200. Peaceful Methods of Settlement.—Strikes are so unsettling to industry that all parties find it better to use diplomacy when possible, or to submit a dispute to arbitration rather than to resort to violence. It is in industrial concerns very much as it is in international politics, and methods used in one circle suggest methods in the other. Formerly war was a universal practice, and of frequent occurrence, and duelling was common in the settlement of private quarrels; now the duel is virtually obsolete, and war is invoked only as a last resort. Difficulties are smoothed out through the diplomatic representatives that every nation keeps at the national capitals, and when they cannot settle an issue the matter is referred to an umpire satisfactory to both sides. Similarly in industrial disputes the tendency is away from the strike; when an issue arises representatives of both sides get together and try to find a way out. There is no good reason why an employer should refuse to recognize an organization or receive its representatives to conference, especially if the employer is a corporation which must work through representatives. Collective bargaining is in harmony with the spirit of the times and fair for all. Conference demands frankness on the part of all concerned. It leads more quickly to understanding and harmony if each party knows the situation that confronts the other. If the parties immediately concerned cannot reach an agreement, a third party may mediate and try to conciliate opposition. If that fails, the next natural step is voluntarily to refer the matter in dispute to arbitration, or by legal regulation to compel the disputants to submit to arbitration.

201. Boards of Conciliation.—The history of peaceful attempts to settle industrial disputes in the United States helps to explain the methods now frequently employed. In 1888, following a series of disastrous labor conflicts, Congress provided by legislation for the appointment of a board of three commissioners, which should make thorough investigation of particular disputes and publish its findings. The class of disputes was limited to interstate commerce concerns and the commissioners did not constitute a permanent board, but the legislative act marked the beginning of an attempt at conciliation. Ten years later the Erdman Act established a permanent board of conciliation to deal with similar cases when asked to do so by one of the parties, and in case of failure to propose arbitration; it provided, also, for a board of arbitration. Meantime the States passed various acts for the pacification of industrial disputes; the most popular have been the appointment of permanent boards of conciliation and arbitration, which have power to mediate, investigate, and recommend a settlement. These have been supplemented by State and national commissions, with a variety of functions and powers, including investigation and regulation. The experience of government boards has not been long enough to prove whether they are likely to be of permanent value, but the results are encouraging to those who believe that through conciliation and arbitration the industrial problem can best be solved.

202. Public Welfare.—There can be no reasonable complaint of the interference of the government. The government, whether of State or nation, represents the people, and the people have a large stake in every industrial dispute. Society is so interdependent that thousands are affected seriously by every derangement of industry. This is especially true of the stoppage of railways, mines, or large manufacturing establishments, when food and fuel cannot be obtained, and the delicate mechanism of business is upset. At best the public is seriously inconvenienced. It is therefore proper that the public should organize on its part to minimize the derangement of its interests. In 1901 a National Civic Federation was formed by those who were interested in industrial peace, and who were large-minded enough to see that it could not be obtained permanently unless recognition should be given to all three of the interested parties—the employers, the employees, and the public. Many small employers of labor are bitterly opposed to any others than themselves having anything to say about the methods of conducting industry, but the men of large experience are satisfied that the day of independence has passed. This organization includes on its committees representatives of all parties, and has helped in the settlement of a number of controversies.

203. Voluntary Efforts of Employers.—It is a hopeful sign that employers themselves are voluntarily seeking the betterment of their employees. It is a growing custom for corporations to provide for the comfort, health, and recreation of men and women in their employ. Rest-rooms, reading-rooms, baths, and gymnasiums are provided; athletic clubs are organized; lunches are furnished at cost; continuation schools are arranged. Some manufacturing establishments employ a welfare manager or secretary whose business it shall be to devise ways of improving working conditions. When these helps and helpers are supplied as philanthropy, they are not likely to be appreciated, for working people do not want to be patronized; if maintained on a co-operative basis, they are more acceptable. But the employer is beginning to see that it is good business to keep the workers contented and healthy. It adds to their efficiency, and in these days when scientific management is putting so much emphasis on efficiency, any measures that add to industrial welfare are not to be overlooked.

204. Profit-Sharing.—Another method of conferring benefit upon the employee is profit-sharing. By means of cash payment or stock bonuses, he is induced to work better and to be more careful of tools and machinery, while his expectation of a share in the success of the business stimulates his interest and his energy and keeps him better natured. The objections to the plan are that it is paternalistic, for the business is under the control of the employer and the amount of profits depends on his honesty, good management, and philanthropic disposition. There are instances where it has worked admirably, and from the point of view of the employer it is often worth while, because it tends to weaken unionism; but it cannot be regarded as a cure for industrial ills, because it is a remedy of uncertain value, and at best is not based on the principle of industrial democracy.

205. Principles for the Solution of the Industrial Problem.—Three principles contend for supremacy in all discussions and efforts to solve the industrial problem. The first is the doctrine of employer's control. This is the old principle that governed industrial relations until governmental legislation and trade-union activity compelled a recognition of the worker's rights. By that principle the capitalist and the laborer are free to work together or to fight each other, to make what arrangements they can about wages, hours, and health conditions, to share in profits if the employer is kindly disposed, but always with labor in a position of subordination and without recognized rights, as in the old political despotisms, which were sometimes benevolent but more often ruthless. Only the selfish, stubborn capitalist expects to see such a system permanently restored.

The second principle is the doctrine of collective control. This theory is a natural reaction from the other, but goes to an opposite extreme. It is the theory of the syndicalist, who prefers to smash machinery before he takes control, and of the socialist, who contents himself with declaring the right of the worker to all productive property, and agitates peacefully for the abolition of the wage system in favor of a working man's commonwealth. The socialist blames the wage system for all the evils of the present industrial order, regards the trade-unions as useful industrial agencies of reform, but urges a resort to the ballot as a necessary means of getting control of industry. There would come first the socialization of natural resources and transportation systems, then of public utilities and large industries, and by degrees the socialization of all industry would become complete. Then on a democratic basis the workers would choose their industrial officers, arrange their hours, wages, and conditions of labor, and provide for the needs of every individual without exploitation, overexertion, or lack of opportunity to work. Serious objections are made to this programme for productive enterprise on the ground of the difficulty of effecting the transfer of the means of production and exchange, and of executive management without the incentive of abundant pecuniary returns for efficient superintendency; even more because of the natural selfishness of human beings who seek personal preferment, and the natural inertia of those who know that they will be taken care of whether they exert themselves or not. More serious still are the difficulties that lie in the way of a satisfactory distribution of the rewards of labor, for there is sure to be serious difference of opinion over the proper share of each person who contributes to the work of production, and no method of initiative, referendum, and recall would avail to smooth out the difficulties that would be sure to arise.

206. Co-operation.—The third principle is co-operation. The principle of co-operation is as important to society as the principle of division of labor. By means of co-operative activity in the home the family is able to maintain itself as a useful group. By means of co-operation in thinly settled communities local prosperity is possible without any individual possessing large resources. But in industry where competition rules and the aim of the employer is the exploitation of the worker, general comfort is sacrificed for the enrichment of the few and wealth flaunts itself in the midst of misery. There will always be a problem in the industrial relations of human beings until there is a recognition of this fundamental principle of co-operation. The application of the principle to the complicated system of modern industrialism is not easy, and attempts at co-operative production by working men with small and incapable management have not been successful, but it is becoming clear that as a principle of industrial relation between classes it is to obtain increasing recognition. If it is proper to admit the claims of the employer, the employee, and the public to an interest in every labor issue, then it is proper to look for the co-operation of them all in the regulation of industry. The usual experiments in co-operative industry have been the voluntary organization of production, exchange, or distribution by a group of middle or working class people to save the large expense of superintendents or middlemen. Co-operation in production has usually failed; in America co-operative banks and building associations, creameries, and fruit-growing associations have had considerable success, and in Europe co-operative stores and bakeries have had a large vogue in England and Belgium, and co-operative agriculture in Denmark. But industry on a large scale requires large capital, efficient management, capable, interested workmanship, and elimination of waste in material and human life. To this end it needs the good-will of all parties and the assistance of government. Unemployment, for instance, may be taken care of by giving every worker a good industrial education and doing away with inefficiency, and then establishing a wide-spread system of labor exchanges to adjust the mass of labor to specific requirements. Industry is such a big and important matter that nothing less than the co-operation of the whole of society can solve its problems.

