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ADJUSTING
IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Americanization Studies
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY.
William M. Leiserson, Chairman, Labor Adjustment Boards,
Rochester and New York
THE IMMIGRANT'S DAT IN COURT.
Kate Holladay Claghorn, Instructor in Social Research, New
York School of Social Work
SCHOOLING OF THE IMMIGRANT.
Frank V. Thompson, Supt. of Public Schools, Boston
AMERICAN VIA THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
John Daniels
OLD WORLD TRAITS TRANSPLANTED.
Robert E. Park, Professorial Lecturer, University of Chicago
Herbert A. Miller, Professor of Sociology, Oberlin College
A STAKE IN THE LAND.
Peter A. Speck, in charge, Slavic Section, Library of Congress
IMMIGRANT HEALTH AND THE COMMUNITY.
Michael M. Davis, Jr., Director, Boston Dispensary
NEW HOMES FOR OLD.
Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, Professor of Social Economy, Uni-
versity of Chicago
THE IMMIGRANT PRESS AND ITS CONTROL.
Robert E. Park, Professorial Lecturer, University of Chicago
AMERICANS BY CHOICE.
John P. Gavit, Vice-President, New York Evening Post
SUMMARY. (In preparation)
Allen T. Burns, Director, Studies in Methods of Americanization
Harper & Brothers Publishers
AMERICANIZATION STUDIES
ALLEN T. BURNS, DIRECTOR
ADJUSTING
IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
BY
WILLIAM M. LEISERSON, PH.D.
Professor in the University of the City of Toledo,
Chairman, Arbitration Boards, Clothing Industry,
New York and Baltimore
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1924
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Copyright, 1924
By Harper & Brothers
Printed in the U. S. A.
First Edition
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
THE material in this volume was gathered by the
Division of Legal Protection and Correction of
Studies in Methods of Americanization.
Americanization in this study has been consid-
ered as the union of native and foreign born in all
the most fundamental relationships and activities
of our national life. For Americanization is the
uniting of new with native-born Americans in fuller
common understanding and appreciation to secure
by means of self-government the highest welfare
of all. Such Americanization should perpetuate
no unchangeable political, domestic, and economic
regime delivered once for all to the fathers, but a
growing and broadening national life, inclusive of
the best wherever found. With all our rich her-
itages, Americanism will develop best through a
mutual giving and taking of contributions from
both newer and older Americans in the interest of
the commonweal. This study has followed such
an understanding of Americanization.
FOREWORD
THIS volume is the result of studies in methods
of Americanization prepared through funds fur-
nished by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
It arose out of the fact that constant applications
were being made to the Corporation for contribu-
tions to the work of numerous agencies engaged
in various forms of social activity intended to
extend among the people of the United States
the knowledge of their government and their obli-
gations to it. The trustees felt that a study which
should set forth, not theories of social betterment,
but a description of the methods of the various
agencies engaged in such work, would be of dis-
tinct value to the cause itself and to the public.
The outcome of the study is contained in eleven
volumes on the following subjects: Schooling of
the Immigrant ; The Press; Adjustment of Homes
and Family Life; Legal Protection and Correction;
Health Standards and Care; Naturalization and
Political Life; Industrial and Economic Amal-
gamation; Treatment of Immigrant Heritages;
Neighborhood Agencies and Organization; Rural
Developments; and Summary. The entire study
has been carried out under the general direction of
Mr. Allen T. Burns. Each volume appears in the
vii
FOREWORD
name of the author who had immediate charge of
the particular field it is intended to cover.
Upon the invitation of the Carnegie Corpora-
tion a committee consisting of the late Theodore
Roosevelt, Prof. John Graham Brooks, Dr. John
M. Glenn, and Mr. John A. Voll has acted in an
advisory capacity to the director. An editorial
committee consisting of Dr. Talcott Williams, Dr.
Raymond B. Fosdick, and Dr. Edwin F. Gay has
read and criticized the manuscripts. To both of
these committees the trustees of the Carnegie Cor-
poration are much indebted.
The purpose of the report is to give as clear a
notion as possible of the methods of the agencies
actually at work in this field and not to propose
theories for dealing with the complicated questions
involved.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FACE
Publisher's Note v
Foreword vii
Table of Contents ix
List of Tables xiii
Author's Note xv
CHAPTER
I. INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION 3
What Is Americanization? 3
Industry and the Immigrant 5
Points of View 19
Immigrant Industrial Experiences and TTieir
Effect 24
II. FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY 28
Blind Search for Work 29
Friends and Relatives Help 31
"Want Ads" 82
Employment Agents 35
Philanthropic Placement Agencies 39
Trade-union Help 40
Employers' Efforts 42
Results 43
HI. EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE 49
The Problem of Distribution and Placement 49
Disconnected Employment Agencies 51
The United States Employment Service 55
The Employment Service and the Immigrant 57
Business Methods of Placement Agencies 59
IV. THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT 65
Employers' Views of Americanization 65
An Enlightened Policy in a Mill Town 66
ix
CONTENTS
CH
PAGE
The Policy That Alienates 70
Changing Attitudes
A New Day for the Immigrant Wage-earner 76
V. MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES 80
"Americanization Classes" 80
Americanization through Management 83
Plant Labor Departments 85
Hiring Immigrant Workers 86
Balancing Nationalities 92
Inducting the Immigrant into the Shop 94
Promotion and Transfers 98
Complaints, Grievances, and Discharges 100
VI. TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER 104
An Adjustment That Industry Has to Make 104
Is Training of Unskilled Workers Necessary? 105
Successful Training of War Workers 108
Applying War-training Methods to Immi-
grant Workers 110
"Vestibule Schools" 111
Some Results of Training 115
Teaching English for Productive Efficiency 118
Development of English Instruction in Fac-
tories 120
The Methods of the Factory Classes 122
VH. AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS FOR THE IM-
MIGRANT 126
Hours of Labor 126
Wages 128
Safety, Sanitation, and Other Physical Con-
ditions 133
Medical Service 138
Home Visiting 189
Lunch Rooms 140
Recreation 142
Plant Periodicals 144
Welfare Services 145
CONTENTS
CBATTKB VAQE
Vin. A VOICE IN DETERMINING WORKING CONDITIONS 149
Americanizing the Management 150
Reasons for Employee Representation 152
Kinds of Employee Representation 154
Organization of Representation Plans 156
Methods of Operation 161
Works Councils as Americanizing Agencies 164
IX. ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT 169
Immigrant Organizers of American Unions 170
The Organizability of Immigrants 174
The I. W. W. and the Immigrant 178
X. TYPICAL TRADE-UNION EXPERIENCES WITH IM-
MIGRANT WORKERS 185
The Miners 185
Packing-house Employees 191
Iron and Steel Workers 197
Textile Workers 201
Clothing Workers 206
XI. UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT 215
Company Management and Union Manage-
ment 215
The Methods of the Miners 217
Methods and Policies of Other Unions 221
Requirements of Good Management 224
Effects of Poor Union Management 227
XII. TRADE-UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES 234
XIII. THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY 246
Sharing the Gifts of America 247
Restricting the Immigrant's Opportunities 249
Effects of Discrimination 253
Government Responsibility as Some States
See It 256
State Departments of Immigrant Education 260
Policies 262
Complaint or Trouble Bureaus 265
Publicity Measures 269
CONTENTS
PAGE
Supervision of Work Places 271
Education and Naturalization 272
Inadequate Appropriations 278
A Unified Policy 275
XTV. IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP 278
Immigrant Aid Societies 278
Immigrant Distribution Agencies 288
Immigrant Labor Federations 285
An Immigrant Bureau of Industry 288
Immigrant Cooperative Societies 289
The Immigrants* Own Agencies and the Amer-
ican Community 294
XV. SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN IMMIGRANT
WORKER 297
Extent of Employment of Immigrant Women 297
Occupations in Europe and America 300
Adjustment Advantages in Employment 308
Immigrant Married Women in Industry 307
Learning the Language 314
Boarding Homes for Immigrant Working Girls 319
XVI. ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY — A NA-
TIONAL POLICY 332
Combining Experience in a United States Im-
migration Commission 334
Immigration Policy — Domestic and Foreign 336
Distribution and Placement 338
Adjusting the Immigrants Industrial Rela-
tions 341
Relations of Immigrant to American Govern-
ment 345
Conclusion 347
INDEX 349
xn
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE PAGE
I. Number and Per Cent Foreign Born in General
Divisions of Occupations, 1910 7
II. Per Cent Foreign Born by Industries, Showing
Greater Percentages than Average of General
Division of Occupations, 1910 8
m. Principal Occupations in which Half or More
of the Wage-earners were Foreign Born in
1910 11
IV. Per Cent of Foreign-born Employees in Twenty
Principal Mining and Manufacturing Indus-
tries and Sixteen Minor Industries 13
V. Per Cent of Employees within Each Group by
Sex and General Nativity 18
VI. Accident Rates among Foreign-born and Native-
born Employees 134
VII. Benefits Paid by Affiliated Organizations of the
American Federation of Labor in 1910 £22
VIII. Total Number of Women, and Number and Per
Cent of Foreign-born Women, Gainfully Em-
ployed in Manufacturing and Mechanical In-
dustries in the United States 299
IX. Per Cent of Foreign-born Women Employees in
Each Specified Occupation before Coming to
the United States, by Race, for Selected Races 301
X. Conjugal Condition of Foreign-born Women
Sixteen Years of Age and Over Gainfully Em-
ployed in Selected Industries 308
XI. Number, Per Cent, and Reasons for Working of
Married Foreign-born Women 309
XII. Organized Boarding Facilities for Foreign-born
Women Wage-earners, New York City 330
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Acknowledgment is due to Miss Bertha M. Stevens,
who directed the gathering of facts relating to immi-
grant workingwomen, and to Miss Henrietta Walter,
who assisted her; to David J. Saposs, who gathered the
material relating to immigrants and trade-unions; to
John J. Meily and to Willis W. Wisler, who assisted
in the investigation of employers' methods of managing
immigrant employees. For any shortcomings of the
work, however, I alone am responsible.
W. M. L.
TV
ADJUSTING
IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT
AND INDUSTRY
CHAPTER I
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
IF Americanization means that the immigrant must be
made over into an Anglo-Saxon, with the tempera-
ment, traditions, and characteristics of that race, then
deliberate and organized efforts in that direction would
be impractical, and a study of methods of Americani-
zation futile. Only mixing of blood with Anglo-Saxon
influences predominating could bring this result; and
centuries must be allowed for the process. A uniting
of minds, however, that enables immigrants of the
most diverse races to cooperate with one another and
with the native-born population to further national
ends, may be created in the first generation; and this
can be promoted by deliberate organization and edu-
cation.
WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION?
Was it more than the development of such a unity of
mind that made Americans of immigrants like Carl
Schurz, Jacob Riis, Joseph Pulitzer, Oscar Straus,
Franklin Lane, Edward Bok, Samuel Gompers, and
many others that will readily come to mind? In be-
liefs, culture, and tradition these men differed as the
nations from which they came differ; it was not neces-
sary for them to renounce their family ties, their reli-
gions, or the traditions of the races from which they
sprang in order to be recognized as great Americans.
3
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Only political allegiance did they have to give up, and
manners and habits unsuited to the American environ-
ment.
There are unhopeful prophets who see in the gathering together
of men into one community the possibility of violent race conflicts, —
conflicts for ascendency, but that is to suppose that civilization is
incapable of adjustments by which men of different qualities and
temperaments and appearances will live side by side, following
different rdles and contributing diverse gifts. The weaving of
mankind into one community does not imply the creation of a
homogeneous community, but rather the reverse: the welcome and
the adequate utilization of distinctive quality in an atmosphere
of understanding. It is the almost universal bad manners of the
present age which make race intolerable of race. The community
to which we may be moving will be more mixed — which does not
necessarily mean more interbred — more serious and more interest-
ing than any existing community. Communities all to one pat-
tern, like boxes of toy soldiers, are things of the past rather than
the future.1
It was a common observation during the recent war
that the united thought and action demanded by the
great enterprise stimulated tremendously the weaving
of all our diverse peoples into one nation. The recent
immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were
drawn together with the older immigrants from north-
ern Europe and with the native-born population in
rapid and dramatic fashion by the common tasks that
the conflict imposed on all our people, just as the
Civil War united the Irish and German immigrants of
the forties and fifties with the rest of the population. A
similar, and perhaps more permanent, union of the
minds of immigrants with the native born is constantly
being developed by the common experiences of every-
day life in America, as the careers of well-known
Americans of foreign birth serve to show. Through
their experiences in neighborhood activities, in public
1 H. G. Wells, The Outline of History, Vol. II, pp. 592-593.
4
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
schools, in politics, on farms and in their places of em-
ployment, immigrants learn to know America, learn to
understand their neighbors, to work with them, and to
develop that unity of mind with their fellow citizens
which creates the common nationality.
How the immigrant is brought into the web of
American life through the formal processes of educa-
tion, through naturalization and political activity,
through his press, his home, his neighborhood, etc., has
been treated in other volumes of this series. In the
present volume we are concerned only with his indus-
trial experiences in America. How do the common
experiences of gaining a livelihood in American indus-
try develop unity of mind between native born and
immigrant employees? How do the mutual adjust-
ments that have to be made between the immigrant
and his fellow-workers and employers bring all into a
united American citizenship?
INDUSTRY AND THE IMMIGRANT
If the task of fusing immigrant and native-born popu-
lation into a united nation is any more urgent or more
difficult to-day than it was fifty or sixty years ago, it
is because greater need and greater difficulty have de-
veloped among the wage-earners in our industries. In
total numbers the ratio of foreign born to native popu-
lation has been practically the same since 1860 — about
1 to 7.1 But while only about one seventh of the total
population is foreign born, immigrants constitute a
very much larger proportion of our industrial popula-
1 Per cent Foreign Born of Total Population 1860 to 1920
1860, Per cent Foreign Born, 13.2 1900, Per cent Foreign Born, 13.6
1870, " " 14.4 1910, ' 14.7
1880, " " 13.3 1920, ' 13.0
1890, ' 14.7
5
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
tion. Such factory towns as Lowell, Fall River,
Lawrence, Woonsocket, and Perth Amboy, as well as
New York City, had more than 40 per cent foreign
born in 1910; and in at least twenty other cities, includ-
ing Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Boston, more
than a third were of foreign birth.
The Fourteenth Census, 1920, has not greatly
changed these figures. The percentage of foreign born
for leading industrial cities are: New York, 35.4;
Boston, 31.9; Cleveland, 30.1; Chicago, 29.8; De-
troit, 29.1; Duluth, 30.4; Bridgeport, 32.3; Lawrence,
41.4; Fall River, 35.1; New Bedford, 40.2; Passaic,
41.3; Paterson, 33.2; Perth Amboy, 35.8; Woon-
socket, 36.8. In all the large industrial centers, the
foreign born, together with their children, make up a
majority of the population.
Something of the concentration of immigrants in in-
dustrial employment may be seen in the following
table giving the proportions of foreign born in the
general divisions of occupations as classified by the
United States Census:
It will be noted that in agriculture less than 10 per
cent of the persons engaged are immigrants, a smaller
proportion than the number of foreign born to the
population as a whole. On the other hand, immi-
grants constitute 36 per cent of the men engaged in
manufacturing industries and more than 45 per cent of
those in mining. In the extraction of minerals the
total number of women employed is negligible, but in
manufacturing women are an important factor and
more than a fourth of these are foreign born. The
building and hand trades, in which skilled mechanics
predominate, have a somewhat smaller proportion of
immigrants than mining and manufacturing, namely
27 per cent, and in the transportation industries just
one fourth of the men engaged were born abroad.
6
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
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II
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
These percentages represent averages of all the in-
dustries in each group, some of which have quite a
small proportion of foreign born, while others have a
much higher percentage than the average. When we
look to the individual industries in each group, the
concentration of immigrants in industrial employment
stands out more clearly. In Table II we have tabu-
lated all those industries in each general group which
have a greater percentage of foreign born than is shown
for the group as a whole.
TABLE II
PER CENT FOREIGN BORN BY INDUSTRIES, SHOWING GREATER PER-
CENTAGE THAN AVERAGE OF GENERAL DIVISION OF OCCUPATIONS,
1910 1
INDUSTRY
PER CENT
FOREIGN
BOHN
Agricultural Pursuits 9.6 2
Forestry 24.4
Animal Husbandry 19.5
Extraction of Minerals 45.4
Coal Mines 48.3
Copper Mines 65.4
Iron Mines 66.8
Salt Mines, Wells, etc 46.3
Transportation 25.0
Water Transportation 38.7
Construction of Roads, etc 46.0
Street and Electric Railways 27.7
Steam Railroads 26.7
Manufacturing Industries 36.0
Soap Factories 38.2
Miscellaneous Chemical Factories 39.2
Lime Factories 40.0
Marble Factories 44.2
Clothing Factories (M.) 75.3
1 Compiled from U. S. Census, Vol. IV, Table VI, p. 302.
2 Percentages are for males only, except where F. indicates female.
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
INDUSTBY
Manufacturing Industries (Continued)
Clothing Factories (F.) 45.2
Hat Factories 42.4
Bakeries 50.5
Slaughter and Packing Houses 45.8
Sugar Refineries 54.0
Agricultural Implements 37.5
Blast Furnaces 51.0
Car Factories 45.6
Iron 39.9
Leather Belt 50.9
Tanneries 52.9
Breweries 49.2
Furniture Factories 37.7
Piano Factories 43.2
Brass Factories 45.8
Copper Factories 64.0
Lead Factories 44.2
Tin Plate Mills 47.6
Miscellaneous Metal Factories 41.6
Paper and Pulp Mills 36.2
Carpet Factories 48.3
Cotton Mills (M.) 36.4
Cotton Mills (F.) 36.0
Hemp Mills (M.) 50.8
Hemp Mills (F.) 75.7
Lace Mills (M.) 57.2
Lace Mills (F.) 32.8
Rope Mills (M.) 44.0
Rope Mills (F.) 34.6
Silk Mills (M.) 46.5
Silk Mills (F.) 21.8
Woolen Mills (M.) 48.7
Woolen Mills (F.) 50.0
Dyeing 48.7
Other Textiles (M.) 40.2
Other Textiles (F.) 24.7
Charcoal 57.3
Oil Refineries 36.2
Rubber Factories . . 40.3
PER CENT
FOREIGN
BOBN
9
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
This table reveals that almost one fourth of those in
forestry occupations and practically one fifth of those
in animal husbandry are immigrants. These occupa-
tions are included in agriculture as a whole, for which
less than 10 per cent is the proportion of foreign born.
They are industrialized occupations and immigrants
are found in them in much greater proportions than in
straight farm work.
In the mining industries, while the percentage of
foreign born for the whole group is 45, a higher per-
centage is shown by each of the three most important
industries in the group — coal, copper, and iron mines.
Almost half the men connected with coal mining and
two thirds of those in copper and iron mining are im-
migrants. Similarly in the transportation industries,
road construction shows 46 per cent foreign born as
compared with 25 per cent for the whole group of in-
dustries.
While but slightly over a third of the men engaged in
manufacturing are immigrants, all the more important
industries in this group show a larger proportion — iron
and steel, clothing and textiles, slaughter and packing
houses, bakeries, rubber factories, tanneries and sugar
refineries, all show more than 40 per cent foreign born,
and in a good many manufacturing industries more
than half the people engaged are immigrants.
But even these figures in Table II do not show the
full extent of the concentration of immigrants in in-
dustrial employments. They include all persons en-
gaged in the industries, proprietors, firm owners, sala-
ried officials, and clerical help as well as wage earners.
Among these "office workers," the proportion of im-
migrants is comparatively small. It is as a wage
worker in the manual occupations that the immigrant
stands out most plainly.
This is clearly shown in Table III, which lists the
10
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
principal occupations in which half or more of the
workers are foreign born.
TABLE III
PRINCIPAL OCCUPATIONS IN WHICH HALF OB MORE OF THE WAGE-
EARNERS WERE FOREIGN BORN IN 1910 1
OCCUPATION
PEBCEKT
FOREIGN
BORN
Extraction of Minerals
Coal Miners 53.1 *
Coal Mine Laborers 51.1
Copper Miners 69.4
Copper Mine Laborers - 68.1
Iron Miners 72.2
Iron Mine Laborers 69.3
Quarry Men 49.7
Quarry Laborers 51.1
Transportation
Electric and Steam Railway Laborers 55.9
Longshoremen 56.3
Sewer and Road Laborers 51.5
Steam Railways Track Laborers 50.5
Manufacturing Industries
Chemical Industries Laborers 56.0
Lime, Cement and Gypsum Laborers 51.1
Stone Cutters 49.8
Clothing Workers 79.2
Bakers 56.7
Butchers and Dressers 47.5
Laborers in Slaughter and Packing Houses 64.2
Sugar Refineries 71.4
Blast Furnaces and Rolling-Mill Laborers 70.0
Car and Railroad Shops Laborers 60.8
Foundry Laborers 62.6
Tanners.. 66.5
1 U. S. Census, Vol. IV, Table VI, p. S02.
2 Percentages are for males only, except where F. indicates female.
11
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
OCCUPATION
PER CKHI
FOREIGN
BORN
Manufacturing Industries (Continued)
Tannery Laborers 60.6
Cabinet Makers 56.6
Carpenters in Mills 57.5
Brass Mill Laborers 74.3
Copper Factories Laborers 79.8
Lead and Zinc Laborers 58.4
Tin Plate Mill Laborers 69.0
Carpet Weavers 51.1
Cotton Weavers (M.) 46.1
Cotton Weavers (F.) 48.0
Silk Weavers 56.8
Textile and Dyeing and Finishing 57.1
Woolen Mills Laborers 61.4
Woolen Weavers (M.) 53.2
Woolen Weavers (F.) 48.0
Woolen Spinners (M.) 44.5
Woolen Spinners (F.) 55.
Coke Drawers 73.
Coke Laborers 58.
Electric Supply 51.
Gas Works Laborers 56.
Oil Refineries Laborers 55.
Rubber Factory Laborers 57.
It will be noted that the occupations which in point
of numbers are most important have the largest pro-
portions of immigrants. In most of the great indus-
tries of the country at least half of the wage workers
are foreign born, while many occupations show two
thirds and some as high as 70 per cent foreign born.
In general, it is plain also from this table that the less
skilled the labor, the greater the percentage of foreign
born employed.
The United States Immigration Commission in 1909
made a study of the wage earners in twenty principal
12
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
mining and manufacturing industries and found that
of 500,000 workers employed, 60 per cent of the men
and 47 per cent of the women were foreign born. In
sixteen minor industries similarly studied the percent-
age of immigrants was found to be only slightly less.1
TABLE IV
PER CENT OF FOREIGN-BORN EMPLOYEES IN TWENTY PRINCIPAL
MINING AND MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES AND SIXTEEN MINOR
INDUSTRIES
PRINCIPAL INDUSTRII
PER CENT OF
EMPLOYEES
FOREIGN BORN
Agricultural implement and vehicle manufacturing .... 59.6
Boot and shoe manufacturing 27.3
Cigar and tobacco manufacturing 32.6
Clothing manufacturing 72.2
Coal mining, bituminous 61.9
Collar, cuff, and shirt manufacturing 13.4
Construction work 76.6
Copper mining and smelting 65.3
Cotton goods manufacturing in the North Atlantic
States 68.7
Furniture manufacturing 59.1
Glass manufacturing 39.3
Glove manufacturing 33.5
Iron and steel manufacturing 57.7
Iron ore mining 52.6
Leather manufacturing 67.0
Oil refining 66.7
Silk goods manufacturing and dyeing
Slaughtering and meat packing 60.7
Sugar refining 85.3
Woolen and worsted goods manufacturing 61.9
Total— 20 principal industries 57.9
U. S. Immigration Commission Abstract of Reports, Vol. I, p. 501.
13
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
MINOR INDUSTRIES
PEB CENT OP
EMPLOYEES
FOREIGN BORN
Carpet manufacturing 58.0
Car building and repairing 54.9
Cutlery and tool manufacturing 63.1
Electric railway transportation 33.9
Electric supplies manufacturing 44.9
Firearms manufacturing 40.1
Foundry and machine shop products manufacturing. . . 54.5
Hosiery and knit goods manufacturing 29.0
Locomotive building and repairing 48.6
Paper and wood pulp manufacturing 38.8
Paper products manufacturing 31.3
Rope, twine, and hemp manufacturing 77.8
Sewing machine manufacturing 55.9
Steam railway transportation 39.0
Typewriter manufacturing 19.7
Zinc smelting and manufacturing 61.1
Total — 16 minor industries.. 46.9
If all immigrants, representing as they do now less
than one seventh of the population of the United
States, were distributed evenly among the native popu-
lation, the chances would be excellent that the com-
mon contacts of American life might in a reasonable
time teach them to think and act in unison with
Americans. Actually, however, this even distribution
has not taken place. And when we find immigrants
spending their lives in industrial occupations where
they form more than a third and often half and two
thirds of all the employees, and living in communities
where a majority of the population is of foreign stock,
then the problem of uniting native with foreign born
takes on quite a different character. Picture a com-
munity where every seventh person is an immigrant
and then contrast it with the following description of
14
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
"Community E" as given by the United States Immi-
gration Commission.1
This town in western Pennsylvania, although located in a bitumi-
nous coal-mining district, supports a number of important glass
factories, which constitute its chief industry. In 1908 the estimated
population was 9,000, composed of the following races:
Americans 3,000
Belgians (including French) 1,200
Croatians 100
Germans 500
Hebrews 100
Italians-. ; . . . 1,200
Magyars .' . . . 100
Poles 500
Russians ? 300
Slovaks 1,700
All other races . . 300
Totals 9,000
To develop a unity of mind in a community of this
kind is obviously a much more serious and difficult
task. And the untraveled reader may find scores of
replicas of this community in the reports of the Immi-
gration Commission.2
Not only the larger proportion of immigrants in in-
dustry but also the greater number of races in a par-
ticular industry makes the development of a unity of
mind more difficult.
The immigrants in agriculture . . . are usually grouped in more
or less homogeneous colonies or settlements; frequently a com-
munity is composed entirely of one foreign race and perhaps some
American farmers. . . . The number of immigrants (in any agri-
cultural occupation) is so small compared with the total number
engaged in the occupation that it is insignificant.3
1 Ibid., Vol. I, p.525.
2U. S. Immigration Commission, Abstract of Reports, vol. I,
pp. 502, 530, and vols. VI-XX, "Immigrants in Industries."
3 Ibid., p. 555.
15
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Contrast this with the situation in manufacturing
industries — cotton mills for example : l
The Americans, who formerly composed the bulk of the cotton
mill operatives in the North Atlantic States, at the present time
form only about one tenth of the total number of the employees
in the cotton mills, and are divided in about equal proportions
between males and females. ... Of the total foreign born opera-
tives, about one half are representatives of races of southern and
eastern Europe and the Orient, the remainder being composed
mainly of English, Irish, and French Canadians, with a relatively
small number of Scotch, Germans, Swedes, Dutch, and French.
The French Canadians among the foreign born are employed at
present in greater proportions than any other races, the proportion
of French Canadian cotton-mill operatives exceeding that of the
Americans. The English furnish about one tenth and the Irish
about one twentieth of the total number of employees in the in-
dustry. Of the operatives from southern and eastern Europe, the
Poles, Portuguese, and Greeks, in the order named, furnish the
largest proportions, the total number of these races constituting
more than one fourth of the total number employed. More than
thirty other races from southern and eastern Europe are working
in the cotton mills of the North Atlantic States; the North and
South Italians, Lithuanians, and Russians are numerically the
most important. Several Oriental races, including Turks, Persians,
and Syrians, are also found. The larger part of the female employees
at the present time is made up of English, Irish, and French Ca-
nadian operatives, of both the first and second generations together
with large proportions of Portuguese and Polish women. The
American females, as already stated, form only about one tenth of
the total number of female operatives.
In the twenty leading branches of mining and manu-
facturing the Immigration Commission found more
than sixty different races.2
1 Ibid., pp. 511-512.
2 Abstract of Reports, vol. I, pp. 321-322.
16
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
Races found by the Immigration Commission in Twenty
Leading Branches of Mining and Manufacturing
Abyssinian
Albanian
Arabian
Armenian
Bohemian and Moravian
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Canadian, French
Canadian, Other
Croatian
Cuban
Dalmatian
Dutch
Danish
Egyptian
English
Filipino
Finnish
Flemish
French
German
Greek
Hebrew, Russian
Hebrew, Other
Herzegovinian
Hindu
Irish
Italian, North
Italian, South
Italian (not specified)
Japanese
Korean
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Magyar
Montenegrin
Mexican
Negro
Norwegian
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Roumanian
Ruthenian
Russian
Scotch
Scotch-Irish
Servian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish
Swedish
Syrian
Turkish
Welsh
West Indian (other than Cuban)
Alsatian (race not specified)
Australian (race not specified)
Austrian (race not specified)
Belgian (race not specified)
South American (race not specified)
Swiss
This immigrant industrial population, it must also
be remembered, is composed mainly of adults who are
rarely reached by the public schools, and whose con-
stant association with fellow workers of foreign birth
limits greatly their opportunities for contacts with
American influences. Only 10 per cent of the immi-
17
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
grants in the industries are between fourteen and nine-
teen years of age, whereas more than 25 per cent of
the native born are in these younger age groups. Fifty
per cent of the immigrant workers are under thirty
years of age, but more than 60 per cent of the native-
born workers were under this age. A larger percentage
of the total foreign-born employees appears in every
age group above twenty-five years, and a smaller pro-
portion of the total under twenty-five.1
TABLE V
PER CENT OF EMPLOYEES WITHIN EACH AGE GROUP BY SEX AND
GENERAL NATIVITY
NUMBER
PER CENT WITHIN EACH AGE GROUP
Under
14
14-19
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-44
45-54
55
and
over
Male
Native born
Foreign born
161,589
246,702
.2
18.7
7.1
20.0
19.8
16.4
20.1
12.7
15.4
17.7
21.9
10.1
10.9
4.2
4.8
Female
Native born
Foreign born
51,533
45,460
.3
45.1
27.4
24.5
29.7
11.4
14.6
6.4
9.0
8.1
12.8
3.1
5.0
.9
1.3
Total
Native born
Foreign born
213,122
292,162
.2
25.1
10.3
21.1
21.3
15.2
19.2
11.2
14.4
15.4
20.5
8.4
10.0
3.4
4.3
The adult enters the shop, the child goes to school.
What the difference means is thus described by an im-
migrant girl.2
Although almost five years now had passed since I had started
for America it was only now that I caught a glimpse of it. For
though I was hi America I had lived in practically the same environ-
1 U. S. Immigration Commission, Abstract of Reports, vol. I,
pp. 463-467.
2 Rose Cohen, Out of the Shadow, George H. Doran Co., 1918,
p. 246.
18
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
ment which we brought from home. Of course there was a differ-
ence in our joys, our sorrows, in our hardships, for after all this was
a different country; but on the whole we were still in our village in
Russia. A child that came to this country and began to go to school
had taken the first step into the New World. But the child that
was put into the shop remained in the old environment with the
old people, held back by the old traditions, held back by illiteracy.
Often it was years before he could stir away from it, sometimes it
would take a life time. Sometimes, too, it happened, as in fairy
tales, that a hand was held out to you and you were helped out.
POINTS OF VIEW
Because the immigrant industrial population is neces-
sarily so largely an adult population, because it is
made up of so many races, and because of the great
concentration of immigrants in certain industrial oc-
cupations and communities, industry presents at once
the greatest need and the greatest difficulty for organ-
ized effort to bring about a merging of the native with
the foreign born.
In industry, however, the conflict of interests be-
tween economic groups, such as employers and em-
ployees, skilled mechanics and common laborers, is so
bitter that an impersonal conception of Americanism
is difficult to maintain.
A native American woman drove over to the house
of a Polish neighbor to inquire if the daughter of the
Polish family would accept work as a servant for the
American household. The American woman was dis-
pleased with the attitude of the Polish girl, but she
thought the old Polish woman was "nice." The girl
did not seem at all pleased about the opportunity to
work as a servant. The mother, however, was quite
evidently anxious that the daughter should get the
work. The girl asked in good English about the wages
offered and the privileges as to days off and evenings
out, and she stipulated the kind of work she would do
19
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
in the household and what she would not do. The
mother, in broken English, apologized for her daugh-
ter's attitude, apparently fearing that her questions
might lose her the job. But the daughter explained
that her teacher in the public school told her to be in-
dependent like an American and to ask questions like
that.
To the American woman seeking a maid this effect
of Americanization was quite displeasing, and she pre-
ferred the attitude of the un-Americanized Polish
mother. It is possible, of course, that the Polish-
speaking mother will prove to be a better American
than the English-speaking daughter, but apparently it
was the Americanization of the daughter that was most
displeasing to her prospective native-born employer.
Similarly the employers in most of the great in-
dustries of the country which employ immigrants in
such large numbers, object to unionism among
their employees on the ground that a union shop
itself is un-American; and they have named their
policy of maintaining non-union shops, the "American
Plan."
On the other hand, the American trade unions and
a large section of the public generally condemn the
immigrant for not joining labor unions and for being
content with conditions which the native born will not
accept, and thus lowering the standards of American
workers.
. . . The extensive employment of southern and eastern European
immigrants in manufacturing and mining has in many places re-
sulted in the weakening of labor organizations or in their complete
disruption. . . . The tendency of recent immigrants to thrift and
their desire for immediate gains have made them reluctant to enter
labor disputes involving loss of time or to join labor organizations
to which it was necessary to pay regular dues. As a consequence,
the recent immigrant has not, as a rule, affiliated himself with labor
unions unless compelled to do so as a preliminary step toward
20
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
acquiring work, and after becoming a member of a labor union,
he has manifested but little interest in the tenets or policy of the
organization.1
If Americans differ thus completely in their concep-
tion of Americanism, what confusion there must be in
the mind of the immigrant. When he follows the ex-
ample of his native fellow wage earners and wishes to
join a labor union to improve his conditions and is pre-
vented from doing it, what is he to think? When he is
permitted to join a union or organize one, and is con-
demned as an alien or Bolshevik for this action, what
must be his bewilderment? Is he not justified in
thinking that we really do not want him to do what a
free American may do, that we prefer him to keep his
place as an inferior servant? Is not the public exhor-
tation to become Americanized likely to strike him as
hypocritical, when he finds the people who urge his
Americanization also condemn him when he strives to
achieve American standards of living by the methods
that American workers use?
A group of industrial relations managers, represent-
ing some of the very largest industrial enterprises in
the country, were questioning a national organizer of
a labor union numbering 175,000 members, most of
whom are immigrants. The organizer was an Italian
by birth, an American citizen.
"What is the attitude of your organization toward Americaniza-
tion?" asked a director of industrial relations for a corporation
operating plants in many states.
"What do you mean by Americanization?" countered the labor
man.
"You know what I mean. I can't just define it, but we all know
what the word Americanization means as ordinarily used."
"I know what some employers mean by Americanization,"
continued the labor organizer, "and our people resent that kind of
Americanization. I have my own ideas of Americanization which
1 Abstracts of Reports, vol. I, pp. 530-531.
21
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
are quite different from those employers' ideas, and you will have
to explain what you mean by Americanization."
Another member of the group then suggested that "We take
Americanization to mean a knowledge of the English language, a
knowledge of the American government and its methods, a desire
to assume the responsibilities of citizenship, and a sympathetic
attitude toward American traditions and ideals."
The Americanized Italian then answered: "Our organization is
constantly striving to raise the standards of our people, most of
whom are foreign born. We try to make them independent, self-
respecting men and women. We want them to earn enough to live
as Americans live. We have raised wages during the last four years
by means of our organization, so that now they can maintain an
American standard of living. We want them to have leisure enough
for education, recreation, and enjoyment of life in American fashion,
and we have brought the hours of labor in our industry down to
forty-four per week to permit them to do this.
"Our organization conducts English and Naturalization classes.
We do not force our people to join these classes, but we get the
Board of Education to provide the teachers and then we organize
classes in the shops, that meet at 4:30, immediately after working
hours. We are not getting all the people, but we get enough to run
the classes and we feel that these classes have been made possible
by our forty-four-hour week. When we quit at 4:30 we have time
to attend such classes. We also have evening classes at our head-
quarters in each city and the eight-hour day enables our people to
go home for supper after work and be on time at the classes. In
the steel industry where many still work seventy-two hours a week
it is impossible for the worker to attend classes after a twelve-hour
day.
"In our industry the workers are not afraid. They have freedom
to assert their rights. They are not overworked. They walk with
then* heads erect. I can see myself the change in the workers of
this city, who have been organized for only about a year and a hah*.
They are a different people. They walk straighter. They are inde-
pendent, they live better, they aren't afraid of losing their jobs,
they are free men and women and not servile employees.
"If this is Americanization, then we are strongly for it and we
are Americanizing all the time. But because we do this some em-
ployers call us foreigners and Bolshevists. As long as we were
satisfied with low wages and long hours, as long as we were afraid
of losing our jobs, stood for black lists and did not strike, we were
all right. We were preferred to American employees. But when
we strike, as we did recently because a girl was fired for no other
22
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
reason than that she exercised her American right to join a union,
when we ask for higher wages and a shorter work day to raise our
standards, then the employer says we are not Americans.
"Can you blame us if we resent this? We (Italians) are sensitive
people. We object to the word "Americanization" because it is
used by employers as a camouflage to hide their desire to keep
foreigners down to low standards. Our people have been over-
worked and exploited by employers, so that many of them in ten
years have had to go back to the old country like squeezed-out
lemons. This is what some employers want to perpetuate under
the name Americanization. WThen we object to it they call us
foreigners and they want to 'Americanize' us so we will accept
what they want to give us.
"We are raising standards for our people constantly providing
leisure, education, and wages enough to maintain good living condi-
tions. This is Americanization. We don't want the camouflage
which these employers call 'Americanization.'"
If immigrant industrial workers are to live and act
in unison with Americans, they cannot be treated as
members of an inferior economic class, who are to be
content with lower standards and live among us to do
the hard and disagreeable labor that Americans will
not do. Under such conditions they cannot maintain
the respect and consideration we must have for them
if they are to be "of us" and we are to live and work
with them as equal citizens. In the army all were
treated alike and all could work together without re-
gard to economic status. In industry, if immigrant
wage-earners are not to be solidified into an inferior
caste, there must be a similar mutual adjustment of
relations between them and the native-born population.
Most immigrants are willing enough. They come
here as to the Promised Land. If some show antago-
nism, may it not be that treatment and conditions in
America have developed it? If the foreign-born popu-
lation is to be fused with the native-born, the same
freedom of opinion and action that is allowed to Ameri-
cans will have to be granted to the immigrants. Equal
23
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
opportunity, equal protection, equal treatment, and
equal right of self-assertion are as necessary for them
in the process of becoming Americans, as it is to main-
tain the ideal of American citizenship.
IMMIGRANT INDUSTRIAL EXPERIENCES AND THEIR EFFECT
From the day the immigrant lands in America he be-
gins to have experiences that affect his mind and char-
acter vitally. Whatever we may mean by Americanism,
these everyday experiences develop or retard his ca-
pacity to acquire it. Favorable economic experiences,
steady work, rising standards, equality of rights and
opportunity, property, prosperity, incline the immi-
grant favorably toward things American. Unfavor-
able experiences, unemployment, exploitation by labor
agents, abuse by foremen and employers, poverty and
low standards will make him antagonistic to things
American and cause him to idealize his old home. For
he sees in the injustices which he often suffers at the
hands of employers, trade-unions, government officials,
labor agents, and boarding house keepers, not the crimi-
nality of irresponsible individuals, but the acts of the
American nation. He thinks these are the ways of
American life which he must learn. It is the "Ameri-
can Game," a phrase commonly used by immigrants.
Industrial managers have recently discovered that
human nature in working people, be they native or
immigrant, men or women, skilled or unskilled, is very
much the same. It responds normally to the treat-
ment it gets in a perfectly reasonable way. The em-
ployer who pays a skilled mechanic 27 J cents an hour,
as many did before the war, gets a man who says he
"would give 27f cents worth of work and no more."
The manager who imposes his will upon his workers
and enforces his policies without consulting the wishes
24
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
of his employees must expect the same reaction from
immigrants as from native born. The industry that
herds its immigrant workers like cattle, makes no dis-
tinction among personalities, but treats its unskilled
labor as a class of commodity to be paid for at a mar-
ket price, finds such employees as balky, as actuated
by class or herd spirit, as little interested or concerned
in the enterprise of which they are a part as American
workers are under the same treatment.
To a certain extent America has the kind of immi-
grant population it creates. To a certain extent clan-
nishness, low standards of living, indifference to things
American, and apparent loyalty to foreign lands, of
which so many people complain, are the fruits of Ameri-
can policy or lack of policy in dealing with the immi-
grant industrial population? If industrial management
has found that the native laborer responds to humane,
considerate, and democratic treatment with an aroused
interest in the business, with increased output and am-
bition, and with a spirit of cooperation and loyalty to
the industrial establishment ; then may it not be equally
true that under similar treatment at the hands of im-
migration officials, courts, police, employment agencies,
employers, trade-unions, social agencies, and other in-
stitutions of American community life, the immigrant
will develop a similar spirit of cooperation and loyalty
to the nation?
