place literally prepared for his arrival, has therefore rather less than the average initiative, independence and courage, the qualities which are so predominant in the original settlers of a new country. This is, of course, by no means a correct description of all immigrants. There may be little difference between the best immigrant and the best colonist, or even between the majority of immigrants and the majority of colonists. The description applies rather to the marginal colonist and immigrant respectively to the least efficient class who are nevertheless represented in each in considerable numbers. In the frontier colony the minimum wageearning capacity and industrial efficiency is necessarily high, in the immigrant it may be very low, and it is with these marginal immigrants that relief agencies have chiefly to deal.

Recognition of the family, even in its collateral branches, and the placing of burdens upon those who are their blood kindred is one of the first principles of organized relief. When, however, all inquiries run quickly to the ocean's edge, the chances of any effective recognition of family responsibility are greatly lessened. A vague statement that one's parents or other kindred in Syria, in Poland, in Southern Italy or in Ireland have all that they can do to support themselves, is not easily disproved, even if it is not always true. Correspondence with relief agencies throughout the European continent is difficult, and even when it has been established, is often inconclusive because of the different points of view and the differences in language, customs and standards. When one has lost employment and has but a few acquaintances, and these perhaps hastily formed, it is, of course, more difficult for him to give those evidences of character and fitness which would be available in his native land, but which are not readily imported among the immigrant's assets. It is beyond reasonable expectation also, that when one has through old age or infirmity become a public charge, there should be quite the same degree of tenderness and consideration for an immigrant as the same individual might have experienced in a similar adverse fate in the home of his ancestors.

I am not apologizing for any indifference to the necessities of those who are in distress, but pointing out that absence from those upon whom they have the strongest claim for the offices prompted by ties of kindred and of intimate association through generations, is a deprivation of that for which there is no ready substitute. This, however, increases rather than lessens the re

sponsibility of those who in public or in private charities administer relief. Those who have been in the country but a short time may wisely be returned to their homes, but others who may remain after the lapse of years essentially immigrants, may be in distress and it may be possible to relieve them, or necessary to support them in the dependent condition. It is not by withholding relief from individuals or from families who may be wisely aided, that the evil consequences of unrestricted immigration are to be met. The strengthening of existing laws, an additional clause excluding illiterate adults, and by providing more efficient means for the deportation of those who have been admitted through misrepresentation or fraud is advisable, and the uniform and equitable administration of existing laws is essential.

The arguments in favor of unrestricted immigration are that cheap labor is needed in the building of railways and in many other undertakings in which the directive intelligence can be separated from the physical labor required; and that any practical test such as ability to read or write, possession of a given sum of money, or even a certificate of good character from the place of departure will operate to exclude many who nevertheless under new conditions, in a new land, might prove to be very useful and entirely self-supporting citizens.

While it is true that cheap labor may be made profitable from the employer's point of view, it does not follow that those who are considering the interests of the community as a whole can look with favor upon it. The superintendent of a mill, which had within a few years replaced efficient, but highly paid American laborers by Hungarians, analyzed the results of the change in conversation with the author as follows: The new laborers could do less work in a given time, but they were willing to work at less wages, and they were willing to work more hours in the week. Being less efficient and having less initiative it had been necessary to increase the number of foremen and to pay them somewhat higher wages, holding them responsible to a greater extent than before for the correction of mistakes and for driving the men under them at their maximum capacity. As the men worked for longer hours the machinery was idle for a smaller part of the time and the total product was increased at less expense. This illustration is not presented as typical. In many instances the product would doubtless be diminished rather than increased by such a substitution, and the cost increased so that

the net result would be a diminution of profits. Within reasonable limits the general principle is that high-priced labor is economic labor, the condition being that it shall be as intelligent, as trustworthy and as efficient as it is well-paid. Nevertheless the exploitation of cheap labor, as is illustrated in the instance above cited, is not infrequent, and whether in the long run it is disastrous or beneficial in a given industry, there is no doubt that for individuals in charge of particular industries at particular times, it will offer an opportunity for pecuniary profit and that such an opportunity will be seized. With the consequences to the industry in the long run, the employer of the moment may have little concern. The effect of utilizing underpaid immigrant labor under conditions which, in order to afford a living at all, makes excessive demands upon adult men, and leads irresistibly to the employment of women and children, is directly to increase the number who sooner or later require relief. To produce stray instances or even a goodly number of persons who have struggled through such adverse conditions without becoming dependent upon others, is not to offer evidence to the contrary. The plain tendency is to augment the number of those who break down prematurely; of those who in advanced years have made no provision for their own maintenance; of the children whose support must be supplied by others than their own parents, and of those who, meeting with unexpected misfortune of any kind, have no resources except the generosity of strangers.