This co-operation, to be effective, requires a genuine partnership, in which the body of stockholders and the body of working men plan together, work together, and share together, with the assistance of government commissions and boards that continually adjust and, if necessary, regulate the processes of production and distribution on a basis of equity, to be determined by a consensus of expert opinion. In such a system there is no radical derangement of existing industry, no destruction of initiative, no expulsion of expert management or confiscation of property. Individual and corporate ownership continue, the wage system is not abolished, efficient administration is still to be obtained, but the body of control is not a board of directors responsible only to the stockholders of the corporation, and managing affairs primarily for their own gain, but it consists of representatives of those who contribute money, superintendence, and labor, together with or regulated by a group of government experts, all of whom are honestly seeking the good of all parties and enjoying their full confidence. Toward such an outcome of present strife many interested social reformers are working, and it is to be hoped that its advantages will soon appear so great that neither extreme alternative principle will have to be tried out thoroughly before there will be a general acceptance of the co-operative idea. It may seem utopian to those who are familiar with the selfishness and antagonism that have marked the history of the last hundred years, but it is already being tried out here and there, and it is the only principle that accords with the experiences and results of social evolution in other groups. It is the highest law that the struggle for individual power fails before the struggle for the good of the group, and a contest for the success of the few must give way to co-operation for the good of all.

READING REFERENCES

ELLWOOD: Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects, pages 188-194.

ADAMS AND SUMNER: Labor Problems, pages 175-286, 379-432, 461-500.

Bulletins of the United States Department of Labor.

CARLTON: History and Problems of Organized Labor, pages 228-261.

GLADDEN: The Labor Question, pages 77-113.

HENDERSON: Social Elements, pages 167-206.

CROSS: Essentials of Socialism, pages 11, 12, 106-111.

WYCKOFF: The Workers.



CHAPTER XXVIII

EXCHANGE AND TRANSPORTATION

207. Mercantile Exchange.—Important as is the manufacturing industry in the life of the city, it is only a part of the economic activity that is continually going on in its streets and buildings. The mercantile houses that carry on wholesale and retail trade, the towering office-buildings, and the railway and steamship terminals contain numerous groups of workers all engaged in the social task of supplying human wants, while streets and railways are avenues of traffic. The manufacture of goods is but a part of the process; distribution is as important as production. All these sources of supply are connected with banks and trust companies that furnish money and credit for business of every kind. The economic activities of a city form an intricate network in which the people are involved.

Hardly second in importance to manufacturing is mercantile exchange. The manufacturer, after he has paid his workers, owns the goods that have been produced, but to get his living he must sell them. To do this he establishes relations with the merchant. Their relations are carried on through agents, some of whom travel from place to place taking orders, others establish office headquarters in the larger centres of trade. Once the merchant has opened his store or shop and purchased his goods he seeks to establish trade relations with as many individual customers as he can attract. Mercantile business is carried on in two kinds of stores, those which supply one kind of goods in wholesale or retail quantities, like groceries or dry goods, and those which maintain numerous departments for different kinds of manufactured goods. Large department stores have become a special feature of mercantile exchange in cities of considerable size, but they do not destroy the smaller merchants, though competition is often difficult.

208. The Ethics of Business.—The methods of carrying on mercantile business are based, as in the factory, on the principle of getting the largest possible profits. The welfare of employees is a secondary consideration. Expense of maintenance is heavy. Rents are costly in desirable locations; the expense of carrying a large stock of merchandise makes it necessary to borrow capital on which interest must be paid; the obligations of a large pay-roll must be met at frequent intervals, whether business is good or bad. All these items are present in varying degree, whatever the size of the business, except where a merchant has capital enough of his own to carry on a small business and can attend to the wants of his customers alone or with the help of his family. The temptation of the merchant is strong to use every possible means to make a success of his business, paying wages as low as possible, in order to cut down expenses, and offering all kinds of inducements to customers in order to sell his goods. The ethics of trade need improvement. It is by no means true, as some agitators declare, that the whole business system is corrupt, that honesty is rare, and that the merchant is without a conscience. General corruption is impossible in a commercial age like this, when the whole system of business is built on credit, and large transactions are carried on, as on the Stock Exchange, with full confidence in the word or even the nod of an operator. Of course, shoddy and impure goods are sold over the counter and the customer often pays more than an article is really worth, but every mercantile house has its popular reputation to sustain as well as its rated financial standing, and the business concern that does not deal honorably soon loses profitable trade.

Exchange constitutes an important division of the science of economics, but its social causes and effects are of even greater consequence. Exchange is dependent upon the diffusion of information, the expansion of interests, and growing confidence between those who effect a transaction. When mutual wants are few it is possible to carry on business by means of barter; when trade increases money becomes a necessary medium; world commerce requires a system of credit which rests on social trust and integrity. Conversely, there are social consequences that come from customs of exchange. It enlarges human interests. It stimulates socialization of habits and broader ideas. It encourages industry and thrift and promotes division of labor. It strengthens social organization and tends to make it more efficient. Altogether, exchange of goods must be regarded as among the most important functions of society.

209. Business Employees.—The business ethics that are most open to criticism are those that govern the relations of the merchant and his employees. Here the system of employment is much the same as in the factory. The merchant deals with his employees through superintendents of departments. The employment manager hires the persons who seem best qualified for the position, and they are assigned to a department. They are under the orders of the head of the department, and their success or failure depends largely on his good-will. Wages and privileges are in his hand, and if he is morally unscrupulous he can ruin a weak-willed subordinate. There is little coherence among employees; there are always men and women who stand ready to take a vacant position, and often no particular skill or experience is required. There has been no such solidifying of interests by trade-unions as in the factory; the individual makes his own contract and stands on his own feet. On the other hand, there is an increasing number of employers who feel their responsibility to those who are in their employ, and, except in the department stores, they are usually associated personally with their employees. Welfare work is not uncommon in the large establishments, and a minimum wage is being adopted here and there.

One of the worst abuses of the department store is the low-paid labor of women and girls. It is possible for girls who live at home to get along on a few dollars a week, but they establish a scale of wages so low that it is impossible for the young woman who is dependent on her own resources to get enough to eat and wear and keep well. The physical and moral wrecks that result are disheartening. Nourishing food in sufficient quantities to repair the waste of nerve and tissue cannot be obtained on five or six dollars a week, when room rent and clothing and necessary incidentals, like car-fare, have to be included. There are always human beasts of prey who are prepared to give financial assistance in exchange for sex gratification, and it is difficult to resist temptation when one's nervous vigor and strength of will are at the breaking-point. It is not strange that there is an economic element among the causes of the social evil; it is remarkable that moral sturdiness resists so much temptation.

210. Offices.—The numerous office-buildings that have arisen so rapidly in recent years in the cities also have large corps of women workers. They have personal relations with employers much more frequently, for there are thousands of offices where a few stenographers or even a single secretary are sufficient. Office work is skilled labor, is better paid, and attracts women of better attainments and higher ideals than in department store or factory. Office relations are pleasant as well as profitable. The demands are exacting; labor at the typewriter, the proof-sheets, or the bookkeeper's desk is tiresome, but the society of the office is congenial, working conditions are healthful and cheerful in most cases, and there are many opportunities for increasing efficiency and promotion. The office has its hardships. Everything is on a business basis, and there is little allowance for feelings or disposition. There are days when trials multiply and an atmosphere of irritation prevails; there are seasons when the constant rush creates a wearing nervous tension, and other seasons, when business is so poor that occasionally there are breakdowns of health or moral rectitude; but on the whole the office presents a simpler industrial problem than the factory or the store.

211. Transportation.—A third industry that has its centre in the city but extends across continents and seas is the business of transportation. Manufactured goods are conveyed from the factory to the warehouse and the store, goods sold in the mercantile establishment are delivered from door to door, but enormous quantities of the products of economic activity are hauled to greater distances by truck, car, and steamship. The city is a point to which roads, railways, and steamship lines converge, and from which they radiate in every direction. By long and short hauls, by express and freight, vast quantities of food products and manufactured goods pour into the metropolis, part to be used in its numerous dwellings, part to be shipped again to distant points. Along the same routes passengers are transported, journeying in all directions on a multitude of errands, jostling for a moment as they hurry to and from the means of conveyance, and then swinging away, each on its individual orbit, like comet or giant sun that nods acquaintance but once in a thousand years.