It behooves the nation, therefore, to study the ex-
perience of the immigrants whom we have permitted
to land, in much the same way that enlightened em-
ployers are now studying the experiences in the shops
of the people whom they employ. Under various names
such employers have established what has been aptly
described as a "Square Deal Department." Sometimes
it is called an employment department, sometimes a
welfare department or service department, and often
25
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
an industrial relations department. But whatever the
name, its purpose is to follow the careers of the work-
ers in the plant and see to it that in hiring, in promo-
tion, in wage payment, in treatment at the hands of
subordinate officials, and in all the other experiences of
a worker in the shop, he shall be protected against in-
justice. And since abuses are bound to creep in, pro-
vision is made for hearing complaints and giving redress
where wrongs are proved.
Employers have found all this necessary, in order to
build up a spirit of loyalty and cooperation among
their employees. And it is hard to see how the nation
can win the active and loyal cooperation of its immi-
grants without something of the same kind.
Whether we decide upon a policy of exclusion or not,
fourteen million foreign born are in our midst, and
many of them are having experiences every day with
labor agencies, employers, unions, public authorities,
and immigrant agencies which are described in later
chapters. These experiences may assimilate them into
American industrial life, or may set them apart as
outsiders. So far as we have given any attention to
the problem of immigration, we have centered it al-
most entirely on selection and exclusion, trusting that
somehow, automatically, those who are admitted will
be assimilated. Social science, however, has long ago
taught us to reject the assumption of a benevolent
providence that works automatically for the public
weal through so-called natural laws. Deliberate or-
ganization has been found necessary to make the laws
work to human ends and social well-being. If we wish
to weave the immigrants into our American communi-
ties, we must provide the administrative organization
that is capable of accomplishing such a purpose.
If ever there was a time when this could be done
most effectively, the present is that time. The war
26
INDUSTRY AND AMERICANIZATION
aroused the public to a realization of the futility of de-
pending upon undirected assimilation. It appears that
the automatic melting pot has failed to melt. The
draft and the various agencies created to further the
war have made the facts of immigrant life in America
common knowledge. For a good many years it is
probable that immigration into the country will re-
main at a minimum, because of restrictive laws, and
many immigrants will return to their native land.1
The problem is becoming limited to reasonable pro-
portions. We can see around it and we can work out
the program, and the administrative machinery neces-
sary to carry it into effect, with complete knowledge of
the number, kind, and nature of the immigrants we
have to deal with. We may go at the task of con-
scious and deliberate assimilation without fear that
our efforts will be upset by a deluge of new immigrants.
1 The number leaving the country during the past fiscal year was
198,712. The total number of immigrant aliens admitted during
the same period was 309,556, leaving a permanent addition to the
population through immigration and emigration of only 110,844.
A casual inspection of the statistics relative to the distribution
of immigrants by states for the past fiscal year indicates that a con-
siderably larger proportion have gone to the western and agricul-
tural states than was the case for many years prior to the war.
This is due, of course, to the increased proportion of the older type
of immigration in the movement, for it is a well-known fact that
while the more recent immigrants have largely congregated in the
cities and industrial districts, the northern and western Europeans
have always become widely scattered throughout the country and
that a far larger proportion of them have found their way into agri-
cultural activities. If this trend continues, as it promises to do,
immigration will in a corresponding degree become less of a problem.
Commissioner of Immigration, W. W. Husband, Sept. 12, 1922.
27
CHAPTER II
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
WHATEVER the motives may be that lead immigrants
to pull up stakes and come to the Promised Land,
practically all of them are confronted from the first
with the necessity of earning a living. Few of those
who come over have sufficient funds to support them-
selves without work for more than a few weeks. Ac-
cording to the Commissioner General of Immigration,1
Immigrants applying for admission to the U. S. are not required
to state how much money they bring with them unless the amount
is under $50 but as a rule those having larger sums report the
amounts they possess to the examining officials. In 1920, 141,799
immigrant aliens out of a total of 276,049 showing money, exhibited
less than $50 each. This was 51.4 per cent of the total number
showing money compared with 44.6 per cent in 1919 and 82.7 per
cent in 1910-14.
The average amount possessed by all who showed money in
1921 was $45.50, in 1920 $119, in 1919 $112. During the period
from 1910-1914 the average amount was $44.
Here we have a common level where all may touch
each other, a common experience on the basis of which
a community of mind may be built up. The first task
of the immigrant is to root himself in the economic life
of the country, that he may derive life and nourish-
ment in the new land.
The officials of the government who admit the immi-
grant looking for work, however, must see to it that
he has secured no job in this country in advance of his
coming. This is their sworn duty. The alien contract
1Report of Commissioner General of Immigration, 1920, p. 43.
28
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
labor law prohibits the entry of any immigrant who
has a definite promise of employment after he lands.
The absurd contradiction between the immigrant's
need for work and the government's insistence that he
shall have no job before he lands is the direct result of
the lack of any domestic immigration policy. Having
no means of protecting the American workman, or in-
deed the immigrant himself, from unfair labor con-
tracts by which employers might exploit cheap foreign
labor and use it to displace American workers, the gov-
ernment has been compelled by American labor to
declare illegal any contracts made with aliens abroad
for work in this country.
BLIND SEARCH FOB WORK
The immigrant lands, therefore, with no assurance
of work; and ignorant as he is of our language and
economic opportunities, he must find his place in
American industry as best he can.
In the absence of a systematic national organization
for distribution and placement of labor, he resorts to
all sorts of devices. The saloon used to be one of the
most important places to get information about jobs.
Political district leaders make finding work for immi-
grants a part of their duties. Pool rooms, cafes, gro-
cery stores, lodging houses, even street corners and
public parks, become improvised labor markets. In
these places many and strange abuses are met with.
Groundless rumors send people scurrying over the city
and country on wild goose chases. One job seeker sells
information to another, and quite often it is false or
misleading. Foremen sell real and bogus jobs in the
factories where they work and "man catchers" pick
up laborers, for whom they receive so much per head
from their employers.
29
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY i
Walking through Seward Park on New York's East
Side one summer day, we were accosted by an elderly
man, who asked: "Need a hand?" He wanted work
in a clothing shop. And looking around we saw many
such workmen standing around in groups and sitting
on park benches — carpenters, glaziers, tinsmiths, and
workers of many other hand trades. Window washers
and other unskilled workers also congregated in this
outdoor employment exchange, on the chance of get-
ting something to do; and washwomen and scrub-
women were to be found here in the early morning
hours.
The institution arose with the first Russian Jewish
immigration and came to be known as the "Pig Mar-
ket." In Baltimore, we were told of a similar market
by clothing workers, who had used it before the union
established itself in the city and provided an employ-
ment bureau for its members. In those days it was
common for workers to furnish their own sewing
machines, and when a man was hired he lifted his
machine on his back and carried it to his place of
employment. One of the first demands made by the
unions organized among these clothing workers was
the abolition of the "Pig Market," and the hiring of
all help through the union offices.
Wherever there are immigrants looking for work, the
same opportunities for service or abuse appear. From
St. Louis an Assistant Commissioner of Labor of the
State of Missouri reports : l
An interpreter came from a distant city and opened up head-
quarters in a foreign settlement, using a saloon conducted by a
foreigner as a base of his operations. He used the saloon keeper
as a confederate to obtain money from unsuspecting foreigners,
whom the saloon keeper informed there was plenty of work to be
1 Annual Report of the Missouri Commissioner of Labor, 1917,
p. 68.
30
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
had if they paid a fee of $5 to $10 to the assistant foreman.
The interpreter, posing as the assistant foreman, lured over 150
men, collected the money, paid a commission to the saloon keeper,
and left town without putting a man to work, thereby defrauding
these foreigners out of hundreds of dollars. . . .
We have picked up twenty-five unlicensed labor agents who
were operating in and around the union station. ... A practice
was in vogue here of the saloons and boarding houses advertising
fdr laborers and securing help for railroads and quarries. In every
case it was found that the men employed were compelled to board
with the people who advertised for help.
FRIENDS AND RELATIVES HELP
"I would like to be in another trade but I never
had any friend to take me to any other trade," said
Sofia Caruso, a little Sicilian buttonhole maker in New
York City.1 Of 874 Italian girls who told how they
secured their first positions, 685, over 75 per cent, said
they secured it by the friend or relative method. The
feeling of being "ashamed to go alone" has been found
especially among Italian and Syrian girls. The " friend "
is so important that quite often, if she happens to quit
her place, the immigrant girl whom she brought to the
shop will leave with her, for no other reason than that
her friend is leaving.
Groups of Italian girls, six or seven perhaps, will go
from place to place seeking work, strong in each other's
protection; but not meeting with much success be-
cause the employer has not enough positions to ob-
serve their rule of "take one, take all."2 Sometimes it
is the effect of shyness that causes girls to depend so
much on friends in seeking work; or it may be a de-
sire for the comradeship in work of those whom they
already know. More often it grows out of helpless-
ness in getting about the city, ignorance of other
1 L. Odencranz, Italian Women in Industry, p. 283.
a Ibid., p. 275.
31
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
means of finding employment, and inability to make
terms with an English-speaking employer.
Sofia Caruso was a buttonhole maker neither by
choice nor interest. It was to buttonhole making her
friend had taken her. A man, especially one with uni-
versity education and training, will be more self-reli-
ant; but in the end he may not fare much better.
After dinner I went up and down Broadway looking for some-
thing to do. All that day I had walked the streets looking for work,
guided in my "wanderings by the want ads in the New York Staats
Zeitung. Bartenders headed the list of those wanted, barbers came
next, bakers too were in demand, and butchers and clothing cutters..
Although my eyes wandered over and over again to the letter U,
there seemed to be no need for university men. That day I had
nothing to eat.
With morning came the still unsolved question, what to do for
a living. My friends suggested that I go from one hotel to another
in the hope that my languages would be of value. Altogether I
visited some twenty of the leading hotels. I walked from Twenty-
third Street to Eightieth Street and arrived home tired and dis-
couraged.
Fortunately the next day was Sunday; not only could I rest,
but it was an opportunity to find a job. Sunday is the day when
acquaintances meet in the coffee houses and the greenhorn becomes
a subject of conversation and consideration. This particular coffee
house was frequented by cloak shop workers, many of them acquaint-
ances of my relatives. To them the greenhorn was introduced and
by them his problem was discussed. ... At last my fate was de-
cided: I was to report on Monday at a certain number on Canal
Street, bring an apron and try my luck at pressing cloaks.1
A Turkish immigrant who arrived in 1913 told us
how he secured employment through an advertisement
calling for men less than six months in the country.
On applying he was employed as a packer in a cotton
house at $5 per week. He worked at this wage for
1 Ed. Steiner, From Alien to Citizen, pp. 49-52.
32
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
five months, and then, when he asked for more he was
promptly discharged. The employer, presumably,
would be able to get other newcomers at $5 a week
as he had secured this one.
Another, who had served an apprenticeship as a
'spinning master" in his native country, thought he
would himself advertise in a newspaper of his own lan-
guage for an opportunity to work at his trade. In
reply a man called at his home and promised to get
him the work he was looking for if he would pay an
initiation fee and join the union. The end of it all was
that the man got away with $8 belonging to the
immigrant. After that he gave up the idea of finding
work at his own trade and got a job as a painter, later
as a paper hanger. He worked as a laborer, a clothing
cutter, and a moving picture operator. And now he is
a dentist!
A self-reliant Russian who arrived in 1914 did not
care to avail himself of help offered by his friends. He
preferred to shift for himself and got most of his nu-
merous jobs through advertisements. First he was a
painter at $4 a week. Then he became a machin-
ist's helper at $6 per week. The employer promised
to teach him the machinist's trade but did not do so.
Finding the helper's work too hard, he quit and got
work as a metal polisher. After changing around in
many places at this work he learned the trade well and
at the time we interviewed him, he was earning $25.00
a week.
Let an immigrant tell his own experiences with want
advertisements : l
The two days allotted to a guest being over, I was given to under-
stand that I must enter the race for American dollars. During
the remainder of that week and throughout the entire week follow-
1 M. E. Ravage, An American in the Making, pp. 91 ff.
33
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ing I went about "trying." Early in the morning I would go dpwn-
stairs to buy a World, and after breakfast I would get one of the
children to translate the want advertisements for me. When I
glanced at the length and the number of those columns, I saw that
I would not be long in getting rich. There were hundreds of shops
and factories and offices, it seemed, that wanted my help. They
literally implored me to come. They promised me high wages, and
regular pay, and fine working conditions. And then I would go and
blunder around for hours, trying to find where they were, stand in
line with a hundred other applicants, approach timidly when my
turn came, and be passed up with a significant glance at my appear-
ance. ... I could not bridge the gulf between the advertised ap-
peals for help and this arrogant indifference of the employing
superintendent.
Half the time I had not the remotest idea of what was wanted.
I had been told what a butcher was and what was meant by a grocery
store. But what were shipping clerks, and stock clerks, and bill
clerks, and all the other scores of varieties of clerks that were so
eagerly sought? However, I did not let trifles discourage me. There
was only one way to succeed in America, my friends continually
told me, and that was by constant, tireless, undiscriminating trying.
If you failed in one place, or in ten places, or in a hundred places,
you must not give up. Keep on trying, and you are bound to be
taken somewhere. Moreover, American occupations were so flimsy,
they required so little skill or experience, that a fellow with a little
intelligence and the normal amount of daring could bluff his way
into almost any job. The main thing was to say "yes" whenever
you were asked whether you could do this or that. That was the
way everybody got work. The employer never knew the difference.
So I followed the counsel of the wise, insofar as my limited spunk
permitted, and knocked at every door in sight. Time and time
again I applied, at department stores in need of floor-walkers (that,
I thought, could certainly require no special gifts), at offices where
stenographers were wanted, at factories demanding foremen. . . .
Then there was the problem of distances. I could not dream of
paying car fares everywhere I went. Even if I had had the nickel,
the mere thought of spending twenty-five bani at every turn would
have seemed an appalling extravagance. And, somehow, the jobs
that I supposed I had a fair chance of getting were always at the
ends of creation. An errand boy was wanted in Long Island City,
and a grocer was looking for an assistant in Hoboken. By the time
I had reached one place and had had my services refused, I was too
late in getting to the others. And always I was refused. Why?
At last one morning, a butcher in the upper Eighties gave me the
34
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
answer with pungent frankness. I had got to the spot before anyone
else, and when I saw it in his eye that he was about to pass me up,
I gathered all the pluck that was in me and demanded the reason.
He looked me over from head to foot, and then, with a contemptuous
glance at my shabby foreign shoes (the alien's shoes are his Judas),
he asked me whether I supposed he wanted a greenhorn in his store.
I pondered that query for a long time. Here, I thought, was indeed
new light on America. Her road to success was a vicious circle,
and no mistake. In order to have a job one must have American
clothes and the only way to get American clothes was to find a job
and earn the price. Altogether a desperate situation.
EMPLOYMENT AGENTS
Failing to get the good job he is looking for, through
his friends or through his own efforts, the immigrant
turns to the private labor agent for help. How these
agencies serve the immigrant may be illustrated by
the experiences recounted to investigators of this study.
A German who came over in 1912 wrote out his ex-
periences as follows:
I was a few weeks in this country, one man advertised in a Ger-
man paper, his place was on Sixth Ave., he charged a dollar. At
that time I did not know enough to look for the license in the room.
I now think there was none. That man was a downright faker.
He soon moved from the place. (Without getting the immigrant
a job.)
An ad in the German paper brought me to a German agency in
Yorkville. He offered me a job on a dairy farm. He should not
have offered me the job and I should not have taken it. I went to
the place and was sent home the same day. It caused me about $10
expenses. I didn't know enough to press my case in the agency.
I was offered a poor job (as a substitute) and was too discouraged
to go back to the agency again.
I paid $2 to an agency in Yorkville, worked one day, quit, went
to the agency, and got my money back.
A downtown high class employment agency advertised for a
German stenographer. It was bona fide, but it cost me a week's
salary.
In Chicago I paid $5 to an agency for a clerical position, which I
didn't take. The law, as printed on the blank, wasn't clear to me,
35
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
so I thought I had to submit to try another job. This other job was
a cleancut frameup. I went back for my money and the agent made
difficulties. A (compulsory) rubber stamp on back of my receipt
gave the name and address of the Commissioner of private agencies.
I went to see him. He had his feet on the desk, his hat on, a cigar
in his mouth, talking privately to somebody. With an air of
benevolence he listened to me, and put my report with pencil on a
slip of paper. He seemed to be familiar with the sort of story I
told him and with the whole situation. He spoke to the agent over
the phone and settled the matter for me. I went back and got the
money.
A Bulgarian farm worker paid a Chicago labor agent
$10 for work as a track laborer in West Virginia at $1
a day. Subsequently he used labor agencies several
times and had to pay only $2, although the wages he
received were higher. This seems to be the universal
experience. The first job secured through an employ-
ment agent is paid for with a high fee. Later, when
the immigrant knows the ropes better, fees become
more reasonable.
A superintendent of Alien Poor in New York State
writes to the New York Bureau of Industries and Im-
migration: l
A number of cases of what seem to be imposition upon immigrant
laborers have been brought to the attention of this department.
It is stated that immigrants arriving at the port of New York apply
to an employment bureau known as ... of New York City. These
aliens, according to their story, upon the payment of a fee of $3
are given to understand that a position awaits them at a certain
point on the Erie Railroad at so much per day. Upon arriving at
the designated point they are assigned to an agent, kept for a few
days, after which they are told they are no longer wanted. As
they have paid the agency almost the last cent they have, these
aliens are obliged to suffer hardship, going without food for several
days and compelled to walk a long distance to Buffalo or some other
city. Very frequently these shipments are made along the line of
the Erie Railroad. ... At my request Mr. Elson has forwarded
1 First Annual Report, 1911, p. 37.
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
four sample labor contracts obtained from the aliens at the Munici-
pal Lodging House. All of these seem to have paid the agency
a fee of $3. On November 23d, another contract of the same kind
was picked up from a poor person at our Buffalo office. I trust it
will be possible for your new Bureau of Industrial Immigration to
prevent impositions of this character. I enclose the contracts to
you.
It is not within our province to follow the immigrant
in his experiences outside of industry. But one exam-
ple may serve to show what inducement there is for
him to follow the advice so often given him to leave
the city and go out on the land. The Executive Officer
of the California Commission of Immigration and
Housing said in a public address:
Several years ago a large tract of land was opened for coloniza-
tion in the Sacramento Valley. The sales agents made a particular
point of inducing immigrants to purchase this land in lots of from
twenty to thirty acres. Agents were employed who spoke many
languages and the value of the land was represented in advertising
and orally, in the most glowing terms. There was much exaggera-
tion and even misrepresentation, and some 150 families, mostly
immigrants, were induced to pay from $100 to $150 an acre for
this land. Some eighty settlers have left the colony after three
years of fruitless labor, and their life savings are gone. The land
is honeycombed with hardpan and the university's soil experts
have said that no one could possibly make a living on these twenty
or thirty acre lots. The families that remain are practically desti-
tute, but the commission is cooperating with them in bringing
action against the owners and agents for fraud, and there is some
hope for recovery.
This is only one of some 500 land fraud cases that have been
handled by the State Immigration Commission. It shows that
we exploit immigrants even in their attempt to get back to the
land. . . the place where many wise students of the problem say
they must be before our immigrant problem will be settled.
Many similar experiences are given in A Stake in the Land, by
Peter A. Speek, the Americanization Studies' report on efforts of
immigrants to settle on the land.
In contrast with all this antagonizing experience
there is "Mother Makowski." Mother Makowski is
37
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
proprietress of an employment agency in the Polish
section of a western city. She is herself Polish and a
worker. Her employment agency is her staple source
of income, but she leaves it without ceremony any day
when her services as high grade cook receive a desir-
able call. When immigration was active, Polish girls
came to this inland city, straight from the steamer,
arriving bundle in hand, guided thither by "Mother
Makowski's" card brought with them from overseas.
A bath in her own bathtub was often a first ceremony,
followed soon after by a trip to the store, where she
helped them buy a few American clothes for an
American "job," and a hat. If these girls were not
being looked after by their own people, the "lady
next door" lodged them for fifty cents a night; or
if her house was not full, Mrs. Makowski kept them
herself.
No Polish woman, who is ignorant of the English
language or the streets of the city, need be troubled
about finding the position of which she learns at the
agency; for Mrs. Makowski, herself, will go with her
to the new employer — not only once perhaps, but two
or three times in some cases, until the woman has
learned the way and lost her fear. Mrs. Makowski
finds a Polish girl at the place of employment, if she
can, who lives in the new woman's neighborhood, and
she asks this girl to see that the woman gets safely
home when the day's work is done. If this new worker
is new in the country and there is no Polish-speaking
person in charge, Mrs. Makowski may actually instruct
her, after they reach the place, in the dish washing,
cleaning, or other work that she is to do. "I roll my
sleeves up and show her just how she should do it.
I'm not ashamed," she said.
But the job is not all. Mrs. Makowski sends immi-
grant Polish women to the dentist if necessary, and
38
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
she recommends doctors. She is the best friend some
arriving girls know. They come to her about illness
and other troubles, and sometimes she arranges for
hospital care, and visits them while there. In short,
she does just what a practical kindly woman would do
who mentally puts herself in the other woman's place;
and since she is herself Polish, in a strange country,
and must earn her own living, she has not a very far
journey to travel.
What Mrs. Makowski does, as an employment agent,
for her countrywomen, is done by many another for-
eign-born agent like her. The custom is general to
escort non-English-speaking women all the way to the
work given them, even if it necessitates some expendi-
ture of carfare; and it is not unusual for necessary in-
struction to be given on the spot, in the restaurant
kitchen or wherever the work may be, as Mrs. Ma-
kowski gives it. In addition to the special friendly
services already noted, some agents combine, with their
employment business, such work as selling steamship
tickets in times of immigration, or interpreting and
translating; and the combination of the employment
business with the midwife profession is also common.
But these friendly services have come from one whom
the immigrant thinks of as a fellow foreigner, not an
American.
PHILANTHROPIC PLACEMENT AGENCIES
There are, in all the larger cities, philanthropic organi-
zations of various kinds which attempt to find work
for immigrants. Almost every nationality has an Im-
migrant Aid Society, one of whose functions is to as-
sist those who need help in finding employment. The
most prominent examples of these are the Society for
Italian Immigrants and the Hebrew Sheltering and
39
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Immigrant Aid Society.1 Then there are organizations
which, like the Immigrants' Protective League of Chi-
cago, do not devote themselves to any one nationality.
The Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., and similar organiza-
tions among other religious bodies, also assist to some
extent in securing employment for immigrants.
The total amount of placing of immigrants done by
all these organizations, however, is negligible. Their
employment work is usually incidental to other func-
tions of the organizations which occupy their main at-
tention. The immigrant aid societies maintained by
the various nationalities are content if they get the
immigrants safely into the hands of relatives or friends,
and their employment bureaus are designed primarily
to help those whom they have to shelter. The other
organizations are mainly concerned with protecting the
immigrant against fraud and exploitation, or with edu-
cational work, and while they are often helpful to in-
dividuals seeking employment, they are not equipped
to handle the industrial problem of placement.
TRADE-UNION HELP
In 1920, when immigration assumed something like
pre-war proportions, a number of labor organizations
became interested in the proper placement of new ar-
rivals. In New York City a joint committee, repre-
senting unions of all trades employing immigrants, was
organized for the purpose of preventing the use of the
incoming immigrants by employers to break down the
wages and standards of employment gained by the
unions; and also for distributing the immigrants prop-
erly among the trades. The committee asked for per-
mission to station representatives at Ellis Island, but
apparently this could not be done under existing laws.
1 See Chapter XIV for detailed descriptions of their work.
40
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
A subcommittee was appointed to work out a method
of pro-rating immigrants among the various unions, as
there were some charges that the organizations were
trying to pass them on to each other. Arrangements
were also made with labor organizations abroad, by
which they would be informed when times are dull, so
that prospective immigrants could be advised against
coming here.
The efforts of this trade-union committee called pub-
lic attention to the meager results that may be expected
of labor organizations as placement agencies for the
immigrant. Where the trade is completely organized,
it is customary for the union to furnish all the help the
employer needs, and before the immigrant can get work
he must apply and be admitted to membership in the
union. Most unions, however, are opposed to immigra-
tion into this country, and their opposition is sometimes
extended to excluding from membership by various in-
direct means immigrants who have already landed. All
unions fear the overcrowding of their trades, and even
those whose membership consists mainly of immigrants,
and who are not in favor of restricting immigration
into the country, adopt policies which are designed to
keep new workers out of the industry as much as
possible.
The masses of foreign born who come to us can ex-
pect little help from trade-unions in finding places in
American industry. The unskilled occupations, where
the immigrant finds most of his opportunities, are as a
rule unorganized, and the skilled trades, which are well
organized, usually have restrictions on apprenticeship
and the employment of learners which make it very
difficult for an immigrant to acquire the skill necessary
to work at the trade.
41
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
EMPLOYERS EFFORTS
Some employers, on the other hand, are over-anxious
to give employment to immigrants. During 1919 the
complaint was general among them that it was the
"foreigners" who were causing all the strikes, and they
attributed most of the industrial unrest of the time to
the radical ideas prevalent among their foreign-born
laborers. Many of them advertised for "American
labor" in their efforts to break the strikes. Later
(October, 1920), however, we find several writing to
the Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island anx-
iously soliciting immigrant laborers.1
The Carbide and Carbon Corporation, at Niagara Falls, wrote
it will place newly arrived laborers according to its needs. The
Oliver Coal Company, at Yoleskie, Ohio, a mining town on the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, can place several hundred experi-
enced coal miners at $7 and $8 a day. The M. Rice Company,
1220 Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, wants basket makers.
D. R. Talbott, a tobacco grower of Dunkirk, Md., says there are
fine chances in that section for persons willing to do farm work.
The George M. Jones Company, bituminous coal operators, Toledo,
Ohio, wants experienced miners. The Alpha Portland Cement
Corporation, with plants at Alpha, New Jersey; Martin's Creek,
Pennsylvania; Manheim, West Virginia; Cementon and James ville,
New York, has been forced to take on negro helpers and would like
to get immigrants. The Cleveland Stone Company, with quarries
at Berea, Ohio; will pay immigrants 47 to 55 cents an hour. These
few give the trend of the letters.
The tendency of these efforts is to draw over-sup-
plies of immigrants into these industries and to in-
crease the number of floating laborers.
A number of employers' associations maintain free
employment offices for distributing workers among
their members. These, however, do not ordinarily
concern themselves with unskilled labor, and their
1 New York Globe, October 19, 1920.
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
main object is to prevent their shops from being or-
ganized by trade unions. The National Metal Trades
Association, the National Erectors' Association, the
Lake Carriers' Association and the Employers' Asso-
ciations of Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and
other cities, which conduct these offices, are all opposed
to dealing with trade-unions, and the employment bu-
reaus are conducted as one of the means of maintain-
ing their "open shop" policies. They do not place
many immigrants, but in so far as they do, the aliens
are brought into an atmosphere antagonistic to the
American organized workers, thus increasing the diffi-
culties of merging the native with the foreign born
along the lines suggested by the U. S. Immigration
Commission.
RESULTS
What it has meant to the immigrant and to the coun-
try to leave to his own ignorant efforts the finding of
a place in American industry is well illustrated in the
results of an investigation by the statistical division of
the Americanization Study. Between 1900 and 1910
the number of foreign-born laborers working on farms
in this country increased from 259,000 to 336,000 or
about 30 per cent. During these same ten years, how-
ever, over 1,600,000 agricultural laborers from foreign
countries landed in the United States. Many of these
returned to their native lands, no doubt, but even
though we assume that 50 per cent went back, it still
remains true that over 800,000 immigrant farm labor-
ers were available and less than 100,000 of them found
their way to farms in this country. And this during a
time when we were suffering from a serious shortage of
agricultural labor.
Where did these immigrant farm laborers who re-
mained in the country go? The answer can well be
43
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
imagined. They found places in mines and factories to
which they were unaccustomed, and many of which
had ample supplies of labor without them. Sixty-four
per cent of the immigrant wage earners in our iron and
steel industries, 58 per cent of our foreign-born bitumi-
nous coal miners, almost 61 per cent of the immigrants
working in oil and sugar refineries, about half of the
foreign furniture workers and 58 per cent of those in
the leather and tanning industry were farmers or farm
laborers before they came to this country.1
Of 17,000 households studied by the United States
Immigration Commission the heads of which were
working as wage earners in mines or manufacturing es-
tablishments, 62 per cent of the men were farmers or
farm laborers before they came to the United States.2
Another investigation made by the same Commission
covering over 180,000 employees in factories and mines
showed that 54 per cent were farmers or farm laborers
in their native lands.3
The country lacked agricultural labor; hundreds of
thousands of immigrant farm workers came to us, but
they found their way into mines and factories, not on to
farms. The conditions of agricultural labor and living
and the attractions of the cities, have, of course, a good
deal to do with the drift of immigrant farm workers,
as well as of the native rural population, into industrial
occupations. And no doubt many immigrants come to
America to get away from farm work, but much of the
failure of immigrant farmers to settle on the land also
is to be ascribed to the fact that finding work in America
is a matter of drifting for most immigrants, and the
nation has had no organized machinery for guiding and
1 United States Immigration Commission, Abstract of Reports,
vol. I, pp. 297-313.
3 Ibid., pp. 356-361.
3 Ibid., pp. 297-313.
44
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
directing them into ocupations where they will most
readily be able to earn a living as well as be of most
benefit to their adopted country. Again and again we
have been told by immigrant factory employees that
they wished they knew how to earn a living on a farm.
Quite aside from the economic loss resulting from
the maladjustment between the labor demands of the
country and its labor supplies, there is a tremendous
waste of agricultural and industrial skill involved in the
scrapping of the years of experience that our immi-
grants have had in the countries from which they come.
This loss of industrial capacity becomes much more
plain when we follow the experiences of immigrant
skilled workers in finding work in America. The sta-
tistical study referred to above found that "about 84
per cent of the males and about 67 per cent of the fe-
males (in manufacturing and mining operations) were
not utilizing such skill and experience as they may
have acquired in the occupations they had been en-
gaged in before coming to the United States." *
While the census figures for individual occupations
on which this estimate is based must be considered
only as approximately correct, still they show unmis-
takably the tremendous scrapping of skill and experi-
ence that goes on as the immigrant gives up his native
calling and takes up work in America. Of sixteen
typical skilled occupations only the barbers, plasterers,
and lumberers seem to have absorbed the immigrants
of these occupations who came to this country between
1900 and 1910. Only a fourth of the foreign-born
cabinetmakers, however, and less than half of the
painters and carpenters who came to the United States
during the same decade, followed their occupations in
this country, while two thirds of the masons, 90 per
1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. XIX, pp. 95-98
45
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
cent of the blacksmiths, and practically all of the
bookbinders, tanners, printers, shoemakers and sad-
dlers had apparently changed their occupations when
they went to work in this country.
The same striking fact is confirmed in another way
by the U. S. Immigration Commission, which found
that less than one per cent of the immigrants in our
oil and sugar refineries, 5| per cent of those engaged
in slaughtering and meat packing, 6 per cent of the
foreign-born workers in our tanneries, 8| per cent of
the immigrants in iron and steel mills, and 20 per cent
of those in coal mines were working in the same indus-
tries before they came to this country. Only in the
clothing and textile industries did the Commission find
that half or more of these Immigrants had been in the
same occupations abroad.1
More significant, perhaps, than the loss of industrial
skill and experience involved in this changing of occu-
pations is the tremendous readjustment that must take
place in the immigrant's life and habits when he does
find a place in American industry. For, obviously, it
can not be assumed to be desirable either for the immi-
grant or the country that he should always follow the
same calling in America that he had in his native land.
There may be no demand here for the skill that he had
and quite often he leaves his home because of a desire
to change his occupation as well as his country. But
the difficulties of adjustment are greatly multiplied
when, in addition to everything else that is new, the
immigrant must adjust himself to new methods of earn-
ing a living.
The place the immigrant does find in American in-
dustry is often a most temporary one. And the nature
of the life to which he may be led by seasonal or casual
1 Abstract of Reports, vol. I, pp. 297-318.
46
FINDING A PLACE IN AMERICAN INDUSTRY
labor is illustrated by two "life stories" secured by an
investigator in California:1
The first a Mexican, I was passing on the road to Hume, and as
this type of casual worker is becoming of very great importance in
California, I determined to find out what I could from him. He
could speak but little English, but by using a combination of English
and Spanish we got along capitally.
Twenty-eight years old, he was of typical Mexican build, medium
in stature, but supple and strong. He had been in California four
years. His wife and a ten-year-old boy at school were in Mexico,
and he sent money to them regularly. By trade he was a carpenter,
but not being able to speak English he was unable to work at this
here. He was at present doing construction work on a railroad
line near Reedly, working in a gang containing fifty Mexicans and
no others. He had been working at this for two months, earning
$1.25 a day above his board. By questioning him in regard to the
work he did each month, I was able to find out approximately what
his yearly labor schedule was. In January and February he said
he dug ditches and did similar work. There is, probably, consider-
able work at this period on the numerous irrigation ditches through-
out this region. In March and April he hoed and planted, while
in May he picked oranges or worked on the railroads. In June,
July, and August he picked other fruit or did construction work,
going north sometimes in July or August to work on hops. During
the months of September and October I judge that work must be
slack, for he says that then he wanders over the state, doing nothing
in particular. During these trips, alone or with small groups, he
has covered the whole state, having gone across the Oregon border.
In November and December he usually picks oranges. This schedule
is, of course, not all-embracing, but it does represent what a typical
Mexican does throughout the year. He worked practically all the
time, with the exception of a month or so in each year, staying with
each job until it was over. In this last regard is found the great
difference between these men and most American casuals. This
man said that most Mexicans spent their money as they earned it.
saving none, but as to the exact truth of this, I cannot say.
Antonio Frau, or "Tony" as he told me to call him, was a fellow
worker in the grading crew at Hume. Twenty-three years old, he
was born on the Island of Sardinia. Short but stockily built, brown
faced, black-haired, black-mustached, with sparkling black eyes,
1 F. C. Mills, "Scenes and Incidents on the Road," an unpub-
lished report.
47
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
he was a typical son of sunny Italy. One of a family of four chil-
dren, he was raised on a small farm. One can make there about
60 cents a day according to Tony, but there is no chance to save
money So five years ago, when he was eighteen years old, Tony
came to New York. For one year, he worked around New York
State, returning home at the end of that time. He had made $250,
but his trip having cost him $160, his net earnings were $90. He
stayed in Sardinia for three years, and then took a trip to Panama,
where he worked for a considerable period with a construction crew
and returned home again. Fourteen months ago, Tony, this time
with a brother, came again to New York, leaving a married and an
unmarried sister at home with their widowed mother. For twelve
months he stayed near New York working on bridge-building,
tunnel- work, road-building, railroad construction, etc., making from
$2.25 (to $2.75 a day. Hearing wonderful tales of the amount of
work and the high wages in California, Tony came out last March,
leaving his brother in New York. For two months he stayed in
San Francisco and could get no work. Finally a friend wrote him
that he could get work at Hume and with two others he came, having
worked here now for one month and saved $45.
Tony is unmarried, and says that practically all Italians who
work as he does from place to place are also unmarried, as a settled
life is impossible. He likes this country and believes that English
and American people are all right. Remembering, doubtless,
experiences with traction foremen, he thinks little of the Irish, who
"make work like Hell," says Tony.
When the immigrant's work and the place in which
it is done are as strange to him as the language and
customs of the people among whom he has come to
live, faith in a promised land is indeed a necessity to
give hope that he will survive in the new environment.
And if a proper adjustment of immigrant and industry
is to be made, so that he may become an integral part
of the American industrial population, something more
than faith is needed. Adequate assistance in finding
his place in American industry is also necessary.
48
CHAPTER III
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
WHEN the nation was faced with the task of welding
millions of drafted men from every walk of life into a
competent and effective army, Secretary of War Baker
thus described the problem: l
We are taking men. from the forests of the northwest and the
cotton fields of the south, from every trade and occupation, from
every economic and social status of life and grouping them ad-
vantageously. We are not getting the men of the same size in the
same place, but all sizes in all places. We are getting this ag-
glomerate of men, selected variously and by chance, as it were into
great groups. We have no time for men to group into those groups
evolved by association, but we have to have a selective process by
which we will get the round men for the round places, the strong
men for the strong tasks, and the delicate men for the delicate tasks.
We have got to evolve a process by which that sort of assortment
will take place. Always heretofore in armies that has been a matter
of chance, it has been a matter of individual judgment of com-
manding officers . . .
Have not we essentially the same problem in the
millions that have come to us as immigrants from
every land to join our industrial forces?
THE PROBLEM OF DISTRIBUTION AND PLACEMENT
We take men from industrially developed countries
like England and Germany, from backward nations
like Turkey, Syria, and Armenia, from the handicraft
industries of Scandinavia and northern Italy, from the
fields and villages of Russia, Greece, and southern
Italy, and from the mountain occupations of the Bal-
1 The Personnel System of the United States Army, vol. I, p. 680.
49
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
kan countries. From every walk of life they come—-
peasants, laborers, mechanics, tradesmen, scholars and
professional men — to join America's industrial army.
We do not get the peasants on our farms, the mechan-
ics in our skilled occupations, and the tradesmen in
our shops and stores. They, too, are "an agglomerate
of men selected by chance." They, too, have to be
grouped advantageously, fitting men to tasks and tasks
to men. Nor can we wait until years of evolution will
eliminate the unfit and new generations grow up fit for
their tasks. As in the army a process of assorting and
developing men immediately is needed, and this can
not happen by chance or through the individual judg-
ments of the immigrants themselves or of the com-
manding officers of our industries.
The industrial depression through which we have
just passed made the need of a national system of
placement agencies particularly evident, and the period
of prosperity which we are now entering will again
emphasize it.
President Harding's Conference on Unemployment
in the fall of 1921 found that the presence of great
numbers of unemployed was leading local authorities
and philanthropic organizations to establish free em-
ployment bureaus in an effort to find work. Many of
these duplicated existing agencies and in most cases
the administrators of the bureaus were quite without
experience. The Conference, therefore, issued a manual
of instructions to local and state authorities explaining
how to organize such bureaus, and how to operate them
and avoid duplication. A temporary organization in
Washington, headed by Arthur Woods, was established,
and through this central office, a unified policy was pro-
moted throughout the country, and the methods and
practices of the local employment bureaus were to
some extent standardized.
50
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
Now that depression has given way to prosperity
again, the cry of shortage of labor is heard from many
quarters, and many employers' organizations are ask-
ing that less restrictive immigration laws be enacted.
But while shortages are apparent in certain kinds of
labor, there are still abundant supplies in other occu-
pations, and a more effective distribution of the avail-
able supplies becomes particularly important because
we do not know how long the present business activity
will last and whether it will not soon be succeeded by
another depression. How can the demand for admis-
sion of more immigrants be listened to, until there is
assurance that the immigrant labor supply here has
been as fully utilized as only a national placement
service makes possible.
DISCONNECTED EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES
Public opinion in America has been quite alive to
the need of the immigrant for assistance and protec-
tion in his search for work. Most of the industrial es-
tates have licensed and regulated and inspected the
work of private labor agents and attempted to prevent
the abuses to which the immigrant is subject at their
hands. In every large city there is some philanthropic
organization to help him find work. And in recent
years most cities have had free employment bureaus,
which are designed to put the wage earner, native and
foreign born alike, in touch with opportunities for em-
ployment. The Federal Government also established
in 1907 a Division of Information in its Bureau of Im-
migration, with branch offices in New York and other
cities to render the same service.
All these, however, have been far less effective than
they might if there had been a common policy which
guided them in their work. Each has worked more or
less independently, pursuing a policy of its own, which
51
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
was usually determined by the superintendent of the
employment office, who might or might not be familiar
with immigrant problems.
Nothing can show this more clearly than the con-
trast in the work of district branches of the public em-
ployment bureaus in Chicago. In that city three dis-
trict bureaus, under federal control, were organized to
give service to foreign-born men and women.
A visit to a Bohemian and Polish quarter found an
attractive young Bohemian woman in charge of the
women's division of the district's office. She had a
radiant interest in what she was doing; and she knew
the range of employment possibility for Bohemian and
Polish women throughout the city's industry. She
spoke Bohemian with the applicants when necessary,
but still did not lose a chance to stimulate them to
learn English by using it herself, and showing them
that with the language they could improve their earn-
ings or conditions of work. She knew the traits and de-
sires of the workers; her own home in the city had
always been in the neighborhood of theirs. She un-
derstood the thrift of Bohemian and Polish husbands
which sends wives forth for jobs; and this was a guide
to her in determining the necessity for the night work
which married women request.
A visit to the Polish quarter found a Russian-born
woman in charge of employment who knew Polish coun-
tries first hand, and who spoke Polish, as well as sev-
eral other European languages. Like the Bohemian
woman referred to, she had informed herself intelli-
gently of industrial opportunities and conditions for
people of the nationality her district office cares for;
and she had the same sympathetic understanding on
the ground of closely related racial stock. She had
been the women's resource in unfortunate industrial
experiences. In a case where a woman had lost a
52
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
hand in a pie factory and had received no compensa-
tion, an inquiry brought out the fact that the Polish
lawyer to whom she gave the case had collected and
kept the money. In some instances the women re-
ported money difficulties with little Polish private em-
ployment agencies of the neighborhood, which the
woman in charge of this office tried to have adjusted.