Survey. 25: 579-86. January 7, 1911

Industrial Communities. W. Jett Lauck.

The widespread existence of immigrant communities or colonies in the United States at the present time may be realized, when it is stated that in the territory east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers there is no town or city of industrial importance, with the exception of the lead and zinc mining localities of Missouri, which does not have its immigrant colony or section composed of Slavs, Magyars, north and south Italians, or members of other races of recent immigration from southern and eastern Europe. In the South and Southwest, because of the large areas devoted almost exclusively

to agriculture, the immigrant community is less frequently met than in the middle West or East. In the bituminous coal mining territory of West Virginia, Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma, immigrant colonies in large numbers have been developed in the same way as those in the coal mining regions of Pennsylvania and the middle West. Southern and eastern Europeans have also attached themselves to the iron and steel producing communities of the Birmingham district in Alabama; and a large Italian colony, as is well known, exists in New Orleans, a considerable number of whose members are employed in the cotton mills of the city and in the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes. South Italians, Cubans, and Spaniards have entered the cigar manufacturing establishments of Tampa and Key West, Fla., and have built up colonies in these cities. Outside New Orleans, however, no recent immigrants in the South are cotton mill operatives. Southern mill owners have frequently tried to introduce southern and eastern, as well as northern, European and British immigrants into their operating forces, but all attempts have resulted in failure because of the refusal of the present cotton mill workers, recruited from isolated farm and mountain sections, to work alongside recent immigrants. This same intense race prejudice on the part of southern wage-earners of native birth has rendered impossible the extensive employment of southern and eastern Europeans in other branches of manufacturing in the South, and has consequently prevented the development of immigrant industrial colonies, except in the instances already mentioned, and in the case of a number of agricultural communities, principally located in the Mississippi Valley.

Between the immigrant colonies which have affixed themselves to industrial centers such as the New England textile manufacturing cities or the iron and steel manufacturing localities of Pennsylvania, and the older native-born portion of the towns or cities there is little contact or association beyond that rendered necessary by business or working relations. Immigrant workmen and their households not only live in sections or colonies according to race, but, as has already been stated, attend and support their own churches, maintain their own business institutions and places of recreation, and have their own fraternal and beneficial organizations. Even in the mines and manufacturing plants, there is a sharp line of division in the occupations or the

departments in which recent immigrants and persons of native birth are engaged, and in the case of unskilled labor the immigrant workmen are, as a rule, brought together in gangs composed of one race or closely related races. In those industrial localities which are strongly unionized, the affiliation of immigrant workmen with native Americans is small. A considerable proportion of the children of foreign-born parents are also segregated in the parochial schools. Women of recent immigrant races, beyond the small degree of contact which they obtain in factories or as domestic servants, practically live entirely removed from Americanizing influences. As a consequence of this general isolation of immigrant colonies, the tendencies toward assimilation exhibited by the recent immigrant population are small, and the maintenance of old customs and standards leads to congestion and insanitary housing and living conditions. The native-born element in the population of industrial communities of the type under discussion is in most cases ignorant of conditions which prevail in immigrant sections; but even when acquainted with them, natives are usually indifferent so long as they do not become too pronounced a menace to the public health and welfare. Under normal conditions there is no antipathy to the immigrant population, beyond the feeling uniformly met with in all sections, that a certain stigma or reproach attaches to working with recent arrivals or in the same occupations. This aversion of the native American, which is psychological in its nature and arises from race prejudice or ignorance, is, however, one of the most effective forces in racial segregation and displacement.

In the case of the immigrant industrial communities which have recently come into existence through industrial development, and which are almost entirely composed of foreign-born persons, or in which foreign-born elements are predominant, a situation exists of alien colonies being established on American soil, often composed of a large number of races living according to their own standards, largely under their own systems of control and practically isolated from all direct contact with American life and institutions. The Americanization of such communities, as compared with the immigrant colonies of old established industrial towns and cities, must necessarily be slow. It is to be expected, also, that before these communities are assimilated they will have a pronounced effect upon American life, for the reason that the slowness of the process will result in the establishment,