The business of transportation occupies the time and attention of thousands of workers, and its ramifications are endless. It is not limited to a particular region like agriculture, or to towns and cities like manufacturing; it is not stopped by tariff walls or ocean boundaries. An acre of wheat is cut by the reaper, threshed, and carted to the elevator by wagon or motor truck. The railroad-car is hauled alongside, and with other bushels of its kind the grain is transported to a giant flour-mill, where it is turned into a whitened, pulverized product, packed in barrels, and shipped across the ocean to a foreign port. Conveyed by rail or truck to the bakery, the flour undergoes transformation into bread, and takes its final journey to hotel, restaurant, and dwelling-house. Similarly, every kind of raw material finds its destination far from the place of its production and is consumed directly or as a manufactured product. This gigantic business of transportation is the means of providing for the sustenance and comfort of millions of human beings, and in spite of the extensive use of machinery it requires at every step the co-operative labor of human beings.

212. Growth of Interdependence.—It is the far-flung lines of commerce that bind together the peoples of the world. Formerly there were periods of history, as in the European Middle Ages, when a social group produced nearly everything that it needed for consumption and commerce was small; but now all countries exchange their own products for others that they cannot so readily produce. The requirements of commerce have broken down the barriers between races, and have compelled mutual acquaintance and knowledge of languages, mutual confidence in one another's good intentions, and mutual understanding of one another's wants. The demands of commerce have precipitated wars, but have also brought victories of peace. They have stimulated the invention of improved means of communication, as the demands of manufacturing stimulated invention of machinery. The slow progress of horse-drawn vehicles over poor roads provoked the invention of improved highways and then of railroads. The application of steam to locomotives and ships revolutionized commerce, and by the steady improvements of many years has given to the eager trader and traveller the speedy, palatial steamship and the train de luxe.

Transportation depends, however, on the man behind the engine rather than on the mass of steel that is conjured into motion. Successful commerce waits for the willingness and skill of worker and director. There must be the same division and direction of labor and the same spirit of co-operation; there must be intelligence in planning schedules for traffic and overcoming obstacles of nature and human frailty and incompetence. The teamster, the longshoreman, the freight-handler, and the engineer must all feel the push of the economic demand, keeping them steadily at work. A strike on any portion of the line ties up traffic and upsets the calculations of manufacturer, merchant, and consumer, for they are all dependent upon the servants of transportation.

213. Problems of Transportation.—There are problems of transportation that are of a purely economic nature, but there are also problems that are of social concern. The first problem is that of safe and rapid transportation. The comfort and safety of the millions who travel on business or for pleasure is a primary concern of society. If the roads are not kept in repair and the steamship lanes patrolled, if the rolling-stock is allowed to deteriorate and become liable to accident, if engine-drivers and helmsmen are intemperate or careless, if efficiency is not maintained, or if safety is sacrificed to speed, the public is not well served. Many are the illustrations of neglect and inefficiency that have culminated in accident and death. Or the transportation company is slow to adopt new inventions and to meet the expense that is necessary to equip a steamer or a railroad for speed, or to provide rapid interurban or suburban transit. Poor management or single tracks delay fast freights, or congested terminals tie up traffic. These inconveniences not only consume profits and ruffle the tempers of working men, but they are a social waste of time and effort, and they stand in the way of improved living conditions. The congestion of population in the cities can easily be remedied when rapid and cheap transit make it possible for working men to live twenty or thirty miles out of town. The standard of living can be raised appreciably when fast trolley or steam service provides the products of the farms in abundance and in fresh condition.

Another problem is that of the worker. The same temptation faces the transportation manager that appears in the factory and the mercantile house. The expenses of traffic are enormous. Railways alone cost hundreds of millions for equipment and service, and there are periods when commerce slackens and earnings fall away. It is easier to cut wages than to postpone improvements or to raise freight or passenger rates. In the United States an interstate commerce commission regulates rates, but questions of wages and hours of labor are between the management and the men. Friction frequently develops, and hostility in the past has produced labor organizations that are well knit and powerful, so that the railroad man has succeeded in securing fair treatment, but there are other branches of transportation service where the servants of the public find their labor poorly paid and precarious in tenure. Teamsters and freight-handlers find conditions hard; sailors and dock-hands are often thrown out of employment. Whole armies of transportation employees have been enrolled since trolley-lines and automobile service have been organized. Fewer persons drive their own horses and vehicles, and many who walked to and from business or school now ride. Transportation service has been vastly extended, but there are continually more people to be accommodated, and motor-men, conductors, and chauffeurs to be adjusted to wage scales and service hours.

214. Monopoly.—A persistent tendency in transportation has been toward monopoly. Express service between two points becomes controlled by a single company, and the charges are increased. A street-railway company secures a valuable city franchise, lays its tracks on the principal streets, and monopolizes the business. Service may be poor and fares may be raised, unless kept down by a railroad commission, but the public must endure inconvenience, discomfort, and oppression, or walk. Railroad systems absorb short lines and control traffic over great districts; unless they are under government regulation they may adjust their time schedules and freight charges arbitrarily and impose as large a burden as the traffic will bear; the public is helpless, because there is no other suitable conveyance for passengers or freight. It is for these reasons that the United States has taken the control of interstate commerce into its own hands and regulated it, while the States have shown a disposition to inflict penalties upon recalcitrant corporations operating within State boundaries. It is the policy of government, also, to prevent control of one railroad by another, to the added inconvenience and expense of the public. But since 1890 there has been a rapid tendency toward a consolidation of business enterprises, by which railroads became united into a few gigantic systems, street railways were consolidated into a few large companies, and ocean-steamship companies amalgamated into an international combination.

215. Government Ownership vs. Regulation.—Nor did monopoly confine itself to transportation. The control of public utilities has passed into fewer hands. Coal companies, gas and electric light corporations, telegraph and telephone companies tend to monopolize business over large sections of country. Some of these possess a natural monopoly right, and if managed in the interests of the public that they serve, may be permitted to carry on their business without interference. But their large incomes and disposition to oppress their constituents has produced many demands for government ownership, especially of coal companies and railroads, and though for less reason of telephone and telegraph lines. Government ownership has been tried in Europe and in Australasia, but experience does not prove that it is universally desirable. There are financial objections in connection with purchase and operation, and the question of efficiency of government employees is open to debate. Enough experiments have been tried in the United States to render very doubtful the advisability of government ownership of any of these large enterprises where politics wield so large a power and democracy delights to shift office and responsibility. But it is desirable that the government of State and nation have power to regulate business associations that control the public welfare as widely as do railroads, telegraph-lines, and navigation companies. By legislation, incorporation, and taxation the government may keep its hand upon monopoly and, if necessary, supersede it, but the system which has grown up by a natural process is to be given full opportunity to justify itself before government assumes its functions. It is hardly to be expected that government regulation will be faultless, American experience with regulating commissions has not been altogether satisfactory, but society needs protection, and this the government may well provide.

216. Trusts.—The tendency to monopoly is not confined to any one department of economic activity. Manufacturing, mercantile, and banking companies have all tended to combine in large corporations, partly for greater economy, partly for an increase of profits through manipulating reorganization of stock companies, and partly for centralization of control. In the process, while the cost of certain products has been reduced by economy in operating expenses, the enormous dividend requirements of heavily capitalized corporations has necessitated high prices, a large business, and the danger of overproduction, and a virtual monopoly has made it possible to lift prices to a level that pinches the consumer. By a grim irony of circumstance, these giant and often ruthless corporations have taken the name of trusts, but they do not incline to recognize that the people's rights are in their trust. Not every trust is harmful to society, and certainly trusts need not be destroyed. They have come into existence by a natural economic process, and as far as they cheapen the cost of production and improve the manufacture and distribution of the product they are a social gain, but they need to be controlled, and it is the function of government to regulate them in the interests of society at large. It has been found by experience that publicity of corporate business is one of the best methods of control. In the long run every social organization must obtain the sanction of public opinion if it is to become a recognized institution, and in a democratic country like the United States no trust can become so independent or monopolistic that it can afford to disregard the public will and the public good, as certain American corporations have discovered to their grief.

217. The Chances of Progress.—Every economic problem resolves itself into a social problem. The satisfaction of human wants is the province of the manufacturer, the merchant, and the transporter, but it is not limited to any one or all of these, nor is society under their control. The range of wants is so great, the desires of social beings branch out into so many broad interests, that no one line of enterprise or one group of men can control more than a small portion of society. The whole is greater than any of its parts. There will be groups that are unfortunate, communities and races that will suffer temporarily in the process of social adjustment, but the welfare of the many can never long be sacrificed to the selfishness of the few. Social revolution in some form will take place. It may not be accomplished in a day or a year, but the social will is sure to assert itself and to right the people's wrongs. The social process that is going on in the modern city has aggravated the friction of industrial relations; the haste with which business is carried on is one of its chief causes; but the very speed of the movement will carry society the sooner out of its acute distresses into a better adjusted system of industry. So far most of the world's progress has been by a slow course of natural adjustment of individuals and groups to one another; that process cannot be stopped, but it can be directed by those who are conscious of the maladjustments that exist and perceive ways and means of improvement. Under such persons as leaders purposive progress may be achieved more rapidly and effectually in the near future.