She was energetic to promote citizenship among the
workers also. Of 1500 applications for citizenship taken
at the office in five months, 650 were women's. She
tried to convince them of a connection between the in-
telligent participation of citizenship and the develop-
ment of earning capacity. The district work here had
been carried on about a year; and one record month
attained a registration of 1081 women applicants — all
Polish, and of the neighborhood.
A visit to the third district found an employment
office located in a community wholly foreign, including
people of Lithuanian, Polish, and Bohemian birth. The
person in charge of the women's division was, in this
case, an Irish woman. In contrast to the cordiality
and interest shown at the other offices, this visit opened
with her glance at a clock, whose hands showed half-
past three. The office closed at four, she said, and
there was "a bit to do 'till then." A quick suggestion
from the visitor that a more convenient time be set
for the interview, was met with the answer, "No, you
might as well stay. Each day brings its own."
This is told only to show that the subject of the in-
dustrial fortune of the foreign-born women of the neigh-
borhood did not find an answering spark of feeling, or
light up the expression of this Irish woman, as in the
case of the other two women, who were of the same
Slavic stock as the people whom they served. She said
there was so little to do in the women's division that
she gave some assistance to the men's. She "couldn't
53
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
say" whether many foreign-born women were em-
ployed in some great manufacturing plants a few
blocks away — although it was afterward learned that
several thousand foreign-born women are there. She
seemed to have no love for either her work, or the
people; and she made the unsympathetic generaliza-
tion that "these foreigners only want to work and
save to take money back to the old country." The
contrast between the two offices first visited, and this
office, indicated personal differences to some extent,
but the important indication is that persons who share
the old-country experience and the language of the
foreign-born women applicants, have all the advan-
tages on their side for understanding, sympathetic, in-
telligent work in these women's behalf.
One of the main difficulties in developing a public
placement system for immigrants has been the fact
that it might work to the injury of American workers.
Employers might prefer the immigrants and thus
American standards would be lowered. No doubt
there is some danger that this might happen, but the
danger is greater still when immigrants are admitted
into the country and then are left to their own devices
to find work, or to the devices of such employers as are
seeking cheap labor at any cost. Careful guidance,
under an organized system of placing immigrants in
industry, can avoid the dangers and be of incalculable
value to the nation as well as to the immigrant. Once
the immigrant is admitted, if we wish to make him a
part of our American citizenship, we must give him an
opportunity for profitable employment equal to what
Americans get. A placement service for immigrants
alone, however, might well prove dangerous to Ameri-
can workers. An employment service, therefore, must
be organized to handle American and immigrant work-
ers alike without discrimination.
54
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
Many of the elements, the parts, that need to go into
the building of a national placement agency are al-
ready available; and we have had enough experience
with them to know what are the proper methods and
policies to pursue. There is needed the combination of
the various parts and the establishment of a uniform
national policy in cooperation with states and cities.
THE UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE
Free employment offices maintained by public authori-
ties have been in existence in this country since 1890,
when Ohio exacted the first state law establishing such
offices in five cities. After that every period of indus-
trial depression and extensive unemployment was fol-
lowed by the enactment of state laws and municipal
ordinances creating such offices, until at the outbreak
of the World War public employment bureaus were in
existence in 25 states and 64 cities.
When the United States entered the war a United
States Employment Service was created in connection
with the Department of Labor, and this extended the
offices to cover every state in the Union and the Dis-
trict of Columbia, until it had in active operation about
350 such offices. Many of these were state and munici-
pal bureaus supported in part by funds from the Fed-
eral Service. The Director General of the United
States Employment Service reported in 1919 that each
working day of the eighteen months from January,
1918, to June, 1919, approximately 10,000 persons were
placed in jobs of all kinds at a cost to the whole coun-
try of about $1.34 per placement.1 After the armistice,
however, Congress refused to allow more than $400,000
1 Annual Report of Director-General, United States Employment
Service, 1919, p. 54.
55
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
for the Service, and most of the states now pursue their
own policies, as they did before the war.
The development of the United States Employment
Service was due primarily to the labor needs of the
war industries. Until 1917 public employment bureaus
had been looked upon primarily as agencies for reliev-
ing unemployment and protecting wage earners against
the abuses of private labor agents. The war showed
that such bureaus are as necessary to industry in a
period of shortage of labor as they are to the unem-
ployed in times when there is a surplus of workers.
The main work of the United States Employment
Service was to mobilize the available supplies of labor
and to distribute it properly among the war industries.
It was an organized national placement service made
necessary by our war needs. Supplies and munitions
could not be produced in the quantities needed and
on time, if individual workers were to be left to find
the work for which they were most needed, and in-
dividual employers were to be free to attract and
solicit labor without regard to the needs of other war
services, or without regard to whether their enterprises
were essential to the prosecution of the war or not.
It is exactly this same kind of service that is needed
to secure the proper placement of immigrants in our
industries, if the workers who come to us from foreign
lands are to be assimilated properly by our industries
in accordance with our national industrial needs, and
not left to congest and maintain un-American stand-
ards in industries already oversupplied with labor, or
to drift into occupations where their skill must be
scrapped and where they may be used for the private
purposes of individual employers.
How was the task of distributing and placing labor
in accordance with war needs accomplished? In the
methods used we may find the means of placing
56
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
immigrants properly in our industries in accordance
with national needs in times of peace.
In the first place, all the existing public employ-
ment bureaus were brought under the federal system,
and new offices were established in cooperation with
the states and municipalities. All of these were asked
to register the available labor and the orders for help
sent in by employers. The offices in each state were
united into a single system under a federal director of
employment, who maintained a central clearing house
for transferring labor from office to office and through-
out the state. These federal directors reported to the
Director-General of the United States Employment
Service, who maintained a central clearing house in
Washington for the transfer of the surplus labor of one
state to others where that labor might be most profit-
ably used.
This, in outline, shows the machinery of distribution
and placement of war workers, which must be main-
tained for immigrant workers also if we wish to as-
similate such workers with the American industrial
population and have them serve our national interests
properly.
THE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE AND THE IMMIGRANT
Among the 5,000,000 wage earners placed in positions
by the United States Employment Service during the
eighteen months' period referred to, there were no
doubt several million foreign-born workers; but no
special organization or technique was developed for
handling immigrant workers. This was due partly to
the fact that immigration had practically stopped
during the war, and partly also because the business
methods of handling all the workers by the Employ-
ment Service left much to be desired. Very few of
57
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the employment offices had separate departments for
handling foreign-born laborers, and the number of in-
terpreters employed in the offices generally was negli-
gible. The results of the experience of the United
States Employment Service in placing immigrants are,
therefore, mainly negative.
This is all the more surprising since the entire United
States Employment Service owes its origin to the law
creating the Division of Information in the federal
Bureau of Immigration. The law was enacted in 1907,
for the purpose of gathering information with regard
to opportunities for employment in all parts of the
Union and furnishing this information to immigrants
and others who might apply. It was designed mainly
as a means of distributing immigrants properly through-
out the country; but in this purpose it failed almost
completely. For many years only one small office was
operated by the Division in New York City, and the
amount of business it did was negligible.
When the war shut off immigration and left the im-
migrant inspectors with little to do, many of these
were assigned to do placement work for which few of
them had training or aptitude. Branch offices of the
Division of Information were opened in a number of
cities, but with the exception of Chicago these may be
said to have been only nominal employment offices.
In Chicago, however, a placement bureau of consider-
able efficiency was developed under the immigrant in-
spector, which concerned itself mainly with sending
men to farms and women into household service. In
January, 1918, the Secretary of Labor ordered the
separation of the Division of Information from the
Immigration Bureau and its expansion and operation
as a separate bureau of the Department of Labor
under the title United States Employment Service.
The greater part of the personnel of the Division
58
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
of Information was transferred to the Employment
Service.
The Division of Information had conceived its duty
to be the gathering of quite general information re-
garding opportunities for employment from rural post
offices and similar sources, and the placing of this in-
formation in the hands of such people as applied at its
offices; leaving the immigrants pretty much to their
own devices in finding their way to whatever specific
jobs may have been available. An efficient employ-
ment service, however, requires active business meth-
ods to induce employers to place definite orders for
help with the employment offices, with responsible
statements of the kind and number of workers wanted,
the wages paid, and other conditions of employment.
Then the officers of the employment bureau must seek
applicants of the kind desired and see that the employ-
ers' orders a e filled promptly with workers who meet
the specifications. Such a service the Division of In-
formation never had and the United States Employ-
ment Service only in part attained.
From the experiences of the Division of Information,
the federal Employment Service, and the public em-
ployment bureaus maintained by states and cities,
however, we are in a position to know the methods of
organization, business policies, and office technique
which are necessary to distribute and place immigrants
properly in American industries, so that a speedy ad-
justment of both may be secured.
BUSINESS METHODS OF PLACEMENT AGENCIES
Placement work is a highly technical business which
requires trained employment managers, who must have
the closest contacts with employers and workers alike.
The business can not be carried on at long range or by
59
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
"mail order" methods. This means that the idea of
collecting general information about industrial oppor-
tunities by mail and distributing it to workers by means
of bulletins or posters must be discarded. Immigrants
do not know how to make use of such information, and
Americans who do often find that crowds have pre-
ceded them to the jobs, more than enough to supply
all demands. Any employment service operated di-
rectly from Washington must from the necessities of
the case have these defects, and, therefore, the em-
ployment offices must be primarily local agencies, in
touch with all the opportunities for employment in
the industries of the locality, and capable of mobilizing
all the local labor supplies, including the immigrants
who permanently or temporarily have made the local-
ity their home.
That most public employment offices have been
largely ineffective in finding places for immigrants in
American industries is made evident by the existence
of the great numbers of private labor agencies dealing
with immigrant labor. Although the public offices give
their services free of charge, while the private agencies
require the payment of fees and are subject to all the
abuses we have mentioned, nevertheless the competi-
tion of the public agencies has had little effect on the
business of the private agencies. The latter seem to
prosper ever more and more.
The experience of the Milwaukee Employment Bu-
reau, however, serves to indicate how such a bureau
may be made effective in placing immigrants. During
the first years of its existence it had little effect what-
ever on the labor market of the city. Its business was
conducted in a small dark room, up a dingy flight of
stairs, and one man attended to it all, his work con-
sisting mainly in securing odd jobs for casual laborers.
Although one of the main reasons for its establishment
60
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
was to remove the abuses of private labor agencies,
the latter felt its competition not at all. In this its ex-
perience was typical of the early days of most public
employment offices in other states. Said a private
employment agent: "Before the public office was es-
tablished I had to handle a lot of these short time jobs
to accommodate some of my customers, and for this
reason I had a lot of * down-and-outs ' hanging around
my office whom I did not want. The public employ-
ment office has relieved me of all that business now."
In 1911 the Milwaukee office was reorganized by the
newly-created Industrial Commission of Wisconsin co-
operating with the city and county of Milwaukee, both
of which contributed to its support. A large loft was
rented for the office, separate departments for men and
women organized, and an employment committee con-
sisting of representatives of employers, workers, and
public authorities was appointed to direct its affairs.
This committee, in conjunction with the state civil
service commission, selected a competent superintend-
ent for the office and several assistants, and the busi-
ness of the bureau began to grow immediately and to
change its character. In the course of about two years
it had taken away the business of the private labor
agencies handling American workers, and almost all of
them, with the exception of those placing domestic
servants, went out of business. The public office was
meeting the needs of the English-speaking workers and
then* employers in the city; and many laborers were
also distributed throughout the state.
It was noticed, however, that few non-English-speak-
ing workers patronized the office, and little impression
was made on the business of two private labor agencies
in the city, whose specialty was furnishing "foreign
laborers" for railroad construction and other heavy
work. The public office thereupon selected an inter-
61
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
preter, in the same careful manner that the superin-
tendent was chosen, and he was put in charge of a
separate department for placing foreign laborers. Some
of the clerks in the office could also speak foreign
tongues, and it was the boast of the office that its staff
could speak eighteen languages. Signs in various lan-
guages were placed in the windows, contacts were
made with consuls from various countries resident in
the city, and in a comparatively short time great num-
bers of immigrant workers were attracted to the office
and placed both in and out of the city.
The immigrants' department had to do a lot of
work not required for English-speaking workers, such
as giving written instructions for traveling, helping
read and translate letters, sending money orders abroad,
etc.; but this was only applying to a special class of
applicants the same general principle of rendering the
service needed which held in the office generally. The
result of this service soon made itself felt, and two or
three years later the private agencies in the city which
had been handling immigrant workers gave up their
licenses.
The problem of placement is, however, a national
problem, and, for immigrants particularly, distribu-
tion according to national needs is as important as
common labor was during the war. The national gov-
ernment must direct the distribution and placement of
the immigrant in accordance with national purposes;
but this, it has been found, the government can do
best by assisting and encouraging state and local au-
thorities in maintaining employment offices, and by
directing and supervising their work in line with na-
tional employment policies developed by a federal em-
ployment authority, rather than by establishing
federal offices in the localities where there is a need
for employment bureaus.
EFFECTIVE PLACEMENT SERVICE
The local employment offices need to be in close
connection with one another, and this has been most
efficiently secured where all the offices in a state are
organized by a state law under a single directing head,
who conducts the local offices in accordance with a uni-
fied state plan and maintains a central clearing house
for transferring orders for help and workers from office
to office.
A unified employment service can thus be built from
the bottom up, by uniting the state employment
systems under a national director in Washington,
who would enforce national policies and arrange for
the transfer of workers from state to state through the
state directors. In the early days of its existence the
United States Employment Service was advised by ex-
perts with many years of experience in the state and
municipal employment offices, to adopt this method of
organization and follow its procedure. The advice was
ignored at first, but the public criticism of the Em-
ployment Service and the force of the circumstances
of placement work led to the approval of the plan
toward the end of the war.
The federal laws for vocational education and road
building have pointed the way for the congressional
legislation necessary to insure such a national placement
service. These laws create boards whose business it is
to determine the national policies of industrial educa-
tion and good roads. They set the minimum standards
and the approved methods which must be maintained
by schools and state highway commissions. The schools
and road building, however, are conducted by state
and local authorities, and the federal officers have only
supervisory authority. The laws provide that states
may accept the acts by enactments of their legisla-
tures, and if they do this and their authorities main-
tain the minimum standards set by the federal board,
63
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
they receive certain financial assistance from the fed-
eral government.
The United States Employment Service was never
authorized by an act of Congress. It was established
by the Secretary of Labor in an administrative order
under his powers as war labor administrator. If we
are to have an adequate placement service for immi-
grants it will be possible to maintain it only as part
of a general employment service for all workers; and,
to insure permanence and success, this will necessitate
congressional action to establish, after the manner of
the highway and vocational education laws, a federal
administrative body, with authority to supervise and
aid states which adopt the law and operate local
employment offices in accordance with placement poli-
cies devised or approved by the national authority.
The plan outlined in this chapter will be most ap-
proved by those most familiar with the difficulty of
finding for the newly arrived immigrant, the place best
suited both for himself and the country which opens
its doors to him. Its adoption will meet many obstacles.
In both Chambers of Congress, there is a constant oppo-
sition to legislation extending federal power over sub-
jects now in the control of the states. For many years
one President after another has asked Congress for
legislation extending the power of the federal govern-
ment so that it would give protection to the life and
property of aliens in the states, as provided in our
treaties. Such legislation is undoubtedly constitu-
tional, and it is necessary to protect the honor of the
United States pledged by its treaties; but so far such
a statute has not been enacted.
CHAPTER IV
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
WHEN the immigrant enters the doors of an industrial
establishment as an employee, he presents the same
problems to the industry that he does to the nation as
he passes through the port of entry. How can the
stranger be absorbed into the industrial community?
And what methods and policies of management are
best calculated to make him develop a feeling of unity
with the native-born and Americanized employees?
EMPLOYERS' VIEWS OF AMERICANIZATION
Among managers and employers we found a general
feeling that industry must assume some responsibility
for Americanization; but practically all of them iden-
tified this with the teaching of English and the natu-
ralization of aliens. A few, however, questioned the
responsibility of industries in this respect. The Presi-
dent and General Manager of a mining corporation
wrote : "In our opinion the Americanization of foreign-
born employees is not the business of the manager of
privately owned industries, excepting in so far as their
position as large taxpayers gives them influence with
local government or school authorities."
And the policy of a large locomotive works was
stated as follows: "Being situated in the heart of a
large city with every facility of schooling and amuse-
ment, we have not considered it necessary or advisable
to teach our employees English or civics. We cooper-
65
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ate in every way possible with the established institu-
tions for the teaching of these matters, and we have
officers who give advice to employees when they need
it."
While most employers committed themselves to a
policy of "Americanization," few were clear as to the
nature of the responsibility in this respect that indus-
try ought to assume, or as to the methods by which an
amalgamation of immigrant and native-born workers
might be brought about. And there was apparently
little realization among them of the relation between
the methods of industrial management and the assimi-
lation of immigrants.
AN ENLIGHTENED POLICY IN A MILL TOWN
A river overhung with trees goes winding through this
little town; wood and open country extend beyond its
boundaries. A few streets of neat houses, three small
churches, a store or two, a schoolhouse and the gray
stone mill are all its properties. One could not say
the mill is in the town; it is the town, for no one, ex-
cept the priests and ministers and the public school
teachers, lives there who is not mill connected. And
nothing is owned there, with the exception of the
churches and school, by others than mill officials and
those whom they employ.
This mill has never had a strike, and it has lived for
forty years. It has seen its early American, Irish, and
English workers succeeded by French Canadians and
Poles, who are the dominant nationalities now. About
ten years ago foreign labor had become a definite prob-
lem of management. At this time the mill introduced
a woman whose duty it should be to straighten out the
complications arising from the "tenements" main-
tained for the employees. The company was dismayed
66
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
at the conditions which were growing out of immigra-
tion, and foreign-born families straight from Europe
were pouring in, making things worse daily. The
company houses erected for the purpose of controlling
living conditions were themselves beyond control.
This woman found that the families who rented the
tenements took boarders, and the company had no
idea who lived in the houses nor how many. It did
know there was extreme overcrowding and that living
conditions were very bad. Her first realization was
that nothing effective could be done unless she could
communicate with the people. She began at once to
acquire a Polish vocabulary of words likely to be
needed. It was a difficult matter to get at the truth
about the tenants, and it took months. The census of
houses showed that in some of those rented by the
company for a nominal rental of six or seven dollars a
month, the tenants were taking so many boarders that
they more than cleared the rent, and that they were
not only "making money on the company," but were
giving nearly free housing to workers in out-of-town
mills who had no connection with this mill. But the
worst feature was the wretched way of living. After a
true list of occupants of each house and their relation-
ship to the family were obtained, some new regulations
were issued by the company which ever since have held
the situation in check.
Through the tenement visiting the first steps were
taken to bridge the separation between mill authorities
and the foreign-born employees, especially the women.
The "welfare worker" always used her visits to be on
the lookout for opportunities to establish friendly help.
The first chance came in the form of roaches. She
worked with a Polish woman for two days to get rid of
them and success came in the end. The woman's grati-
tude spread through the community; and, also, the
67
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
method of eliminating the roaches. It was bound to
be true among the Poles that an improvement insti-
tuted in one family spread to all the rest.
Semiannual house cleanings were established by the
welfare agent. She told the women that it was Ameri-
can to clean house before Christmas and in the spring.
Their acceptance of this was a custom she credits not
to herself but to their religion. The cleaning times she
suggested happened to coincide with an old-country
Polish religious custom — to prepare their homes for the
celebration of Christmas and Easter. So successful was
she that the mill now suffers from the absence of women
at this house-cleaning time. They stay out before
Christmas and Easter to do the work.
In time, the company's representative made the dis-
covery that dampness in Polish houses and the ten-
dency of paper to come off the walls were due to the
continual flow of steam from the kitchen stove. The
Poles boiled their food, and boiled it for hours. The
use of the oven was scarcely known. Cabbage soup,
boiled meat, and pastry bought at the store, were
about all the food items they knew. A start in cook-
ing was made one day when she went to a Polish
woman's house to teach some simple American addi-
tions to the usual menu. The first lesson was not a
success, because of the inconvenience of running to the
store for what might seem ordinary ingredients. The
recipes of the second lesson went well, however, and it
was always true that an idea that "took" with the
women spread from house to house. After this some
of the women were persuaded to attend classes in cook-
ing and canning, which have been going on ever since.
The teaching of English to the men began early in
her work. This grew naturally out of the tenement in-
specting. She saw men, in the evening, studying from
little books which had Polish and English words in
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
parallel columns. She knew that a spoken language is
learned by sound, rather than by sight; and her in-
stinct for teaching made her want to help these men
to learn in a right way, less discouraging to them. So
she and an assistant went to Springfield to learn the
Roberts system, and then started two classes. It was
always hard getting the women, because their husbands
could not see why they should want to learn any-
thing.
When, because of lack of room, it seemed necessary
several years ago to hold the adult English classes in
the school, the natives of the town objected and talked
of starting a petition to prevent this. They did not
want their children to use the same seats and desks
the next day. In this instance they were overruled in
their objection. And gradually the attitude of the
natives has undergone change, stimulated by the mill
corporation's policy. There is now very little of such
feeling in the town. The mill met the situation by
helping the foreign born to change, making associated
living possible. The town people have become aware
that increasing numbers of Poles are property owners;
also that, when Polish families take possession of a
neglected place, they immediately begin to make re-
pairs, and to "fix up" the yard.
The present welfare worker at the mill finds that it
is easily possible to pormote activities of various kinds.
Once the start is made in a town so largely mill-owned
and controlled, there seems to be nothing to block the
progress. The real problem now is how to do these
manifestly good and needed things, without devitaliz-
ing the people. Does it not, perhaps, sap their initia-
tive to know that the company always stands ready to
meet, or even to anticipate, every important com-
munity need? The thoughtful superintendent of the
mill has not failed to consider this idea. When asked
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
if he did not think that incentives for active citizen-
ship must be provided, he replied that he realized the
truth of this, but he believes that American ways of
living will lead to community participation. If this
was not completely convincing to the visitor, there
was surely no lack of conviction regarding the fine
quality and spirit of the work which this mill has done,
and is continuing to do.
One result of this company's policy has been a low
labor turnover, that is, a comparatively small shifting
of the labor force. Few quit and few have to be hired.
This means that newcomers need be taken only a few
at a time, in digestible quantities, to take care of nor-
mal expansion. And the company can hope that the
standards of the present working force will prevail and
be extended to the new immigrants as they come.
THE POLICY THAT ALIENATES
In the mill town the immigrant population was given
special consideration. It was put under the tutelage
of the employer's representatives until such time as it
could conduct its own affairs, when the policies used in
dealing with the native born could be extended to the
foreign born without evil results.
The exact opposite of this we found in Akron,
Ohio, where a large industrial corporation had devel-
oped excellent labor management policies in dealing
with its native-born and other English-speaking em-
ployees, and provided many of the so-called welfare
services for these, but neglected almost entirely its non-
English-speaking workers.
This corporation had a rule not to employ anyone
who was unable to speak English and who had not de-
clared his intention of becoming an American citizen.
But when the expansion of its business required addi-
70
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
tional workers, this rule was waived. And we were
informed by the employment manager that in addition
to its regular employees there were about 400 immi-
grant workers who lived in what he himself called "the
lousy house," which turned out to be barracks and
bunks for the "foreigners." These men were secured
through interpreters, who acted as their gang bosses
and ran the commissaries. They did their own cook-
ing, the company paying the cooks. They did not
associate with the other employees in the recreation
facilities provided by the company, and its welfare
work did not reach them.
These men were living in a "labor camp," although
employed in a large city where home life was possible.
Such camps are often used by city industries needing
large supplies of common labor, but the camps of rail-
road and construction workers employ the greatest
numbers of immigrants, and the labor policy of neglect
is to be found most typical in these.1
A railroad camp commonly consists of a coal car, a kitchen car,
one or two dining cars, a commissary and provision car, and several
sleeping or "bunk" cars. With the exception of the coal car they
are all ordinary box cars fitted up to suit the particular purpose.
In camps occupied exclusively by foreigners there are seldom any
separate kitchen or eating cars. A group of from six to ten foreigners
will cook, eat, sleep, and store their provisions all in one car.
Railroad laborers distinguish two kinds of camps: the "white
man's" and the "foreigner's" camp. A "white man" is a laborer
of any nationality who speaks English, eats American food, and
travels alone. "Foreigners" are those who speak no English,
travel and work in gangs under the leadership of an interpreter,
and board themselves in their native fashion.
Immigrant labor employed on railroad work in Wisconsin is
mainly Greek and Italian. Greeks are the most numerous. There
are also a great many Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Austrians. The
Austrians do the heavier construction work.
1 Labor Camps in Wisconsin, published by the Industrial Com-
mission of Wisconsin, 1913.
71
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Foreign laborers are secured by railroad companies almost ex-
clusively through private labor agencies. The labor agents keep-
in touch with interpreters, and when they have a call for laborers
they arrange with one of the interpreters to get a gang together.
The common arrangement is thai the interpreter receives $60 to
$75 per month to act as "straw boss" on the work, his main
duties being to interpret the orders of the foremen to the gang. He
collects from each member of the gang the fee for the labor agent. . . .
What the amount of this fee is depends very largely on what the
immigrant knows. If he has been in the country several years,
knows a little English, and understands that his labor is in demand,
he pays less for his job. If he is recently arrived and his only op-
portunity for employment seems to be through the interpreter, he
pays more. The actual fees that came to our notice varied from
$1 to $9 per job. "There's no money in 'white* labor," said
one of the most successful labor agents. "It is on foreign gangs
that I make my money." But the labor agent contends that he
does not get all of the fee that is collected from the laborers. Part
of it is kept by the interpreter and the rest must very often be shared
with the official of the railroad that does the hiring. While we
were in the office of a labor agent an interpreter came in who said
he had a gang of 50 Greeks who wanted work and he was ready to
pay $4 per man, $2 for the agent and $2 for the road master or who-
ever did the hiring. . . .
As already mentioned, foreign gangs board themselves. The
company furnishes cars, coal, and water, and the men do their
own cooking. Each car is furnished with a cooking stove, a table,
and benches. Shelves overhead, nails in the walls, and the floors
serve as storage places for provisions. Most cars occupied by foreign-
ers do not have individual sleeping bunks. The common practice
is to build a platform across each end of the car about three feet
above the floor. On this a double blanket (or a straw mattress)
is placed and four or five men sleep together on it. Sometimes the
floor underneath the platform is used as another bed, but ordinarily
provisions are stored there. Eight to ten men are supposed to live
in one car. In some, however, only six were found and in others
there were twelve and fifteen. . . .
Following are typical notes of an inspection of one of the camps :
"Surroundings of camp very bad. Odors plentiful. Everything
left over from food seemed to have been thrown out of the cars
without any care whatever. Both front and rear of camps bad.
Within ten feet of camp is ditch full of water drained from swamp
near by. This full of garbage, old clothes, etc. Thick scum on
water. Plenty of flies."
72
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
CHANGING ATTITUDES
The Delaware Americanization Committee describes a
labor camp in a company town in much the same terms
as the report on Wisconsin camps just quoted, and
concludes:1 "This condition which is typical of for-
eign labor camps in all parts of the United States,
seems to be due to two causes combined: the company
thinks the men do not want anything better and the
men think they can not get anything better." The
same conclusion was implied by the United States Im-
migration Commission when it regretfully reported
that Southern and Eastern Europeans in America were
willing "seemingly to accept indefinitely without pro-
test certain wages and conditions of employment" and
were reluctant "to enter labor disputes involving loss
of time," . . . and when it complained of their "ready
acceptance of low wages and existing working condi-
tions." 2
But this submissive attitude of the immigrant has
been changing, and with it has come a corresponding
change in the employer and in the public generally.
In years gone by, when American workers struck, im-
migrants were brought in to take their places. The
Americans considered it a mark of distinction to be-
long to trade-unions and immigrants were condemned
for not joining unions and for acting as strike break-
ers. In recent years, however, this situation has been
reversed. Immigrants, having been in the main unor-
ganized and underpaid, formed unions and struck.
Native workers refused to strike and even took immi-
grants' places, and division between native and foreign
born was intensified by anti-alien agitation.
1 Annual Report, 1920, 1921, p. 25.
2 Abstract of Reports, Vol. 1, p. 530.
73
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
During 1919, when cost of living was rising by leaps
and bounds, immigrant wage earners in great numbers
followed the example of native-born workers, and at-
tempted to maintain or to raise their standards of liv-
ing by means of labor organizations. They struck for
higher wages, for shorter working days, for recognition
of their unions, and for a voice in determining their
conditions of employment.
The reaction of American industry and to some ex-
tent of the American public to this movement, has
amazed not only the immigrant, but Americans as
well. Instead of welcoming the effort of the immigrant
worker to raise his standards to that of the American
worker and thus make amalgamation easier, a cam-
paign of vilification of the immigrant was begun. His
strikes and his unions were condemned as alien, Bol-
shevik, revolutionary. A deliberate effort was made
to divide American employees from the foreign-born
and to raise antagonism between them. During the
great steel strike the steel corporation issued a state-
ment that the American employees were loyal; only
the foreign-born took part in the strike. The strike
itself was declared to be not for improved conditions,
but for control of the industry by the workers, a syn-
dicalist movement.
Clothing manufacturers in Cleveland, Rochester,
and Philadelphia, whose industries were built up by
immigrant labor and some of whom were themselves
foreign born, advertised for "American help" only,
when their employees went out on strike, and charged
their labor difficulties to foreign agitators. Textile
mills in New England, which have had strikes every two
or three years, now discovered that it was the "foreign
element" that was making unreasonable demands, and
through the press the well-to-do citizens were aroused
to the menace of the foreign born hi their midst.
74
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
So it was throughout the country. Newspapers car-
ried scaring headlines that striking immigrants were
using violence to keep loyal American employees from
working. Soldiers were called to quell riots. Raids on
the strikers' headquarters resulted in seizure of radical
literature. Strikers were charged with being in a Bol-
shevist conspiracy to overthrow the government and
confiscate industries.
In Rochester a union of 12,000 members, having
contracts with all but one of the leading manufacturers
of the industry in the city, was condemned by a com-
mittee of the state legislature investigating radical
activity as alien and syndicalist, because it is an
industrial union rather than a craft union and is not
affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The
condemnation was made on the testimony of one man,
at the instigation of the firm whose employees were
on strike, and the union was given no opportunity
to be heard. Newspapers took up the cry and unin-
formed Americans were arrayed against foreign-born
neighbors.
But this cry against the immigrant seems only to
have marked a transition period, when great masses of
immigrants were changing their attitude toward their
status in American industry, and employers were forced
to change theirs. The cry which was heard through-
out the country during 1919 and 1920 died away the
following year, partly because of the depression but
partly also because of a more widespread realization of
what leaders among industrial managers had been
pointing out for several years — that the immigrant
wage earners must be given a new deal; must be
treated as belonging to the industries in which they
work, as citizens with rights rather than outsiders who
were merely brought in to do disagreeable and heavy
labor which Americans would not do, or who were will-
75
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ing to accept wages and working conditions that were
unacceptable to Americans. The bitter strikes of 1919,
with the foreign born taking a most prominent part,
made it evident that the immigrants were expecting a
new deal from American industry, and many employ-
ers who would not voluntarily follow the lead of the
f oresighted managers who pointed the way, were forced
into line by the pressure of their rebelling employees.
A NEW DAY FOB THE IMMIGRANT WAGE EARNER
The International Harvester Company in all its plants,
the Standard Oil Company at Bayonne, New Jersey,
the General Electric Company at Lynn, Massachu-
setts, The Midvale Steel Company, all of whom employ
a large number of foreign-born wage earners, had taken
the lead in developing employee representation plans
and industrial councils, which attempted to furnish
those immigrants opportunities for presenting their
grievances and to offer them, together with their native-
born fellowworkers, a voice in determining working
conditions. This was soon followed by a very rapid
spread of shop committee plans of various kinds, more
or less sincerely devoted to the same purpose; and
many industrial establishments which had been devot-
ing themselves to so-called welfare work employed
special welfare workers who spoke foreign languages
and knew foreign peoples to give attention to the needs
of their immigrant employees.
The war, the shutting off of immigration, and the
fluctuations in cost of living brought about the changes
in the attitudes of the immigrants and the employers;
and the influences of these forces may be expected to
continue long enough to make permanent the new labor
management policies which so many American indus-
tries are developing for weaving the immigrant wage
76
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
earner into the texture of the American industrial popu-
lation.
Many immigrants learned in the army to eat and
live like Americans. Many others worked in war in-
dustries under protection of government regulations.
The enormous increase in demand for labor, which
continued after the signing of the armistice well into
1920, together with the recent shutting off of immigra-
tion, made the law of supply and demand work in favor
of the wage earner. Unskilled laborers were in a posi-
tion to take advantage of this condition much better
than skilled workers or salaried employees, for they
could fit into new places more easily. So the wages of
the unskilled, in whose ranks the foreign born are
mostly found, rose faster even than the wages of the
skilled, and the immigrants were able to get a new
taste of American life. They had bought liberty bonds
and savings stamps, and were praised as one-hundred-
per-cent Americans. To this, the testimony is over-
whelming that they responded with loyalty and am-
bition. They wanted to be real Americans, to act like
Americans, and to live like Americans. And now
American employers are realizing that they must ad-
just themselves to the new demands of the immigrant
workers.
The recent drop in cost of living and the industrial
depression have tended to force wages of the unskilled
and therefore of the immigrants down faster than those
of the skilled and native-born workers. But this has
not changed the attitude of the forward-looking em-
ployers to the need of maintaining the status of the
immigrant worker on a higher level than he occupied
before the war. The depression and widespread un-
employment have threatened the living standards of
all classes of workers, and the common danger has ap-
parently developed a bond of sympathy between the
77
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY]
native and the foreign born, which is overcoming the
antagonism engendered during the strikes and conflicts
of the period of 1919 and 1920. Moreover, the new
immigration law, restricting immigration in any one
year to three per cent of each nationality in the country
in 1910, has made employers realize the necessity of
managing properly and conserving the immigrant labor
that is available, if it is to be kept loyal and pro-
ductive when industrial activity is again resumed.
We have, therefore, a more widespread recognition
of the need for developing enlightened methods of
labor management and labor maintenance with respect
to immigrant workers as a permanent policy for Ameri-
can industry. How this is to be done may be gathered
from the experience of those employers who foresaw the
need and pioneered the way, some of which is described
in the succeeding chapter.
The spirit with which this work is to be done and
which many employers are coming to realize as neces-
sary may be gathered from the following editorial in
the Christian Science Monitor of April, 1919:
. . . Too often the employer groups have dealt with their foreign-
born employees only as "the help," the means of carrying on the
business; they have had no conception of the possible results of
allowing the abyss that yawns between the ordinary thought-
processes of employee and employer to continue unbridged, or they
have thought of that abyss only as something that, at its worst,
would mean nothing else than a more or less costly interruption of
the business by a strike or a walkout.
The meaning of America must be brought home to employers
such as these. They, as well as the foreign-born employee, must
become intimately conscious of the American idea. They must be
led to realize, before any further social and industrial explosions
are required to point the lesson, that in America the advantages of
freedom and liberty cannot forever be enjoyed by a few at the
expense of the many. Employers and employees must come to see
and acknowledge that under the American idea each benefits and
prospers only as opportunity is afforded for the benefit and prosperity
of all. Liberty under the American idea does not consort with
78
THE EMPLOYER AND THE IMMIGRANT
exploitation, any more than it fosters anarchy. In America, the
key to all right activity and organization is and always has been,
commonweal, which is to say the welfare of all in common. And
Americanization, under whatever agency, will fall short of its proper
effect unless it brings this fact home to native bora and foreign
born alike.
CHAPTER V
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
THE time has come when the nation may depend upon
the employers to help in adjusting their immigrant
employees to conditions of American work and living,
as well as to adjust their own labor policies to meet
the special requirements of such employees. In the
methods and policies which many industries have in-
augurated and which we shall describe in this and the
three succeeding chapters, there may be much to criti-
cize from the point of view of trade unionists and
others who define "industrial democracy'* in terms dif-
ferent from those of industrial managers. With this
conflict of opinion we are not here concerned. Our
purpose is only to point out those labor policies of
American industries which tend to fuse the immigrant
and native-born workers whom they employ, just as in
later chapters we shall describe the trade union policies
which have a similar effect.
One of the first needs that every intelligent manager
notes, of course, is instruction in English for those
employees who do not understand the language. This
has led to quite a widespread organization of classes in
industrial plants either directly by the management or
in cooperation with public authorities or civic organi-
zations. But teaching English has not been the only
work of these classes. Instruction in civics and Ameri-
can history has usually gone with the language lessons,
80
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
and preparatory work for naturalization examinations
has also been quite common. When industrial man-
agers speak of "Amercanization" work, they usually
have activities of this character in mind; and most of
the larger industrial corporations have experimented
with this work in one way or another.
We shall discuss these classes with more detail in a
later chapter. Here it is sufficient to note that where
the employer has himself equipped the classes and fur-
nished the instructors the work has not usually been
as successful as where public educational authorities
furnished the teachers and were responsible for the in-
struction, with the employer cooperating by giving
class room space in the plant, allowing time off to em-
ployees who attend classes or offering other induce-
ments for attendance. The tendency throughout the
country seems to be for the public educational authori-
ties to take over the work of instruction in the factory
classes.
Most of the states having a large foreign-born popu-
lation have established divisions of immigrant educa-
tion in connection with their State Departments of
Education; and these take the initiative in organizing
classes and inducing employers to cooperate. They
make studies of the subject matter and technique of
instruction and they have devoted themselves to the
training of competent teachers for the work. Under
this stimulus the classes for factory workers conducted
by public educational authorities have been more per-
manent and successful, while the classes organized and
conducted entirely by the employer have been dwin-
dling in number. This may be due partly to the un-
satisfactory character of the teachers the management
is ordinarily able to furnish but also, no doubt, to some
suspicion that the instruction itself is colored by the
ideals of government and citizenship that the manage-
81
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ment may desire its employees to have. Whatever
may be the cause, it is a fortunate development that
responsibility for instruction in the language and tra-
ditions of the land is being assumed by public authori-
ties, because the impartiality of the instruction must
always be as important a concern as the efficiency of
the teaching.
After all, teaching the English language, the princi-
ples of American government, and the traditions of
America is not the business of the employer. Nor is
the promotion of naturalization his concern. He may
assist in all these matters, but it is not through such
formal instruction that the employer can be most help-
ful in "Americanizing" his immigrant employees. It
is rather in the methods of managing these employees
during their daily duties in the plant that the employer
can do most to promote American citizenship among
them.1
. . . For the immigrant learns of America not only through what
we teach him about it, but through what he sees and experiences
for himself. Nothing we can ever tell the new arrival about Ameri-
can liberty, and justice can quite eradicate his memories of the
needless suffering caused by some minor official's stupidity at the
port of arrival, of a real estate agent's sharp practice, of lonely
evenings spent in squalid surroundings, or weary days filled with
the fruitless search for work. The foreigner judges America by
what he finds here, and he nearly always finds the worst first. When
this has happened we cannot give him a belief in American institu-
tions by merely describing them to him — we must demonstrate
that they are facts, operative in his daily life.
The employer may do much to make these facts
operative in the immigrant's daily life by the kind of
labor management policies he adopts for the handling
of his foreign-born employees.
1 Report of Delaware Americanization Committee, 1921, p. 8.
82
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
AMERICANIZATION THROUGH MANAGEMENT
In recent years labor management has become the
subject of scientific study, and a new profession has
been developed to apply the results of this study,
which is variously known as employment or labor
management, personnel or industrial relations manage-
ment. The new science has developed a more or less
definite set of principles, and the duties of the em-
ployment executive have been excellently described
by S. R. Rectanus, former President of the National
Association of Employment Managers:
The unit of business is the individual breadwinner, and the
stable element is the breadwinning, the working member of the
American family.
The only business organization which can be permanently effec-
tive is the one which is planned, controlled, and guided to give the
workingman, the creative being, the fullest opportunity to develop
his talents, apply his energy, stimulate his interest, satisfy his
ambition, attain satisfaction and contentment.
At least a portion of the opportunity of the Employment Execu-
tive in this plan is to advise in the recruiting, selecting, placing,
introducing, promoting, transferring, and quitting of these men in
their work relations. In the performance of his daily duty he will
secure information and make observations which will permit him
to contribute sound, logical evidence to the General Manager who
must determine the labor policies. It will permit him to contribute
to the planning of improvements in pay and rewards, training,
safety, sanitation and production. An extensive but exacting op-
portunity, for it requires that we advise our fellow human beings in
some of their most delicate and important decisions.
Clearly, if industrial managers generally applied the
principles here enunciated to their relations with im-
migrant and native-born employees alike, more would
be accomplished in fusing all into a common American
citizenship than could possibly be done by formal in-
struction in factory classes. Unfortunately, however,
while personnel managers speak of their policies and
83
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
methods as if these were applied to all employees, in
practice they have often been led to make a distinc-
tion between immigrants and American or American-
ized employees. Those who speak broken English or
no English at all, those whose physique, manners, hab-
its, and attitude appear alien, are often treated as a
class apart to whom the principles of employment
management, of careful study of the individual worker,
could not be applied. While the distinction in treat-
ment between immigrants and other employees is not
usually so clear as in the case of the 400 immigrants
set aside in the "lousy house/' which we cited above,
this case serves well to illustrate the difference in pol-
icy and attitude that used to be common, even in in-
dustries which in other respects pursued a most en-
lightened employment policy. The plant referred to,
for example, was one of the pioneers in establishing a
separate labor department for the proper handling of
its labor policies.
