | + 50,004 | 82,191 | 39,056 | + 43,135 |
| August | 71,992 | 28,450 | + 43,542 | 91,460 | 37,206 | + 54,254 |
| September | 85,088 | 29,950 | + 55,138 | 100,456 | 43,023 | + 57,433 |
| October | 92,372 | 30,838 | + 61,534 | 100,334 | 39,189 | + 61,145 |
| November | 98,020 | 39,134 | + 58,886 | 86,144 | 54,700 | + 31,444 |
| December | 78,527 | 39,539 | + 38,988 | 68,794 | 61,814 | + 6,980 |