READING REFERENCES

HADLEY: Standards of Public Morality, pages 33-96.

NEARING: Wages in the United States, pages 93-96.

NEARING AND WATSON: Economics, pages 241-255, 314-320.

VROOMAN: American Railway Problems, pages 1-181.

BOLEN: Plain Facts as to the Trusts and the Tariff, pages 3-236.

BOGART: Economic History of the United States, pages 186-216, 305-337, 400-418.

MONTGOMERY: Vital American Problems, pages 3-91.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE PEOPLE WHO WORK

218. Economic vs. Social Values.—Economic interests may receive first attention in the city, but the work that is done is of less importance than the people who work. Things may so fill the public mind that the real values of the various elements that enter into life may become distorted. A penny may be held so close to the eye as to hide the sun. Making a living may seem more important than making the most of life. Persons who are absorbed in business are liable to lose their sense of proportion between people and property; the capitalist overburdens himself with business cares until he breaks down under the nervous strain, and overworks his subordinates until they often become physical wrecks, but it is not because he personally intends to do harm. Eventually the social welfare of every class will become the supreme concern and the study of social efficiency will fill a larger place than the study of economic efficiency.

219. The Social Classes.—There is a natural line of social cleavage that has made it a customary expression to speak of the upper, the middle, and the lower classes. It is impossible to separate them sharply, for they shade into one another. Theoretically, in a democratic country like America there should be no class distinctions, but in colonial days birth and education had an acknowledged social position that did not belong to the common man, and in the nineteenth century a wealthy class came into existence that wrested supremacy from professional men and those who could rely alone on their intellectual achievements. It has never been impossible for individuals to push their way up the social path of success, but it has been increasingly difficult for a self-made man to break through into the circle of the elite. There are still young men who come out of the country without pecuniary capital but with physical strength and courage and, after years of persistent attack, conquer the citadel of place and power, but the odds are against the youth without either capital or a higher education than the high school gives. Without unusual ability and great strength of will it is impossible to rise high if one lacks capital or influential friends, but with the help of any two of these it is quite possible to gain success. Employers complain that the vast majority of persons whom they employ are lacking in energy, ambition, and ability. Important as is the possession of wealth and influence it seems to be the psychic values that ultimately determine the individual's place in American society. We shall expect, therefore, to find an upper class in society composed of some who hold their place because of the prestige that belongs to birth or property, and of others who have made their own way up because they had the necessary qualities to succeed. Below them in the social scale we shall expect to find a larger class who, because they were not consumed by ambition to excel, or because they lacked the means to achieve distinction, have come to occupy a place midway between the high and the low, to fill the numerous professional and business positions below the kings and great captains, and to hold the balance of power between the aristocracy and the proletariat. Below these, in turn, are the so-called masses, who fill the lower ranks of labor, and who are essential to the well-being of those who are reckoned above them.

220. The Worth of the Upper Class.—It is a common belief among the lowly that the people who hold a place in the upper ranks are not worthy of their lofty position, and there are many who hope to see such a general levelling as took place during the French Revolution. They are fortified in their opinion by the lavish and irresponsible way in which the wealthy use their money, and they are tantalized by the display of luxury which, if times are hard, are in aggravating contrast to the hardship and suffering of the poor. The scale of living of the millionaire cannot justify itself in the eyes of the man who finds it difficult to make both ends meet. Undoubtedly society will find it necessary some day to devise a more equitable method of distribution. But it is a mistake to suppose that most of the rich are idle parasites on society, or that their service, as well, as their wealth, could be dispensed with in the social order. In spite of the impression fostered by a sensational press that the average person of wealth devotes himself to the gaieties and dissipations of a pleasure-loving society, the truth is that after the self-centred years of callow youth are over most men and women take life seriously and only the few are idlers. If the investigator should go through the wealthy sections of the cities and suburbs, and record his observations, he would find that the men spend their days feeling the pulse of business in the down-town offices, directing the energies of thousands of individuals, keeping open the arteries of trade, using as productive capital the wealth that they count their own, making possible the economic activity and the very existence of the persons who find fault with their worthlessness. He would find the women in the nature of the case less occupied with public affairs, but interested and enlisted in all sorts of good enterprises, and, while often wasteful of time and money, bearing a part increasingly in the promotion of social reforms by active participation and by generous contributions. The immense gains that have come to society through philanthropy and social organization, as well as through the channels of industry, would have been impossible without the sympathetic activity of the so-called upper class.

221. Who Belong to the City Aristocracy?—Most of those who belong to the upper class are native Americans. They may not be far removed from European ancestry, but for themselves they have had the advantage of a rearing in American ways in the home, the school, and society at large. They are both city and country bred. The country boy has the advantage of physical strength and better manual training, but he often lacks intellectual development, and usually has little capital to start with. The city youth knows the city ways and possesses the asset of acquaintances and friendships, if not of capital, in the place where he expects to make a living. He is helped to success if the way is prepared for him by relatives who have attained place and property, but he is as often cursed by having more money and more liberty than is good for him, while still in his irresponsible years. No place is secure until the young man has proved his personal worth, whether he is from the city or the country and has come up out of poverty or from a home of wealth.

222. Sources of Wealth.—The large majority of persons of wealth have won or inherited their property from the economic industries of manufacturing, trade, commerce, and transportation, or real estate. Certain individuals have been fortunate in their mining or public-service investments; others make a large income as corporation officials, lawyers, physicians, engineers, and architects, but most of them have attained their success as capitalists, and they are able to maintain a position of prominence and ease because they use rather than hoard their wealth. It is easy to underestimate the usefulness of human beings who finance the world of industry, and in estimating the returns that are due to members of the various social classes this form of public service that is so essential to the prosperity of all must receive recognition.

223. How They Live.—Unfortunately, the possession of money furnishes a constant temptation to self-indulgence which, if carried far, is destructive of personal health and character, weakens family affection, and threatens the solidarity of society. The dwelling-house is costly and the furnishings are expensive. A retinue of servants performs many useless functions in the operation of the establishment. Ostentation often carried to the point of vulgarity marks habits of speech, of dress, and of conduct both within and outside of the home. Every member of the family has his own friends and interests and usually his own share of the family allowance. The adults of the family are unreasonably busy with social functions that are not worth their up-keep; the children are coddled and supplied with predigested culture in schools that cater to the trade, and if they are not spoiled in the process of preparation go on to college as a form of social recreation. There are exceptions, of course, to this manner of life, but those who follow it constitute a distinct type and by their manner of living exert a disintegrating influence in American society.

224. The Middle Class.—The middle class is not so distinct a stratum of society as are the upper and lower classes. It includes the bulk of the population in the United States, and from its ranks come the teachers, ministers, physicians, lawyers, artists, musicians, authors, and statesmen; the civil, mechanical, and electrical engineers, the architects, and the scientists of every name; most of the tradesmen of the towns and the farmers of the country; office managers and agents, handicraftsmen of the better grade, and not a few of the factory workers. They are the people who maintain the Protestant churches and their enterprises, who make up a large part of the constituency of educational institutions and buy books and reviews, and who patronize the better class of entertainments and amusements. These people are too numerous to belong to any one race, and they include both city and country bred. The educated class of foreigners finds its place among them, assimilates American culture, and intermarries in the second generation. Into the middle class of the cities is absorbed the constant stream of rural immigration, except the few who rise into the upper class or fall into the lower class. In the city itself grow up thousands of boys and girls who pass through the schools and into business and home life in their native environment, and who constitute the solid stratum of urban society.