But the principles of personnel or labor management
once established in a plant can not for long be re-
stricted to only a part of the labor force. Thus we
find that step by step as more and more establish-
ments are employing trained personnel managers, to
organize and direct their labor policies in accordance
with the modern enlightened ideas, the management
and treatment of immigrant labor forces is also im-
proving. The personnel or labor manager attempts to
watch the individual career of every worker, to see to
it that he is transferred and promoted as he learns
more of the business, that his wages are raised as his
efficiency increases, that his grievances are heard and
considered, that he is guarded against abuse and in-
justice by foremen and straw bosses, and that he is
given some voice in determining the conditions under
which he works. These are the methods by which
84
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
industrial relations are being improved, but these same
methods, when extended to include the non-English-
speaking with all the other employees, also offer one of
the most effective means of adjustment between the
immigrant worker and American industry.
PLANT LABOR DEPARTMENTS
To carry out the policies of the management with re-
spect to labor, most of the larger industrial corpora-
tions now have a centralized authority commonly
known as the labor or industrial relations department,
with a trained manager or director in charge corre-
sponding to the managers in charge of sales, produc-
tion, etc. Many smaller plants in which the labor
policy can be more directly controlled by the general
manager have similar centralized employment or serv-
ice departments for handling the details — hiring, dis-
charge, and the "welfare" services of the management.
As long as employers never really formulated a labor
policy for their plants there was no need for such de-
partments, and foremen or other subordinate officials
handled their workers as they individually saw fit.
This lack of policy resulted in enormous losses caused
by constant quitting of dissatisfied workers and hiring
of new ones. The shifting of the labor force, or "turn-
over" of labor, as it was named, attracted little atten-
tion as long as immigrants were entering the country
in great numbers and there was plenty of labor to pick
from; although it was quite common for plants to
hire during a year three and four times as many work-
ers as were normally required to carry on production.
But when the outbreak of the war in Europe shut off
the immigrant labor supplies, "labor turnover" be-
came a serious concern of American industry, and "Em-
ployment Departments" began to appear, primarily
85
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
for the purpose of improving "hiring and firing" meth-
ods. "Welfare" and Safety work, which had appeared
sporadically up to that time, were now also greatly
stimulated by the shutting off of immigration and by
the workmen's compensation laws which state after
state was rapidly enacting. These efforts were usually
grouped under a "Service" department which was
soon joined with the employment department. From
this employment and service work, the present labor
or industrial relations departments rapidly developed,
for the need of a comprehensive policy to deal with all
labor relations soon became apparent.
The Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Com-
pany, of East Pittsburgh, Pa., thus describes the aims
of its labor department:
To discover the existing sources of labor supply, and to employ
mediums through which the necessary labor may be obtained.
To size up applicants successfully and place them to the best
advantage to both employer and employees.
To get new employees to feel at home in their new plant environ-
ment and to assimilate them.
To assist the management in endeavoring to establish correct
labor policies.
To obtain an effective method of receiving and handling com-
plaints of employees.
To assist in maintaining proper shop discipline.
To carry out personal service (welfare) activities and advocate
recreational movements.
To assist in the transfer of employees when necessary.
To assist in combatting labor turnover.
To assist hi maintaining the proper efficiency record of em-
ployees. . . .
HIRING IMMIGRANT WORKERS
The practice of permitting foremen to hire help for
their departments is usually the first to be restricted
or abolished whenever centralized labor departments
are established. Aside from the inefficiency of the
86
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
method and the misfitting of men and jobs, this prac-
tice affected immigrant workers in a peculiarly vicious
way. It developed a form of tribute levying on the
foreign-born employees by their foremen which reached
amazing proportions. Under the title of "Job Selling
in Ohio," the Industrial Commission of that state pub-
lished a report in 1916 which described in detail how
foreign-born workers throughout the state had to pay
fees to foremen to secure employment, to hold their
jobs after they were employed, and to get increases in
wages. There was hardly a plant in the state employ-
ing foreign-born labor in large numbers where this graft
did not prevail to some extent.
That Ohio is not the only state where the system of
permitting foremen to hire labor resulted in job selling
and levying tribute in various forms on the foreign-
born worker, is evident from the following statement
of the Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration: l
The prevailing industrial unrest together with the difficulty of
creating an understanding between employer and employee, can
sometimes be traced to the fact that those coming in direct contact
with the foreign-born workmen have too often, because of the
indifference of the employers, been able to exploit these foreign-
born in matters of securing and holding their jobs. The elimination
of this type of exploitation will do much to convince the foreign
worker that he can find in America an opportunity for fair play.
Unless Americanization work has this basis of just treatment for
one and all in the Commonwealth no propaganda work can have
permanent success.
Even when the employer is anxious to eliminate this
abuse, he finds it very difficult to do it, as long as fore-
men have the power to hire and discharge employees.
Officials of a large plant in Pittsburgh said they spent
three years in fighting this form of graft and they were
not sure then they got rid of it, until they established
1 First Annual Report, 1919, p. 21.
87
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
a centralized employment department which alone had
power to hire and discharge workers.
But whether an immigrant worker is hired by a fore-
man or by an employment manager, there are methods
of doing it which will tend to alienate him and meth-
ods which will be helpful to him and the industry
alike. The contrast between these methods is thus de-
scribed in a book prepared by a number of industrial
managers.1
Tony Czelak obtained his first job in this country by the side-
door method. He was walking down a street of shops, wondering
how long it would be before he could make it understood in this
land of golden opportunity that he wanted a job and was a willing
worker, when he saw a sign that a fellow Pole had told him meant
work. He turned in at the door. The first man he met was a
white-collared shipping clerk, who wore his hat on the back of his
head and chewed a moist cigar.
" Want job ! " said Tony. That was about all the English he knew.
"What the hell can you do?" ejaculated the shipping clerk;
and Tony, without understanding what the words meant, bared his
teeth and a bulging biceps at the same instant. The shipping clerk
liked Tony's smile, and hired him on the spot.
They became great friends. Tony learned to swing coils of wire
on to a hand truck, and he got so he could calculate to a nicety the
weight of a load on his truck even before he wheeled it to the scales
and watched the shipping clerk shift the rider back and forth until
the beam came into balance. There weren't so very many people
in the shop, and the shipping clerk could always count on Tony to
work nights and Sundays if necessary, to get out heavy shipments.
Tony stayed in the shop five years.
One day he got nervous because his friends told him of the big
money they were making elsewhere. He talked it over with the
shipping clerk.
"I'd like to give you more money," said the latter. "I need you
here. But the big boss says nix on raises now. Maybe you can
get more somewhere else. Think it over if you want to try it, and
let me know."
Tony did think it over, and finally decided to take a flyer in
1 Management and the Worker, published by A. W. Shaw Co.,
Chicago, pp. 167-169.
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
job-hunting. He applied the next morning at a factory where there
was reported to be great prosperity and great need of men at good
wages. He was ushered into a dingy little office where in a small
space were herded 50 other applicants. A uniformed guard pushed
him into a seat, growled at him to "keep in his place," and presently
a girl gave him a sheet of paper and a pencil and told him to "fill
that out." Tony was not strong on writing the English language,
though he had picked up enough information to be able to decipher
the orders in the shipping clerk's office readily enough. So when
he read the paper that had been given him, a long list of questions
apparently concerned with his vital statistics, he was beyond his
depth. He calmly put the sheet in his pocket.
After an hour or so of assiduous "keeping in his place," his turn
came and he was summoned to the desk of a chap who appeared to
be a cross between fourth-bookkeeper and errand boy.
"Where's your application?" he asked Tony.
Divining that the sheet he had stuck in his pocket was meant,
Tony fished it out. The chap unfolded it and said disgustedly,
" Can't you read? "
"Yah! I read," Tony replied.
"Can't you write?"
"Nah!" Tony shook his head and smiled cheerfully. "You
fill him out!"
Superciliously the youngster did so; and when the ordeal was
finished Tony was taken to a foreman out in the plant who looked
him over like a butcher appraising a steer, told him he might start
in next morning, and gave him a red card to present at the gate for
admission.
Tony reported promptly. His pay was a dollar a day more than
he had been getting. But the labor policy plainly hinted at in the
employment office was realized too well in the shop. Tony was
bulldozed and driven and sworn at without humor, for three months.
He asked for other work and was told to "get the hell out if you don't
like it here!" And finally Tony did. Confronted by an unintelli-
gent labor policy, quitting was the only thing he knew how to do.
Again Tony hunted a job. This time he was met differently.
There was courtesy in the employment office. There were plenty
of documents to be filled out, and lots of questions to be answered —
all appearing like so much "red tape" to Tony; but the operation
was conducted pleasantly, and Tony did not object. When he was
finally given a job, he found the same pleasant attitude reflected by
his foreman.
Tony is still on the job, and is doing just as good work as he did
for his first friend, the shipping clerk.
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
To insure proper selection, the employment depart-
ments use specially qualified interviewers who talk
privately with each applicant for employment and who
test the quality, the ability, and adaptability of the
applicant. Psychological as well as mechanical tests
have been developed. With its larger social outlook
the employment department tests applicants not only
for technical skill and productive ability but also for
team work or cooperative ability. And this to the
immigrant means that he is selected with an idea as
to the possibilities of adjusting himself both to the
work and the workers of the plant which he enters.
Mr. Richard A. Feiss of the Clothcraft Shops in
Cleveland describes the system of selecting help in his
plant as follows :
The interviewing of applicants is important and requires con-
siderable tact, judgment, and experience. As judgment is essential
and as judgment is influenced by immediate impression, in this
establishment no one is employed on date of application. Post-
ponement of selection tends to bring all applicants in their proper
relationship in the mind of the one who has the responsibility of
their selection.
Application records are classified as to sex, age, and apparent
suitability. When a position is to be filled one or more applicants
are sent for. A definite time is set for their appearance. At this
time selection is made for immediate employment, and the fitness
of the applicant is more definitely determined.
There are two kinds of fitness to be considered, provided a person
is suited for industry at all: one is fitness for the position; the other
is fitness for the organization. Of these the latter is by far the more
important.
Fitness for the organization is chiefly a question of character.
Every organization has a distinct character of its own, which is
often recognized as being a tangible business asset. It is essential,
therefore, that every member of the organization have a character
sufficiently developed or capable of development to be in harmony
with the character of the organization. This is the basis of esprit de
corps.
The interview of the applicant by a trained head of the Employ-
ment and Service Departments is the basis for predetermining as
90
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
far as possible both the fitness for a position and for the organization.
In judging fitness for a position, past experience, where there is any,
is sometimes a guide. At the best, however, it is a guide of only
doubtful value. At the Clothcraft Shops investigations and experi-
ments have been carried on for the purpose of determining individual
limitations by psychological tests. The tests that are being de-
veloped consist of general intelligence tests, including a test for
ability to follow instructions and a series of tests for dexterity.
The applicant's fitness for the organization, while more important,
is more readily predetermined by the interview. The interview at
the time of employment is very thorough and designed to explain
to the prospective employee the character of the organization and
its policies, and the responsibilities of the organization to the em-
ployee as well as the responsibility of the employee to the organiza-
tion.
This is the system of hiring interviews that employ-
ment managers have set up as their ideal, and while
it is still very far from being universally carried out in
practice, the many plants that have established cen-
tralized hiring departments during the last four or five
years are making rapid progress in this direction.
These systems of hiring and selecting employees offer
the means of preventing immigrants from becoming
industrial misfits and casual workers, such as is illus-
trated in the following case, which appeared before one
of the arbitration boards in the men's clothing industry.
Daniel Szmolia, a Ukrainian peasant working as a pocket maker,
was discharged for poor workmanship. He came into the office
of the arbitration board which was to review his case, a picture
of perplexity. Heavily built, broad faced, slow of movement, and
slow mentally, he could not understand why he was no longer wanted.
He had worked at the occupation for three years and now suddenly
he was "no good," as he put it. The foreman explained that the
man was willing enough, but try as he would he could not do the
work properly. Instructors could do nothing with him and he was
warned over and over again that he would have to do better, but
neither instruction nor threats of discharge brought any improve-
ment. There was nothing to do but to let him go.
One glance at the man's large hands and short fat fingers was
enough to convince the chairman of the board that he never would
91
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
learn to do the intricate work of pocket making. His physical and
mental processes showed that he was equipped by nature for rough,
heavy labor and was accustomed to waiting for the results of his
work to grow. Manipulating cloth under the needle of a sewing
machine was the last thing one would expect such a man to be able
to do.
"How long have you had this man?" the foreman was asked.
"About nine months. He came to us when we were short of
pocket makers and were glad to get anyone. We kept him on
pockets as long as we could not get anyone else, then we tried him
at sewing up shoulders and backs, but we have had to do all that
work of his over again also. It seems he can't sew a straight seam."
There was no place in the factory for Daniel Szmolia and the
employment manager had to let him go. His place was on a farm
or at other heavy laboring tasks, but in all probability he would
apply at other clothing factories and work a few months at a time
as he had been doing for three years. Someone had taken him into
a tailor shop when he came to this country, taught him to sew on a
machine, and now it was the only work that he knew.
Here we have a typical experience of an immigrant,
who comes to us untrained for industrial work and
who is led into an industry where he must necessarily
become an incompetent misfit, because the employers
who first hired him had no hiring system designed to
secure a proper adjustment between the job and the
immigrant worker.
BALANCING NATIONALITIES
It used to be a common labor policy in industries
which employed immigrant labor in large numbers to
"balance nationalities." This was the name given to
the practice of hiring immigrants of many nationalities,
to prevent any one nationality from dominating a de-
partment or a plant. Originally the policy was de-
signed to prevent racial unity under the leadership of
a "padrone" or labor solidarity in a union whose pur-
pose might conflict with the wishes of the manage-
ment. Racial animosities and lack of a common
92
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
language kept the employees divided, and concerted
action for higher wages or shorter hours, such as were
common among native-born skilled workmen, could
thus be averted. When dissatisfaction arose among
the foreign born and they learned enough English to
reach a common understanding, they could easily be
displaced by new nationalities and thus the system
was maintained.
But this policy always had certain disadvantages.
Racial animosities and lack of a common language not
only prevented united action against the employer;
they also resulted in confusion and lack of understand-
ing of orders and instructions of the management.
Foremen would swear and fume at the stupidity and
perverseness of groups of foreign born that had care-
fully been put together to prevent the very same com-
mon understanding necessary to carry out orders and
instructions. Strikes and dramatic outbreaks against
the management might be prevented but only at the
price of destructive lack of coordination which effectu-
ally prevented team work on the job.
Modern labor management, however, considers team
work and plant morale a first essential, and the crude
mixing of nationalities as formerly practiced is gener-
ally condemned by personnel managers for its effect in
retarding production as well as for perpetuating racial
differences.1
"In addition to fitting work and workers, an important duty of
the employment department is to fit workers to each other, thus
inducing profitable cooperation. Workers who are most likely to
work well together should obviously be placed together. On the
other hand, special effort is required not to place together groups of
different nationalities that are prone to quarrel. Another important
point is to place employees in departments where they are most
likely to get along with the foreman. An Italian would be only too
1 Management and the Worker, p. 201.
93
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
likely to try to break the head of a Czechoslovac foreman! It does
not usually pay, again, to build up entire departments from one
nationality."
But the practice of mixing nationalities may some-
times serve a useful purpose, as we found in a plant in
Chicago, where it was intelligently used by an employ-
ment manager to break down clannishness and racial
prejudice. The different nationalities he found needed
to learn to understand each other as much as they
needed to understand Americans, and by seeing to it
that a sufficient number of native-born or other Eng-
lish-speaking men were placed in every group, he suc-
ceeded most quickly in making English the common
language of the group and developing a spirit of co-
operation and friendliness among all its members.
INDUCTING THE IMMIGRANT INTO THE SHOP
The hiring methods and policies described above rep-
resent only the beginning of what industrial managers
are doing to facilitate the adjustment of the immigrant
and American industry. It is after the immigrant has
already been hired that the practical process of ad-
justment between him and his industrial surroundings,
his fellow employees, and his overseers really begins.
To this problem personnel managers are giving increas-
ing attention. They are inquiring very critically into
the methods by which new employees are brought into
shops and they are devising methods of improving that
introduction.
Illustrating his remarks with the recital of unfortu-
nate experiences of a Polish immigrant given his first
job in an American plant, an employer addressing a
large national convention of employment managers
asked:
94
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
How do you introduce a new worker to the parties he should
know in the plant as he comes to work? The watchman at the
gate or factory entrance is the host usually, is he not? The intro-
duction means generally handing the new man a time card and
telling him to follow the crowd; possibly informing him that he
will find his place on a certain floor of the "B" building. How does
our new man learn of the best paths of travel through the plant,
where the toilets and washrooms and the tool cribs are located,
where to go to secure what instruction he may need, how to work
the time system so as to cause no unnecessary work to the time-
keeper's office, etc.? Honestly, now, does he not learn most of these
things by bothering other workmen asking questions of them?
Many times, out of a spirit of deviltry, he is given wrong answers,
and thus both his time as well as that of his joking informer are
taken from production and therefore from wages earned. How
happy a home would many of us have if we took no better care to
introduce new friends to our families? Is it wrong to assume that
we are taking new members into our families whenever we have new
workmen enter our shop? Should we, then, not plan for their being
introduced just right so that there be no unnecessary embarass-
ment? . . . One of the largest single contributing forces to labor
turnover is the willing quitting of the worker because of his knowing
lie does not know his work, and is, therefore, in danger of being
fired. Rather than wait for the time to come when the boss shall
discover his ignorance and consequent poor workmanship, the
worker quits, knowing he stands a better chance for employment
elsewhere by this means than were he to be discharged. How few
times has this man been taken in hand as a human and dealt with
as such by another truly human, thereby being trained or instructed
in the work that is to be undertaken. . . ."
Plants which have studied their experience with em-
ployees who quit work have universally found that the
greatest numbers leave within the first few weeks of
their employment. It is quite common to find that
half of all who quit have been employed for less than
a month. With the immigrant the main reason for
this is his own uncertainty as to whether he knows
the work and will make good. He may be a first-class
workman, but he lacks confidence in his own abilities.
He doesn't know whether he knows his job or not, and
this is a great source of trouble not only to the indus-
95
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
try and to the workman, but to the country as well,
for it multiplies the difficulties of adjustment.
The non-English-speaking worker is particularly in
need of some intelligent system of introduction to his
workplace. His inability to read signs and bulletins
and inability to understand instructions and get infor-
mation is not only a constant discouragement to him
and a serious interference with his efficiency, but it
becomes an actual menace in increasing factory haz-
ards to himself and to his fellow workers.
Some of the introduction methods already developed
to overcome the immigrant's handicap in this respect
include a "protegS" system, whereby the new immi-
grant worker is assigned to an English-speaking em-
ployee who knows the work and the shop, and who
looks after the newcomer until he adjusts himself, in
much the same way that seniors in colleges take fresh-
men under their wings at the beginning of the school
year. Other plants have "Americanization Commit-
tees," consisting of a number of representatives of
each racial group employed, and the immigrant is in-
structed to avail himself freely of the services of the
members of the committee who speak his language for
any information he may need, or on any matters he
may desire to bring to the attention of the manage-
ment.
The employment manager of the Timken Roller
Bearing Company of Canton, Ohio, describes the fol-
lowing as the method of introducing new workers in
his plant :
When a man reports for work there is much for him to learn —
whether he be a common laborer or skilled mechanic, and we find it
a very good policy to have a guide show him the location of certain
conveniences, the clocks, first-aid room, the proper entrance to use,
and the restaurant.
After the man is on the job, we have a recreation man who breaks
96
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
the new employee into this phase of the work. The new man is
invited to attend the ball games, theater parties, evening school,
Americanization meetings, and such things. He is given a small
book containing information about the plant and also a copy of our
latest issue of the shop paper, which gives him a sort of "I belong
here" feeling.
Our foremen devote some time to explaining the shop rules and
when they find any doubt as to the men not being posted or not
clearly understanding the conditions of their employment, the man
is either taken to the Employment Department or a representative
of the department is sent out to see him, and it is his duty to stay
on the job until the man is satisfied and understands. Much of
this work is in connection with premium earnings, absenteeism,
advances in pay, or holding back pay and tiding over stranded men.
It is our method of humanizing industry and instilling and maintain-
ing the personal touch which of late many of us have forgotten or
overlooked during the drive of the past emergency. Quoting from
a recent shop paper: "Shop morals can thus be developed, but it
cannot exist unless the employee feels that he gains a real benefit
from his relationship with the management."
Not only the management itself, but the coopera-
tion of fellow employees, is needed to make the new-
comer feel at home in his work place, and the following
editorial from a plant paper published by a Cleveland
corporation shows one method by which this coopera-
tion is enlisted. This appeal is typical of many which
appeared in plant periodicals, particularly during the
war.
When you go into a country or a strange place you are grateful
to the man who extends to you the hand of fellowship, to the one
who makes you feel at home.
Remember the new employees on the job. They are strangers
within our gates. . . . You can do more in five minutes to establish
the right spirit while their impressions are forming than you can
in many days after they have formed their opinion of you and your
company.
In case the newcomers are foreigners, there is even greater obli-
gation to treat them as guests, and make them feel welcome.
It is the privilege of every American at this tune to make the
97
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
strangers from other lands feel that we appreciate their help in win-
ning this war.
Treat them with the same courtesy and kindness that you would
desire if you were a stranger in a foreign country.
Your personal contact with foreign fellow workers can Help to
Unite all Races in America to win this war.
PROMOTION AND TRANSFERS
For the non-English-speaking immigrant, who neces-
sarily must start at the bottom of the industrial lad-
der, an open road for advancement is particularly
important. A personnel director for a corporation
operating four plants in Detroit thus describes his
system:
We aim to write job specifications, and something about transfers
in connection with each job. If there is a class of work which,
after we have studied it, we regard as unduly burdensome, disagree-
able or tiresome, or monotonous, we intend to write in the job's
specifications a statement of the length of time which we will re-
quire workers to stay on that job, formally, without asking for a
transfer. We will set a determined period, after which time request
for transfers will be honored as soon as convenient. There will be
another class of operation in connection with which we recognize
an occupational disease, such as sand blasting, or anything which
requires contact and exposure with lead poison. For those opera-
tions, with the aid of our medical department, we shall set a time,
at the end of which the operative will be examined to see if it is
necessary to transfer him, and we shall transfer him as soon as
possible, and if we can't find a job in our plant for that man, we
will make an effort to place him in another plant.
By means of transfers from one department to an-
other some employment managers hope also to give a
man the same cycle of operations which formerly he
could perform within the scope of a day's work, and
thus compensate him to some extent for his loss of
artisanship caused by subdivision of labor and speciali-
zation.
But most employment managers are studying and
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
experimenting with transfer systems primarily to pro-
vide opportunities for advancement to ambitious and
capable employees. Said a manager of a packing house
corporation:
There is nothing more vital than this question of promotion and
transfer. It is what everyone of us has been looking forward to
since we started in this work.
The plan which we are trying to work out now hi our own organi-
zation is based on three things:
1. The card which contains a record of every employee, with his
complete history.
2. A rating scale by which he is rated by his superior officers.
3. Certain mental and trade tests.
This card, in addition to giving us the full history of the man, is
so noted at the top by little tabs, that we can instantly put our hand
on any man of specific qualifications that we want for any particular
job. In the past . . . our great problem has been not so much to
get men as to make the utmost use of the men which we have. . . .
This card enables us to pick out the man . . . when we want one
with any particular quality and judging him in connection with
others to decide whether he is better fitted for the position we have
in mind than some of the others. It also enables us to avoid the
mistake of letting a man get side-tracked or get lost in the numbers
of the organization. It has frequently happened in our experience
. . . that men have applied to us for certain definite stated positions,
and without knowing about their other qualifications, we have put
them into that particular job. Many years after, in looking for
some men specially qualified, we have passed those men by because
we didn't know anything about them, but we believe now with the
adoption of this system that is going to cease and that we will be
able to put our hands on them when we want them. We believe
that it is going to have a tremendous result. . . . When you come
right down to it the transfer, which usually means the promotion
of any employee, is really the thing that concerns him most vitally.
Mr. Richard Feiss says: "At the Clothcraft Shop,
the road is not only open, but every possible aid is
given for advancement. Practically all positions in
the organization, including clerical and executive posi-
tions, are filled by those who by reason of sheer per-
sonal merit have come up from the ranks." When
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
there is an employment and service department, as
there is in this plant, which studies the record of each
individual, no matter how unskilled the work he is
doing may be — and this is done for young and old,
men and women, English and non-English-speaking —
then it is plain that an effective agency has been cre-
ated by the employer for giving to the foreign born
the same opportunity for advancement on the basis of
merit that the native born have, and for working the
immigrant into the industrial organization as an inte-
gral part of it.
COMPLAINTS, GRIEVANCES, AND DISCHARGES
"What is one to do with these foreigners?" said a
sincerely well-meaning plant manager. "Sometimes
the Polish workers — usually women — get together in a
corner of a room gesticulating and jabbering in their
language, and nobody in authority is able to under-
stand a word of it! Then one of them who can make
herself understood may come up to the foreman, or to
me, and say, 'The workers want so and so.' Mean-
while the workers stand around as expressionless and
stolid as this radiator beside me. The leader who
comes forward is soon spotted as the one who has
been doing most of the talking. She may tell what is
wanted and I might say, ' Well, we can meet you half-
way. We will do this much.' Then more gesticulating
and more foreign language talking, and set faces, and
stubborn resistance. Nothing but all, will do — no mat-
ter what the mill owners' inconvenience in the matter."
And, in his very next sentence this man answered
his own question. He had had a clear illustration of
what would work among these women — and yet, he
had never thought to apply it. He said that, on an
occasion similar to the one described a Polish woman
100
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
secretary from the International Institute of the Y. W.
C. A. spoke to the disturbed group of women, in their
and her language; and her ability to reason with them
and to make herself understood quieted them and
settled the trouble.
But many are applying the results of such experi-
ences. In a large shoe factory we found a special
woman appointed for every floor and large department
to handle such situations. Each of these women had
a little room or alcove adjoining her group, so that
she was always available; and she frequently took oc-
casion herself to go out among the machines and tables
where the women in her charge were working. Her
position, in title and special function, was allied with
the employment department, and her little room was
in a sense a branch of the central employment office.
This company appeared to be successful in working
out the plan so that the relation between the welfare
worker and forewoman or foreman of the department,
was cooperative and uninvolved. In other plants
where one person is in charge of women workers, with
or without assistants, the custom prevails of taking
daily trips through the plant, and of being present in
lunch and rest rooms at noon hours, so as to come
within the reach of every worker, every day.
At the Hog Island shipyards, representatives of the
Department of Industrial Relations were stationed at
convenient points through the shipyards, whose duty
it was to receive and investigate complaints. They
were instructed to avoid snap judgments, and told
that they must assume that there are always two
sides to every question referred to them, and that a
thorough investigation must be made of every com-
plaint. And after such an investigation of a complaint
of any sort, no matter what the decision might be, a
complete explanation was given to the worker. Speak-
101
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ing to a group of employment managers the superin-
tendent of employment of this plant said:
Another very important function of employment department
work can be called "Labor Control" and deals with the worker on
the job. You must be so set up that every employee in your whole
organization feels that he not only originally entered the organiza-
tion through you, but that at any time he is welcome to come to
you with his grievances or troubles, provided he first takes up his
case in the regular line prescribed by your rules, such as with the
foreman in case of complaints about the work, etc.
You are his court of appeal! No matter whether the troubles
are in regard to his work on the job or personal difficulties outside
of the job, the worker's trouble is your trouble and you stand as
the bulwark guaranteeing a square deal for him both inside and
outside of the gates. To this end, particularly in large plants, un-
less you are so organized that the worker can obtain ready access
to you without considerable loss of time and consequent loss in his
pay envelope, you are losing an influence which I insist will do as
much and possibly more toward stabilizing your force and reducing
your labor turnover than the proper initial selection.
While thus benefiting the employer these systems of
hearing, investigating, and adjusting complaints are of
incalculable value to the immigrant worker and to the
country. For they assure him protection against in-
justice where it means most to him, and they help him
in the trouble he is bound to get into during the pro-
cess of adjustment to industrial conditions that are
strange to him. Where mere descriptions of American
institutions will have little meaning to him, these dem-
onstrations of American justice and fair play operative
in his daily life offer an effective means of giving him
a belief in American institutions.
With these methods of handling complaints and griev-
ances also must be coupled the control over discharges
that the new labor departments of industrial plants
have assumed. Where there is an employment man-
ager or a labor department, foremen are rarely permit-
ted to discharge employees summarily. Usually the
102
MANAGEMENT OF IMMIGRANT EMPLOYEES
foreman may suspend a worker out of his own depart-
ment, but he has no authority to discharge him from
the plant. The worker is sent to the employment de-
partment, which investigates the suspension, and if it
is found that an injustice has been done to the em-
ployee he is reinstated. If there has been only a mis-
understanding between the foreman and the worker,
they are brought together to talk it over with the as-
sistance of the employment manager. And where the
worker has been at fault through ignorance rather
than intent, he is usually transferred to some other
department.
103
CHAPTER VI
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
"THE task of management does not end with getting
the man for the job," say the personnel managers.
"The man must also be trained for the specific tasks
he is to perform; otherwise management has done only
half its work, and methods must be found to induce in
him the desire to produce to the best of his ability;
otherwise, management has done only half its work." l
This is the attitude of modern labor management
from the purely business point of view. But the reali-
zation that efficient management requires a technical
education department of some kind in industrial plants,
to teach unskilled and semi-skilled men their jobs, as
well as skilled mechanics, promises to be particularly
valuable to immigrant wage earners. For these are to
be found mainly in the less skilled occupations, and
training for the job is the most direct way of adjusting
the immigrant to the conditions of American life.
AN ADJUSTMENT THAT INDUSTRY HAS TO MAKE
The immigrant has many adjustments to make, in
order to accustom himself to American industrial
methods and needs. But industry must also adjust
itself to the immigrant. The development of auto-
matic machinery and mechanical devices has been
one adjustment that American industry has made, in
order to use effectively the great masses of unskilled
labor that flocked to this country after 1880. And
now American employers of this labor have begun to
1 The Way to Greater Production, A. W. Shaw Co., pp. 1-2.
104,
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
realize that they must make another adjustment in
order to develop the skill latent in this great labor
force, and also to make immigrant wage earners feel
at home as integral parts of the American industrial
citizenship.
Our immigrant labor supply has been used by Ameri-
can industry in much the same way that American
farmers have used our land supply. For many years
both land and labor appeared to be inexhaustible, and
both were worked wastefully without intensive care
and with little thought of conservation. But just as
the disappearance of free land has led farmers to con-
serve their soil and to put a considerable investment
into maintaining and improving it, so the restrictions
on immigration brought about by the war and by leg-
islation have led employers to conserve the skill and
strength of their labor and to put a considerable in-
vestment into training and improving it. The devel-
opment of agricultural colleges and experiment stations
was stimulated by the need for land conservation, and
the development of personnel management courses in
universities and special schools, as well as the growth
of experiments with advanced labor policies, was largely
brought about by the need for labor conservation.
IS TRAINING OF UNSKILLED WORKERS NECESSARY?
The older immigrant labor supply was composed principally of
persons who had had training and experience abroad in the indus-
tries which they entered after their arrival in the United States.
English, German, Scotch, and Irish immigrants in textile factories,
iron and steel establishments, or in the coal mines, usually had
been skilled workmen in these industries in their native lands and
came to the United States in the expectation of higher wages and
better working conditions. In the case of the more recent immi-
grants from southern and eastern Europe this condition of affairs
has been reversed. Before coming to the United States the greater
proportion had been engaged in farming or unskilled labor, and had
105
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
no experience or training in manufacturing or mining. As a conse-
quence, their employment in the mines and manufacturing plants
of this country has been made possible only by the invention of
mechanical devices and processes which have eliminated the skill
and experience formerly required in a large number of occupa-
tions.1
This assumption on the part of the Immigration
Commission that machinery and mechanical devices
make skill unnecessary was a common belief and prac-
tice in American industries before the war. As a mat-
ter of fact, however, enlightened employers many years
ago saw the falsity and the wastefulness of it. It was
profitable because apparently there seemed to be an
inexhaustible supply of labor in Europe, and out of
the ebb and flow of hundreds of thousands of immi-
grant workers enough individuals managed by their
own ingenuity to acquire sufficient skill to keep up the
customary production. When, however, production
had to be increased for war purposes, and immigration
was temporarily shut off, then it appeared evident to
all that training was essential and most of the large
industries began energetically to train all the workers
that came into their plants.
What the assumption that the development of ma-
chinery makes trained labor unnecessary has meant to
our industries and to the immigrant laborers may be
gathered from the following quotation from a report
issued in 1918 by the section on industrial training of
the Council of National Defense:
Of 7,910 wage earners, mostly skilled, who applied to the New
York State Employment Bureau in November only 172 were ma-
chinists. Of 2,500 reputed machine operators recently laid off in
one city, it is reported by the resident state employment agent that
most of them were so "lacking in adaptability" they could not be
1 U. S. Immigration Commission, Abstract of Reports, vol. I,
pp. 494-495.
106
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
used advantageously in nearby factories. The agent in another
city says: "One out of ten alleged mechanics applying for skilled
positions is a first-class man; the others cannot fill the positions
offered."
Men like these are being taken into the industries without special
training and with sad loss in efficiency. They are good men, victims
educationally of national and industrial neglect of training facili-
ties. Will not a thinking nation see to it that provision for training
is now made in our big factories and elsewhere? l
As pointed out by the United States Immigration
Commission, it is the immigrant worker who has be-
come our typical machine operator. He comes most
commonly from a farm or from common labor, and is
unfamiliar with modern machinery. He is bewildered
by the very sight and noise of the machine he is given
to operate. It is only after many trials in perhaps
a number of factories that he becomes proficient at
one machine. Because foremen assume that there is
nothing to teach about it, he finds himself later "lack-
ing in adaptability" for other machines in other fac-
tories when he happens to lose his job.
Even when the immigrant is a skilled worker, he
and the industry alike often suffer from lack of proper
training and adjustment to his job. A Bohemian
presser in a clothing factory could do only fifty coats
in the same time that others were doing about sev-
enty. The employer made every effort to get him to
do more, but to no avail. The man worked hard,
harder in fact than the others who were doing more
work, but though willing, he seemed stupid and unable
to grasp the simple details of his job. Finally, the em-
ployer attempted to reduce his wages in proportion as
his production was below that of the other pressers.
At this point the union interfered in his behalf. Offi-
cials of the organization could not deny the justice of
"How to Overcome the Shortage of Skilled Mechanics by Train-
ing the Unskilled," p. 18.
107
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the employer's claim that he was worth less than the
other men, but they did not want to see his wages re-
duced. They worked with him and sympathetically
showed him how he might save his strength and im-
prove his work. In the course of a week or two his
production jumped to sixty-five coats, and it would
only be a short time before he would catch up with
the others. The only difficulty in this case was lack
of proper instruction.
SUCCESSFUL TRAINING OF WAR WORKERS
During the war the influx of women into industries to
which they had hitherto been unaccustomed presented
a problem very similar to that of the immigrant worker
entering American industrial life. The works manager
of a large machine company in a Western city thus
describes his problem and the method he adopted of
dealing with it:
When the writer took charge of the works in January, 1916, it
was the practice to bring the new employees directly into the shop,
set them at the machines and have them learn the work at these
machines in the shop. I noticed that when the new girls came into
the shop they were very nervous — badly frightened — and that they
did not get over this timidity for several weeks. They were set to
work at either large or small machines, the like of which they had
never seen before, and naturally were too nervous to do their best.
I found that not only was their progress in learning slow, but that
they also took up the time of the employees surrounding them in
order that they might learn from these employees and thus naturally
they learned all the faults of these other employees. Their per-
centage of scrap was also very high.
I therefore started the mechanical training department. In less
than ten days' time we turned out from the training department
girls who could operate heavy hand turret lathes, on work requiring
great precision. The production from the machines in the training
department was, of course, much greater and more accurate than
the production from the same machines under the old method of
training the employee in the shop. These trained girls, when
108
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
entering the shop, would attack their machines with vigor and
confidence and it did not take more than three weeks for them to
reach a high average of production. Upon beginning the work in
the shop itself, the girl employee became a part of our system of
organization, by which we have set a male job boss over each group
of seven or more women. This job boss has been selected with
great care in order to see that he is not only a skilled mechanic, but
also a man of good character. It is the job boss's duty to see that
the efficiency of his group of women operatives is kept up to a point
that will ensure an excellent rate of production and pay. His par-
ticular duty is to continue the training in the shop of those opera-
tives who are last out of the training department. . . .l
When the War Department was confronted with the
need of mechanics and repairmen in great numbers
and had to use all sorts of men untrained to these
tasks, it used the same method. First, the men were
selected carefully and assorted to the tasks for which
they were likely to be best suited. Then, in addition
to the military camps, training schools were established
in connection with all the important mechanical schools
and colleges, for the purpose of training men to vari-
ous industrial tasks. The results were as surprising in
the cases of these men as they were in the cases of
women who, it had been assumed, were unsuited to
work in certain industries.
The thing works in a way that I would never believe! In our
training in the War Department we handled 140,000 men, trained
them in 67 different trades . . . Seventy thousand of those men got
over to France, and the composite opinion that came from the
Commanding General was that these men were competent, able and
resourceful. Now I don't mean to say that every man who was
trained in two months was an all-hand mechanic, but he did know
how to manipulate jobs on one or two tools and understood the
principles which underlay the work.2
1 Council of National Defense, Report of Section on Industrial
Training, April 10, 1918, pp. 8-12.
2 C. R. Dooley, Educational Director for War Department Com-
mittee on Education and Special Training.
109
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
A short period of intensive training developed effi-
cient mechanics not only out of unskilled laborers, but
also out of men and women who had formerly been
used to "soft" tasks only. It was found that:
General office help, such as clerks, bookkeepers, etc., can like-
wise be trained to do work requiring mechanical skill.
Many of our most skillful operatives are men and women well
along in life; while the young worker is more vigorous, the older one
is usually more careful and steady and not so given to change.
Their continuous work on their jobs brings their average produc-
tion up to that of the younger and more vigorous. Thus the older
men, who are now occupied in non-mechanical trades and offices,
can take the places of the younger men and this method will make
them sufficiently skilled in mechanical trades to turn out the more
precise munition work.1
APPLYING WAR TRAINING METHODS TO
IMMIGRANT WORKERS
The training methods developed by industrial plants
during the war were concerned mainly with the great
numbers of women who were being brought into the
factories, and had to be adjusted to unaccustomed
tasks. But the United States Training and Dilution
Service, a bureau in the Department of Labor which
was created to promote this training, pointed out :
In none of this training has the fact that women were the students
any peculiar significance. No reason appears to militate against
an equal success in training men. General realization that women
have no industrial horizon has led employers to think of organizing
training for the women who seek to enter the industrial field. Many
employers have not yet recognized the need of men for exactly the
same assistance to qualify for new industrial employments. Every-
thing of the advantage training gives to women in industry is dupli-
cated by those plants giving similar training to men. Since the
war's abnormal demand for labor has ceased, it would seem that
1 Council of National Defense, Report of Section on Industrial
Training, April 10, 1918, pp. 8-12.
110
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
necessity for calling women from the homes to the factories may
no longer exist. But the benefits which in this emergency have
been found to inure in adequate training are sexless benefits.1
"If we can train women so successfully for indus-
trial work as most of us have done in our factories,"
said an employment manager of a large industrial cor-
poration in Buffalo, "then surely we can train men,
even if they are foreigners." The speaker was uncon-
scious of the humor in his remark, but he was trying
to emphasize the need of training immigrant workers
by the industries which employ them and the costli-
ness of the neglect of this training.
"VESTIBULE SCHOOLS"
For the adult immigrant, male or female, the method
known as "vestibule training" is particularly promis-
ing. This method
has had considerable success as a means of rapidly fitting inexperi-
enced employees for factory work. The "Vestibule Schools" . . .
take only from three to ten days to turn a school teacher, an office
worker, a store salesman, a housemaid, a porter, a farmer, or anyone
with normal alertness and strength, into a competent machine
operator. With an additional three or four weeks of regular shop
experience, these operatives have often far outdone self-taught
workers in both quantity and quality of output.2
It is of just such inexperienced people that our immi-
grant labor supply has in the main been made up.
For them a long period of apprenticeship to learn a
skilled craft is out of the question. They need to be-
come swiftly self-supporting, and American industry
needs them mainly for specialized machine operations
and other less skilled work for which this method of
training is peculiarly adapted.
