Slav domination
The results in Pennsylvania thus far are the reverse of satisfactory. The cheap labor has become dear in more senses than one. Where in 1880 the English-speaking foreign-born composed nearly ninety-four per cent. of the mine workers, in 1900 they were less than fifty-two per cent., and to-day are much less still. The Slavs dominate in the mines. Strikes are not less frequent, but more difficult to control, and the necessity of frequent state control by militia, the riots and bloodshed, mark the failure to Americanize this growing class of aliens. A striking illustration of non-assimilation and the attendant perils may be found in Pennsylvania. Fortunately all the Slavs do not go to the mines, and those who follow agriculture or trades afford a pleasanter study. The census of 1900 gave a million and a quarter of foreign-born Slavs and the number has been largely increased. In 1903 221,000 came, not counting the 67,000 Russian and Roumanian Jews. Since these peoples are all prolific, with an oversupply at home, there is every prospect that immigration will increase, unless some check is put upon it. The Slavs will have to be reckoned with, most assuredly, as an element in our civilization.
Slav Distribution in the United States
The maps here given, by the courtesy of Charities, show the sections from which the Slavs come and how they disperse in this country.
Chiefly Unskilled and Illiterate
An analysis of the official statistics shows that, with the exception of the Bohemians, these newest immigrants are mainly unskilled, illiterate peasants from country districts, and with little money in their pockets when they land. Of the Bohemians and Moravians forty-four per cent. are skilled laborers, and only 1.50 per cent. over fourteen are unable to read and write; but of the Poles eighty-five per cent. are unskilled, and thirty per cent. can neither read nor write; and this represents the average. We are getting in an illiterate mass, therefore, and the amount of money they bring per capita averages about $10. But on this point a writer says, speaking from a wide observation:[64]