These people have not the means to make large display. They are influenced by the fashions of the upper class, sometimes are induced to applaud their poses or are hypnotized to do their bidding, but they have their own class standards, and most of them are contented to occupy their modest station. Only a minority of them own their homes, but as a class they can afford to pay a reasonable rent and to furnish their houses tastefully, to hire one or two household servants, and to live in comfort. Twenty years ago they owned bicycles and enjoyed century runs into the country on Sunday: since then some of them have been promoted to automobiles and enjoy a low-priced car as much as the wealthy appreciate their high-priced limousines. As in rural villages, so in the city they form various groups of neighbors or friends based on a common interest, and find entertainment and intellectual stimulus from such companionship. On the roster of social organizations are musical societies and bridge clubs, literary and art circles, dramatic associations, women's clubs, and men's fraternities. The people meet at dances, teas, and receptions; they mingle with others of their kind at church or theatre, and co-operate with other workers in settlements and charity organizations. They educate their children in the public schools and in increasing numbers give them the benefit of a college education.

People of the middle class are by no means debarred from passing up to a higher social grade if they have the ability or good fortune to get ahead, nor are they guaranteed a permanent place in their own native group unless they are competent to keep their footing. There is no surety to keep the independent tradesman from failing in business or the careless youth from falling into intemperate or vicious habits; many hazards must be crossed and hindrances overcome before an assured position is secured in the community, but the opportunities are far better than for the handicapped strugglers below.

225. Bonds of Union Between Classes.—Though the middle class is distinct from the aristocracy of society in America, it is not shut off from association with it. The same is true in a less degree of the lowest class. Party lines are vertical, not horizontal. Religious and intellectual lines are only less so. The politician cannot afford to ignore a single vote, and the working man's counts as much as the plutocrat's. There are few churches that do not have representatives of all classes, from the gilded pew-holder to the workman with dingy hands who sits under the gallery. The school is no respecter of class lines. The store, the street-car, and the railroad are all common property, where one jostles another without regard to class. Friendship oversteps all boundaries, even of race and creed.

226. The Lower Class.—The lower class consists of those who are dependent upon others for the opportunity to work or for the charity that keeps them alive. They commonly lack initiative and ambition; if they have those qualities they are hindered by their environment from ever getting ahead. Sometimes they make an attempt in a small way to carry on trade on their own resources, but they seldom win success. Their skill as factory operatives is not so great as to gain for them a good wage, and when business is slack they are the first to be laid off the pay-roll, and they help to swell the ranks of the unemployed. Because of the American system of compulsory education they are not absolutely illiterate, but their ability is small; they leave school early, and what little education they have does not help them to earn a living. They do not usually choose an occupation, but they follow the line of least resistance, taking the first job that offers, and often finding later that they never can hope for advancement in it. Frequently they are the victims of weak will and inherited tendencies that lead to intemperance, vice, and crime. Thousands of them are living in the unwholesome tenements that lack comfort and attractiveness. There is no inducement to cultivate good habits, and no possibility of keeping the children free from moral and physical contamination. As a class they are continually on the edge of poverty and often submerged in it. They know what it is to feel the pinch of hunger, to shiver before the blasts of winter, and to look upon coal and ice as luxuries. They become discouraged from the struggle as they grow older, often get to be chronically dependent on charity, and not infrequently fall at last into a pauper's grave.

227. The Degenerate American.—Many of these people are Americans, swarms of them are foreigners who have come here to better their fortunes and have been disappointed or, finding the difficulties more than they anticipated, have settled down fairly contented in the city. Many persons think that it is the alien immigrant who causes the increase in intemperance and crime that has been characteristic of city life, but statistics lay much of the guilt upon the degenerate American. There are poor whites in the cities as there are in the South country. The riffraff drifts to town from the country as the Roman proletariat gravitated to the capital in the days of decadence. A great many young persons who enter the city with high hopes of making a fortune fail to get a foothold or gradually lose their grip and are swept along in the current of the city's debris. Illness, accident, and repeated failure are all causes of degeneration.

Along with misfortune belongs misconduct. Those causes which produce poverty like intemperance, idleness, and ignorance, are productive of degeneracy, also. They render the individual unfit to meet the responsibilities of life, and tend not only to incompetence but also to sensuality and even crime. Added to the various physical causes are such psychical influences as contact with degraded minds or with base literature or art, loss of religious faith, and loss of self-confidence as to one's ability to succeed.

Personal degeneracy tends to perpetuate itself in the family. Drunken, depraved, or feeble-minded parents usually produce children with the same inheritances or tendencies; family quarrelling and an utter absence of moral training do not foster the development of character. A slum environment in the city strengthens the evil tendencies of such a home, as it counterbalances the good effects of a wholesome home environment. Mental and moral degeneracy is always present in society, and if unchecked spreads widely; physical degeneracy is so common as to be alarming, resulting in dangerous forms of disease, imbecility, and insanity. Society is waking to the need of protecting itself against degeneracy in all its forms, and of cutting out the roots of the evil from the social body.

READING REFERENCES

NEARING: Social Religion, pages 104-157.

COMMONS: "Is Class Conflict in America Growing?" art. in American Journal of Sociology, 13: 756-783.

HENDERSON: Social Elements, pages 276-283.

NEARING AND WATSON: Economics, pages 185-193.

WARNER: American Charities, pages 59-117, 276-292.

PATTEN: Social Basis of Religion, pages 107-133.

BLACKMAR AND GILLIN: Outlines of Sociology, pages 499-512.



CHAPTER XXX

THE IMMIGRANT

228. The Immigrant Problem.—An increasing proportion of the city's population is foreign born or of foreign parentage. For a hundred years America has been the goal of the European peasant's ambition, the magnet that has drawn him from interior hamlet and ocean port. Migration has been one of the mighty forces that have been reshaping society. The American people are being altered by it, and it is a question whether America will maintain its national characteristics if the volume of immigration continues unchecked. Europe has been deeply affected, and the people who constitute the migrating mass have been changed most of all. And the end is not yet.

The immigrant constitutes one of the problems of society. Never has there been in history such a race movement as that which has added to one nation a population of more than twenty million in a half century. It is a problem that affects the welfare of races and continents outside of America, as well as here, and that affects millions yet unborn, and millions more who might have been born were it not for the unfavorable changes that have taken place because of the shift in population. It is a problem that has to do with all phases of group life—its economic, educational, political, moral, and religious interests. It is a problem that demands the united wisdom of all who care for the welfare of humanity in the days to come. The heart of the problem is first whether the immigrant shall be permitted to crowd into this country unhindered, or whether sterner barriers shall be placed in the way of the increasing multitude; secondly, if restrictions are decided upon what shall be their nature, and whose interests shall be considered first—those of the immigrant, of the countries involved, or of world progress as a whole?

The problem can be approached best by considering (1) the history of immigration, (2) the present facts about immigration, (3) the tendencies and effects of immigration. Migrations have occurred everywhere in history, and they are progressing in these days in other countries besides the United States. Canada is adding thousands every year, parts of South America are already German or Italian because of immigration, in lesser numbers emigrants are going to the colonies that the European nations, especially the English, have located all over the world. European immigration to North America has been so prolonged and abundant that it constitutes the particular phenomenon that most deserves attention. Other nations have fought wars to secure additional territory for their people; the immigrant occupation of America has been a peaceful conquest.

229. The Irish.—Although the early occupation of this continent was by immigration from Europe, after the Revolution the increase of population was almost entirely by natural growth. Large families were the rule and a hardy people was rapidly gaining the mastery of the eastern part of the continent. It was not until 1820 that the new immigration became noticeable and the government took legislative action to regulate it (1819). Between 1840 and 1880 three distinct waves of immigration broke on American shores. The first was Irish. The Irish peasants were starving from a potato famine that extended over several years in the forties, and they poured by the thousand into America, the women becoming domestic servants and the men the unskilled laborers that were needed in the construction camps. They built roads, dug canals, and laid the first railways. Complaint was made that they lowered the standards of wages and of living, that their intemperate, improvident ways tended to complicate the problem of poverty, and that their Catholic religion made them dangerous, but they continued to come until the movement reached its climax, in 1851, when 272,000 passed through the gates of the Atlantic ports. The Irish-American has become an important element of the population, especially in the Eastern cities, and has shown special aptitude for politics and business.

230. Germans and Scandinavians.—The Irishman was followed by the German. He was attracted by-the rich agricultural lands of the Middle West and the opportunities for education and trade in the towns and cities. German political agitators who had failed to propagate democracy in the revolutionary days of 1848 made their way to a place where they could mould the German-American ideas. While the Irish settled down in the seaboard towns, the Germans went West, and constituted one of the solid groups that was to build the future cosmopolitan nation. The German was followed by the Scandinavian. The people of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were increasing in number, but their rough, cold country could not support them all. As the Norsemen took to the sea in the ninth century, so the Scandinavian did in the nineteenth, but this time in a peaceful migration toward the setting sun. They began coming soon after the Civil War, and by 1882 they numbered thirteen per cent of the total immigration. They were a specially valuable asset, for they were industrious agriculturists and occupied the valuable but unused acres of the Northwest, where they planted the wheat belt of the United States, learned American ways and founded American institutions, and have become one of the best strains in the American blood.