1 Training Bulletin No. 4, p. 5.
2 The Way to Greater Production, pp. 6-«.
Ill
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
The method of vestibule training is described as fol-
lows by the United States Training and Dilution Ser-
vice:
Vestibule schools are conducted directly by the employers. The
students of the vestibule school have previously been hired by the
operator of the school. They do not pay tuition. This is perhaps
the distinguishing mark of the vestibule school. The school itself
may be an imposing building, or a room set apart in a factory,
or, as in many instances, a mere section of a factory building, or
possibly only a few of the machines regularly employed in the pro-
ductive operations of the factory set aside during a portion of the
time for training use.1
The organization of a vestibule school is described
by the works-manager of the Recording and Comput-
ing Machines Company, of Dayton, Ohio, as follows:
The training department is located in a well-lighted room, away
from the factory, and placed therein were all of the different types
of machines upon which training was necessary. There were also
benches and fixtures necessary for the learning of assembling and
inspection. I placed at the head of this school one of my most
expert mechanics and operators, being particularly careful to select
a man who was a gentleman and who could get along well with the
women. I selected women for teachers, so that when the new girl
employee would come into the training department her very first
experience would be meeting with women teachers. Invariably
this woman employee immediately made up her mind that if these
women could do the work, so could she. The women teachers were
selected with care, thought being given not only to their skill as
operatives, but also to their capacity as teachers.
A large ladies' garment manufacturing company em-
ploying mainly immigrant men and women has set
aside several rows of machines in one part of the shop
and this is known as the "school." Every new em-
ployee, no matter how experienced or inexperienced he
may be, is first put to work in this school. A com-
petent instructor is in charge whose business it is to
1 Training Bulletin No. 4, p. 3.
112
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
teach every newcomer the particular methods of doing
the work that this house considers to be the best.
Tailors and seamstresses come from foreign lands.
They have to be re-trained to American methods and.
they must learn to operate power machines, to which
they are usually unaccustomed. Garment workers
with experience in other shops where the work is done
differently might have trouble in adjusting themselves
to the manufacturing methods of this house. These,
too, are taught the new ways of doing their work in
the school, and when they get to their places in the
shops they are thoroughly familiar with their tasks.
Both they and the foremen are sure that they are fitted
for their work, because all new employees are carefully
tested in the school and assigned to operations which
the instructor found they could do best.
The details of instruction, encouragement, and care-
ful supervision may be gathered from the practice of
the Burroughs Adding Machine Company:
As the young women pass through the Employment Department
they are placed in this Training School under the supervision of
a competent instructor and are thoroughly grounded in the opera-
tion performed in that particular department. While in this school
their characteristics are studied and as they acquire proficiency
and their ability develops, they are assigned to more intricate and
important work in the other departments throughout the factory.
The selection for these assignments is determined by their physical
condition and their mechanical development and aptitude. The
instructor explains thoroughly the nature of the new employment,
points out the advantages accruing to the employees because of
their increased earning capacities; introduces them into the new
department, points out in detail the various operations conducted
therein, and painstakingly explains the scope of their new duties.
The following day they are started at their new operation, and
by frequent observation, instruction, and encouragement improve
to a degree where they become expert in the one operation. In
this manner girls are gradually developed from the simpler burring
and filing operations until we now employ them in departments
performing varied operations.
113
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
A school program worked out by a large tool manu-
facturing plant may serve to illustrate how essential
the instruction given is to every beginner, and how
thoughtless of the newcomers have been our industries
when they neglected to give this instruction, but let
them be "broken in" by making mistakes on the job:
First Day
8 A.M.-12 M. Our students when entering the school on Monday
morning are addressed by the works manager. Following the
address they are escorted by the instructor to the various assembling
departments so as to give them the vital need of accuracy; then
there is a general trip through the factory showing them the raw
material and the progressive methods of manufacture.
1 P.M.-2 P.M. Following the dinner hour they return to their
respective places and are taught the differences in iron, steel, and
alloys. In connection with this course we have issued a pamphlet
called "Supplemenary Instructions and Memorandums." This
was made up as a memorandum of what they are taught each day.
2 P.M.-3 P.M. This period is taken up in defining the mechanical
terms, such as turning, drilling, reaming, chamfer, etc.
3 P.M.-5 P.M. This period is taken up in teaching them fractions
and decimals, which is most essential in our factory. In connection
with fractions all are taught to read a scale graduated to 64ths and
lOOths.
7 A.M.-10 A.M. They are now taught to read blue prints. This
we do by getting some finished part and a print of same in this
manner letting them compare with print; also with explanation on
blackboard.
10 A.M.-12 M. We have chartered a sufficient number of inside
and outside calipers, scales, and gauges from our tool stock room,
and use these in teaching how they are used and why.
1 P.M.-5 P.M. The remainder of the second day is spent in teach-
ing the students how to use micrometers. We have also chartered
a sufficient supply of these from our tool stock for this purpose.
Third Day
7 A.M.-12 M. The forenoon of the third day they are put through-
out the factory with the inspectors and are made familiar with the
use of gauges, scales, micrometers, etc.
114
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
1 P.M.-5 P.M. The afternoon of the third day they are taken to
the several training school machines and a thorough descriptive
explanation of each machine is given. The following days they
are put on a machine and are taught how to operate this particular
machine. In connection with this practical training they are taught
how to sharpen drills, use files, etc.
To follow up the progress made by students after they are trans-
ferred to the factory, we use a follow-up sheet, to compare the
average wage earned with that of the skilled men. We have also
a form for interviewing students about twice a week to help them
until they are able to take care of their work without aid. The
learners have proved that they can, with from five to twelve days
of intensive training, bring their ability as machine hands to a
standard of accuracy controlled by a .0025 inch limit.
SOME RESULTS OF TRAINING
The Packard Motor Car Company in 1914 lost a good
many of their expert varnish rubbers and they could
not get skilled men to replace them. They tried to
break in men directly on the operation but found too
much work spoiled by the green hands. The experi-
enced men did not have the time or the inclination to
instruct properly those who were unskilled. This led
to the establishment of a school for training varnish
rubbers and was the beginning of the company's efforts
to train unskilled workers. Says the vice president in
charge of manufacturing: "The result of this experi-
ence was so highly successful that we carried it to all
of the other branches of body manufacture, and a
school for training unskilled help became a permanent
part of our institution."
At the Norton Grinding Co., which was one of the
first to try vestibule training, a man who was success-
fully operating a horizontal milling machine had less
than two weeks before been a Turkish bath attendant.
At this same plant the night foreman of toolmakers
came up through the training room and developed into
one of the best toolmakers in the plant. He had
115
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
formerly worked in a paper bag factory and had had
no machine shop experience whatever before entering
the training room.
One factory that had trained its operatives was com-
pelled by business conditions to lay off 2200 people.
But their earnings had so increased under the training
and they were so much better adapted to the work in
this plant, that a single advertisement six weeks later
brought more than 2100 of them back, "somewhat to
the embarrassment, be it noted, of the companies with
whom these workers had been less fortunately em-
ployed in the meantime. At another time it laid off
indefinitely nine hundred, and some three months later
easily secured the return of all but nine." *
These satisfactory results are especially important
to the immigrant worker. They increase his skill and
earnings and broaden his opportunities, and to the ex-
tent that he becomes a satisfactory worker he has suc-
cessfully adjusted himself to his American job. A
manager in charge of training in a clothing factory
tells us, for example, that the second generation of
immigrants makes the best operators on machines but
the foreign born do best at hand work. Without the
tests that a training department is able to give, many
shops have broken in immigrants on machine opera-
tions with the resulting inefficiency, low wages, and
discouragement, when a careful system of instruction
in other plants has made of the same kind of people
most efficient hand workers.
Many immigrants come over skilled in trades that
have little or no value here. They cannot find work
in the trades they learned abroad, and they are shut
out of opportunities for maintaining their status and
1 National Association of Manufacturers, Report of Committee on
Industrial Education, May, 1918, p. 12.
116
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
standards as skilled mechanics. They naturally re-
sent being compelled to work as common laborers when
they have spent years in learning a trade and have
the pride of skill. A training department is of special
value in such cases. These workers are likely to be
above the average in intelligence. Their hands and
eyes are trained, and the vestibule school enables them
in a short time to become proficient in new occupations
where they can make advantageous use of their skill.
Thus are opportunities opened up to immigrants and
permanent additions made to the skilled labor 'force
of our industries, where otherwise these men would
feel that their status had been lowered by coming to
America.
This is also true of educated immigrants with uni-
versity training but no industrial experience. An in-
dustrial relations expert with many years of experience
in industry tells us:
I recall once seeing a foreman trying to patronize a Bohemian
who turned out to be a degree man of the University of Prague.
I have heard Italians singing fluently opera strains, to hear which
the average American foreman couldn't stand the entrance charge;
and I can recall many instances when I ran up against university
men in ditches, wheeling barrows, and pounding sand. In fact,
the well-educated but non-English-speaking alien by his very lack
of industrial experience is reduced by our rough and ready labor
administration to the lowest levels of manual drudgery.
Such people may be quickly discovered in the training
department and soon brought into responsible posi-
tions, where they will be of greatest value to themselves
and to our industries.
It is not intended, of course, that immigrants on
landing in this country should be sent to schools by
employers to become skilled tradesmen. This is not
their need and it is not the need of American indus-
tries. The purpose of the training in industries largely
117
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
manned by foreign labor must be the same as that of
the training work carried on during the war, to make
advantageous use of the mass of labor that is avail-
able but unused to the industries in which it was
needed. Said a maker of gear-cutting machinery : * ' We
do not attempt to develop competent machine opera-
tors in the training school. We try only to give them
the fundamentals required, so they will not find shop
work and shop surroundings entirely strange. The
training is continued in the departments to which they
are sent, where they gradually learn to set up their
machines, grind their tools, etc."
A good deal of the problem of training immigrants is
not so much the teaching of skill as teaching familiar-
ity with American industrial methods generally. Many
operations are quite simple, so that little training for
skill is needed; but many immigrants cannot endure
immediate entrance into the rush and noise of our
shops. Also many will not go straight to unfamiliar
industries where labor is lacking and take the risk of
failure. Instead, they will go to overcrowded immi-
grant trades. Proper distribution will be easier when
immigrants know that special preparations are made
for their reception and introduction through a train-
ing department. Such a department also makes the
transition easier from European to American industrial
methods. Just as many women were led to undertake
work in factories by the knowledge that they would
be taught before being put on the production floor, so
many immigrant workers may be led away from the
overcrowded fields of common labor to more skilled and
better-paying jobs in the factories.
TEACHING ENGLISH FOB PRODUCTIVE EFFICIENCY
The new view of management, that it is necessary not
only to select employees properly, but also to train
118
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
and adjust each worker carefully to his job, gave a new
purpose to the work of the so-called "Americanization
Classes" mentioned in the last chapter. American in-
dustry had come to realize that immigrant workers
needed a knowledge of the English language not only
for their own benefit, but primarily for the sake of in-
dustry. Non-English-speaking workers hold back the
productive efficiency of the establishments in which
they were employed.
D. E. Sicher & Co., manufacturers of muslin gar-
ments, found that their non-English-speaking employees
turned out less work than the average of the rest of
the employees. The firm organized classes to teach
these workers English in the factory. During the first
year after the classes were organized their production
increased from 10 to 40 per cent; and instead of four
or five instructors to teach the girls the work, only
two were needed. A textbook for industrial man-
agers recently published opens with a citation of this
experience, and points out its lesson to managers in the
following words : 1
Sheer illiteracy so hampered 10 per cent of the 500 women em-
ployees of a New York concern that they were actually unable to
approach a normal standard of efficiency. This fact appeared when
the management made a close study of production. It resulted in
the establishment of a school, which the management undertook to
maintain in cooperation with the city board of education. Fifty-
five girls were enrolled to receive 45 minutes' instruction each morn-
ing on the company's time. A careful record was kept of the work
and wages of these girls, and after four years it appeared that they
had steadily increased their hourly wage rates. In addition, less
supervision of their work was required than formerly.
There was nothing spectacular in this increase of efficiency, and
nothing particularly novel in the methods used. It is cited as just
a plain, workaday instance of one result that may commonly be
expected from practical training methods in business.
1 The Way to Greater Production, p. 1. ;
119
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Further,1
The non-English-speaking worker is recognized as a potential
source of disturbance or waste, largely because it is difficult to con-
vey to him the intentions of the management when there are just
instructions regarding safety, health, and other conditions of em-
ployment.
The responsibility of American industry for teach-
ing English to their foreign-born employees that mod-
ern managers feel is well expressed by Mr. Harold
McConnick of the International Harvester Company.2
A working knowledge of English is as essential to the employee's
service as to his citizenship. Without it he cannot be taught to
protect himself adequately against exploitation of his ignorance on
the outside. Lacking that knowledge, he cannot fully grasp either
the industrial or the social opportunities of his adopted country
and must be denied much of the opportunity it offers for self-develop-
ment. The teaching of English to alien-born employees is, there-
fore, a primary and fundamental duty resting upon all American
employers — a duty whose competent discharge is bound to bring
full compensation to all the parties and elements in interest.
DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH INSTRUCTION IN FACTORIES
As long as learning the language was considered mainly
a matter of the immigrant's own concern, the non-
English-speaking worker was expected to attend evening
classes conducted by public authorities, if he had am-
bitions that way, and few industrial establishments
felt they had any responsibility in the matter. It was
the Y. M. C. A. which began the work of urging em-
ployers to establish classes in English at the places of
employment, but the idea appealed to comparatively
few employers prior to 1916. It is significant that
when Ida Tarbell published her book New Ideals in
1 Ibid., p. 24.
2 National Efficiency Quarterly, Nov., 1918. Quoted by Daniel
Bloomfield, Labor Maintenance, p. 147.
120
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
Business, in 1916, in which she surveyed all the most
important experiments with scientific management of
employees, she scarcely mentioned factory classes for
immigrant workers. So few were the classes that in
her chapter on "The Factory as a School" she found
no occasion to mention them.
But since that time practically all of the larger in-
dustrial establishments which employ immigrant work-
ers have established factory schools of some kind, and
there are few even of the smaller plants which have
not offered facilities to their non-English-speaking
employees in one way or another to learn the English
language.
The supervisors of immigrant education of the state
of Massachusetts describe the spread of factory classes
in these words : l
The idea of teaching immigrant employees in the place of their
employment was first broached at the time of the inception of the
Ameircanization movement in 1915. In reality, many such classes
were in operation before this year, and in this venture the Y. M. C. A.
may be looked upon as pioneers. Probably the first factory classes
in the country were conducted at the plant of the Boston Woven
Hose and Rubber Co., in Cambridge, by Harvard students working
under the direction of the Cambridge Y. M. C. A. This was in
1906. (Parenthetically, it may be noted that this work, begun in
this plant 16 years ago, has been kept up without interruption to
the present day. This year, for the first time, the Y. M. C. A. and
the industry have turned the classes over to the Cambridge public
schools.)
During the decade following this first experiment, the idea took
hold in other cities, usually under Y. M. C. A. auspices, though, in
some cases industry itself conducted the work. There were classes
at the Hartford Machine and Screw Factory in Hartford, Connecti-
cut, in 1907. In 1910 classes were organized in the foundry of the
Westinghouse Air Brake Company in Pittsburgh. In 1912, the
Fall River Cotton Mills engaged in the enterprise under Y. M. C. A.
1 John J. Mahoney and Charles M. Herlihy. "Industry and the
Non-English-speaking Employee" — An unpublished report.
121
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
leadership. The Ford English School, started in 1913, and con-
ducted by the company itself, attracted widespread notice for
several years. A few years later, the Massachusetts Bureau of
Immigration, under the energetic leadership of Mr. Bernard J.
Rothwell, began a very vigorous movement to interest industrial
executives in the factory-class idea. . . . This was in the midst of
the war, when the country was keen for Democracy and uplift, and
had not yet wearied of Drives. The Americanization movement
had been launched in 1915, and by 1918, the factory-class idea had
been "sold," as an idea. Factory classes sprang up on all sides,
flourished for a brief period, and in a discouragingly large number
of cases, died. It was the time when everyone relied on enthusiasm,
and practically nothing else, to get this job done. Anybody could
teach. Make everybody 100 per cent American, and do it over-
night! Speaking English will win the War! And so on."
Early in 1919 a movement to standardize practice
and improve teaching began. Several national and
state conferences were held, and a consensus of opinion
developed that industries must cooperate with public
school authorities in conducting factory classes. A
number of state laws were enacted to carry out this
purpose, and in many communities the concrete meth-
ods of cooperation were worked out in conferences
between school authorities and representatives of the
industries. With this development classes became more
stable and a systematic development of English in-
struction in industrial plants is now taking place.
THB UETHODS OF THE FACTORY CLASSES
Special methods of teaching English to foreign-born
factory workers were also first developed by the Y.
M. C. A. Mr. Peter Roberts, who was a pioneer in
this work for the Y. M. C. A., prepared a book on the
subject and the Roberts method of teaching became
popular in the factory classes. School authorities and
others have also devoted themselves to the special
problems of teaching English to adult immigrant wage
122
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
earners; the use of the children's textbooks for this
purpose is now a thing of the past.
The most common method in the factory schools is
to begin with conversations. This is followed by sim-
ple compositions of a few sentences in oral and then
in written form. The topics are chosen from the work
and the habits and necessities of the shop. Safety
rules, health measures, foremen's orders, instructions
in manufacturing operations, and the general regula-
tions of the shop are studied and drilled upon, until
the pupil acquires not only a knowledge of the com-
mon terms in most frequent use in the shop, but a
vocabulary for his ordinary conversations. Interme-
diate and advanced classes are also common, and these
add American history and civics to the shop subjects
for study.
Some employers tried to make attendance of non-
English-speaking workers at the factory classes com-
pulsory. This policy aroused resentment, and it was
not found to be very successful. The character of the
instruction, the general interest aroused in the classes
by announcements, notes in pay envelopes, personal
talks, and especially by the opportunities for advance-
ment opened to those who learned the language, proved
to be more effective means of securing attendance.
The meeting time of the factory classes is usually
just before and just after the working day. Frequently
half the hour comes from the company's time, for
which the employee is paid, while the other half is on
his own time. A good many firms have offered pay-
ment for the time spent in the classes as an inducement
to attendance, but experience has shown that the most
effective inducement has been increased earning capa-
city after attendance at the classes. Some of the
largest companies have had classes in session continu-
ously from 7 A.M. to 11 P.M., workers going to them as
123
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the shifts changed, and also a few being permitted to
go from each department at various hours.
The Ford English School started with teachers who
were all Ford employees volunteering their time. Many
other employers attempted to select and pay their
teachers, often hiring them from the Y. M. C. A.,
Y. W. C. A., or from local schools. But as we noted
in the preceding chapter, this practice is giving way
rapidly to a cooperative arrangement with public
school authorities by which the latter supply teachers
for the factory schools. We shall have occasion to dis-
cuss these arrangements further in a succeeding chap-
ter.1
An excellent example of the work of these classes is
that of Armour & Co. described by Mr. C. A. Living-
ston:1
Any afternoon at the Chicago plant of our company — and the
same thing, pretty much, goes on at some of our other plants — you
can see an interesting gathering in one of the rooms of the employ-
ment department. Twenty or thirty workmen in their shirtsleeves,
just come off duty on the day shift, are seated on benches; they are
laboriously copying on paper such sentences as "This is a black
coat" and "The coat has a collar." . . . These are foreign-born
workers, learning the language of then* adopted country after eight
hours of hard work in the cattle-pens, the skinning rooms, and the
canning plants of the stockyards. . . .
The instructor comes to the plant daily from the Chicago Board
of Education. . . . This teacher is a Slav by birth, an American by
development; like many educated Slavs, he speaks an appalling
number of languages. And because he has been through the mill
himself, he has a sympathetic understanding for these men who,
under greater handicaps, are starting on the long hard grind which
he knows from personal experience. . . . You can't take a man from
a bench and put him in charge of an English class, so Armour and
Company has found out, no matter how well he may speak the
language. . . .
1 Chapter XIII, The Government's Responsibility.
2 The Way to Greater Production, pp. 91-96.
124
TRAINING THE IMMIGRANT WORKER
The men come to class whenever they can; sometimes they make
it three times a week, sometimes only once. But whenever they can
be present, directly after work hours, they find the class and the
teacher waiting for them. Learning does not progress here at such
a rate of speed that these fellows cannot catch up if they find it
necessary to miss a time or two; if it did it would defeat the purpose
of the class — the greatest good to the greatest number. . . .
The complete course of study is 30 lessons. "There is little
hope of teaching a man English if you can't get him well started in
30 simple lessons," explains the executive in charge of the work. . . .
Lessons in citizenship are taken up as soon as the men have a
fair understanding of English. Citizenship is taught by what the
instructor calls the dramatic method. Five lessons each represent
a year of the naturalization period. The students go through
naturalization proceedings, with witnesses, giving evidence of then*
residence in this country and attending to other details. One of
their number acts as a judge. After they have been "naturalized"
they become "citizens" — for classroom purposes.
The class is next organized into wards — a ward in each aisle in
the schoolroom. Aldermen and a mayor are elected, and debates
and conversations conducted which bring out the various duties
and privileges of American citizenship.
"The plan gives everyone in the class something to do," explains
their teacher. "We get them to working, to talking, making
speeches. The rest is easy. They learn from one another."
In Brockton, Mass., a group of employers joined
forces with the Y. M. C. A. in conducting factory
classes. Here not only is instruction in the English
language given, but this is combined with instruction
in shop practice. Methods of performing operations
are explained in pictures and the simple readers and
textbooks used in the classes are concerned with stories
and methods of the shop instead of the ordinary read-
ing lessons. Factory rules and announcements are
studied in the classes, and the common terms of direc-
tion for the manufacturing operations, of command,
warning, praise, and criticism, constantly repeated and
explained in the classroom, soon teach the immigrant
the language of his work place.
CHAPTER VII
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS FOR THE
IMMIGRANT
"FATHER, does everybody in America live like this?
Go to work early, come home late, eat and go to sleep?
And the next day again work, eat and sleep? Will I
have to do that too? Always?" A little Jewish girl1
asked this question a short time after coming to this
country. The experience of the wage-earning members
of her family was on her mind.
This was sweat-shop experience, where the hours of
labor were entirely unregulated and each worker re-
mained in the shop as long as his strength endured to
eke out a meager wage. It is not difficult to see that
immigrants cannot become Americans when they work
and live under such conditions; but this is not so
promptly recognized in the establishments where hours
of labor are standardized, even though the standard
workday may be unreasonably long.
HOURS OF LABOR
Legislation was necessary to reduce the hours of labor
for women, and most of our northern industrial states
now limit these to eight and nine per day. But those
employers who had the vision to study the problems
of labor management and to establish separate depart-
ments for dealing with these problems, saw the impor-
tance of a proper working day and leisure for all their
employees, and they quickly reduced the hours for
men to the same standards.
1 Rose Cohen, Out of the Shadow, p. 74.
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
Says an Ohio manufacturer: l
It is our aim always to be ahead of the law and the demands of
labor. Our hours now are less than the maximum prescribed by
the state law, and we intend shortly to reduce them still further.
Why? Because we watch our people very closely and if we detect
signs of over-exertion, we investigate the cause. Our organization
is keyed up to the top pitch and we would not be able to maintain
this level if we tolerated for a moment any condition that detracted
from effectiveness. So, if we find our people can't hold the pace
throughout a certain period, we shorten it to the point where they
get along better.
At the present time the number of hours worked weekly in this
plant is 50, as against a prescribed maximum of 54 for women.
We contemplate lowering the hours to 48.
How such employers are led to reduce the hours of
labor may be illustrated by the experience of the
Fayette R. Plumb Company of Philadelphia:
We became thoroughly convinced during the war from the re-
sults given to us by Great Britain that there was such a thing as
fatigue and we finally considered reducing our working hours to
see if we could do something to eliminate absenteeism and to decrease
our labor turnover. Here again we did not approach it with an
attitude of simply posting a notice, but we sold the idea to our
workmen. We told them that we did believe there was such a thing
as fatigue and that if they worked shorter hours and had a greater
rest period they could do as much work in a short time as they did
in the longer time. At that time we were working 57| hours a week
and we cut our working time to 52| hours a week. The response
was immediate. Results achieved were so satisfactory that we felt
we had not gone far enough and we eventually cut our working time
to 47? hours a week.
Occasionally in a large plant long hours are worked
without the knowledge of those who direct the policy,
but when the management has the means of discover-
ing these conditions, it promptly remedies them; as in
1 Working Conditions, Wages and Profits, A. W. Shaw Co.
pp. 14-15.
127
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the case of the International Harvester Company, cited
by Mr. Harold McCormick:
One example of what our employee representation plan has done
to improve conditions of the workingmen is this: We never knew
that we had a body of men — about 100 in number, who worked for
us seven days a week, twelve and one half hours a day. We didn't
know it. We got it through the employee representatives . . . one
of them kicked and it was stopped.
Under the leadership of the United States Steel Cor-
poration, which has lagged behind the country in em-
ployment management work, the steel industry still
maintains the twelve-hour day1 for a large portion of
its employees; and one of the main demands of the
steel strike of 1920 was the abolition of this long work-
ing day. It was the foreign born who were the strikers,
as the corporation itself pointed out; and the contrast
between its policy and that of the International Har-
vester Company, in handling the problem of hours of
labor, strikingly illustrates how the employer may be
a help or a hindrance in the adjustment of the immi-
grant to American industrial life.
WAGES
"My people do not live in America, they live under-
neath America," said a Ruthenian priest in 1907. "A
laborer cannot afford to live in America." 2 This was
a reflection of the policy of treating immigrant labor
as an inferior and subordinated industrial class, which
is to be content with lower wages and lower living
standards than the rest of America. Just before we
entered the war a manager of a group of foundries lo-
cated in different states told us he employed mostly
foreign-born laborers who received $15 a week. When
1 In 1923 the U. S. Steel Corporation changed to an eight-hour basis.
•Emily G. Balch, "A Shepherd of Immigrants," Charities, vol.
XIII. p. 195.
128
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
asked if they could live and support families on that
amount, he answered: "You don't understand these
people. They don't need any more; they save money,
and don't expect any more."
In one of his books describing immigrant Me in
America, Abraham Cahan, Editor of the Jewish Daily
Forward, tells of an immigrant who, as he landed in
New York, was met by a prosperous-looking gentle-
man who addressed him in his native tongue and offered
him employment at tailoring. Later he learned that
the man who accosted him was a cloak contractor and
his presence in the neighborhood was anything but a
matter of chance. He came there often, in fact, his
purpose being to angle for cheap labor among newly
arrived immigrants. Angling for cheap labor in this
fashion has been very largely abolished by government
regulation, but similar means of recruiting labor from
among newly arrived immigrants are available in the
want columns of foreign-language newspapers, in pri-
vate labor agencies, and in padroni or gang leaders of
various nationalities.
We saw in a previous chapter the difficulties into
which immigrants were led by attempts to get new
supplies of workers at cheaper rates. These trying ex-
periences are spared the newcomers by those estab-
lishments which have labor departments charged with
administering definite wage policies. In the first place,
their study of wage questions has shown convincingly
that the inexperience and the cost of breaking in great
numbers of new employees make the "cheap" labor
really more expensive. Every attempt is made, there-
fore, to hold the older employees instead of getting
new ones, even if these may be secured at lower rates.
Secondly, in attempting to make workers and their
jobs fit properly, employment managers have found it
necessary to develop careful systems of job specifica-
129
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
tions; and these specifications not only describe the
ability and the qualities necessary for the worker on
each job to have, but they also specify the value of
the job in earnings commensurate with the effort and
skill involved, in comparison with every other kind of
work that is done in the plant.
The contrast between the old methods of employing
immigrants at lower wages than the native born and
the new method of paying the price that each job is
worth in comparison with all others, regardless of na-
tionality or need of the worker, may be illustrated by
two examples: In the first plant,1
As vacancies occurred or new jobs were created the general
manager adopted what he considered the wise means of getting
"cheap labor," and picked men from the town's newly acquired
immigrant population. This policy speedily had two results: it
virtually emptied the plant of the old experienced working force;
and it introduced new problems with which the manager was un-
fitted to grapple. There were, in the end, strikes, which the manager
fought through, as he saw other employers in a like plight fighting
them. ..."
In the second plant, a large corporation manufactur-
ing paper products, the employment manager tells us:
I have found in our industry it is entirely possible to classify all
of our jobs, to determine the number of workers engaged in each
job, the number necessary to maintain each job's productive strength
during the year, and that it was possible to determine whether the
labor needed for the different jobs should be obtained by trans-
ferring from a job within the plant or obtained by going outside and
engaging new workers.
The Employment Department and the Operating Department
heads of our Company all sat in a conference and analyzed the job
specifications and determined what seemed to be a fair remuneration
for each of the jobs, considering the steadiness of employment, skill
required, difficulties of the job, the pleasant features, the outlet of
the job to more remunerative work, and all the things that ought
to be considered in appraising jobs equitably.
1 The Management and the Worker, cited above, p. 4.
130
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
The employment managers' idea is not to bargain
for the cheapest man, but to get the best man for the
work and pay according to production. This policy
assures to the immigrant wage earner the same rate of
pay that the native-born worker gets for the same
work; and puts into practice the suggestion that if we
want immigrant workers to become Americans they
should be treated as Americans.
In fixing the wage policy for the whole labor force,
living costs and the possibility of saving are carefully
considered. Says the Director of Employment of the
American Rolling Mill Company, of Middletown,
Ohio:
Wages have naturally been the subject of more than one discus-
sion at the meetings of the management with Advisory Committees
composed of representatives of the employees. Our men know
that their wages increased 125 per cent while the cost of living index
went up 102 per cent. We have studied and discussed living costs.
Our study of the cost of living in Middletown was made under the
direction and with the help of a group of workers who were interested
in that subject.
To let wages lag behind increasing living costs is con-
sidered bad labor policy, and some companies devel-
oped cost of living bonuses, which increased or dropped
with the movement of the index of prices.
At the White Motor Co. in Cleveland the wage pol-
icy was described by its vice president and factory
manager as follows:
The highest possible wage on a straight time basis without
bonuses, premiums, or profit sharing is paid employees. The
factors instrumental in establishing the wage-scale are cost of living
and amount of production. . . .
Second in importance to wages paid, in the mind of the average
workman are working hours. These must also be regulated by the
relation of earnings to living cost, and by production, holding the
margin of safety between too long hours, which result in inefficiency,
and underproduction, which endangers the future operation of the
131
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
plant. It is the belief of the management that a community derives
the highest benefit, social and economic, from maximum production
paid for at a maximum safe wage rate, with hours regulated ac-
cordingly to afford an opportunity for general development of the
man outside the factory."
That such a policy when applied without discrimi-
nation to native-born and immigrant employees will
build a united working force may well be imagined.
But the fact that it also pays the employer in the con-
crete terms of dollars and cents to pursue such a policy
is most significant. For it insures for the future a con-
tinuation of the widespread development of scientific
labor policies that recent years have witnessed.
According to the manager of the White Motor Co.
in the City of Cleveland, where his factory is located,
most of the industrial plants had an average labor
turnover of about 300 per cent. The White Com-
pany's percentage was only 63, and in 1919 it was
only 25 per cent. That meant that few workers were
leaving and few had to be discharged. It meant, also,
that the per man production steadily increased, so that
between 1914 and 1919 labor cost went up only 7 per
cent, while wages increased 110 per cent. In the words
of the manager:
The efficiency of our plant, its size, and the size of our working
force, increased steadily through the war period, crossed the armistice
without a bump, and went right on increasing. We have no labor
problem in the ordinary sense of the term.
Most plants experimenting with wage policies, how-
ever, do not pay on a time work basis, as does this
company. Piece rates and bonus and premium sys-
tems of various kinds are tried, but wherever the
intent is not to get the "cheapest" labor but to
pay what the work is worth as nearly as that can be
measured, the result is the same.
132
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
Ida Tarbell, describing the wage payment methods
of the Clothcroft Shop says:1
Mr. Feiss handles a difficult labor group. Of the 828 persons in
the shop in 1914 one half were foreign born. They come as a rule
without experience, often speaking no English. They have all to
learn. The theory of the shop is that they are worth teaching;
and, moreover, that the more they know, the healthier and happier
they are, the better "pants" they will make; also the better "pants"
they make the better citizens they will be!
Starting with the basic wage in Cleveland in the industry . . .
in 6 years — June, 1910 to June, 1916, the hourly wages in the shop
have increased 69 per cent, the weekly 49 per cent.
During the same period production increased almost
60 per cent, thus showing a decrease in costs.
SAFETY, SANITATION, AND OTHER PHYSICAL CONDITIONS
More important even than wages and hours of labor is
the adjustment of the immigrant to the physical con-
ditions of his work place. Accidents in the course of
employment are usually higher among non-English-
speaking immigrants than among all other employees.2
Obviously of all inexperienced men the one suffering the most
handicap is the one who is both new to his task and also is unable
to communicate freely with the man to whom he is responsible.
Study of this condition shows that the accident rates of such workers
are higher than of those familiar with the language. That this is
not due to some racial peculiarity is indicated by the fact that the
English-speaking foreign born have rates scarcely higher than the
American born.
In another study made by the United States Bu-
reau of Labor Statistics it was found that accidents
in the machine building industry showed both a higher
1 New Ideals in Business, Macmillan Co., pp. 214-216.
2 United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Safety Move-
ment in the Iron and Steel Industry, pp. 40-41.
133
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
frequency and severity rate among the foreign-born
employees than among the native-born, as follows:
TABLE VI
ACCIDENT RATES AMONG FOREIGN-BORN AND NATIVE-BORN
EMPLOYEES
ACCIDENTS
NUMBER OP ACCIDENTS
PEB 1000 EMPLOYEES
DATS LOST PER 1000
EMPLOYEES
Native
Born
Foreign
Born
Native
Born
Foreign
Born
5.31
3.4
0.9
Death
0.5
1.6
58.5
0.9
4.6
96.3
2.91
0.9
0.5
Permanent
Temporary
Disability . . .
Disability. . .
The foreign born are not entirely non-English-speaking, but the
constant excess of the accident rates of the foreign born, as shown
in the table, may clearly be attributed to causes similar to those
affecting the accident rates of the non-English-speaking workers in
the steel industry, referred to above. This conclusion is strengthened
by the accident experience of a group of Polish workers which it
was possible to isolate from the other foreign born. In this Polish
group, consisting of 4798 300-day workers, is found the greatest
proportion of non-English speakers and also the greatest propor-
tion of those engaged in common labor. The accident frequency
rate of this group was 115 cases per 1,000 workers and the severity
rate 13.5 days lost per worker. These are distinctly higher than
the rates for the foreign born as a whole (101.8 and 9.6 days).
The steel industry and machine building are the
only industries in the country for which we have care-
ful studies of this problem over a period of years.
Both studies prove that the immigrant employee who
does not know English is injured oftener and more
seriously than the English-speaking employee.
Fortunately, however, in this respect of the adjust-
ment of the immigrant to the physical conditions of
1 Days lost before death.
134
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
his employment, more progress has been made than
in any of the other matters relating to the industrial
management of the worker. It was the Workmen's
Compensation laws, which all but about half a dozen
states have now enacted, that stimulated the wide-
spread development of the "Safety First" movement
in industry by transferring the burden of accident cost
from the worker to the industry. As state after state
enacted these laws the membership in the National
Safety Council, an organization of industrial managers
to further the prevention of accidents, also grew, and
the reduction of accident rates has been the universal
experience of employers who have undertaken this
safety work.
But the reduction of accidents is not the only con-
tribution to immigrant adjustment that the safety
movement is making. It has been one of the most
effective causes of spreading English teaching through
industrial plants. Employers are constantly giving the
frequency of accidents among the non-English-speak-
ing employees as the reason for their support of fac-
tory English classes, and most of those who have had
such classes say they are convinced that the factory
classes reduce accidents, even though statistical data
may be lacking to prove this.1
A western employer also stresses the importance of instructing
foreigners in English. "In our concern," he says, "34 per cent of
the workmen are foreigners; and of this 34 per cent there are many
high-grade workers, men who are rapidly becoming good Americans.
These workers, however, were furnishing us 80 per cent of our mis-
haps. That was because of their inability to comprehend safety
orders. We attacked this by organizing a fellowship club with
over 1000 members. At the meetings the men all get together and
the aliens quickly learn English. Our percentage of accidents
among foreign workers is steadily decreasing and we count on an
even better showing in the future."
1 The Way to Greater Production, p.25.
135
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Mr. C. W. Price, formerly Safety Director of the
Industrial Commission of Wisconsin and General Man-
ager of the National Safety Council thus summarizes
the results of the safety movement:
One outstanding fact is that we have absolutely demonstrated
that we can eliminate three fourths of all accidental deaths and
serious injuries in industry.
The second most significant fact is that accident prevention has
offered the first legitimate common ground on which employer and
employee can meet with mutual interest and understanding, and
with profit to both.
According to the experience of hundreds of industrial plants in
which accidents have been reduced in amounts varying from 50 to
75 per cent, it has been found that not more than one third of what
was accomplished was made possible by any mechanical guard or
mechanical equipment.
According to this leader of the safety experts of the
country, it was educational work among the workers
and the foremen in the plants as well as organization
of numerous safety committees in the plants, that was
responsible for two thirds of the reduction in accidents.
This bringing together of employees with foremen and
managers, to investigate and discuss accidents that had
occurred and to devise means for preventing repeti-
tion of such accidents, also brought management and
men together on common ground and led to closer
contacts. With the immigrant so largely concerned in
the matter of accidents it is obvious that the safety
educational work, the service and experience on com-
mittees with American fellow workers, and the close
contacts with management, have offered a means of
fusing native and foreign born in industry, than which
there could be hardly anything more effective.
"Give a workman some active part in safety work,
some recognition, some responsibility," says Mr. Price,
"and you will secure his interest. This has been the
experience of all companies which have properly organ-
136
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
ized workmen's inspection committees." Committees
usually consist of from three to five workmen and their
membership is changed frequently, so that all employees
may get the educational advantages of investigating
accidents as they occur, fixing responsibility, and de-
vising preventive measures. Thus the immigrant worker
is first taught English to lessen his liability to injury,
and then is brought into the fold of the plant-wide
safety organization by the common tasks of accident
prevention.
The safety movement led quickly to interest in other
physical conditions in the plants. Sanitation, ventila-
tion, temperatures, factory lighting, fatigue, and occu-
pational diseases all become subjects of study, and a
further impetus to this movement was given by the
new idea of management, which emphasizes that con-
ditions must be right in the factory in order to get the
right results from employees.
Twenty thousand dollars a year is spent in one plant
for achieving perfection of cleanliness in shop condi-
tions; and the cleaning is of the sort for which some
other companies incur no expense, letting each worker
take care of his own area as best he can. When other
companies have said that this plant is so well off it can
afford such expenditure, the man who has been super-
intendent for thirty years has replied: "We are well
off, just because we have done this kind of thing." The
plant represents a branch of the cotton textile industry
wherein the perfect condition of machinery is of high
importance. Spoiled or interrupted work is prevented
by keeping close watch of machines at all times to see
that no dust or waste collects in them. The workers
are expected to show the kind of intelligence that pre-
vents troiible. The superintendent believes that order
and cleanliness not only keep up the standard in the
workers* production, but that an effect is produced
137
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
which they carry home into their manner of living.
He points to this as the company's best service to the
immigrant. His employees are French Canadians, Por-
tuguese, and Poles.
A New York employer finds that by providing proper
atmospheric conditions employees increased their out-
put 10 per cent. Another, studying losses due to colds
contracted by employees from poor ventilation, figured
the loss at $24 a cold. And a Baltimore employer dis-
covered that defects in the heating and ventilating sys-
tem of an otherwise model factory building caused 27j
per cent of the working force to suffer illness during
two successive winters. But when the defects were
discovered and corrected, the percentage of illness
dropped to 7.1
Examples like these are published and circulated
among industrial managers through the management
and engineering magazines, and thus the work of im-
proving working conditions for immigrant and native
worker alike goes on.
MEDICAL SERVICE
A common responsibility assumed by the new indus-
trial management is the furnishing of medical service
to employees. This has been made the subject of
special study in the volume of these studies entitled
Immigrant Health and the Community, and we mention
it here only to note that through this service many em-
ployers have been able to teach foreign-born employees
the health habits they must acquire if they are to sur-
vive in an industrial environment; as well as the hab-
its they must discard, which may have been reasonable
enough in the agricultural villages of Europe, but are
unsuited and dangerous here. The value of medical
1 Working Conditions, Wages and Profits, pp. 2-3.
138
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
service to the foreign born is not so much in the fur-
nishing of the service by the employer, but rather in
the method of its administration. One company finds
that its South Italians will not accept its offer of
medical aid, because as a people they "fear strange
doctors"; but another company dealing with this na-
tionality says that " the Italians fairly rush the medical
service," and that they try to get their whole family
doctored by dramatically describing the symptoms and
pains of an ill one at home, pretending that they are
themselves the poor sufferer.
The effect of this kind of service is well illustrated
by a story told by Ida Tarbell:1
They tell a story of a Polish miner, at Ishpeming, Michigan,
who was obliged to spend some weeks in the company's hospital.
His home had been the despair of the company's nurse, so dirty
and crowded it was. But when the man returned from the hospital
the place was immediately transformed. "Clean and nice all the
time, now," he told the nurse when she exclaimed at the change.
"Clean and nice like the hospital, feel good."
HOME VISITING
The home visiting which companies are promoting
through nurses, service workers, housing supervisors,
and other representatives of the employment depart-
ment, often becomes a family matter, although the
occasion of the visit is usually absence of an employee
from work. In cities such visiting is done sometimes
to make a contact with the non-English-speaking
parents of young girl employees, who may not even
know the company's name, much less its location.
Some employers, notably the Clothcraft Shops in Cleve-
land which have for a number of years had the custom
of having the homes of all new girls visited, are con-
vinced that the attempt to reach the parents of the
1 New Ideals in Business, Macmillan Co., p. 27.
139
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
foreign born is rewarded with greater stability and
regularity on the employees' part. In suburban places
and in the smaller towns, where the factory or mill may
be a prominent feature of the town, and employers
and employed come close together in their living as
well as their working lives, the most energetic and in-
clusive visiting seems to be done. The city employer
does not feel the urge to inquire into and improve what
he does not see; while the country employer, who
cannot escape seeing, is likely to be driven to improve-
ment for his own peace of mind, and because of the
obviousness of the connection between living standards
and workmanship.
LUNCH ROOMS
The attitude of foreign-born workers toward their
work, as well as toward the company, has been appre-
ciably improved through the medium of the lunch
room. A woman service worker in a clothing plant
spoke, in illustration, of a Polish woman who gets up
in the morning, and hurriedly dresses her children and
gets her family fed. Perhaps she only takes time for
a drink of coffee herself, and hastily throws some food
together for her luncheon. On she goes to the factory,
where she sews busily at her work all morning. At the
noon signal she thrusts across the back of her chair
the coat she has been working on, opens up her news-
paper-wrapped lunch and eats it quickly and silently,
perhaps thinking about things that worry her or not
thinking at all. She is almost glad when the signal for
power comes, when she grabs the coat and takes up her
work again; and so it goes on until the end of the day.
But, with the coming of the lunch room, with food
planned for hot days or for cold days, and the mental
as well as physical interruption, all is changed. She
leaves her work place for a time, and sits at a table
140
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
with space enough for comfort. And besides having
food she likes for a trifling expense, she may even be
drawn into talking and laughing with others at the
table. The psychology of it is that she goes back to
her work new, and she may feel comradeship in place
of isolation.
Lunch rooms in industrial plants of any size may
now be said to be the rule rather than the exception.
In these, employment managers and service workers,
who are paying attention to the problems of their for-
eign-born employees, find many opportunities of work-
ing the reluctant immigrant into the spirit of their
native-born and Americanized workers.
While visiting a lunch room in a Chicago plant em-
ploying about 1000 people, we noticed an immigrant
in an obscure corner eating with his back to the room,
so no one could see the lunch he had brought with
him. He was setting himself apart, conscious of the
strangeness of his food and the manner of his eating.
Unfortunately some employers have assumed that this
must be a permanent condition, and either they pro-
vide no lunching facilities whatever for their foreign-
born labor, or they do not encourage immigrants to
patronize the facilities provided for American employees.
This is often caused by the resentment which native-
born Americans feel, or claim to feel, if the foreign-
born use the restaurant or cafeteria. But many em-
ployers have found the means of breaking down this
division among their employees. Their service work-
ers encourage the foreign born to sit at tables with
other workers, and eat and talk with them. Thus,
gradually, the immigrants are led to acquire a taste
for American food and a consciousness that essentially
they are no different from the others.
From the point of view of efficient management
employer-conducted lunch rooms . . . have proved
141
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
not only a convenience to workers but also a direct
means of safeguarding their health, and thus increas-
ing their productivity. But for the immigrant wage
earner it has a larger usefulness in bringing him into a
commonness of kind with his fellow workers.
The lunch room has been further useful as a means
of demonstrating the idea of democracy. The plant
which is chosen to illustrate this is living out its de-
mocracy in other ways. If this were not so, it would
not, probably, accomplish much through the lunch
room. Here the cafeteria serves, in the same room at
the same time, all persons connected with the com-
pany in any capacity, whether administrative or me-
chanical. The dining room in this case is a kind of
many-windowed corridor connecting two factory build-
ings. It is like the sun parlor on an ocean recreation
pier; while it is filled with light, it seems to be so
shaded as to give the smiling, pleasing buoyancy of
sunshine, without its harshness or glare. To the visitor
it seemed that the free expansive qualities of air and
sunshine had something to do with the ability of people
of many kinds, seemingly, to use this room in comfort,
together. A smoking room for men adjoined one end; a
girls' rest room with player piano flanked one side,
actively enjoyed by girls of evident foreign birth.
RECREATION
The Delaware Americanization Committee tells of the
change wrought in a group of laborers by a little or-
ganized recreation, and the effect of the change in
their attitude toward their place of enjoyment: 1
On Friday nights, when there was no school, the Committee held
open house in the shanty. Never were dominoes and parchesi and
lotto played with such untiring zest. Sometimes there was music,
1 Report of Delaware Americanization Committee, 1920-21, p. 25.
142
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
and always at ten o'clock one of the tables was laid with white
napkins, cocoa was served in china cups from the big pot on the
stove and a plate of buns was handed around with perfect dignity
by Felix, Chairman of the Social Committee. ("It's even nicer
than a party," says Felix, "to sit eating together like family.")
And these boys, who reveled in the daintiness of that repast and
washed the dishes between times with such scrupulous care, were
the same "hunkies" who put up with almost anything in their mess
house because they and everybody else took it for granted that it
was the best that could be had.
It is interesting to observe that, in making possible the creation
of that little home center for its foreign laborers, the Worth Com-
pany has unconsciously guarded its future against the high rate of
"turnover" for which the employers of the community held their
alien labor chiefly to blame during the war. That little group of
homesick young chaps is scattered now. Some have returned to
Spain or Italy, others have gone to seek work in the coal fields of
Pennsylvania; but they all said the same thing when they went:
"When the Worth Company has work again we will come back quick
to Our Shanty."
At "Fashion Park," a men's clothing factory in
Rochester, whose employees are mainly Italians, the
Fashion Park Band gives expression to the musical
talent of some of its workers, and unites all the work-
ers in appreciation of its concerts. It is the pride of
the plant and also of the Italian community of Roches-
ter, for it gives many performances for the public gen-
erally. Through enjoyment of efforts of this kind and
recognition of talents, the native born and workers of
other nationalities are brought into close sympathy
with the Italians, and a basis for closer contacts is
made. The labor department of this company also or-
ganizes baseball nines among its employees, and teams
in other athletic games, in which the foreign born are
encouraged to take part; and interest is stimulated by
games arranged with teams from other plants in the
city.
The immigrant nationalities in our industries do not
excel in outdoor sports and it is difficult to enlist their
143
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
participation. But when they are encouraged by in-
vitations, their interest in trying to learn the rules of
the game in baseball and football is as exciting as that
of young boys. On the other hand, American workers
have been found to evince great interest in the folk
dances, songs, and pageants, which the immigrants de-
light in exhibiting, with the slightest encouragement
from intelligent service workers.
The reputation of the foreign-born women employees
for not being "good mixers" breaks down, in a Con-
necticut plant, in connection with "sings." The song
periods find general interest and enthusiasm in this
plant where Italians, Irish, English, Russians, Lithuani-
ans, Poles, Albanians, French, Portuguese, and Span-
ish are represented among the foreign-born employees;
but the Italians and the French are the most appre-
ciative. The periods are of further benefit, the com-
pany finds, in helping the women to master the English
language, and in assisting them in the class work which
the educational department conducts.
PLANT PERIODICALS
Very many employers have in recent years undertaken
the publication of plant papers or house organs. The
purpose of these periodicals is to add to that common
feeling among the employees which makes for morale
and loyalty to the organization of which they are a
part They print news and the gossip of all the de-
partments, births, deaths, marriages, and other "per-
sonals," which serve to emphasize the common inter-
ests of all the people in the plant. They are much like
small town newspapers in this respect, and serve much
the same purpose of uniting the community.
For those foreign-born employees who can read Eng-
lish, however little, the plant paper offers a most
144
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
excellent method of developing unity of mind with their
native-born fellow workers. They are interested in the
personals, the biographies, and the news of the plant,
and this interest gives a foundation to build on.
A number of these plant papers have tried the ex-
periment of printing sections in foreign languages but
most of them have avoided it upon the theory that it
would encourage the immigrant in his use of his native
language. While there may be some danger in this
direction, the greater danger is that the immigrant
will have nothing to bind him to the working com-
munity of which he is a part. By reading about his
American place of employment and its views and its
problems, even though he reads in a foreign tongue,
he is gradually acquiring an interest in things Ameri-
can and learning to understand his fellow workers.
This in itself is a stimulus to learn English, so that he
may read the rest of the paper and understand better
what is going on. Some plant papers have been used
as texts for English lessons, with translations of arti-
cles also published. This is an excellent means of
teaching English to foreign born and at the same time
making them feel at one with the rest of the employees.
We have mentioned the use made of the plant paper
to urge American workers to give greater considera-
tion to the new employee, especially the immigrant,
but in general the possibilities of these periodicals in
reaching the foreign-born employees have still to be
worked out.
WELFARE SERVICES
It is interesting to walk through a plant with a woman
service worker who is really the friend of her group of
employees, and to whom the company gives some lee-
way to make her recommendations effective. In the
course of such a walk, for example, an American girl
145
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
asked for transfer to a department in which she had
formerly worked and where she thought she had been
better adjusted; two colored women asked advice in
health matters; a group of Polish girls secured the
service worker's promise to attend the wedding that
night of one of their group; a beach party with other
Polish girls was arranged; and a Swedish foreman told
of his anxiety about one of the women in his depart-
ment who had had an operation, and asked to have
someone from the company go to see her.
Two foreign-born girls were soldering cans. They
were obviously very uncomfortable from the flame be-
fore them as well as the hot weather; but this did not
prevent their looking up and smiling in friendly fashion.
The service worker pointed out that the flame is two
thirds enclosed now, whereas it formerly was entirely
open. She brought about this improvement, and is
studying ways to make the situation still better. Her
daily walks through the plants, she said, take note of
these things; and changes are coming, though slowly.
In the lunch room in another plant the woman who
is placed in general charge of women employees fell
into friendly conversation with an Austrian girl near
her at the table. In the course of their conversation
it came out that on the following Saturday the girl
was going to a neighboring town, to get another "job."
After a little questioning it was clear that she liked
the company, was happy in living at the company
boarding-house, and was satisfied with the wages
which, she agreed, she might not receive in the new
place. The thing she did not like was working in
Plant No. 4 which is always warm and, during the
past two days of unusual summer heat, had been seem-
ingly unbearable. The service worker persuaded her
to postpone the decision about going until the question
of transfer could be taken up with the proper persons;
146
AMERICAN WORKING CONDITIONS
for she knew that this girl was one of the fastest work-
ers in her branch of mill work, and the company could
not afford to let her go. This seemed a clear demon-
stration of the way in which the welfare worker's func-
tions straighten out difficulties that might otherwise
miss adjustment because of not being known. The girl
would more readily have left the company than she
would have taken any steps in the prescribed way —
to complain to foreman or employment manager. She
knew probably that both these persons could be ap-
pealed to, the service worker said, but it was like a
foreign-born girl to think it was easier to "just leave."
Industrial companies, also, are waking to the ap-
plication of this idea — foreign-language assistants in
connection with the work for the foreign-born women
employees — whether such work be designated person-
nel, employment, service, welfare, or other. Two in-
teresting experiments of this kind were started within
the last two years in stockyards plants of Chicago.
These plants employ (in 1919) respectively 2000 and
1000 women, the majority of whom were born in
Slavic countries. In each instance a young Bohemian
woman of college education and social training holds
a responsible position which ties her work into the
plant employment department, and all the branches of
service and production departments which relate to
the women. A day spent in the plant with one of
these workers seemed to offer many proofs of her in-
herent understanding of the employees for whom she
works. That the promoters of the plan consider it ad-
visable is suggested by the fact that she was sent re-
cently to organize similar work for women in the
company's western plants.
"Working conditions affect profits," the personnel
managers say.1
1 Working Conditions, Wages and Profits, pp.1-2.
147
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Provisions for safety are mere common sense. Decent housing
is essential if workers are to be had in sufficient numbers and of the
right caliber. "Welfare Work" of certain kinds and managed in
the right spirit may also be conducive to profits. The worker's
health must be attended to, or dollars slip into the "loss" column.
Fatigue, if it becomes overfatigue, is dangerous to quality and
quantity of work. ... If the right measures are undertaken, and in
the right way, the inevitable result is better business.
In this profitableness of improved working condi-
tions we have assurance of the permanence and exten-
sion of the conditions and measures here considered;
and the importance of providing American conditions
of employment can not be overestimated, if we really
wish to absorb the immigrant wage earner into the
common life of America.
148
CHAPTER VIII
A VOICE IN DETERMINING WORKING CONDITIONS
OF all the development which modern industrial man-
agement has brought about in American industry, per-
haps the most promising for fusing immigrant and
native-born workers in a common citizenship is the
attempt to give employees a voice in labor manage-
ment by means of elected representatives. Works coun-
cils, shop committees, factory senates and houses of
representatives, industrial cooperative plans, and other
forms of employee representation have become quite
familiar institutions in American industries within the
last five years. Through these organizations, whatever
the name given to them, many employers have at-
tempted to apply the principle that government de-
rives its just powers from the consent of the governed
to the rules and regulations of the shop. The orders
and discipline of the employer, it has come to be recog-
nized, are for the wage earner laws of at least equal
importance with the ordinances of the city council or
the enactments of state legislatures. The term "In-
dustrial Democracy'* which has for years been com-
mon in the propaganda of trade unionists, socialists,
and social reformers, has now become popular among
employers and managers as a name for these plans of
employee representation.
Under various names representation plans have been
inaugurated in very many plants throughout the coun-
try. The National Industrial Conference Board re-
ported in 1920 that they had found between 200 and
300 establishments in which employee representation
149
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
plans were in operation, covering over 500,000 work-
ers. Since that time many more have been organized,
notably by the packing industries of Chicago and the
large milk companies of New York. In February, 1922,
the National Industrial Conference Board found more
than 700 such organizations. The companies which
have these plans are usually those which do not recog-
nize trade unions. Mostly, they are the large corpora-
tions employing great numbers of unskilled and semi-
skilled workers, among whom the foreign born pre-
dominate.
AMERICANIZING THE MANAGEMENT
Mr. Paul W. Litchfield, vice president and factory
manager of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., who
has inaugurated what he calls an "Industrial Republic"
in his plant in Akron, Ohio, conceives that "the rela-
tions between a political government and the people
living under that government are very similar to the
relations between the management of an industry and
the people working in that industry. In other words:
management and government are synonymous terms,
one being usually applied to the political and the other
to the industrial world." He says further:
It is our problem, as we see it, to Americanize industrial manage-
ment. We have all heard about Americanization, and many of us
think that it applies only to the individual, but when you Americanize
the individual and he makes an analysis of his form of government
in industry, and finds that it is not Americanized also, you are going
to have more trouble than when you started, unless it is Americanized.
Management must get confidence, good will, interest, and incentive
from its workmen, and to do that they must believe not only in the
efficiency of the management but they must also believe equally
in the justice in which that management will function for the benefit
of all. Management in that sense is the same as government. In
other words, it is a selected body to govern in the interests of all,
keeping in mind that it should govern in the interests of the majority.
150
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
American workers who have been reared in an at-
mosphere of representative government, and immi-
grant wage earners who have been exhorted to love
and revere such institutions, naturally contrast this
democracy in political government with the monarchy
in industrial government, and management finds its
orders reluctantly obeyed or openly violated and its
power contested in strikes. It was this problem which
led the Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. in 1914 to organize
its employees into what trade unionists call a "Com-
pany Union," and stimulated the copying and adapta-
tion of the plan by numerous other companies since
that time.
The trade unions have charged that these plans are
not put forth by employers in a sincere effort to give
their workers real representation, but primarily to de-
stroy independent labor organizations. Many employ-
ers frankly admit that they have organized works coun-
cils to avoid or to get rid of what they call "outside"
labor organizations; but they say that the legitimate
ends of trade unions can be better accomplished by a
plant organization.
While most of the constitutions of the representation
plans provide that there shall be no discrimination as
between union and non-union workers, the companies
rarely recognize as the proper representative of their
employees the union to which any of them may belong.
The idea of these corporations is to avoid the neces-
sity of dealing with a union, and to provide the
ordinary methods of collective negotiations and the
benefits in adjusting complaints and grievances on
which trade unions insist.
Whether the plans are in opposition to trade union-
ism or not, it is plain that they provide a large measure
of collective dealing between elected representatives
of employees and the management, and they do give
151
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the wage earners some voice in determining conditions
of employment and rules and regulations of the shop.
Whether the method will be as effective in this re-
spect as collective bargaining with trade unions, the
future will determine. But for the purposes of joining
immigrant and native worker in a common organiza-
tion, for participating together in joint meetings, con-
ferences, and dealings with the employer, employee rep-
resentation plans do offer a fruitful field. And where
this is being done in plants employing foreign-born
workers, practical schools for citizenship are being es-
tablished in industry; and they promise to do for im-
migrant wage earners what school governments have
aimed to do for school children in familiarizing them
with the institutions of the country.
REASONS FOB EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION
Quite significant from the point of view of naturalizing
foreign-born wage earners as citizens with equal rights
in American industry, instead of treating them as a
lower class who will work under conditions which
Americans will not accept, are the reasons given by
employers for affording representation to all their em-
ployees.
It was the vice president and factory manager of
the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. who said that in-
dustrial management must be Americanized. The fac-
tory manager of Wm. Demuth & Co. which has had
its employees organized in the form of a senate and
house of representatives for a number of years, puts it
this way:
In the first place, employers are discerning more clearly the
meaning of loyalty, and now can see that this spirit cannot be ob-
tained through the old autocratic attitude. They are beginning to
realize that the growth of their business depends upon the growth
152
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
of the people in their organization, and that loyalty, like electricity,
works only when there is a return current.
Secondly, there is more general recognition of the fact that political
democracy or self-government is somewhat hollow.
Cyrus McCormick, works manager of the Interna-
tional Harvester Co., Chicago, discussing the indus-
trial councils of his company, gives the following as
the reasons for employee representation.1
There are various reasons why employers are turning to employee
representation. In the first place, there may be fear of syndicalism,
a fear that if legitimate interests of employees are not recognized
in this or some other way, or that because of repression they are
unable to get things which they believe are legitimately theirs,
they will have to resort to revolution in order to secure a new state
of things in which they shall be on top.
Secondly, I might compare the growth of employee representa-
tion to the growth of democracy. . . . Now up to a very few years
ago our industrial system was also benevolent despotism. It was
benevolent because large corporations tried to do the best they
could to start safety campaigns, to start scientific employment, to
start welfare work, give recreation, and the like; but because all
this came from the top and had no reference to the opinion of the
governed, in other words amelioration without consent of the gov-
erned, that benevolence was still tinged with despotism. . . .
A final reason is that employee representation is good business
for the company and for the man. Scientific industry has just one
more step to take. We have done about everything we could in
progressive machinery and assembly. We have secured such ex-
perts as we could find to study the technique of our operations,
including many things that were never thought of fifty years ago —
safety work, for example. We must now endow scientific manage-
ment with soul. When this is done, industry can claim to be for the
benefit of management and men alike and the community as well.
When this is done, when industry is endowed with soul, it can at
last claim to be fully and finally scientific.
And Mr. Henry S. Dennison of the Dennison Mfg.
Co., Framingham, Mass., sees in the similarity between
the government of the people of a nation and the
1 Proceedings National Safety Congress, Cleveland, 1919, pp. 41-42.
153
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
management of workers in industry the reason for giv-
ing wage earners a voice in controlling the conditions
of their employment.
It may be questioned whether there is the difference between
the fundamentals of the problem of industrial management and the
problem of political management that some of us think there is.
Some of the experiments that are being worked out in industry,
even if they seem unsuccessful for a time, must nevertheless rank
as experiments in the management of men on a non-autocratic basis.
I think that those experiments are going to prove of very great
interest and very great value. The technique of democracy — how
to manage ourselves as citizens — is not very different from the prob-
lem of how to manage ourselves as parts of a producing or distribut-
ing agency.
KINDS OF EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION
Employees' organizations sponsored by employers clas-
sify themselves into three kinds, from the point of
view of the amount of self-government they allow the
workers.
The first group are properly only welfare or shop
committees. They are merely advisory committees
of the working force selected either by the management
or by the employees, for the purpose of investigation
or conference with foremen, safety directors, and per-
sonnel and service managers. The matters with which
these committees concern themselves are primarily
safety and welfare work, with a small number trying
to extend their activities to include grievances. Com-
plete authority is centered in the management, the
committees merely giving advice and suggestions which
may or may not be accepted by the management.
The powers, functions, and methods of operation of
these committees identify them with the service work
of the plants rather than with problems of bargaining,
of wages, hours, and shop discipline.
154
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
The second group of employees' organizations are
" company unions " in form. Representatives are elected
by secret ballot of all employees, to take up with the
employer or with representatives chosen by the man-
agement all questions in which the worker may be
concerned. But the employer's absolute control over
wages, hours, and discipline is restricted no further
than to give the employee the right to be heard. Ap-
peals are provided from the representatives of the
management to higher officers of the company, but in
all cases of disagreement some officer of the company
has final authority to decide.
The third group may be called real "company unions."
They not only provide for representation of all em-
ployees in the plant by means of delegates elected by
secret ballot, but when there is disagreement between
representatives of the workers and the management,
after all the means for settling disputes within the
plant have been exhausted, provision is made for de-
cision of such disputes by an arbitrator connected
neither with the company nor with the employees' or-
ganization. Joint committees, with the representatives
of employees and management having equal voting
power, are provided for complaints, grievances, inves-
tigation, and for conference covering wages, hours,
discharge, and any other question that may arise in
the relations between workers and management.
These organizations are unions in every sense of the
term, except that they have not the right to strike.
But in this they are in the same position as the or-
dinary trade unions after they have entered into ar-
bitration agreements with employers. The only real
difference is that when an ordinary trade-union agree-
ment expires, the workers have the right to strike to
force a change in the agreement. In the representation
plans there are usually provisions for amendment, but
155
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
if the management refuses to agree to any amendment,
the employees would have no right to force it by means
of a strike. Such a strike would in effect be a revolu-
tion, but it is conceivable that after a strike of this
character the company organization might continue
with the forced change, just as the government of
Italy continued after the revolution of the Fascisti. l
By personal investigation of approximately fifty of these plans,
we have found that employees' representation may provide simply
an orderly method for the adjustment of grievances; it may include
machinery for collective bargaining with reference to wages, hours,
and working conditions; it may be the means of eliciting from work-
ers their hearty cooperation, and valuable suggestions regarding
processes, organizations, and policies, or it may involve all of these
or any combination of them. Its structural features may be very
simple and the procedure altogether informal, or these may be highly
elaborate. The power possessed by employees through their in-
dustrial representation may be that of public opinion — the authority
of the representatives being merely advisory to the management — or
the management may delegate to the employees final authority in
regard to certain specified matters, or authority may be exercised
jointly by the men and the management. I wish to emphasize the
fact that in no plan which we have investigated have we found the
measure of control implied by the term Industrial Democracy.
ORGANIZATION OF REPRESENTATION PLANS
In form of organization these plans vary much more
widely than in type. Some are merely informal gath-
erings of workmen called together by the management
to confer with or assist the management. Others pro-
vide elaborate systems of election machinery, defining
carefully the election constituencies, organizing confer-
ence committees and joint general meetings, and pro-
viding adjustment committees, umpires, and boards of
arbitration. A few permit the employees' representa-
tives to meet alone in their works council, with the
1 E. B. Tolsted of the Independence Bureau, Philadelphia, con-
sulting management engineers.
156
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
management represented only on joint committees ap-
pointed by the council and by the company to handle
specific problems. Still others allow no separate ses-
sions of the workers' representatives, but require all
committees to include management representatives as
well as elected delegates of the employees. Then there
is the so-called " Industrial Democracy Plan" organized
in many plants by John Leitch. This establishes a
cabinet made up of the executives of the company, a
senate consisting of foremen and superintendents ap-
pointed by the management, and a house of represen-
tatives elected by secret ballot of the whole body of
employees.
The wide variation in form is due largely to the
methods by which the plans are inaugurated in the
first instance. Mr. Leitch has his "Industrial Democ-
racy Plan" all worked out and he sells the plan to cor-
porations which engage him to introduce it into their
plants and to supervise its operation. Mr. Leitch de-
scribes his method as follows :
We held meetings once a week through five weeks to adopt what
I told them was to be the business policy of the whole company . . .
from president to the newest learner — and which was to guide all
our actions. . . . Then we organized as a sort of constitution, a
government on the same lines as that of the United States. The
cabinet consisted of the executive officers of the company, with the
president of the company as president of the cabinet. The legisla-
tive bodies were a senate made up of all department heads and
foremen, and a house of representatives elected by the employees
themselves. The elections to the house were by departments . . .
one representative for each twenty employees. . . .
Then we started to govern ourselves under this new dispensation,
with the understanding that all rules and regulations affecting the
employees were to be in the hands of the legislature, subject to the
confirmation of the cabinet.
A ready-made plan is thus purchased by the com-
pany and the employees are induced to accept the
157
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
plan by a vote after a long series of meetings. What-
ever may be said of the democracy of such a method,
the educational effect of the meetings both before and
after the adoption of the plan cannot be questioned.
Mr. Leitch was employed some years ago to install his
system in a clothing factory in Baltimore, where most
of the employees were foreign born, and the articulate
leaders among them desired to unionize the plant but
had been unable to succeed. These leaders argued and
voted for the adoption of Mr. Leitch' s proposal be-
cause they felt that, once given the right of discussion
in open meeting, they had as much chance of winning
the workers to a union as the firm had to its plan.
They proved to be more effective educators than Mr.
Leitch, for the entire plant is now unionized and the
firm makes collective agreements with the organiza-
tion of employees that includes workers in the same
industry all over the country.
The International Harvester Co. made a careful
study of the entire literature of the subject and a care-
ful investigation of all representation plans existing in
the country before it was ready to offer its employees
the right of representation in March, 1919. After a
long period of incubation and investigation it presented
for the consideration of the employees in its twenty
plants in the United States and Canada a plan which
the management felt was most suited to its conditions.
The workers were given a free choice, to adopt or re-
ject. Nineteen plants adopted it by secret vote elec-
tions, in which 97 per cent of the wage earners voted.
One Chicago plant rejected it and the plan was not
put into operation in that plant. The industrial rela-
tions manager of the company says that if they had it
to do over again they would probably call for an elec-
tion of representatives first to help devise the plan,
even though the arrangements now in force would
158
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
have been adopted anyway. Such a method would
have more educational value.
The more recently adopted plans have followed the
method of having joint constitutional committees, so
to speak, with employee representatives to help frame
the arrangement for representation, organization, and
government. The plan of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Co. is one of these, and before inaugurating it the com-
pany
formed a council composed of some representatives appointed by
the management; some were elected by the foremen of the plant and
some elected by Australian ballot, from the men of the plant them-
selves, so that in working out the plan we tried to get something that
fitted our particular industry, which would be just and fair, promote
efficiency, and be satisfactory to all concerned. We unanimously
arrived upon a plan which we submitted to the Board of Directors
for their approval. The board received it, together with a secret
ballot of the employees of the factory. It received 92 per cent of
the votes in the affirmative.
The plan is substantially as follows : We adopted what you might
call a shop constitution. It provides first, that the executive
functions be placed entirely in the hands of the management, the
same as the operation and executive departments are placed in the
hands of the President and his elected representatives who run the
different branches of the government.
In order that this control should not be autocratic, a legislative
body was created, elected by the workmen by Australian ballot.
This body has legislative powers to act as a check on unwise or un-
fair movements of the management. The industrians or citizens
were asked to vote by Australian ballot for two houses . . . similar
to what we have in our state and national legislatures, one being
called the house of representatives and the other the senate, the
senate to be composed of twenty members elected for two years
ten each year, and house of forty members all chosen annually. . . .
At the present time, as that stands, there are about 12 per cent office
workers, including clerks and others in the office, 6 per cent are fore-
men, and 82 per cent are factory workmen.
It will be noted that the organization here resembles
somewhat that of Mr. Leitch. But it is only a super-
159
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
ficial resemblance; for both houses of the legislature
are elected at the Goodyear Co., and the employees'
right of legislation extends much farther.
The Cambria Steel Company and affiliated com-
panies posted the following notice in its plants in
Johnstown, Coatsville, and Nicetown in September,
1918:
The Board of Directors and officers of Midvale Steel and
Ordnance Company, Cambria Steel Company, and subsidiary com-
panies recognize the fact that the prosperity of their companies is
inseparably bound up with the general welfare of their employees,
and propose, with the cooperation and assent of their employees
and for their mutual interests, to establish a plan for representation
of employees, which will hereafter govern all relations between the
various companies and their employees. . . .
We recognize the right of wage earners to bargain collectively
with their employers, and we hereby invite all employees to meet
with the officers of their respective companies for the purpose of
considering and if practicable adopting, a plan of representation by
the employees which shall be thoroughly democratic and shall be
entirely free from interference by the companies, or any official
agent thereof.
It is hoped that every employee will respond to this invitation,
and meet the officers in the spirit of fair dealing and mutual help-
fulness.
In accordance with this notice elections were held
and the representatives chosen selected a committee
to work out with the management in Philadelphia a
plan of organization. A draft of a plan had been pre-
pared by the company as a basis to work on. It was
taken up section by section, discussed and amended
and finally unanimously adopted. Later the larger
body of representatives at each of the three plants
approved the plan by secret ballots.
160
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
METHODS OF OPERATION
Election of employee representatives usually takes place
semiannually or annually, and the secret ballot
commonly prevails. The privilege of voting is rarely
restricted beyond a requirement that the voter must
have been employed in the plant for a short period.
Whether of native or foreign birth, male or female,
there is equal suffrage for all. The fact of being a
permanent employee is the only basis for citizenship
under practically all of these industrial constitutions.
To hold office, however, or to serve as representative,
there are usually requirements of a minimum age of
eighteen or twenty-one, ability to read and write Eng-
lish, a period of service of about a year, and often also
United States citizenship.
When an employee has a grievance, or wishes to
make a suggestion or request, he is required by most
of the plans to take the matter up with his foreman.
If the foreman's handling of the matter does not suit
him, the worker takes it up with his representative,
who is authorized either to bring the matter before a
higher official of the management or to present it to a
joint committee for decision. If this does not satisfy,
appeal may be made to the highest officer of the com-
pany, or in some cases, as we have seen, to an arbitra-
tion tribunal. Questions of general interest to the
management or the workers are usually taken up at
conferences of all the elected representatives with offi-
cers of the company, which takes place periodically.
Mr. Arthur H. Young, industrial relations manager
of the International Harvester Co., describes the pro-
cedure in the works councils of his company as follows :
Any employee or group of employees has the right to present to
the Council, either through the secretary thereof or any employee
161
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
representatire, »ay suggestion, request, or complaint pertaining
to wages, hours, working conditions, recreation, education, or any
other matter of mutual interest; added to this is the right of
personal appearance before the Works Council on any matter so
presented.
The Council must meet once a month and may meet as much
oftener as it sees fit; it may summon any employee as a witness and
may secure from the management any information required in its
deliberations; it may visit any part of a plant as a body or by com-
mittee. The company pays employees for time lost from work while,
acting as employee representatives or serving as witnesses for the
Council, but the employees may, if they choose, compensate such
employees by pro-rata subscription among themselves.
In case of a Works Council deadlock, the question is referred to
the president of the company, thus being brought promptly and
sharply to the highest executive attention. If the president does
not present a satisfactory settlement within ten days, the matter
may be referred by mutual consent to impartial arbitration; or
if the question is regarded by the president as affecting more than
one plant, he may summon a general council from all such plants,
with equal representation for the employees and the management.
If the general council is unable to settle the matter expeditiously,
it may be referred — again by mutual consent — to outside arbitra-
tion. Decisions by general councils or by arbitration are binding
upon all concerned.
In the Bethlehem Steel Co. plan thirteen committees
are provided covering wages, hours, safety, employ-
ment, working conditions, pensions, education, health
and sanitation, etc., to which any matter requiring ad-
justment must be submitted. From these committees
any case not settled goes to a General Joint Committee,
from which appeals are taken to the president of the
company.
Under this plan 493 cases were considered between October, 1918,
and October, 1919. Of these, 336 were settled in the affirmative,
while 81 were negative. Of greater significance, probably, is the
relative frequency of the various causes of the employees' grievances,
as shown in the percentage column. Nearly 60 per cent of the
cases considered referred directly to wages and working condi-
tions.
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
The following is a classification, by percentage, of these cases,
listed according to subjects:
Wages, Piece-work, Bonus, Tonnage Schedules 32
Employment and Working Conditions 27
Health and Works Sanitation 10
Practice, Methods, and Economy 10
Safety and Prevention of Accidents 8
Employees' Transportation 7
Housing, Domestic Economies, and Living Conditions . 2
Education and Publications 1
Athletics and Recreation 1
Rules, Ways and Means 1
Continuous Employment and Condition of Industry . . J
Pensions and Relief £
100
Settlement of Cases
Affirmative 336 68
Negative 81 16
Compromised 43 9
Pending 24 5
Withdrawn 9 2
493 100
Matters of discipline and discharge are often given
special consideration under the plans. In the arrange-
ment of the Cambria Steel Co. a list of offenses which
merit discharge without notice is given, and another
list for which dismissal may come only after warning.
Provision is also made through the machinery of the
committees for appeals by any discharged employee.
A Boston Department Store leaves the entire judg-
ment in cases of discharge to a committee or jury of
employees, while another company provides that a
two-thirds vote of employee representatives may over-
rule the management in case of an alleged unjust dis-
charge and bring about reinstatement.
163
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
WORKS COUNCILS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
A New Hampshire shoe company found that Greek
women whom it employed had to get permission from
their husbands before they dared to vote for represen-
tatives and officers of a shop committee which was or-
ganized in the factory. No amount of lecturing about
American democratic institutions could have brought
home to these immigrant workers so effectively the
spirit of America as participation in industrial self-
government did in this case.
Where industrial representation is inaugurated and
operated in good faith, it offers a practical method of
making American institutions operative in the daily
life of the immigrant. The nomination of candidates,
election of representatives, meetings, conferences, in-
vestigations, reports, appeals, decisions, and the dis-
cussions of all of these not only afford the immigrant
wage earner a most practical school for citizenship, but
the subject matter of it all being very often his own
complaints, grievances, conditions and terms of em-
ployment, he may see and feel justice work out in his
behalf. Being recognized as an industrial citizen on
an equality with all his fellow workers, he finds him-
self taken into the fold of the workshop community,
and the discrimination, oppression, and grafting at the
hands of petty bosses, which have been his bitter ex-
periences in the past, gradually disappear as the ma-
chinery of representation brings the abuses out in the
open, tries them, adjudicates them, and punishes the
offenders.
In the table of cases handled at the Bethlehem Steel
Co. it appeared that 68 per cent of the complaints
were settled in favor of the employee, while 9 per cent
more were compromised. This is almost a universal
164
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
experience. When we think of all the just complaints
that the immigrant worker may have in his efforts at
gaining a livelihood and all the problems of adjust-
ment he has had to meet in his work place without
help from the industry, we can readily appreciate the
promise that employee representation holds for im-
provement in the relations between immigrant and in-
dustry.1
Several years ago, Henry T. Noyes of Rochester stated that his
own company, Art-in-Buttons, Inc., after ten years of periodic
departmental meetings, during which the company and the employees
had been working earnestly for their joint good, found that ap-
proximately 90 per cent of all complaints made by the employees
were justified in whole or in part. Mr. Noyes hazarded the opinion
that there must be under the usual form of management a tremendous
aggregate of dissatisfaction incapable of elimination chiefly because
the management knew little or nothing about it. Consequently,
we have not been surprised to find that the existence of a works
committee not only brings complaints to light before they are too
serious to handle, but that it eventually reduces the number and
seriousness of complaints.
Almost invariably foremen have undertaken to reform their
ways when their attitude of petty tyranny was the cause of griev-
ances, and have endeavored to adjust complaints satisfactorily when
first brought to their attention, rather than to allow their negligence
to be the subject of discussion by committees, and thus also by the
rank and file of employees, and eventually the subject of a repri-
mand from the management. This means that complaints are
more and more adjusted out of court; consequently the time of the
works committee is reserved for more important matters.
As long as the right to vote and to become a citizen
under these industrial governments is not denied to
the immigrant, the restriction on office holding which
most of them have offers no serious handicap. It may
even serve as a valuable inducement to him to learn
English and become naturalized, but in any case he is
1 Report of Investigation of Employee Representation by E. B.
Tolsted. Proceedings National Safety Congress, 1919, p. 65.
165
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
assured the full benefits and protection offered by the
arrangement simply by the fact of being an employee.
Occasionally an employer has attempted to deny to
his immigrant employees the right to participate fully
in elections, and the revolt that has followed showed
both the appreciation of the immigrant of the benefits
of representation and the mistake of such a policy.1
In one plant voting was restricted to (American) citizens, but all
were, of course, allowed to present grievances. A group of foreigners
did not understand this point, and struck because they thought they
had no means of presenting their grievance.
Mr. Leitch in operating his plans has had similar ex-
periences with immigrant workers, not because they
were excluded from participation, but because they did
not understand the plan.
The representative system did not work smoothly. A few of
the elected representatives did not attend meetings . . . some be-
cause they did not grasp the idea, others because they were afraid
they might be called on to speak and thus expose their curious
English. But other members did catch the theory of representa-
tive government from the start . . .
For instance, half a dozen men who could not speak English
walked out. We took it up at a house meeting. One of the repre-
sentatives explained: "These fellows do not speak English. All
that they know how to do when they do not like anything, is to quit.
That is the only way they can express themselves."
The House appointed a committee to investigate and traced
the whole trouble to some trivial error of allotment in the work;
it had not been called to the attention of the head of the department.
The committee hunted up the men, talked to them in their own lan-
guage, and had them back within a few hours.
It was incidents of this kind that led representatives
to introduce resolutions requiring the management to
establish factory classes in English, so that all workers
might be equally able to make use of the machinery of
1 Proceedings, National Safety Congress, 1919, p. 69.
166
A VOICE IN WORKING CONDITIONS
the factory government and all might work together
in complete understanding.
The Detroit Sulphite and Pulp Co., which developed
a system of stock ownership and profit sharing as a
means of having employees participate in management,
was also confronted with the problem of including or
excluding the immigrant worker. The solution adopted
by the company illustrates the tendency among em-
ployers to extend to all their employees, without dis-
tinction of nationality or race, the full benefits of the
new devices of industrial management. And the reason
for this policy as given by Mr. F. H. MacPherson,
president of the company, illustrates well the Ameri-
canizing effect it is hoped to accomplish.1
Citizenship has not been made a prerequisite to stock ownership.
On working out the plan, careful consideration was given to this
question, and the decision arrived at that the bars should be left
down, so that any employee, regardless of nationality, who had put
in the probational period of service, should be permitted to buy
stock. We figured that if we could obtain the interest of the foreign-
born unnaturalized employee, by taking him into partnership, them
in the great majority of cases the matter of citizenship would just
naturally take care of itself. And it is working out just as antici-
pated. Some men who had planned on going back to their families
in Europe are now sending for their families to come to America,
and others who were going back are now debating what they had
best do. If they stay here they will become American citizens and
they will be the right kind, because they have a "stake" in the
country of their adoption — they are capitalists.
That the feeling of being adjusted, of belonging to
the community of workers as one of the family, may
come to the immigrant as a result of participation in
shop committees and works councils is indicated in the
words of a worker who said:
I have been working for this company for seven years. Up to
about a year and a half ago, I always felt I was a servant of the
1 The Management and the Worker, p. 126.
167
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
family. To-day, I feel that I am a real honest-to-goodness member
of the family and that I can sit down at the same table with the rest
of the family.
It is this feeling of belonging to the family of em-
ployees that the immigrant needs to acquire for ad-
justing himself completely to American industry, and
participation in shop representation plans offers a most
effective method of accomplishing such an adjustment.
168
CHAPTER IX
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
WHAT the great industrial corporations which refuse
to recognize trade unions are trying to accomplish in
uniting their employees in a company organization that
will develop plant morale, the trade unions are also at-
tempting for the craft or industry as a whole. Neither
all the employers nor all trade unions are actuated by
this motive, and many in both camps have pursued
policies which tended to divide and keep separate the
foreign born from the native and Americanized work-
ers. But many trade unions as well as many employ-
ers have pursued policies tending to fuse wage earners
into a common people, and the very purposes of
trade unionism and its methods of organization, as the
purposes of scientific labor management and the or-
ganization of proper industrial relationships by the
employer, tend to bring about a unity of mind and
cooperative action between native-born and immigrant
workers.
It is not our purpose, nor our task in this volume, to
pass judgment on the desirability or undesirability of
the purposes which trade unions seek to accomplish,
nor on the motives which may actuate them in further-
ing certain of their particular methods of dealing with
employers. Just so, it was not our purpose in the pre-
ceding chapter to pass judgment on the motives of em-
ployers in setting up employee representation plans
and employment departments for handling the human
relationships in their plants. These controversial
169
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
issues, arising out of conflicting interests and difference
in point of view between management and working
people, appear in all industrial countries whether the
people concerned are of one race and nationality or of
many. We know that trade unions are here to stay,
that they are continuing to grow, and we know that
employers will continue to develop more scientific
methods of labor management. Our concern is only
to point out that in pursuing the purposes that trade
unions consider right and proper and American, just
as employers in pursuing labor management policies
that they consider right and proper and American, uni-
fying agencies have been developed for fusing the na-
tive with the foreign born. We are describing the
unifying policies and pointing out the policies that
tend to divide, regardless of the merit or weakness in
the points of view either of the employer or the trade
unions with respect to the ultimate results of union
shops or non-union shops.