231. The New Immigrants.—If the United States could have continued to receive mainly such people as these from northern Europe, there would be little cause to complain of the volume of immigration, but since 1880 the tide has been setting in from southern and eastern Europe and even from Asia, bringing in large numbers of persons who are not of allied stock, have been little educated, and do not understand or fully sympathize with American principles and ideals, and for the most part are unskilled workmen. These have come in such enormous numbers as to constitute a real menace and to compel attention.

TABLE OF IMMIGRATION FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1914

(Races numbering less than 10,000 each are not included)

South Italians 251,612 Jews 138,051 Poles 122,657 Germans 79,871 English 51,746 Greeks 45,881 Russians 44,957 North Italians 44,802 Hungarians 44,538 Croatians and Slovenians 37,284 Ruthenians 36,727 Scandinavians 36,053 Irish 33,898 Slovaks 25,819 Roumanians 24,070 Lithuanians 21,584 Scotch 18,997 French 18,166 Bulgarians, Servians, and Montenegrins 15,084 Mexicans 13,089 Finns 12,805 Dutch and Flemings 12,566 Spanish 11,064

232. Italians and Slavs.—Most numerous of these are the Italians. At home they feel the pressure of population, the pinch of small income, and heavy taxation. Here it costs less to be a citizen and there are more opportunities for a livelihood. Gangs of Italian laborers have taken the place of the Irish. Italians have established themselves in the small trades, and some of them find a place in the factory. Two-thirds of them are from the country, and they find opportunity to use their agricultural knowledge as farm laborers. In California and Louisiana they have established settlements of their own, and in the East they make a foreign fringe on the outskirts of suburban towns. North Italy is more progressive than the south and the qualities of the people are of higher grade, but the bulk of emigration is from the region of Naples and Sicily. Among the southern Italians the percentage of illiteracy is high, they have the reputation of being slippery in business relations, and not a few anarchists and criminals are found among them. It is not reasonable to expect that these people will measure up to the level of the steady, reliable, and hard-working American or north European, especially as large numbers of them are birds of passage spending the winter in Italy or going home for a time when business in America is depressed. Yet the great majority of those who settle here are peaceable, ambitious, and hard-working men and women.

Alongside the Italian is the Slav. There are so many varieties of him that he is confusing. He comes from the various provinces of Russia, from the conglomerate empire of Austro-Hungary, and from the Balkan states. In physique he is sturdier than the Italian and mentally he is less excitable and nervous, but he drinks heavily and is often murderous when not sober. The Slav has come to America to find a place in the sun. At home he has suffered from political oppression and poverty; he has had little education of body or mind; he is subject to his primitive impulses as the west European long ago ceased to be. It is not easy for America to assimilate large numbers of such backward peoples, but the Slav is coming at the rate of three hundred thousand a year. The Slav is depended upon for the hard labor of mine and foundry, of sugar and oil refineries, and of meat-packing establishments. Hundreds and thousands are in the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and West Virginia. The Bohemians and Poles more frequently than the others bring their families with them, and to some extent settle in the rural districts, but the bulk of the Slavs are men who herd in congested boarding-houses, move frequently from one industrial centre to another, and naturally are very slow to become assimilated.

233. The Jews.—Of all the races that have found asylum in America none have felt abroad the heavy hand of oppression more than the Jew. He has been the world's outcast through nineteen centuries, but in America he has found freedom to expand. One-fifth of all the Jews are already in America, and the rate of immigration is not far from 140,000 a year. The immigrant Jews are of different grades, some are educated and well-to-do, but the masses are poor, and the most recent immigrants have low ideals of living. Few of those who come settle in the country districts; the large majority herd in the city tenements and engage in small trades and manufacturing. Jewish masters are unmerciful as sweaters, unprincipled as landlords, and disreputable as white slavers, but no man rises above limitations that others have set for him like the Jew, and with ambition, ability, and persistence the race is pushing its way to the front. The young people are eager for an education, and are often among the keenest pupils in their classes. Later they make their mark in the professions as well as in business. The Jew has found a new Canaan in the West.

234. The Lesser Peoples.—Besides these great groups that constitute the bulk of the incoming millions, there are representatives from all the nations and tribes of Europe. All parts of Great Britain have sent their people, and from Canada so many have come as almost to impoverish certain sections. French-Canadians are numerous in the mill cities of New England. From the Netherlands there has always been a small contingent. Portugal has sent islanders from the Azores and Cape Verde. The Finns are here, the Lithuanians from Russia, the Magyars from Hungary. The Greeks are pouring in from their sunny hills and valleys; they rival the Italians in the fruit trade, and monopolize the bootblack industry in certain cities. With the twentieth century have come the Turks and their Asiatic subjects, the Syrians and the Armenians. All these peoples have race peculiarities, prejudices, and superstitions. Most of their members belong in the lower grades of society and their coming is a distinct danger to the nation's future. There can be no question, of course, that individuals among them possess ability and even talent, and that certain groups like those from Great Britain and the Netherlands are exceptions to the general rule, but there is a strong conviction among social workers and students that those who are here should be assimilated before many more arrive. Definite measures are advocated by which it is expected that the government or private agencies may be able to make over these latest aliens into reputable, useful American citizens.

235. Public Attitude toward Immigration.—Although interest in national and immigrant welfare is far less keen than it well might be, the tremendous consequences of the wide-spread movement have not passed unnoticed. Wage-earners already here have felt the effects of low-grade competition and have clamored for restrictive legislation. On race rather than economic grounds Asiatics have been excluded except for the few already here. Federal regulation has been increased with reference to all immigrant traffic. This has been based increasingly on investigation by private effort and government commission, and governments and churches have established bureaus on immigration. Aid associations maintain agents to safeguard the newcomer from exploitation, both on the journey and in port. From all these sources a body of information has been gathered that throws light on the causes and effects of immigration.

236. Causes and Effects.—The primary cause is industrial. The desire of the people to improve their economic and social condition is the compelling motive that drives them, in spite of homesickness and ignorance, to venture into an unknown country and to face dangers and difficulties that could not be foreseen. Three out of four who come are males, pioneers oftentimes of a family that looks forward to a larger migration later on. Friends on this side encourage others and commonly supply the necessary funds. Eighty per cent of all who come into Massachusetts make the venture in hope of finding better industrial conditions or to join relatives or friends. In some countries, like Russia, religious and political oppression are expelling causes, and the military service required by the European Powers drives young men away. It has been demonstrated that forty per cent of the immigration is not permanent, but that for various reasons individuals return for a season, some permanently.

Immigration has its good and bad effects. There are certain good qualities in many of the immigrant strains that are valuable to American character, and it cannot be denied that the exploitation of national resources and the execution of public works could not have been accomplished so rapidly without the immigrant. But the bad effects furnish a problem that is not easily solved. Immigrants come now in such large numbers that they tend to form alien groups of increasing proportions in the midst of the great cities. There is danger that the city will become a collection of districts—little Italy, little Hungary, and little Syria—and the sense of civic unity be destroyed. Even more significant is the high birth-rate of the foreigner. Statistics show that with the greater birth-rate of the immigrants there is a corresponding decline in the native birth-rate, so that the alien is supplanting the native American stock. Along with race degeneracy goes lack of industrial skill and declining wages, for the foreigner is ignorant, often unorganized, and willing to work and live under worse conditions than the native American. Among the disastrous social effects are increasing poverty and crime, lack of sanitation, and an increase of diseases that thrive in filth. Illiteracy and slow mentality lower the general level of intelligence. Lack of training in democracy renders the average immigrant a poor citizen, though some State laws give him the ballot without delay. In morals and religion there is more loss than gain by immigration. American liberty tends to become license, scores of thousands lose all interest in the church, and moral restraint is thrown off with the ecclesiastical yoke. Plainly when the immigrant population is predominant in a great city the problem of immigration becomes vital not only to the local municipality but also to the nation, which is fast becoming urban.