IMMIGRANT ORGANIZERS OF AMERICAN UNIONS
No better proof of the Americanizing effects of trade
unionism on immigrant labor is needed than the change
in the attitude of the public toward the older craft
unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.
It is assumed that these are essentially organizations
of American workmen and that the influx of immi-
grants threatens the existence and the effectiveness of
these unions in maintaining American standards. As
has already been shown, the United States Immigra-
tion Commission reported to Congress in 1910 that im-
migrants were undermining American trade unions and
many unofficial writers have taken the same position.
Yet in 1884 the State Department of Labor of New
Jersey characterized the trade-union movement as a
170
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
foreign importation, and its policies and practices as
un-American methods developed by immigrant work-
ers to protect themselves against economic evils which
they suffer in this country.1 And in 1893 a writer in
the Century Magazine 2 charged that trade unions were
composed of foreign workmen who kept American boys
from learning trades and becoming mechanics.
That most of the national unions which went into
the building of the American Federation of Labor in
the eighties and the nineties were composed mainly of
foreign-born wage earners and were organized and led
by immigrants can hardly be doubted.3
A distinguishing characteristic of the trade unions of this time
was the predominance in them of the foreign element. The Illinois
Bureau of Labor describes the ethical composition of the trade
unions of that state during 1886, and states that 21 per cent were
Americans, 33 per cent German, 19 per cent Irish, 12 per cent
Scandinavian, and the Poles, Bohemians and Italians about 5 per
cent. The strong predominance of the foreign element in the
American trade unions should not appear unusual, since owing to
the breakdown of the apprenticeship system, the United States
had been drawing its supply of skilled labor from abroad.
"In all trades except plumbing," said Colonel Rich-
ard T. Auchmuty, the pioneer worker for industrial
schools, in 1889, "we find that the best workmen,
those who command the steadiest employment, are of
foreign birth." 4 And he charged the unions with main-
taining this situation, the same charge that was later
made by the writer in the Century Magazine just
quoted. As far back as 1825, when the Boston House
Carpenters struck for a ten-hour day, the organization
1 Quoted in Hourwich, Immigration and Labor, p. 331.
2 Century Magazine, vol. 46, p. 151.
* Commons, History of Labour in the United States, vol. II, p. 315.
171
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
of the workers was charged with being of foreign origin
by the "gentlemen engaged in building." *
In 1878 J. P. McDonnell, born in Ireland, and
P. A. Sorge, a German, formed the International Labor
Union, which was "the first deliberately planned effort
in this country to organize on a comprehensive scale
the unskilled wage earners." This proved a vain at-
tempt. But, at the time when McDonnell was vainly
attempting to build up an organization of the unskilled,
Adolph Strasser and Samuel Gompers succeeded in cre-
ating, in the reorganized International Cigar Makers'
Union, a model for the trade unions of the skilled.
Strasser had taken part in the labor movement of
Germany and came to the United States in the seven-
ties, and Gompers was born in England of Dutch-Jew-
ish parents.2
Both Strasser and Gompers were active in the for-
mation of the Federation of Organized Trades and
Labor Unions in 1881 and its successor, the American
Federation of Labor, five years later. With them were
associated many other Irish, Scotch, English, and Ger-
man leaders. At the second convention of the feder-
ated trades it was necessary to elect a German secre-
tary as well as an English secretary, and Hugo Miller
of the German-Typographia was chosen for the place.
Miller was also a delegate to the first convention of the
American Federation of Labor, as was also B. Davis,
representing the United German Trades of New York.
Of the forty-two delegates at this convention a major-
ity were clearly foreign born. Gompers and Strasser
of the Cigar Makers were there. James Duncan, born
in Scotland, represented the Granite Cutters. The
waiters' and the furniture workers' unions of New
1Perlman, History of Trade Unionism in the United States.
Macmillan, 1922, p. 8.
8 Ibid., pp. 306-7.
172
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
York were made up mainly of German immigrants
and they sent delegates of their own nationality; the
carpenters and the New York boatmen sent Irishmen,
and there were other men from England, Scotland,
and Ireland.1
After the formation of the American Federation of
Labor in 1886, it drew native American workmen rap-
idly to its ranks. So completely were native and im-
migrant fused in its constituent organizations that by
1909, when the United States Immigration Commis-
sion made its investigations, it was generally forgotten
that the unions had been formed by immigrants, and
the Commission found them to be bulwarks of Ameri-
canism and American standards, which were threat-
ened by the more recent immigrants.
But while immigrant leaders and immigrant mem-
bers played such an important part in organizing Ameri-
can trade unions, it must not be assumed that trade
unionism is a foreign importation. The Irish immigrant
came from districts with little knowledge of trade
unionism. Yet they were "the most effective organ-
izers of the American unions. Most remarkable of all,
the individualistic Jew from Russia, contrary to his
race instinct, is joining the unions.'* 2 The Germans
and the English leaders did have some trade union ex-
perience abroad. But it was American conditions that
gave birth to American unions.3
The American unions, in fact, grow out of American conditions,
and are an American product. Although wages are two or three
times as high as in his European home, the immigrant is driven by
competition and the pressure of employers into a physical exertion
which compels him to raise his standard of living in order to have
strength to keep at work. He finds also that the law forbids his
1 American Federation of Labor, Proceedings, 1886.
2 Commons, Races and Immigrants in America, 1908, p. 153.
3 Ibid.
173
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
children to work and compels him to send them to school. To
maintain a higher standard and to support his children he must
earn more wages. This he can do in no other way than by organiz-
ing a union.
THE ORGANIZABILITY OF IMMIGRANTS
Although the finding of the United States Immigration
Commission that immigrants were weakening and dis-
rupting American labor organizations has been ques-
tioned,1 it must be admitted that the rapid influx of
new labor did tend to weaken the existing labor or-
ganizations. But that this was a temporary result of
the necessity of finding a footing in American industry,
and not due to the racial character of the more recent
immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, is evi-
dent from the strong unions of mine workers, garment
workers, and shoe workers, that have been built up by
these immigrants; and from the fact that every other
race of newcomers in industry, including rural native
Americans as well as North European immigrants,
have also weakened labor organizations. English,
Scotch, and Irish immigrants were used to break the
strikes of native workers early in our history. When
these in turn formed unions and struck, German work-
men took their places. Bohemians, Scandinavians, and
Jews were the strike breakers of the eighties, and in
later years the south and east Europeans merely re-
peated the experience of the previous comers.
It was assumed by the Immigration Commission and
many writers on the question, that the recent immi-
grants are more docile and tractable than the native
workmen and the earlier immigrants, but the experi-
ence of the past and the extensive strikes of the foreign
born since the armistice was signed should be sufficient
to show that it is merely the immigrant's helplessness
1 Weyforth: The OrganizaUlity of Labor, pp. 163-164; and Hour-
Immigration and Labor, Chap. XV.
174
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
in his first years, which is taken for tractability and
not a permanent inherent quality. Even native Ameri-
cans have served to weaken unions and have been
dubbed tractable and charged with maintaining low
standards.
In Southern cotton mills it is the native elements that
prevent organization. The foreign-born coal miners of
northern Illinois had to organize the natives in the
southern part of the state in order to maintain their
organization and the conditions they had won; and
many a street railway strike has been broken by coun-
try youths of native stock. In recent years the unions
in the clothing trades, textile industry, packing houses
and steel mills have had less difficulty in enrolling for-
eign-born workmen and inducing them to strike than
they have had in getting the American-born workers.
And as far back as 1875 the manager of a Pittsburgh
mill wrote:1 "My experience has shown that Ger-
mans and Irish, Swedes and what I denominate Buck-
wheats (young American country boys), judiciously
mixed, make the most effective and tractable force you
can find."
The real explanation of the difficulty which has been experienced
in effecting organization among our immigrant workers is to be
found, it would seem, not in the character of these workers as immi-
grants but in their character as unskilled laborers; and the principal
problem to be solved in organizing them is not so much that of over-
coming their opposition to or hesitancy about joining a union or
engaging in a strike as that of binding them steadily to the union
so that stable and continuous organization may take the place of
ephemeral combinations, formed simply for the purpose of obtain-
ing some immediate advantage.2
1 J. H. Bridge, "Inside History of the Carnegie Steel Company,"
quoted by J. A. Fitch, The Steel Workers, p. 147. Compare also
Commons, Races and Immigrants in America, pp. 149-152.
2 W. O. Weyforth, OrganizaUlity of Labor, Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Publications, p. 178.
175
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Dr. Leo Wolman proved conclusively that before the
war the great bulk of organized labor was made up of
skilled men; and that the trade unions had but little
success in organizing unskilled workers and women.1
But the war and the period of rapidly rising prices fol-
lowing the signing of the armistice brought an enor-
mous increase of unskilled and semi-skilled members
of trade unions, and most of this increase was due to
the organization of immigrant men and women. The
International Association of Machinists by letting down
the bars so that semi-skilled and unskilled machine
hands might become members of the union brought
within its fold something like 250,000 members. The
Maintenance of Way Employees grew from a union of
50,000 to over 200,000. By means of the so-called
"System Federations" and the Railroad Department
of the American Federation of Labor, many semi-skilled
and unskilled workers in the railroad shops were or-
ganized and distributed among various national unions.
The packing house employees, of which only the
skilled men were able to maintain organizations before
the war, were almost completely organized by a co-
operative campaign launched by the various national
unions which have members working in the stockyards.
A stockyards labor council was formed to unite these
workers into a single body for organizing purposes and
for properly representing them in bargaining and nego-
tiations with their employers. A similar cooperating
committee of all the unions working in steel mills suc-
ceeded in organizing great numbers of unskilled work-
ers in that industry, and its strike call was answered
by 130,000 workers, mostly unskilled immigrants. In
the shipyards, in the clothing industries both men's and
1 "The Extent of Labor Organization," Quarterly Journal of
Economics, vol. 30, p. 516.
176
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
women's, among the shoe workers, longshoremen, and
in many other trades there was a great increase in the
membership of existing trade unions, consisting largely
of unskilled workers.
In addition, new unions of the less skilled workers,
mostly immigrants, have been formed, which give every
sign of being permanent organizations. Such, for ex-
ample, are the United Leather Workers, and the Amal-
gamated Textile Workers. Many of these organiza-
tions have suffered great losses in membership during
the present industrial depression and many of their
strikes have resulted in defeat. But the organizations
themselves have not been disrupted. In the normal
course of events a return of prosperity will increase
their membership again, and if the policies of the
unions which have been successful in holding unskilled
immigrant workers are followed, they should be able to
merge these more recent immigrants with the older
membership in much the same way as the older immi-
grants in the skilled craft unions were merged with the
native born.
If we bear in mind that neither American wage earn-
ers nor those of any other nationality join unions auto-
matically, but they must be educated to it; that union-
ism must be "sold" to working people just as scientific
labor management must be "sold" to employers; that
organizers must be employed and organizing campaigns
planned; that strategic measures must be devised for
overcoming the opposition of employers; that funds
are required for carrying on strikes as well as for de-
veloping enthusiasm and morale; that statesmanlike
leadership and expert business ability are needed to
build stable and permanent organizations and to nego-
tiate and bargain with employers: if we bear all this
in mind, then it becomes plain that organizing and
assimilating the more recent immigrants is primarily a
177
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
problem of efficient union management; more difficult,
no doubt, than organizing skilled mechanics, either
native or foreign born, but essentially the same prob-
lem of union management. The new races react to
union experience in much the same way as the older
immigrants have done. And just as the unions that
were organized and led by immigrants in the eighties
and the nineties were recognized as essentially Ameri-
can institutions and powerful Americanizing agencies
before a generation had passed, so the experience of
the unions that have been successful in organizing and
holding the more recent immigrants shows that similar
influences are developing a like transformation of the
present generation of immigrants.
THE I. W. W. AND THE IMMIGRANT
In the next chapter we shall describe the methods of
those unions which have succeeded in organizing immi-
grant wage earners from eastern and southern Europe,
and the policies they have adopted for holding and
assimilating these workers will be contrasted with the
alienating methods and policies of other unions which
have not succeeded in bringing the immigrants into
the fold. More unions have failed or neglected to or-
ganize the recent immigrants than have succeeded, and
with the exception of the recent efforts in the stock
yards and in the steel industry, the national headquar-
ters of the American Federation of Labor have not
stepped in to do the work which the constituent unions
have left undone or failed in attempting.
The unwillingness of some, the failure of others, and
the neglect of many more left the field clear for an
organization like the I. W. W. This organization, as
we shall see, has dwindled in membership and its ap-
peal to the workers has become less and less effective,
178
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
as wage earners of all classes have found it possible to
improve their conditions by successful strikes and union
organization. Little has been heard of it in recent
months, but under one name or another a revolutionary
organization of some kind usually appears to offer a
philosophy of hope in a Utopian society whenever large
bodies of workers despair of improving their conditions
under the existing order of things. If the condition of
unorganized helplessness in which unskilled workers
found themselves before the war should come again,
the I. W. W., or the same thing under another name,
will no doubt become active and influential again.
The Industrial Workers of the World set itself up in
1906 as the champion of the unskilled, and because
native and immigrant unskilled workers alike were un-
organized it appealed to both. The American migra-
tory workers of the Far West, the Finns and other
nationalities of the Northern iron mines, the Italian silk
operatives of Paterson, N. J., and the medley of races
in the woolen mills of Lawrence, Mass., all espoused
the I. W. W. But this organization did not succeed
any better than the trade unions in forming permanent
organizations of the unskilled. After thirteen years of
existence it claimed only between 30,000 and 40,000
members at its last convention.
It proceeded, however, to formulate the experiences
of its failure into a philosophy of revolution. Despair-
ing of gradual progress under the present industrial
order, it pinned its faith in a new society. It consid-
ered its main mission to be to sow the seed of revolt
among the masses and to develop a "militant minor-
ity," who are to become the leaders of the revolution.
The masses need not be conversant with the philosophy
of the I. W. W., we are told, but they must be taught
to have confidence in the leaders and to follow without
question.
170
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
With this objective, strikes for the I. W. W. became
an end in themselves and not a means to secure im-
proved conditions, or to build up organizations for
maintaining the standards that are won. No matter
by whom called or for what purpose, the I. W. W. was
willing to assume the leadership of a strike, because its
leaders regarded strikes as a means of training the
"militant minority," as drill for soldiers of the future
revolution. Better conditions were often offered to
strikers as a sop to the rank and file, but the idea was
to have frequent strikes to keep up the fighting spirit
of the workers. Trade agreements and stable organi-
zations, with ample treasuries for protection, were con-
demned because they often make strikes unnecessary
and lead to conservatism. An organized "militant
minority" with a discontented working class, ready to
strike upon the least provocation — this was the ideal
of the I. W. W.
As a propaganda organization it was unsurpassed.
Its conventions concerned themselves primarily with
methods of agitation and the spreading of its ideas. It
was less concerned with getting members than with
molding the thought of working people. In this it
had remarkable success. Practically all the migratory
workers of the West and most of the immigrants whom
the trade unions have not reached were influenced by
its ideas. They learned from it to distrust the leaders
of the American Federation of Labor movements and
to hold in contempt ordinary trade unionism.
For its work of propaganda the I. W. W. developed
methods and tactics remarkably efficient. Enormous
quantities of literature — pamphlets, books, and peri-
odicals in every language — were printed, sold, and dis-
tributed where it was likely to have the greatest effect.
Capable and magnetic speakers were constantly on
the road, and were freely offered as leaders of strikes
180
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
wherever these occurred. Mob psychology the I. W. W.
leaders understood and used in most effective ways.
Songs that appeal to the oppressed, cheer the discon-
tented, and sarcastically ridicule the weaknesses of
capitalism were written and taught and sung in
groups.
All this made a tremendous appeal to the unorgan-
ized, unskilled workers, whether native born or immi-
grant, and I. W. W. sentiment therefore developed
most strongly among the migratory laborers of the Far
West, who are very largely native born, and among
the unorganized, immigrant common laborers of the
East. Before this sentiment among the immigrant
workers, most of the regular trade unions gave up in
despair, although the success of the unions in the
mining, clothing, and other industries makes it appar-
ent that the immigrant wage earners, like the native
born, want progressive improvement in their working
conditions and in their status, not abstract revolution-
ary doctrines.
The secretary of a national union in an industry
three fourths of whose employees are immigrants, when
asked what he thought of the prospect of winning the
foreign born to his organization, replied that it could
not be done with the present generation at all. The
president of another national organization explained
that his union ceased trying to organize immigrants
because they had found they were only recruiting for
the I. W. W. Still another official, when asked as to
the advisability of issuing foreign language literature
explaining trade union principles, replied that this
would only give the agitators among the immigrants
better opportunities to make the American Federation
of Labor ridiculous in the eyes of their countrymen.
The suggestion that young, intelligent immigrants, or
children of immigrants, be enlisted for educational work
181
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
among foreign born he felt would be useless, because
"foreigners" have no confidence in anyone connected
with the American Federation of Labor. As soon as
the organizers announced their connection they would
be suspected by the immigrants. A high executive of
the American Federation of Labor complained that
the socialists and radicals had poisoned the minds of
the foreigners against him, as well as other leaders,
making them believe that he was dishonest and a re-
actionary. He seemed to feel there was no hope of
overcoming this propaganda. And the representative
of the Federation in a large industrial state frankly
declared he did not want to organize too many foreign-
ers as there were so many radicals among them.
This attitude of the leaders of organized labor made
it appear that the I. W. W. had attained a strength
that it really never had; and played into the hands of
the revolutionary leaders. As a matter of fact, the
dogmas of despair of steady improvement and faith in
revolution have as little hold on the foreign born as on
Americans. Any organization that brings them meas-
urable success in meeting the cost of living, security
of employment, and enough income to support families
according to American standards, wins their allegiance,
although they do like to have these prosaic purposes
idealized into grandiose programs of social reform. We
shall see in the next chapter how a number of unions
have amply demonstrated this.
If the leaders of the ordinary labor organizations
could but realize this, and were willing to organize im-
migrants, they would find the task much easier than
they assume it to be. The I. W. W. does not organize.
It fears the conservative effect of permanent, success-
ful organization of working people. Success in improv-
ing their conditions makes wage earners satisfied with
the slower method of gradual progress. The I. W. W.
182
ORGANIZED LABOR AND THE IMMIGRANT
rarely organizes and prepares for a strike. Immigrants
who are forced to strike against oppressive conditions
turn to it for leadership when they have no one else to
turn to, or when they have learned to be suspicious of
other leadership. But they are usually disappointed
with the results of I. W. W. leadership; for the revolu-
tionary leaders are interested in propagating their
ideas, not in winning concessions from employers.
The dogmatic attachment of immigrant workers to
"industrial unionism" is generally pointed to as evi-
dence of their opposition to trade unionism. But in-
dustrial unionism is thus confused with the "One Big
Union" idea of the I. W. W. The immigrant working,
in the main, at unskilled occupations, and under the
necessity of changing from job to job, has little pride
in craft. He has also suffered from the selfishness of
skilled craftsmen whose unions protected their own in-
terests, sometimes neglecting him, and sometimes at
his expense. He wants a union of the whole industry
where there will be no "aristocrats," where he will
have an equal chance to have his interests considered
in dealings with employers, and which will enable all
that work for the same employer to act together for
mutual benefit and for protection of mutual interests.
This is quite different from "One Big Union" uniting all
the workers in the land, regardless of industry or craft.
The latter prevents discussion of problems that con-
cern only people of one factory or of one industry, and
makes collective bargaining with employers practically
impossible. The one big union as advocated by the
I. W. W. is designed as an organization to accomplish
social revolution. Industrial unions like the United
Mine Workers and the unions of the clothing trades
are organized for economic improvement. It is the
latter which gains a permanent hold on the masses of
immigrant workers.
183
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
As a result of the failure of the I. W. W. to function
as an economic organization, the immigrant workers
of the Eastern industrial centers who followed it for-
merly began to abandon it shortly after the war. So
strong was their disappointment that at the I. W. W.
convention of 1919 out of fifty-four delegates only five
were from the East and six were from the Mid- West,
the remainder coming from the Far West. The eastern
element through its leaders gave to an investigator for
this study the following reasons for no longer remain-
ing with the I. W. W. :
During the war it had become an outlaw organization, so that it
was playing into the hands of the employer to let the I. W. W. lead
their strikes. In all the great strikes the I. W. W. leaders were more
interested in furthering its principles, placing the immediate needs
of the workers as secondary. It failed to develop local leaders so
that after a strike, when the national leaders left, there was no one
there to continue the local organization on permanent lines. Even
if an effort was made to perpetuate and make permanent the organi-
zation that sprang up during the strike, the national organization
was not in a position to supply counsel and guidance that would be
helpful in dealing with employers. A further failing was that the
I. W. W: not only made no provision for funds or a treasury, but
actually discouraged it. This meant that local paid officials could
not be employed, and the workers had no machinery through which
they could transact business with their employer. After a strike
was settled all negotiations with the employers were generally dis-
continued, since recognition was not requested, and since no local
machinery existed for the purpose of negotiation and adjustment.
For reasons of this kind immigrant wage earners who
are carried away by the appeals of such organizations
as the I. W. W. soon come to prefer the ordinary labor
unions, if these are at all effective in meeting their
needs as wage earners. We proceed now to a consid-
eration of the methods and policies with respect to
immigrant workers which typical trade-union organi-
zations have adopted and pursued.
184
CHAPTER X
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES WITH
IMMIGRANT WORKERS
THE MINERS
THE United Mine Workers of America was the first of
the unions that succeeded in organizing south and east
European immigrants into a permanent and strong
union. Prior to the organization of this union, the
miners in the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania called
a strike for increase of wages under the auspices of the
Knights of Labor. They were utterly defeated and the
organization was destroyed.1
The defeat at this time is ascribed with unanimity to the presence
of the cheap labor of southern Europe, which could not be controlled
and organized according to the methods then pursued. The operators
were able to play one section against another section and one nation-
ality against another nationality.
In the bituminous fields, however, local organiza-
tions, united in a "Federation of Miners and Mine
Laborers," achieved enough strength in the states of
Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to hold joint confer-
ences with the mine operators annually from 1886 to
1893 at which scales of wages were agreed upon. Dur-
ing the entire period of these interstate conferences it
had been impossible for the unions to organize south-
ern Illinois, and the arrangement was destroyed by the
competition of these unorganized fields of southern Illi-
nois where the miners were predominantly Americans
of native stock.2
1 Industrial Commission of the United States, 1900, vol. rv, p. 405.
2 Ibid., p. 407.
185
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
In 1897 a general strike was called in all the com-
petitive bituminous fields, and although the unions at
that time numbered less than 10,000 members, more
than 100,000 mine workers responded to the call, and
the Slavs and Italians joined their American and north
European fellow workers almost to a man. The miners
of northern Illinois took the lead in this conflict, and
because they held out about a month longer than the
strikers in other states they were able to settle on
more advantageous terms and their organization has
ever since been much stronger than the unions in other
parts of the bituminous field. It is in this field that
the prominent leaders of the miners' union have re-
ceived their training and experience. Since the strike
of 1897 the south European immigrants have been
thoroughly organized in the bituminous fields and the
United Mine Workers have been making annual agree-
ments with the mine operators, fixing both wages and
working conditions in great detail. The only state
where it has not met with any measure of success has
been in West Virginia, where again native Americans
have predominated.1
It was in the anthracite districts that the miners
union met its greatest difficulties, and developed the
methods that are most successful in organizing and hold-
ing immigrants in a permanent organization. Shortly
before his death John Mitchell told us of these diffi-
culties and how he met them while he was president of
the miners' union.
The problem of organizing the immigrant workers in the bitumi-
nous fields, he said, was not as difficult as in the anthracite. In the
former native-born and other English-speaking miners were pretty
much scattered among the non-English-speaking workers; but in
the anthracite fields the companies colonized the immigrants, so
that one race predominated. Up to 1898 sporadic attempts at
1 "Slavs in Coal Mining," Charities, vol. xiii, Dec. 3, 1904.
186
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
organization were made, which brought tangible results in wages
and working conditions, but permanent organization could not be
maintained. In that year he took charge himself of organizing the
anthracite country. The first work was to overcome the prejudice
of the native miners. He dwelt upon the importance of organizing
the newcomers and treating them as equals. He appealed to the
native-born workers to discard derisive names like "Hunky" and
"Dago," and if they could not pronounce the foreigners' surname to
address them by their Christian names.
While foreign language literature was used to a great extent,
main reliance was placed on foreign language organizers and in-
terpreters. Mitchell took it upon himself to select these men and
to direct their work. He interviewed each one and made pains-
taking inquiries into their qualifications and integrity from persons
who knew them and were competent to judge, such as priests, leaders
of national organizations, fraternal lodges, etc. As a result very
few organizers or interpreters betrayed the union, a difficulty that
is constantly met in organizing immigrants.
The immigrants were organized first in local unions of each
nationality, and an interpreter was assigned to guide and foster
each local. Not understanding trade union principles, the immi-
grants were impatient to strike as soon as they were organized, and
a great deal of pains had to be taken to educate them to the impor-
tance of being businesslike, and the necessity of building up a strong
union by paying dues regularly, so that their strikes and other efforts
at improving conditions might prove successful.
Mr. Mitchell felt all along that the impulsiveness
and lack of stability of immigrants were not racial
characteristics, but due to inexperience and ignorance
of trade unionism. By avoiding drastic measures as
much as possible, and by counseling the miners care-
fully at the conventions which were called to formulate
the policy that was to guide the anthracite miners,
Mr. Mitchell and his associates were able to effect a
complete organization of the industry in a compara-
tively short time.
As late as 1899 the idea of organizing the anthracite
miners of Pennsylvania was scouted by all but a few
of the leaders of the United Mine Workers. The diffi-
culties in the way of such an organization appeared
187
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
insurmountable. The differences in race, religion, and
ideals of the many nationalities in the region, the vari-
ations in the standard of living, the mutual distrust
among the races, and the former failures of attempts
to form permanent unions, all conspired to make the
men distrustful of the new movement. Among the
three districts of the anthracite region, the Lackawanna,
Lehigh, and Schuylkill, keen jealousy existed, and con-
ditions varied to such an extent as to render it difficult
to formulate the grievances in a series of general de-
mands. Many miners grown old in the anthracite fields
shook their heads and gloomily predicted that organi-
zation would never secure a foothold in the anthracite
region.1
A strike was called in September, 1900, only after
the operators refused to meet the miners in joint con-
ference to work out a scale of wages and a set of work-
ing conditions, and after they had been given ten days
in which to consider the wage scales and working rules
which the miners' convention had formulated. The
conciliatory attitude of the union and the refusal of
the operators even to discuss the miners' proposal en-
listed public sympathy on the side of the strikers, and
the operators were finally forced to make concessions.
They did this by posting notices at the mines and con-
tinued to ignore the organization of the miners. The
officers of the union, however, instructed the miners to
accept the concessions and resume work, though all the
demands were not granted and the union was not rec-
ognized. They thought that what had been won would
strengthen the organization of the miners and they
hoped that within a short time the operators would
enter into contractual relations with the union. Prac-
tically every miner in the anthracite fields was enrolled
1 John Mitchell, Organized Labor, Chap, xli, p. 362.
188
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
in the United Mine Workers shortly after the strike, but
the operators still refused to deal with the organization.
In 1902 another strike was called, after the operators
had again refused to meet the mine workers in joint
conference. This was one of the greatest strikes in
American labor history. It lasted five months and was
finally settled by the intervention of President Roose-
velt, who appointed an arbitration commission. It
meant a victory for the union, although the principle of
the open shop was maintained, and since that time
wages and working conditions in the anthracite dis-
tricts have been fixed by collective bargaining between
the miners' organization and the operators.
The success in organizing the various races from
southern and eastern Europe, and in winning recogni-
tion for the organization, was due to efficient union
management, good leadership, and statesmanlike strat-
egy. And this may be illustrated by the way in which
some of the difficult situations were handled during the
great strike of 1902.
The first critical question that came up was the call-
ing out of engineers, firemen, and pumpmen. To call
these men out suddenly would have inflicted great
injury on the industry by flooding the mines. The
union, however, gave the companies ten days' notice
before letting the men strike, and the men were told to
strike only if their demands were not granted. Nor
were they to stay out after these demands were granted
merely to support the miners. By avoiding the tempta-
tion to injure the operators, the sympathy of the pub-
lic was not alienated, as often happens with new unions
which follow a less cautious policy.
The next big problem was the demand that came
from many local unions of miners that a sympathetic
strike of all the bituminous miners be called. A con-
vention of both anthracite and bituminous miners, held
189
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
in Indianapolis, voted unanimously not to strike, be-
cause the bituminous miners had contracts with their
employers and the delegates saw the importance of
keeping their contracts inviolate. Here again was a
great temptation overcome, with many of the strikers
suffering pangs of hunger and with the great possibil-
ity of success of a sympathetic strike that would soon
tie up the railroads of the country. The wise counsel
of the leaders was followed, and as a result public sym-
pathy for the miners was still further strengthened.
Then there was the great problem of financing the
strikers and their families. When the convention de-
cided against a sympathetic strike, the bituminous
miners pledged themselves to contribute $1 or 10 per
cent of their wages weekly for the benefit of the an-
thracite strikers. In this manner over $2,600,000 was
contributed during a period of sixteen weeks, and while
at no time during the strike was there sufficient funds
to provide for all who were idle, by intelligent distri-
bution of aid to those most in need, by careful instruc-
tions to relief committees as to the manner in which
money should be expended, by circular letters to each
local union explaining lack of funds or delays in dis-
tribution, the problem of relief was overcome and only
for one week during the whole long strike did it seem
dangerously to threaten disaffection in the ranks.
Finally, there was the attitude of conciliation and
reasonableness. When the offer of arbitration came
through the President, the mine workers had practically
won the strike. Public sympathy was with the strik-
ers, the funds of the union were increasing rapidly, and
the men had remained steadfast in the face of the
entire Pennsylvania Guard, called out by the Gov-
ernor on the theory that miners were deterred from re-
turning to work by fear of violence. Victory was in
the hands of the union and it might have dictated terms
190
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
of peace, but it had fought for the principle of arbitra-
tion, and the leaders did not feel justified in rejecting
it because victory was in their hands. The union,
therefore, accepted arbitration and the miners went
back to work.
PACKING HOUSE EMPLOYEES
In the slaughtering and meat packing industry the or-
ganizability of the recent immigrant races has several
times been demonstrated, but the Amalgamated Meat
Cutters and Butcher Workmen did not succeed in de-
veloping the leadership and the policies that would
enable them to hold all the workers in a permanent
organization. During the war a cooperative movement
of all the crafts working in the stockyards was started,
which made remarkable progress in organizing work
and in winning improved conditions and terms of em-
ployment. This movement met a setback, however,
when the tripartite war agreement between the pack-
ers, the government, and the union was terminated in
1921 and the "United States Administration for the
Adjustment of Labor Differences" was supplanted by
the packing companies' own Employee Representation
Plan. It remains to be seen whether the employers or
the unions will prove more effective in organizing and
assimilating the masses of immigrant workers in the
packing house industries.
The story of unionism in the stockyards and packing
houses taken in connection with the story of the miners,
shows an interesting contrast between trade-union
methods and policies which make for assimilation, and
those which result in disintegration. Up to 1897 or-
ganization and strikes in this industry were sporadic
and temporary, but in July of that year the skilled
workers in the industry formed a national union under
191
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the American Federation of Labor, and in 1902 it was
thrown open to the less skilled workers, the recent im-
migrants. In Chicago, the center of the industry, a
Packing Trades Council was formed, representing at
one time twenty-two local unions. Each local was or-
ganized by departments in the plants. The cattle
butchers formed one local, pork butchers another, then
sausage makers, canning room employees, oleo, but-
terine workers, etc.
The skilled workers in each department were organ-
ized first, but gradually these extended their numbers
to take in the semi-skilled, and finally departments al-
together unskilled were organized. Each local union
dealt separately with the employers and made agree-
ments at different times covering the work in the de-
partments where its members worked, with the approval
of the national organization. In May, 1904, however,
the union asked for an agreement covering all depart-
ments and all classes of laborers, with a minimum of
20 cents an hour for common laborers, which was after-
wards reduced to 18-g- cents. It was this demand that
precipitated the great strike of 1904. The packing
companies, which had previously made agreements to
fix minimum wages for unskilled in departments where
skilled were employed, refused to do the same for
wholly unskilled departments and for common labor
generally.1
Perhaps the fact of greatest social significance is that the strike
of 1904 was not merely a strike of skilled labor for the unskilled,
but was a strike of Americanized Irish, Germans, and Bohemians,
in behalf of Slovaks, Poles, Lithuanians and Negroes. The strike
was defeated by bringing in men from the companies' own branch
houses for the skilled occupations and Negroes and Greeks for un-
skilled.
1 J. R. Commons, "Labor Conditions in Slaughtering and Meat-
packing/' Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. xix, 1904, p. 28.
192
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
The immigrants stayed out until the last, but the
union was defeated. Shortly before the strike was
called off, the packers offered to arbitrate, but unlike
John Mitchell in the anthracite strike, the leaders of the
stockyards workers refused to accept the offer, although
arbitration was what they had been demanding. About
ten days later the men returned to work on an agree-
ment to arbitrate, but after an hour's work they went
out again, charging the companies with discrimination
against union members in rehiring. The agreement to
arbitrate provided that discrimination as well as other
grievances should be submitted to arbitration, so the
second walkout was clearly a violation. After this,
defeat was inevitable.
After 1904 the union in the packing industry dwin-
dled away. Membership fell from over 34,000 in 1904
to 6200 in 1905, according to a report of the organiza-
tion, and until 1917 the Chicago stockyards were un-
organized with exceptions of some minor crafts. Under
the leadership of the Chicago Federation of Labor,
however, an organization campaign was begun in the
latter part of 1917 which again established unionism in
the packing industry; a plan of organization was care-
fully worked out with the idea of getting every trade
that works in the yards to cooperate in the move-
ment. First, the Chicago local unions having jurisdic-
tion over the crafts employed in the industry were
interested. Then the national unions were approached
and after much urging twelve national unions asso-
ciated themselves in the effort to organize the entire
industry.
A whirlwind campaign with organizers from each
national union, foreign-language speakers, and litera-
ture was launched, and a low initiation fee established
for all trades as well as for unskilled labor. Great
numbers were immediately attracted. Those employed
193
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
in crafts which were under the jurisdiction of national
unions affiliated with the American Federation of
Labor were distributed among these unions, the others
were organized as federal or mixed local unions char-
tered by the Federation. Separate local unions of
women, colored workers, Poles, and other nationalities
were formed. A Stockyards Labor Council was organ-
ized, representing all the locals, and by the end of 1917
the organization felt itself strong enough to present
demands to the packing companies.
The request for recognition and negotiation was de-
nied by the packing companies. The unions then pre-
sented their case to the Secretary of War on the ground
that a strike would interfere with supplies for the army,
and arbitration was requested. The President's Con-
ciliation Commission arranged a settlement by which
the dispute was arbitrated, and the employers and the
unions each agreed with the government to set up ma-
chinery for the adjustment of future disputes. The
United States Administration for the Settlement of
Labor Differences in Packing House industries was
thus set up. This arrangement was in force until Sep-
tember, 1921. Although the unions were not formally
recognized by the companies, hours of labor were re-
duced to eight per day, several substantial increases in
wages were made, and grievances were heard and de-
cided by the administrator, who did recognize repre-
sentatives of the union.
In September, 1921, this arrangement was broken
off and the leading packers inaugurated employee rep-
resentation plans in their plants. The representatives
chosen under these plans accepted a wage-cut a short
time afterward. The unions charged that the main
body of employees was dissatisfied with the cut. They
called a strike, which proved to be ineffective.
Whether the unions will be able to maintain their
194
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
organizations in the stockyards in the face of the in-
dustrial depression and the packers' "company unions"
is doubtful. They have accomplished a good deal in
forcing an enlightened labor policy in the industry. The
packers know that, if the representation plans do not
accomplish much the same results that the unions were
seeking, they will have to deal with these unions again.
These employers say that their plans provide for
collective bargaining and all that unions seek to ac-
complish that is good, without the evils of unionism.
The unions charge the packers with bad faith, claim-
ing that their real purpose is to destroy the labor or-
ganizations in the stockyards. Whatever may be the
truth in regard to the claims and the charges, it is ap-
parent that some form of unified organization of all
the nationalities in the stockyards has come to stay.
Whether this organization will be a company union or
a national labor organization will depend largely on
which of the organizations shows the greater efficiency
in handling the problems that the variety of immigrant
nationalities presents to the industry.
Thus far the unions in the stockyards have not shown
ability to hold the foreign-born workers together as the
miners' organization has done. The recent immigrants
in the stockyards have not been scattered among de-
partments containing Americans and older immigrant
workers. They have been kept apart, by national and
race feeling as well as by the fact that each new race
came in at the bottom. This segregation makes the
problem of organization most difficult, as John Mitchell
found in the anthracite coal districts. Moreover, while
the leadership in the miners' organizations was taken
by American, Irish, and British workmen, who remained
in the mines in sufficient numbers to take the more re-
cent immigrants under tutelage and teach them sound
principles and policies of unionism, in the packing
195 s
r ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
industries the American workers have almost entirely
disappeared and the Irish and Germans are following
them rapidly out of the labor ranks. This left few with
knowledge and experience to guide and train the new-
comers, which may account for the mistakes and un-
restrained actions of the union when the immigrants
were organized.
The rank and file of the unions, as well as the " house
committees" which were appointed for each depart-
ment, were often insubordinate. Frequently they vio-
lated their own constitutions and agreements by stop-
ping work instead of referring their grievances to higher
officers for settlement with the company. The officials
of the union had not developed the efficient system of
supervision and control which the miners worked out.
After the strike of 1904, the secretary of the Amalga-
mated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen reported
at its convention that over one hundred treasurers of
local unions had defaulted, and that on account of these
the bonding company had notified the union that no
more bonds would be issued except at double the pre-
vious rates.
These are problems which all unions encounter in
one form or another. The miners showed that they
could be overcome and that permanent organization
among immigrants could be maintained. The packing
house unions overcame them in part in 1917 and 1918
by the new methods of organization and management
developed under the leadership of the Chicago Federa-
tion of Labor. Now that the agreement is broken it
remains to be seen whether these unions can continue
to play a vital part in the lives of the immigrants in
the stockyards.
196
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
IRON AND STEEL. WORKERS
An industry in which unionism had concerned itself
primarily with the interests of the skilled men and
given little heed to the great masses of the unskilled
immigrant workers is iron and steel. As in the stock-
yards, however, the unions in this industry have in re-
cent years realized the dangers to themselves as well
as to the immigrants that result from the o 'ganiza-
tions of native-born skilled craftsmen holding aloof
from the great masses of unskilled foreign-born work-
ers in the industry. They have, therefore, also at-
tempted new methods of organizing the immigrants,
but also with only partial success.
John Fitch, in his comprehensive study, The Steel
Workers shows that the Amalgamated Association of
Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers began as an organization
of skilled iron workers, before the day of the great
steel plants and before the development of the steel
industry made places for the great numbers of un-
skilled immigrants. This union never acquired a strong
footing in the industry, its main strength in the days
of its power being in the less developed iron industry.1
The Association has always been an organization of skilled
workers and has centered its efforts on securing better conditions
for that class of labor alone. Since 1889, to be sure, the constitution
has permitted the admission of all men except common laborers,
but this has not affected to any great extent the top-heavy character
of the organization. Its usefulness has been impaired and its power
less than if it had included in its membership all of the workmen in
every union mill.
Significantly enough Mr. Fitch found that the same
problems of instability, lack of discipline, and race an-
tagonism, which are supposed to be characteristic only
of east and south-European immigrants, confronted
!John A. Fitch, The Steel Workers, published by The Russell
Sage Foundation, p. 97.
197
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the union of iron and steel workers when its member-
ship was made up almost entirely of Americans and
north-Europeans. He writes : l
Limited as the membership of the Amalgamated Association
has been, much internal dissension has existed throughout its history.
This has apparently been due to two main causes. One is the
clannishness of the races making up its original membership. These
included Scotch, Irish, Welsh, English, and Americans, and there
seems to have been a good deal of race antagonism. The other
source of trouble has been jealousy among the different trades, a
factor still (1910) making for trouble within the union.
The influence of this union was destroyed with its
defeat in the great Homestead strike of 1892, and,
driven from every important steel mill in the country,
it became again practically an iron workers' organiza-
tion. In 1909 the American Sheet and Tin Plate Com-
pany refused to renew its contract with the union and
after a strike the union was finally driven out of the
last of the mills controlled by the United States Steel
Corporation. In November of that same year the
American Federation of Labor at its annual convention
levied a per capita tax on all its members for the pur-
pose of organizing the steel industry. Conferences of
labor leaders were held and appeals made to all unions
to aid in the organizing campaign. But nothing came
of it. The Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and
Tin Workers had neither the form of organization nor
the confidence of the great masses of unskilled workers
to enable it to organize the industry effectively.