237. Americanizing the Alien.—After all is said, the immigrant problem is not insoluble. There is much in the situation to make one optimistic. Thus far the native stock has been able to survive and to give its best to the newcomer. The immigrant himself has no desire to destroy American institutions. He comes longing to share in their benefits. America is to him an Eldorado, a promised land flowing with milk and honey. His children, through the schools and other contacts, learn the language that his tongue is slow to acquire, and absorb the ideas and ideals that are typically American. After all, it is the spirit rather than the form of the institutions that make them valuable. The upper-class American, who is too indifferent to go to the polls on election day, is less patriotic and more harmful to American institutions than the Italian who is too ignorant to vote, but would die on the battle-field for the defense of his adopted country. Many agencies are at work to help the alien adjust himself to American ways and to make him into a good citizen. In the last resort the Americanization of the foreigner rests with the attitude of the native American toward him rather than with the immigrant himself.

READING REFERENCES

ROSS: The Old World in the New, pages 24-304.

FAIRCHILD: Immigration, pages 213-368.

COMMONS: Races and Immigrants in America, pages 198-238.

ROBERTS: The New Immigration.

JENKS AND LAUCK: Immigration.

WOODS: Americans in Process.

WILLIS: "Findings of the Immigration Commission," art. in The Survey, 25: 571-578.



CHAPTER XXXI

HOW THE WORKING PEOPLE LIVE

238. In Europe.—A large proportion of the immigrants from Europe have been peasants who have come out of rural villages to find a home in the barracks of American cities. In the Old World they have lived in houses that lacked comfort and convenience; they have worked hard through a long day for small returns; and a government less liberal and more burdened than the United States has mulcted them of much of their small income by heavy taxes. Young men have lost two or three years in compulsory military training, and their absence has kept the women in the fields. From the barracks men often return with the stigma of disease upon them, which, added to the common social evils of intemperance and careless sex relations, keeps moral standards low. Thousands of them are illiterate, few of them have time for recreation, and those who do understand little of its possibilities. Religion is largely a matter of inherited superstition, and as a superior force in life is quite lacking. To people of this sort comes the vision of a land where government is democratic, military conscription is unknown, wages are high, and there is unlimited opportunity to get ahead. Encouraged by agents of interested parties, many a man accumulates or borrows enough money to pay his passage and to get by the immigration officer on the American side, and faces westward with high hope of bettering his condition.

239. In America.—On the pier in America he is met by a friend or finds his way by force of gravity into the immigrant district of the city. Usually unmarried, he is glad to find a boarding place with a compatriot, who cheerfully admits him to a share of his small tenement, because he will help to pay the rent. With assistance he finds a job and within a week regards himself as an American. Later if it seems worth while he will take steps to become a citizen, but recently immigrants are less disposed to do this than formerly. Many immigrants do not find their new home in the port of landing; they are booked through to interior points or locate in a manufacturing town within comfortable reach of the great city; but they find a place in the midst of conditions that are not far different. Unskilled Italians commonly join construction gangs, and for weeks at a time make their home in a temporary shack which quickly becomes unsanitary. Wherever the immigrant goes he tends to form foreign colonies and to reproduce the low standards of living to which he has been accustomed. If he could be introduced to better habits and surrounded with improved conditions from the moment of his arrival he would gain much for himself, and far more speedily would become assimilated into an American; as it is, he is introducing foreign elements on a large scale into a city life that is overburdened with problems already.

Changes in the manner of living are often for the worse. Instead of their village houses set in the midst of the open fields here, they herd like rabbits in overpopulated, unhealthy warrens, frequently sleeping in rooms continually dark and ill-ventilated. They still work for long hours, but here under conditions that breed discouragement and disease, in the sweat-shop or the dingy factory, and often in an occupation dangerous to life or limb. Though they are free from the temptations of the military quarters, they find them as numerous at the corner saloon and the brothel, and even in the overcrowded tenement itself. If they bring over their families or marry here, they can expect no better home than the tenement, unless they have the courage to get out into the country, away from all that which is familiar. Rather than do that or knowing no better way, they swarm with others of their kind in the immigrant hive.

240. Tenement House Conditions.—In New York large tenements from five to seven stories high, with three or four families on each floor, shelter many thousands of the city's workers. These are often built on lots too small to permit of air and light space between buildings. Some of them contain over a hundred individuals. Three-fourths of the population of Manhattan is in dwellings that house not less than twenty persons each. The density of population is one hundred and fifty to the acre. Twelve to eighteen dollars a month are charged for a suite of four rooms, some of them no better than dark closets. Instances can be multiplied where adults of both sexes and children are crowded into one or two rooms, where they cook, eat, and sleep, and where privacy is impossible. Thousands of children grow up unmoral, if not immoral, because their natural sense of modesty and decency has been blunted from childhood. The poorest classes live in cellars that reek with disease germs of the worst kind, and sanitary conditions are indescribable.

If these conditions were confined to the immigrant population, Americans might shrug their shoulders and dismiss the subject with disparaging remarks about the dirty foreigner, but housing conditions like these are not restricted to the immigrant, whether he be Jew or Gentile. The American working man who finds work in the factory towns is little better off. The natural desire of landlords to spend as little as possible on their property, and to get the largest possible returns, makes it very difficult for the worker to find a suitable home for his family that he can afford to pay for. Yet he must live near his work to save time and expense. Old and dilapidated houses are ready for his occupancy, but though they are often not so bad as the large tenements, with their more attractive exteriors, they are not fit dwellings for his growing family. A flat in a three-decker may be obtained at a moderate rental, but such houses are usually poorly built, of the flimsiest inflammable material, and they, too, lack privacy and modern conveniences.

241. Effects of these Conditions.—It must not be supposed that these evils have been overlooked. Building associations and private philanthropists have erected improved tenements, and have proved that the right sort of structures may be made paying investments. State and municipal governments have appointed commissions and departments on housing, fire protection has been provided, better sanitary conditions have been enforced, and hopelessly bad buildings have been destroyed. But slums grow faster than they can be improved, and the rapidly growing tenement districts need more drastic and comprehensive measures than have yet been taken. The housing problem affects the tenant first of all, and in countless instances his unwholesome environment is ruining his health, ability, and character; but it also affects the community and the nation, for persons produced by such an environment do not make good citizens. The roots of family life are destroyed, gaunt poverty and loathsome disease hold hands along dark and dirty stairways and through the halls, foul language mingles with the foul air, and drunkenness is so common as to excite no remark. Sexual impurity finds its nest amid the darkness and ill-endowed children swarm in the streets.

242. Possible Improvements.—There must be some way out of these evil conditions that is practicable and that will be permanent. Those who are interested in housing reform favor two kinds of measures—first, the prevention of building in the future the kind of houses that have become so common but so unsatisfactory, and the improvement of those already in existence; second, provision of inexpensive, attractive, and sanitary dwellings outside of the city, and cheap and rapid transit to and from the places of labor. Both of these methods are practicable either by voluntary association or State action, and both are called for by the social need of the present. There are definite principles to be observed in the redistribution of population. The principle of association calls for group life in a neighborhood, and it is as idle to think that people from the slums can be contented on isolated farms as it is to suppose that they can be converted readily into prosperous American agriculturists. Close connection with the town is indispensable. The principle of adaptation demands that the new homes shall answer to the needs of the people for whom they are provided, and that the neighborhood shall be suited to those needs. The houses will need to be enough better than those in town to offset the greater effort of travel. The principle of control demands that the new life of the people be regulated as effectively as it can be by municipal authority, and if necessary that such municipal authority be extended or State authority be localized. There are difficulties in the way of all such enterprises, but social welfare requires improvements in the way the working people live.

It is notorious that immigrants and working people generally have larger families than the well-to-do. The children of the city streets form a class of future citizens that deserve most careful attention. The problem of the tenement and the flat is especially serious, because they are the factories of human life. There the next generation is in the making, and there can be no doubt about the quality of the product if conditions continue as they are. It is important to inquire how the children live, what are their occupations and means of recreation, their moral incentives and temptations, and their opportunities for the development of personality.

243. How the Children Live.—The best way to understand how the children live is to put oneself in their place. Imagine waking in the morning in a stuffy, overcrowded room, eating a slice of bread or an onion for breakfast and looking forward to a bite for lunch and an ill-cooked evening meal, or in many cases starting out for the day without any breakfast, glad to leave the tenement for the street, and staying there throughout waking hours, when not in school, using it for playground, lunch-room, and loafing-place, and regarding it as pleasanter than home. Imagine going to school half fed and poorly clothed, sometimes the butt of a playmate's gibes because of a drunken father or a slatternly mother, required to study subjects that make no appeal to the child and in a language that is not native, and then back to the street, perhaps to sell papers until far into the night, or to run at the beck and call of the public as a messenger boy. Many a child, in spite of the public opposition to child labor, is put to work to help support the family, and department store and bootblack parlor are conspicuous among their places of occupation. Mills and factories employ them for special kinds of labor, and States are lax in the enforcement of child-labor laws after they are on the statute books.

244. The Street Trades.—Employment in the street trades is very common among the children of the tenements. There are numerous opportunities to peddle fruit and small wares at a small wage; messenger and news boys are always in demand, and the bootblacking industry absorbs many of the immigrant class. By these means the family income is pieced out, sometimes wholly provided, but the ill effects of such child labor are disturbing to the peace of mind of the well-wishers of children. Street labor works physical injury from exposure to inclement weather and to accident, from too great fatigue, and from irregular habits of eating and sleeping. It provokes resort to stimulants and sows the seeds of disease, vice, and petty crime. Moral deterioration follows from the bad habits formed, from the encouragement to lawbreaking and independence of parental authority, and from the evil environment of the people and places with which they come into contact. Children are susceptible to the influence of their elders, and easily form attachments for those who treat them well. Saloons and disorderly houses are their patrons, and when still young the children learn to imitate those whom they see and hear. Even for the children who do not work, the street has its influence for evil. The street was intended as a means of transit, not for trade or play, but it is the most convenient place for games and social enjoyments of all sorts. The little people become familiar with profane and obscene language, with quarrelling and dishonesty, and even with more serious crime, and no intellectual education in the schoolroom can counteract the moral lessons of the street.

245. Playgrounds.—Various experiments for keeping children off the street have been proposed and tried. Vacation schools in the summer provide interesting occupations and talks for those who can be induced to attend; their success is assured, but they reach only a small part of the children. Gymnasiums in the winter attract others of the older class, but the most useful experiments are equipped and supervised playgrounds. For the small children sand piles have met the desire for occupation, and kindergarten games have satisfied the instinct for association. The primitive nature of the child demanded change, and one kind of game after another was added for those of different ages. Swings, climbing ladders, and poles are always popular, and for the older boys opportunities for ball playing, skating, and coasting. All these activities must be under control. The characteristics of children on the playground are the same as those of their elders in society. Authority and instruction are as necessary as in school; indeed, playgrounds are a supplement to the indoor education of American children.

246. The City School.—The school is expected to be the foster-mother of every American child, whether native or adopted. It is expected to take the children from the avenue and the slum, those with the best influences of heredity and environment, and those with the worst, those who are in good health and those who are never well, and putting them all through the same intellectual process, to turn out a finished product of boys and girls qualified for American citizenship. It is an unreasonable expectation, and the American school falls far short of meeting its responsibility. It often has to work with the poorest kind of material, sometimes it has to feed the pupil before his mental powers can get to work. It has to see that the physical organs function properly before it can get satisfactory intellectual results. The school is the victim of an educational system that was made to fit other conditions than those of the present-day city; the whole system needs reconstructing, but the management is conservative, ignorant, or parsimonious in many cases, or too radical and given to fads and experiments. Yet, in spite of all its faults and delinquencies, the public schools of the city are the hope of the future.

The school is the melting-pot of the city's youth. It is the training-school of municipal society. In the absence of family training it provides the social education that is necessary to equip the child for life. It accustoms him to an orderly group life and establishes relations with others of similar age from other streets or neighborhoods than those with which he is familiar. It teaches him how intelligent public opinion is formed, and brings him within the circle of larger interests than those with which he is naturally connected. He learns how to accommodate himself to the group rather than to fight or worm his way through for a desired end, as is the method of the street. He learns good morals and good manners. He finds out that there are better ways of expressing his ideas than in the slang of the alley, and in time he gains an understanding of a social leadership that depends on mental and moral superiority instead of physical strength or agility. As he grows older he becomes acquainted with the worth of established institutions, and his hand is no longer against every man and every man's hand against him. He likes to share in the social activities that occur as by-products of the school—the musical and dramatic entertainments, the athletic contests, and the debating and oratorical rivalries. By degrees he becomes aware that he is a responsible member of society, that he is an individual unit in a great aggregation of busy people doing the work of the world, and that the school is given him to make it possible for him to play well his part in the activities of the city and nation to which he belongs.

READING REFERENCES

VEILLER: Housing Reform, pages 3-46.

RIIS: How the Other Half Lives.

CLOPPER: Child Labor in the City Streets.

MARTIN: "Exhibit of Congestion," art. in The Survey,20: 27-39.

GOODYEAR: "Household Budgets of the Poor," art. in Charities, 16: 191-197.

"The Pittsburgh Survey," arts, in The Survey, vol. 21.

LEE: Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy, pages 109-184.



CHAPTER XXXII

THE DIVERSIONS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE

247. The Demand for Recreation.—The natural instinct for recreation is felt by the working people in common with persons of every class. They cannot afford to spend on the grand scale of those who patronize the best theatres and concerts, nor can they relax all summer at mountains or seashore, or play golf in the winter at Pinehurst or Palm Beach. They get their pleasures in a less expensive way in the parks or at the beach resorts in the summer, and at the "movies," dance-halls, and cheap theatres in the winter. They have little money to spend, but they get more real enjoyment out of a dime or a quarter than thousands of dollars give to some society buds and millionaires who are surfeited with pleasure. Recreation to the working people is not an occupation but a diversion. Their occupation is usually strenuous enough to furnish an appetite for entertainment, and they are not particular as to its character, though the more piquant it is the greater is the satisfaction. Craving for excitement and a stimulus that will restore their depleted energies, they flock into the dance-halls and the saloons, where they find the temporary satisfaction that they wanted, but where they are tempted to lose the control that civilization has put upon the primitive passions and to let the primitive instincts have their sway.

It is a prerogative of childhood to be active. If activity is one of the striking characteristics of all social life, it is especially so of child life. The country child has all out-of-doors for the scope of his energies, the city boy and girl are cramped by the tenement and the narrow street, with occasional resort to a small park. It requires ingenuity to devise methods of diversion in such small areas, but necessity is the mother of invention, and the children of the city become expert in outwitting those whose business it is to keep them within bounds. This kind of education has a smack of practicality in that it sharpens the wits for the struggle for existence that makes up much of the experience of city folk, but it also tends to develop a crookedness in mental and moral habits through the constant effort to get ahead of the agents of social control.

248. Street Games.—To understand how the youth of the city get their diversions it is well to examine a cross-section of city life on Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Family quarters are crowded. Tenements and apartments have little spare space inside or outside. Children find it decidedly irksome indoors and naturally gravitate to the street, to the relief of their elders and their own satisfaction. There they quickly find associates and proceed to give expression to their restless spirits. It is the child's nature to play, and he uses all his wits to find the materials and the room for sport. His ingenuity can adapt sticks and stones to a variety of uses, but the street makes a sorry substitute for a ball-field, and while the girl may content herself with the sidewalk and door-steps, the boy soon looks abroad for a more satisfying occupation. Among the gangs of city boys no diversion is more enjoyable than the game of craps, learned from the Southern negro. With a pair of dice purchased for a cent or two at the corner news-stand and a few pennies obtained by newspaper selling or petty thieving the youngster is equipped with the necessary implements for gambling, and he soon becomes adept in cleaning out the pockets of the other fellows.

249. Young People's Amusements.—Meantime the older boys and girls are seeking their diversions. At fourteen or fifteen most of them have found work in factory or store, but evenings and Sundays they, too, are looking for diversion. The girls find it attractive to walk the streets, while the boys frequent the cheap pool-room, where they find a chance to gamble and listen to the tales of the idlers who find employment as cheap thieves and hangers-on of immoral houses. From these headquarters they sally forth upon the streets to find association with the other sex, and together they give themselves up to a few hours' entertainment. A few are contented to promenade the streets, but amusement houses are cheap, and the "movies" and vaudeville shows attract the crowd. For a few dimes a couple can have a wide range of choice. If the tonic of the playhouse is not sufficient, a small fee admits to the public dance-hall, where it is easy to meet new acquaintances and to find a partner who will go to any length in the mad hunt for pleasures that will satisfy. From the dance-hall it is an easy path to the saloon and the brothel, as it is from the game of craps and the pool-room to the gambling-den and the criminal joint. It is the lack of proper means for diversion and proper oversight of places of entertainment that is increasing the vice, drunkenness, and crime that curse the lives of thousands and give to the city an evil reputation.