It was not until 1918 that the American trade union
movement made any effort in this direction. Then it
came not from the Amalgamated Association of Iron,
Steel, and Tin Workers, but from the same people who
had planned the cooperative organizing campaign in
the packing industry. These induced the American
1 Ibid., p. 98.
198
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
Federation of Labor to enter upon a similar campaign
of organization in the steel industry. The plan was to
organize every worker in the industry, and for this
purpose a cooperative committee, representing twenty-
four craft unions which had jurisdiction over trades in
the industry, was established with a paid secretary and
a large staff of organizers. Organization districts were
established with quarters in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and
other centers of the industry.
From the first Poles, Croats, Serbs, and most of the
other nationalities came in rapidly, because organizers
speaking their tongue were employed and a great mass
of literature in their own language describing the pur-
poses of the campaign was circulated among them.
Roumanians and Greeks, however, remained cold at
the beginning because speakers of those nationalities
were difficult to secure. A uniform low initiation fee
was provided for all who joined, and applicants were
distributed to the unions of their trade where such ex-
isted, or were formed into "federal" unions directly
connected with the American Federation of Labor
where no union claimed jurisdiction.
The organizing campaign was started shortly after
the armistice was signed, and the temporary slump in
business at the time created some difficulty. Then
when business was resumed, the newly enrolled union-
ists were anxious to strike before their ranks were solidi-
fied, and before enough of an organization and a strike
fund could be created to make it possible to present
demands to the companies. In July, 1919, one of the
organizers in Indiana described the situation as follows : l
1 This official, who was native born, explained that the Americans
did not join the unions. The old workers remember the disasters
of previous strikes of the Amalgamated and having but a few years
more to work do not want to risk being blacklisted. The young
Americans are holding highly skilled jobs, earning high wages, and
do not see the need of trade unions.
199
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
The foreign workers have been losing interest for about two-
months. At the last meeting of one local only about six out of 2000
members attended. When visited in their homes they explained
in broken English that they did not think the union could do
anything for them. It seems that some organizers had tactlessly
promised that by June they would have an eight-hour day with
twelve hours' pay. This is what they wanted and were willing to
strike for, and they were disappointed in not getting it and not being
called on to strike. They were disappointed; a renewal of mass
meetings would not bring them back. A strike, however, would
bring them all in line, together with others who had not yet joined.
Between August 1, 1918, and January 31, 1920,
156,700 iron and steel workers were organized by the
National Organizing Committee. And the committee
claimed that another 100,000 joined the unions directly.1
1 Report of William Z. Foster, Secretary-Treasurer, National
Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers. This report
includes only those members actually signed up by the National
Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel Workers and from whose
initiation fee $1 apiece was deducted and forwarded to the general
office of the National Committee. It represents approximately
50 to 60 per cent of the total number of steel workers organized
during the campaign and is a minimum report in every respect.
The report does not include any of the many thousands of men
signed up at Bethlehem, Steelton, Reading, Appollo, New Kensing-
ton, Leechburg, and many minor points which felt the force of the
drive but where the National Committee made no deductions upon
initiation fees. In Gary, Joliet, Indiana Harbor, South Chicago
and other Chicago District points, the National Committee ceased
collecting initiation fees early in 1919; hence this report makes no
showing of the thousands of men signed up in that territory during
the last few months of the campaign. Likewise, at Coatesville
and Sparrows' Point, during only a short space of the campaign,
were deductions made for the National Committee. Many thou-
sands more men were signed up directly by the multitude of local
unions in the steel industry, that were not reported to the National
Committee. These do not show in this calculation. Nor do the
great numbers of ex-soldiers who were taken into the unions free of
initiation fees — in Johnstown alone 1300 ex-soldier steel workers
joined the unions under this arrangement.
200
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
While the leaders would have liked to postpone the
strike, this they found impossible, as the restlessness
of the men threatened to destroy the entire movement.
The strike was therefore called and the result is well
known.
The Steel Corporation by an extraordinary campaign
of publicity convinced the public that this was not any
ordinary strike for trade unions, but a revolutionary
strike for control of the industry by Bolshevists and
the I. W. W. But the defeat of the strikers is not so
significant as the fact that the American Federation of
Labor had at last found a method of uniting immigrant
workers and the native-born in cooperative organiza-
tion for common purposes. Some such organization
will no doubt assert itself again, unless the steel indus-
try develops some form of employee representation
efficient enough to make the workers in the industry
prefer it to the trade-union organizations.1
TEXTILE WORKERS
In the textile industry we find an example of trade-
unionism which had adopted the policy of looking
after the interests of the skilled workers and leaving
the unskilled immigrants to shift for themselves. As
a result there has been little united action of the native
and the foreign-born wage earners in this industry, but
instead considerable opposition between the two.
1 The Bethlehem Steel Co., The Midvale Steel & Ordnance Co.
with its subsidiaries, and the International Harvester Co., as we
have seen, already have established industrial representation plans.
During the strike the industrial councils of the Harvester plants,
according to the company, kept the people at work in all the plants
where they were operating. Only in the one Chicago plant which
had failed to adopt the council was there a walkout, and the councils
of the nearby plants helped to get these people back to work.
201
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
In Cohoes, New York, the United States Immigra-
tion Commission found that "the unions manifest little
interest in the immigrant employees until they have
advanced to the occupations controlled by the labor
organizations"; and similarly in Fall River, Massa-
chusetts, it reported that the unskilled occupations
which are taken up by the immigrants are not organ-
ized, and the coming of the foreigner does not concern
the textile union.1
According to officials of the United Textile Workers
only about 10 per cent of its members are immigrants
from southern and eastern Europe, although over two
thirds of the operatives in the large textile centers of
the North have come from these countries. The mem-
bership of the union is made up mainly of the skilled
craftsmen in the mills, and the foreign born of the
more recent immigration who are in the union are
those who have worked their way into the skilled occu-
pations.
The attitude of the United Textile Workers toward
the masses of unskilled immigrants in the industry was
well expressed by a member of its executive board in
an interview:
On the whole, he said, the foreign elements are Socialists and
radicals. They want an industrial union and think everything can
be accomplished by a strike. They do not appreciate the value of
negotiation. This feeling has been accentuated because of their
experience during the war, when departments would stop work and
generally get what they wanted. It is difficult to decide what to
do with the foreigners. It is not advisable to bring them together,
as the United Textile Workers might not be able to handle them
when the different nationalities belong to one union. On the other
hand, when the nationalities are organized separately, they have
no one to lead them and they disintegrate. The problem seems
hopeless and the United has practically decided to abandon all
hope of ever organizing the immigrants. . . .
1 U. S. Immigration Commission, vol. X, pp. 1123-124.
202
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
It was not long after the southern and east European nationali-
ties came into the textile industry, said another official, before the
union realized the futility of organizing them and making permanent
unionists out of them. It was easy enough to organize them, but
generally the I. W. W. reaped the harvest. It seems that even
those foreigners who do not come here as radicals are carried away
by the flighty ideals. The best Polish organizer we had was com-
pletely carried away by the I. W. W. propaganda in Paterson during
the big strike of 1912. The Poles and Italians, this official thought,
are the hardest to hold, as their church has little influence over them.
But another executive board member blamed the Jews for the
attitude of the immigrants toward the United Textile Workers.
He felt that they are hopeless and he knew of no way to win them
over to the United Textile Workers. The radical organizations
cannot hold them either, he said, but these organizations are called
on for leaders when they strike. The immigrants, in this official's
opinion, do not seem to realize the value of a permanent organiza-
tion.
In spite of these officials' views, the United Textile
Workers have had a fair measure of success in organ-
izing immigrants in Lowell, Massachusetts. In that
city there are even separate local unions of different
nationalities, yet the organizations have been main-
tained continuously for a good many years. Accord-
ing to officers of the union, Lowell is a good example of
the circumstances under which it is easy to organize
immigrant wage earners. The different nationalities
were brought in gradually and the employers did noth-
ing to hamper organizations. As a result it was possi-
ble to assimilate them and educate them to trade-union
principles; but possibly the fact that the immigrants
were working themselves into the skilled trades had a
great deal to do with both the anxiety and the ability
of the union to organize them in Lowell.
When the unions of skilled men were confronted with
a strike in Lowell in 1903, they made active efforts to
induce the unskilled immigrants to strike with them.
These "went out with the members of the unions, but
during the nine weeks received no aid from the unions.
203
[ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
They have only not gone back, but they are taking the
places of the strikers. There are Portuguese doing
beaming, Greeks doing spinning, and Poles who have
returned in other departments at higher wages." Since
the strike of 1903 the United Textile Workers has been
quite active among the foreign born in Lowell.
In Lawrence, however, officers of the city central
labor body stated that at no time since the immigrant
workers have been in the mills in large numbers, has
the United Textile Workers made a serious effort to
organize them. These officers thought that the union
did not want Lawrence organized, for fear it could not
control them. Recently in one textile town a Greek
doctor offered his services to the United Textile Work-
ers to organize the five thousand Greeks in the mills.
The president of the union, after sizing up the situa-
tion, concluded that some two thousand of them were
infected with I. W. W.'ism and to organize the rest
would mean a battle with the I. W. W. He declined
the offer and nothing was done.
This policy naturally led to a division between the
native born and the immigrants. When the great strike
of 1918-19 occurred in the Lawrence mills, the city
was divided into two hostile camps. The United Tex-
tile Workers had disapproved of the strike and most
of the English-speaking employees remained at work,
while most of the non-English-speaking went out. The
city divided as the mill workers had divided, and be-
came much wrought up over the danger of the alien
elements in its population.
By staying out, however, the immigrant workers
were able to secure a 15 per cent increase in wages, as
well as reduction in working hours to 48 per week;
and then they organized a union in competition with
the United Textile Workers, known as the Amalga-
mated Textile Workers. This union spread rapidly,
204
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
attracted the immigrants of other New England mill
towns, and was extended to New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania. It used many foreign-language or-
ganizers and a great deal of foreign-language literature;
but it is also trying to get the native Americans
and English-speaking workers into the organization;
and for this purpose, native-born trade unionists are
employed as organizers.
While the membership and the leaders of this or-
ganization are radicals and socialists, they have defi-
nitely repudiated the I. W. W. because of its failure to
build up strong unions. In Lawrence and Paterson
the I. W. W. leaders were called in by the strikers to
conduct the strikes of 1912, because the United Tex-
tile Workers had alienated the foreign-born workers.
But these immigrants were interested in improving
their conditions, not in spreading revolutionary propa-
ganda; and when the I. W. W. left them without an
organization, they turned away from it in 1919, as
they had rejected the American Federation of Labor
seven years before. They turned to the Amalgamated
Textile Workers.
The foreign-born employees in the textile industry
are no different from the immigrants in the mines in
this respect. They follow radical leaders when these
promise improved conditions, which the conservative
leaders are unable to secure. They do not, however,
accept the program of the radical leaders and they
turn from these as quickly as from the conservatives
when radicalism fails to bring them improved condi-
tions. Although the leaders of the Amalgamated Tex-
tile Workers are radicals and socialists, they have ne-
gotiated with employers and have signed agreements
with them in much the same way that the United
Textile Workers have done.
The following quotation from an agreement signed
205
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
by the Amalgamated Textile Workers shows what they
will subscribe to when they are successfully organized.
The parties to this pact realize that the interests sought to be
reconciled herein ordinarily tend to pull apart, but they enter into
this agreement in the faith that by the exercise of a cooperative
spirit it will be possible to bring and keep them together. This
will involve as an indispensable prerequisite the suppression of the
militant spirit by both parties and the development of reason instead
of force as the rule of action. It will require also mutual considera-
tion and concession and a willingness on the part of each party to
regard and serve the interests of the other for the common good.
With this attitude assured it is believed no differences can arise
which this machinery cannot mediate and resolve in the interest
of cooperation and harmony.
The agreement of which the above is a part was
adopted by a two-thirds vote of the membership of
the local unions in New York and it lasted for three
years. Recently (1923) it was given up at the request
of the union. The members of the unions, while mainly
radicals, are not unskilled laborers. The weavers alone,
of all the employees in the New York silk ribbon mills,
were covered by this agreement. While the Amalga-
mated Textile Workers made rapid progress in the first
year or two of its existence, it has more recently shown
it is not any more successful in organizing and holding
the unskilled foreign-born workers in the industry than
the United Textile Workers.
CLOTHING WORKERS
There remain to be described two unions in the cloth-
ing trades, one of which, the International Ladies'
Garment Workers, is affiliated with the American Fed-
eration of Labor, and the other, the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers of America, in the men's clothing
trade, is outside the Federation. More than three
fourths of all the employees in these garment indus-
206
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
tries are foreign born, mainly Jews, Italians, and Poles;
yet they have developed two of the strongest labor
unions in America.
Each of these unions claims about 175,000 members.
They are the former sweatshop workers, who now
have come to the forefront of American labor organi-
zations by establishing forty-four hours as the stand-
ard work week, raising wages above those obtained by
most union workers of similar skill, and abolishing ar-
bitrary dismissals by foremen or bosses. These unions,
composed mainly of immigrants, have learned much of
their unionism from the older American trade unions,
but they also have contributed to the American labor
movement new ideas of their own, among which is to
be mentioned the establishment of continuous judicial
tribunals for interpreting the trade agreements which
unions commonly make with employers in the indus-
tries in which they operate.
After a great strike of cloak makers in 1910, a
"Protocol of Peace" was signed, establishing collec-
tive bargaining relations between the Ladies' Gar-
ment Workers and the manufacturers. Collective bar-
gaining is still maintained and will probably continue
permanently in one form or another, although the
Protocol itself was abrogated after seven years of ex-
istence. It was under this protocol arrangement that
the leaders of both the men's and the women's cloth-
ing unions learned the constructive policies of Ameri-
can trade unionism, as well as the principles of govern-
ment in industry, which is making their unions the
models for organizing immigrants in many other in-
dustries.
The Protocol established a Board of Grievances with
clerks and representatives of both parties who acted as
adjusters, and later an impartial chairman was em-
ployed to decide deadlocks between the two. A tri-
207
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
bunal for appeals and for deciding the principles of
law underlying the agreement was also created, known
as the Board of Arbitration; and Justice Brandeis,
who more than any other individual was responsible
for the Protocol, was made Chairman of this body. The
preferential union shop, judicial and legislative methods
of determining controversies, organization of both em-
ployers and wage earners, and "efficiency and economy
as duty of worker and employer in industry" — these
are some of the principles established and worked out
under the Protocol. Although this agreement is no
longer in effect, others are made from year to year
along the same lines. Recently the union in this in-
dustry signed a pact with the Ladies' Garment Manu-
facturers of Cleveland establishing practically the same
principles, and in addition, committing the union to
scientific methods of determining the workers' output
and committing the employers to a guarantee of at
least forty-one weeks' work per year.
In 1911, the union of the men's clothing industry
in Chicago entered an agreement with Hart, Schaff-
ner & Marx, which established a "Trade Board" with
an impartial chairman for hearing disputes and decid-
ing questions of fact and a Board of Arbitration for
hearing appeals and deciding matters of law or princi-
ple. The preferential shop was also added to this
agreement, and "deputies" employed by both sides to
investigate complaints and argue cases before the
Boards. In addition there were price committees
formed with representatives of both parties to deal
with the vexing problems of fixing piece rates.
This agreement has persisted until the present time,
and so successful has it been in the eyes of the workers
that the union was able after long strikes to force simi-
lar arrangements by practically all other men's cloth-
ing houses in Chicago and in New York. The largest
208
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
clothing house in Baltimore has been dealing with the
union on this basis for a number of years, and Roches-
ter, another large men's clothing center, entered into
such an agreement in 1919 without a strike. This
growth of the union in the men's clothing industry
and the establishment of agreements in all the impor-
tant markets has been secured by the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers of America under the capable lead-
ership of Sidney Hillman, its president, who began his
union career as a deputy at Hart, Schaffner & Marx,
and then worked as Chief Clerk for the Cloak Makers'
Union in New York under the Protocol until he was
called to become head of the men's clothing organiza-
tion.
In form of organization, structure, methods of organ-
izing, control, and supervision by national officials, the
two unions in the clothing trades are surprisingly like
the United Mine Workers. Certainly there was little
communication between them and the mine workers,
but their problems of immigrant organization were
similar, and they met those problems successfully by
similar methods. The clothing trade unions are indus-
trial unions, like the miners' organization, taking in
all workers in their industries. The local unions are
organized largely by craft, although there are separate
women's locals and nationality locals, as well. These
last are necessary to get the non-English-speaking into
the unions, but they are considered temporary expe-
dients.
The local unions normally have little power, but
delegate bodies known as Joint Boards are organized,
which are the seats of authority for the city or the
branches of the trade they represent, subject to the
supervision of the national organization. Thus the
local unions of cloak makers send delegates to a Cloak
Makers' Joint Board, and the Waist Makers to a Waist
209
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Makers' Joint Board of the International Ladies' Gar-
ment Workers. Similarly the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers has a New York Joint Board, consisting of
delegates from the local unions of the men's clothing
workers, and separate Joint Boards for Children's
Clothing and Shirts and Blouses. These Joint Boards
correspond to the district organizations of the United
Mine Workers and perform similar functions.
Both the clothing workers' unions have entered into
extensive educational activities of a formal nature, as
distinguished from the training the members get through
union meetings and activities. They have educational
departments with classes in English, economics, trade
unionism, literature, and personal and industrial hy-
giene, and they arrange concerts and other entertain-
ments on a large scale for their members.
The career of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers
is particularly significant to the present study, because
of its conflict with the native and older immigrants in
the United Garment Workers from which it broke off,
and the light it throws on the problems of organizing
various immigrant races and assimilating them into a
single labor organization.
The United Garment Workers, like other unions in
the American Federation of Labor, had great difficulty
in organizing the immigrants into a permanent and
stable organization. Its leaders ascribed this to the
racial clannishness and radicalism of the Jews and
Italians and they sought permanence, therefore, by or-
ganizing strongly the cutters, who were mostly native
born or of the earlier Irish and German immigration,
by means of so-called "label shops." They made con-
tracts with manufacturers for the use of a label to be
attached to each garment, and since this was of value
to the manufacturers of low-priced workingmen's
clothes, the employers would do the bidding of the
210
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
officers of the union, and even force employees to join
the organization.
The sale of the label to employers proved a source
of considerable income to the union. Since about 85
per cent of the employees in overall factories, which
are the mainstay of the labels, are American born, and
these together with the cutters were the permanent
elements in the union, the leaders who were of Ameri-
can, Irish, and German ancestry were able to main-
tain control of the union, although they did not have
the confidence of the bulk of the immigrants in the in-
dustry.
All the foreign born, however, joined the United
Garment Workers in a great strike in 1912-13, but they
were disappointed with the terms of the settlement
which the officials secured in conference with the em-
ployers. This led to a determined attack on the lead-
ers of the union, particularly by the Jews, and in this
they were aided by the powerful Jewish newspapers.
Charges of misdoing were frequently made, as well as
demands for the recognition of the foreign nationalities
in the control of the organization. When the Conven-
tion of the United Garment Workers met in 1914 in
Nashville, delegates from strong Jewish unions of New
York were not seated, on the ground that then' unions
had not paid per capita taxes to the national organi-
zation for the membership that they claimed. Most
of the Jewish delegates then left the convention and
the Italians and Poles followed them. These organ-
ized the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America,
and since that time it has taken in about 80 per cent
of the workers in the men's clothing industry of the
country, including most of the cutters who came over
from the United Garment Workers. At the present
time the Amalgamated has several times the member-
ship of the original union, which is affiliated with the
211
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
American Federation of Labor and which has very
little influence outside of overall shops.
The secretary of the United Garment Workers blames
the East Side Jews of New York for the split. The
radical Jews are most to blame, he says, but the con-
servative Jewish papers also aided them in attacking
the United, on the ground that it was a fight for recog-
nition of the Jews. While nationalistic feeling was at
the bottom of the trouble, radicalism played an im-
portant part also. The Italians, Poles, and other na-
tionalities were won over by the Jews largely because
of their radical program.
The leaders of the rival movement in effect admit
these charges, but they point out that any attempt to
unite the workers in an industry without taking into
consideration the racial characteristics and social ideals
of the various nationalities is bound to result in fail-
ure. They charge that it was incompetent union man-
agement to ignore the feelings of the immigrants, deny
them opportunities for expressing within the union
their own reactions to modern industrial life, and try
to impose on them policies and methods that would
appeal only to Anglo-Saxon skilled workers. Had the
United Garment Workers recognized the need for self-
expression among the Jews, Poles, and Italians, they
say, and had they tried to develop leaders and officials
from among these nationalities as the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers has done, there would have been no
split, and it could have succeeded in uniting all the
immigrant races in the industry together with the
American as the Amalgamated has succeeded in doing.
There can be no doubt that the success of the Amal-
gamated thus far has been due to the recognition of
the national feeling and the radical sentiment among
the various immigrant races in the industry. It pub-
lishes weekly papers in seven different languages, and
212
TYPICAL TRADE UNION EXPERIENCES
while a majority of the officers are Jews, two Italians
are on the National Executive Board, and many Italian,
Polish, and Lithuanian, as well as Jewish and American,
organizers are employed.
It also has a good many more local unions organized
by nationality than most other unions. Nevertheless,
when the economic policies of the organization are
studied, as they express themselves in agreements and
relations with employers, it is apparent that in prac-
tice this organization is merely following the general
line of development of successful American trade-union-
ism. It is committed to the preferential union shop as
distinguished from the closed shop or the open shop;
it works to establish amicable relations with employ-
ers by means of negotiation and trade agreements; it
prefers arbitration to strikes and favors the establish-
ment of judicial machinery for this purpose; and it has
taken a position in favor of improved methods of man-
agement and manufacture, as well as for fair standards
of production where employees work by the week.
The national feeling and social ideals of its members
the union uses to build up the organization, maintain
morale, and develop a unified purpose to accomplish
the economic objects of the organization. These eco-
nomic ends grow out of American conditions and in
practice are exactly the same as those of other Ameri-
can trade unions; but they are usually couched in radi-
cal and revolutionary language.
The Jewish leaders of the Amalgamated are thus
trying to assimilate the various immigrant national-
ities in the men's clothing industry to American trade-
unionism, as the native and Americanized leaders of
the miners did in their industry, the task in which the
American, Irish, and German leaders of the United
Garment Workers failed. It cannot as yet be said
that the problem has been solved in the clothing
213
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
industry. While the Italians and Poles have been given
recognition, and leaders have been developed among
them who are put in offices of power and responsibility,
there is some feeling among these races which here and
there threatens to break out into disruptive move-
ments. Among the Poles and Lithuanians particularly
there is a good deal of anti-Semitic feeling, and leaders
of these nationalities have not been as rapidly devel-
oped as among the Italians. The leaders of the Amal-
gamated realize the problem, and they know that the
Italians, Poles, and other nationalities will break away
from them, as they broke away from the leaders of the
United Garment Workers, unless races, creed, and na-
tionalities are treated equally and all are united for
the common task of improving conditions and intro-
ducing democratic control over the labor relations in
the industry.
214
CHAPTER XI
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
IT must be evident, from the experiences of the unions
described, that appropriate organizing methods bring
foreign-born wage earners into the ranks of labor unions
as well as they do native-born workers. The real prob-
lem, however, is how to hold and to unite them in per-
manent organizations after they have been brought in.
But this, too, has been accomplished when those in
charge of the management of the union study the
special problems involved in making immigrants of
many nationalities and races work together and in rec-
onciling the conflicting points of view of the skilled
mechanics and the unskilled workers in the industry.
COMPANY MANAGEMENT AND UNION MANAGEMENT
Most labor organizations have lagged behind the great
industrial corporations in handling the problems im-
posed on them by the presence of great masses of im-
migrant unskilled labor in American industries. We
have indicated in preceding chapters the attention and
study that industrial executives are beginning to give
to the management of their employees. By devoting
themselves to these problems, employers have been
able to develop employees' organizations of their own
which threaten to block further growth of trade-union-
ism among these workers.
Mere denunciation and derision of "company unions"
will not stop this movement. If they are really the
frauds that trade unionists charge them to be, then
the workers who are taken in by them will revolt and
turn to organized labor. But the industrial managers
215
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
are not unaware of this inevitable result of duplicity in
dealing with their employees. They have seen cases
in which union organizers came along with effective
propaganda methods and succeeded in winning away
employees from company unions to the regular trade
unions. They know also, however, more cases in
which company unions have won employees away from
the regular labor organizations. In spite of the most
bitter opposition from organized labor, works coun-
cils and other industrial representation plans are gain-
ing ground, and often at the expense of the trade
unions.
As long as employers fought the fundamental prin-
ciples of unionism, namely collective bargaining and
democratic control over labor conditions, the unions
had little to fear. But now that they acknowledge
these principles and proceed to introduce "industrial
democracy" in their plants as a matter of good man-
agement policy, the unions face really serious competi-
tion, which they can meet only by making their or-
ganizations more efficient agencies for industrial self-
government than are the employers' organizations.
Some realization of this is dawning upon the trade
unions. The American Federation of Labor has made
a beginning by establishing an educational and re-
search department. If this is developed to study the
technique of organizing and managing the great masses
of unskilled workers of foreign birth, the company
union movement may be overcome by organized labor.
If it confines itself to general propaganda, and does not
serve as a laboratory for observation of the details of
union administration and development of new methods
to be passed on to the constituent national unions, the
steady growth of unionism in this country that has
been going on since the American Federation of Labor
was formed, may be stopped.
216
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
Faith in the righteousness of the cause of organized
labor alone will not win the immigrants and unskilled
wage earners to it. Something more is necessary.
There are millions of these workers unorganized and
they present the greatest problem of the trade unions.
Most important in solving this problem is to study
the methods and policies and details of administration
and management of the unions that have succeeded
in organizing and assimilating these classes of wage
earners.
THE METHODS OF THE MINERS
Many other unions besides the miners have won great
strikes with the aid of immigrant masses in their
industry, but not many have been able to hold them
permanently and merge them with the American
workers. How did the miners' union accomplish
this?
In the first place, it threw its doors open widely to
all those who worked in or about the mines, regardless
of skill or craft. The constitution of the union pro-
vides that no one shall be debarred or hindered from
obtaining work on account of race, creed, or nationality.
For a time the Illinois unions did have an initiation fee
of $50, but this was soon reduced to $10, which has
been the fee generally required, and the employers have
been free to hire any one who was qualified under the
state laws to work in mines, provided he became a
member of the union.
Like other unions, the miners have at times used
compulsion to force newcomers to join the union if
they were unwilling to do it voluntarily. In most of
the agreements in the bituminous fields the miners
have provisions for the so-called "check-off" system,
which requires the employer to deduct from every
217
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
mine worker's wages the fees to be paid to the union.
The effect of this on immigrants has been to make
them regard the membership fee as the price they
have to pay for their jobs; and at first many of them
have entered the union without understanding or any
real sympathy for the work of the organization.
But the union has to a large extent realized the
responsibility toward the immigrant which comes
to it with the great power and the ample funds
that this all-inclusive system affords it, and the
immigrant was soon taught to sympathize with the
aims and purposes of the union. Machinery was
established in each mine district to insure each of
the miners the benefits of the organization, to edu-
cate him in the principles of unionism, to teach
him the value of the regulations established by the
older members and the importance of conforming to
them.1
The miners have had such remarkable success in organizing the
immigrant worker because of the use of foreign-language organizers
and because they encourage immigrant workers to become officials.
Immigrants in general are good joiners and strikers, but do not stick
or pay dues permanently. The miners tried to counteract this by
taking advantage of the joining and striking in demanding the
check-off system wherever successful. In this way they got dues
from immigrant workers and kept them in the union. They were
not content with this, however, but proceeded to educate the immi-
grant worker through field agents and foreign-language literature.
That this educational work is successful is shown by the fact that
formerly most immigrant workers paid only trade union dues neces-
sary to cover union expenses and strike fund assessment. This was
the minimum dues and obligatory under the check-off system.
Very few availed themselves of the voluntary dues for sick and
death benefit. At present the situation has been reversed as a re-
sult of the process of education, and most of them now have more
than the obligatory dues checked off.
1 Statement of James H. Maurer, President of Pennsylvania
State Federation of Labor, in interview, June 22, 1919.
218
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
In a typical district organization of the United Mine
Workers with 45,000 members we found twenty-five
paid officers. Three paid officials and two paid organ-
izers were provided by the district for each subdivision.
One of these organizers is generally a foreign-language
speaker, and quite often both are. Occasionally the
national union also sends in its organizers to help. So
many paid officers are needed because the members are
scattered in small communities and transportation
facilities are usually bad. The large number of immi-
grants of different nationalities makes this necessary
also. Whenever a grievance arises in any community
an organizer of the nationality involved is sent to
remain there until it is settled. The business manage-
ment of the local unions is also strictly supervised by
the paid district officers.
Immigrants were at first organized in local unions of
separate nationalities. This was made necessary both
because of the language difficulty and because of the
reluctance of both Americans and foreign born to
mingle with each other. A great deal of foreign-
language literature was used, as well as foreign-speaking
organizers, to get immigrants interested in union
affairs. The foreign-language locals, however, are re-
garded as a temporary expedient. Gradually they are
disbanded. Immigrants themselves now often object
to the separate nationality local, because it keeps them
from getting in touch with American workers and from
learning English. The organization by nationality
also brings together men from different mines where the
problems may be different, and conducting the business
of the locals is thus made more difficult. The ten-
dency is, therefore, to disband the language locals as
soon as possible and organize all the men around each
mine. The business is then translated for the various
nationalities and the offices are divided among the
219
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
nationalities. The process of merging all miners is
thus accomplished, first, by organizing the immigrants
in language locals which are brought into contact with
the English-speaking by delegates sent to a council,
and later this leads to a closer amalgamation of all
nationalities, together with the American, in a local
for each mine.
After local unions are organized they are watched
closely by the organizers, who teach the members how
to conduct meetings and transact business under
parliamentary procedure. They instruct the secre-
taries how to take the minutes and keep books. After
that each local is visited by an officer or organizer of
the district at least once each month. When officers
are to be elected, usually someone from the district
office is present to assist and advise. He explains the
qualifications needed for the different offices, and
advises that each nationality be given representation
as far as possible. Hardly ever is there objection to
this guidance. On the contrary, the members look
forward to the coming of an officer who is in touch with
the entire district.
To these local unions every important question
affecting labor in the mining industry is referred sooner
or later. The delegates to the national conventions
which consider these questions are elected by the local
unions, and these delegates receive their instructions
through the resolutions which are debated and adopted
at the meetings of the locals. In addition, policies
adopted by the national convention or recommended
by the national officers may come up for discussion and
a referendum vote in the locals; and the three most
important officers of the national organization, the
President, the Vice President, and the Secretary
Treasurer, have to be nominated and elected directly
by referendum vote of the local unions.
220
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
What makes all this participation in democratic
government particularly effective is its direct connec-
tion with the immigrant's need for protection in his
employment. He sees the need for taking part and
feels directly the effects of it. If he has any grievance,
it is taken up for him by a committee of his local union,
known as the mine committee, which adjusts the mat-
ter with the mining superintendent, and a paid officer
of the district will come to assist the committee when
necessary. If he is suspended or discharged he may
appeal to the committee, which will investigate and,
if it finds that he is not guilty of an offense justifying
dismissal, it will ask his reinstatement. Should the
mine superintendent refuse to reinstate the worker,
appeal is made to higher officers of the union and of the
operators' association, and if necessary the matter will
be finally decided by a joint board of miners and oper-
ators or as in Illinois and in the anthracite fields, by an
arbitrator or umpire or a board of arbitration. These
are the methods not only of handling discharges but
of adjusting all other disputes which may arise between
the miners and their employees.
METHODS AND POLICIES OF OTHER UNIONS
Most unions adopt the policy of the closed shop as a
means of compelling every one in the industry to join
and remain in the organization. Under this arrange-
ment the immigrant cannot get work without being a
member of the union. He comes in often under pres-
sure this way and with but little sympathy for the
organization, because he has to join in order to get
work. Later he may learn its principles and become a
willing and loyal member. The "check-off" system
of the miners has the same effect as the closed shop
policy. But, as we have seen, this proved effective
221
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
only because the miners' union was alive to its respon-
sibilities when it thus used compulsory methods. It
used great sums of money and devoted the greater
part of its effort to teaching the membership the value
of organization, not only by talking to them, but by
attention to details of union administration, and effi-
cient handling of the numerous everyday complaints
of the members at their work places. This work was
not all left to the efforts of local unions, which might
lack experience and ability. The national and district
organizations step in and see that the services of the
union are efficiently rendered to every worker when he
needs it. Where the closed shop policy has failed, it
has often been because unions have not been alive to
their responsibilities in these respects and have not been
able or willing to perform these services efficiently.
Insurance benefits are used by many unions for
keeping the membership intact after the flush of enthu-
siasm from a strike or organizing campaign has disap-
peared. It is an effective device. Death and sickness
benefits for both members and their wives are the
most common forms used, and in addition there are
traveling and out-of-work benefits and tool insurance.1
TABLE VII
BENEFITS PAID BY AFFILIATED ORGANIZATIONS OF THE A. F. OF L.
IN 1920
Death benefits to members $5,122,399
Death benefits to members' wives 152,355
Sick benefits 1,329,825
Traveling benefits 94,719
Tool insurance 1,079
Unemployment benefits 4,906
Total $6,705,283
1 American Federation of Labor, Report of National Executive
Board, 1920.
222
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
More appealing than insurance, however, because
it is more immediate, is the protection that a union
may afford the individual member against unjust
treatment or arbitrary discharge. To immigrants this
protection is particularly important, for they are more
frequently liable to discipline and dismissal without
any explanation or understanding of the reason. All
unions lay a great deal of emphasis on protection
against discharge, and if they are effective in actually
affording protection, they get a strong hold on immi-
grant members.
While both insurance and protection on the job
assist greatly in holding the membership in unions,
it is noticeable among the foreign born particularly
that something more than material benefits of this
kind, or increased wages and short hours are needed to
hold them permanently. Expression for the innate
ambitions or aspirations of the workers must also be
provided by the unions, or else the interest of the
members is lost.
That the foreign-born leaders of immigrant workers
have been alive to this is shown by the great amount
of formal educational work done by such unions as the
International Ladies' Garment Workers and the Amal-
gamated Clothing Workers. Not only are classes con-
ducted for teaching of English and citizenship, but
courses are also given in history, trade unionism,
economics, sociology, literature, and social movements.
Concerts, entertainments, dances and social affairs,
choral unions, and health talks are all parts of the pro-
gram. In Chicago the Amalgamated Clothing Work-
ers' Union engages the Symphony Orchestra of that
city at regular intervals to give concerts for its members
and their families, and as many as 5000 at a time
attend. In New York the Ladies' Garment Workers
have secured the cooperation of the public schools and
223
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
in a number of these, as well as in one branch public
library, lectures and classes are carried on regularly
and systematically. Visits to museums conducted by
interested leaders are often arranged, and members
can obtain passes issued by the educational depart-
ment enabling them to see good performances in the
leading theaters at reduced prices and in groups which
discuss the plays afterward.
Insurance, protection, education, and the develop-
ment of wider interests, are all helpful in maintaining
stable organizations; but the success of these, together
with the success of the union in improving labor con-
ditions in the industry, and in its relations with employ-
ers, depends upon the character and efficiency of their
administration. Policies must vary to meet needs
and desires of the membership. To some insurance
will appeal. Others ridicule union discussions of
"cemeteries," as they dub the business of insurance,
and they want their imagination and ideals stimulated
by other projects. Cooperation and politics always
appeal to immigrant working people, and many unions
have been rent asunder or destroyed by identifying
these activities with the life of the union. But intelli-
gent union management and leadership find ways of
permitting expression of social and political ideals of
the membership, and yet maintaining the union as
primarily an economic organization for dealing with
employers.
REQUIREMENTS OP GOOD MANAGEMENT
First and most important in the management of a
union are the ability, good judgment, and honesty of
its officers. In the packing house strike of 1904 it was
a mistake of the officers not to accept arbitration, and
it meant practically death to the union for more than
thirteen years. The limited vision of the officers of the
224
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
United Garment Workers prevented a complete organi-
zation of the men's clothing industry. On the other
hand, the success of the United Mine Workers must
be ascribed in large measure to the managerial ability
of John Mitchell and his successors. It is in the con-
duct of the ordinary affairs of the unions that the
leaders are trained; and the incumbent officers of the
organizations must assume the responsibility for train-
ing new leaders as well as desire to make places for
them, particularly for leaders of new nationalities
coming into the unions.
In the methods of organizing local unions and in the
supervision of their business, this training can be most
effectively provided. We have seen how careful the
district organizations of the United Mine Workers are
to instruct and guide local unions in methods of con-
ducting business, auditing accounts, electing officers,
handling grievances, etc. The Amalgamated Clothing
Workers pursue a similar policy. In both these unions
the locals have little power and responsibility. The
district organizations or joint boards handle most of
the finances, and they have the power to conduct
negotiations with employers and call strikes, subject
to the approval of the national unions.
This insures a larger membership from which to draw
responsible officials, it makes more talent available for
leadership, and by making the stakes larger insures
more care in the selection of careful officials. In
addition, it prevents newly formed locals from jeopard-
izing the union by calling impulsive and ill-considered
strikes. And it gives the older and more experienced
men from the district and national organizations a
chance to influence members in the newly organized
unions in the direction of stability.
Reckless and unsuccessful striking is a common
cause of break-up of unions that can be overcome only
225
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
by careful supervision and control of local unions.
New recruits to unions are particularly likely to indulge
in this, thinking that, once they have won a strike,
they might accomplish anything by the same method.
Often they will make most unreasonable demands and
expect to win them by strikes. Only control by dis-
trict and national officers and the requirement that
all strikes and agreements be approved by the national
organization can overcome this evil. Local unions
must not be left to deal alone with employers, also,
because with the best of intentions they often ignorantly
do the wrong things.
Unreasonable demands are often made by individual
workers, and many imaginary grievances are presented,
with the idea that the union will always support the
workers. In supervising local unions national organ-
izers and officials can do a great deal to teach local
officers to discountenance unreasonable demands, and
not to support imaginary grievances.
In so far as a union has the capacity to develop
capable leaders, to supervise local organizations to
insure honesty in its own dealings and fairness in its
relations with employers, it not only maintains the
stability and permanence of its organization, but also
solves the problem of making good, permanent union-
ists of its immigrant workers. Essentially, as we have
seen, the problem of assimilating the foreign born into
trade unions is no different from that of absorbing
any other class of wage earners who work under the
same conditions. The most trouble is caused by un-
skilled workers, and unskilled immigrants naturally
are as unstable as other unskilled workers. If a union
pursues sound management policies in dealing with
the ordinary problems of organization and unionism,
the same policies are effective in assimilating immi-
grants.
226
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
EFFECTS OF POOR UNION MANAGEMENT
It is because many trade unions have so largely failed
in organizing unskilled and women workers, and have
been unable to cope with the problem of maintaining
stable organizations among American wage earners of
these classes, that they have also failed to organize
or hold immigrant men and women in their ranks.
After such failures it is easy to blame the "foreigners"
if they happen to be the people involved. But we do
not blame Americans when the native-born teamsters
fail to maintain their organization. Then it is ascribed
to their character as unskilled workers. While it is
more difficult to maintain organizations among the
unskilled, it is not impossible, as the miners and other
unions have proved. And if some unions can do it
while others cannot, the fault must be primarily with
the management of the unsuccessful union.
No better proof is needed that organizing and assim-
ilating immigrant workers is primarily a problem of
union management than the experience that unions
have had with secession movements or dual unions
and with jurisdictional disputes. These occur again
and again in the labor movement, but when the split
happens to involve different nationalities it is immedi-
ately charged to this difference, rather than to the
character of the organization and the management
which makes the secession or dual union possible.
The cigar makers afford an interesting example.
Skilled cigar workers in many cities where they were
organized refused to allow employers to subdivide
operations and to introduce labor-saving machinery.
They insisted on the entire cigar being made by each
worker. The union was able to enforce this policy
in small shops by means of the union label. These
shops made non-advertised brands and depended upon
227
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the patronage of working men. The label was to them
therefore, an asset, and the union was able to dictate
terms. The larger manufacturers, however, who sell
well-advertised brands and cater to patrons who are
indifferent to the union label, would not submit to the
cigar makers' organization. They introduced machin-
ery, subdivision of operations, and other labor-saving
devices; and they depended on the new immigration
for their labor supply. The cigar makers' union was
indifferent to these unskilled and semi-skilled workers
in the large factories, and these presently organized
a union of their own composed mainly of immigrant
workers. Then charges were made that the fact that
these workers were aliens and radicals led them to
organize a separate union. Recently these people
have come into the International Cigar Makers' Union,
but they are regarded by the officers as a dangerous
element, and they are restless under the leadership
and policies which do not give sufficient attention
to the needs of the less skilled workers in the large
factories.
The same sort of secession happens in unions where
immigrant members are a negligible factor. The
teamsters have had many splits and separate organiza-
tions; and the skilled operatives in the United Textile
Workers have had many secessions when most of the
members were English-speaking.1
One difficulty which besets the textile workers lies in contentions
between different brances of the trade. If a local becomes dis-
satisfied with the national management or, as the national officials
believe is often the case, if it is unwilling to pay assessments, it is
easy for it to secede. And only recently the Mule Spinners' Union
was ordered expelled from the American Federation of Labor be-
cause it refused to join the United Textile Workers, although the
leaders and the membership of both unions are American and of
other English-speaking nationalities.
1 Weyforth, cited above, p. 129.
228
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
In the shoe industry, also, a split occurred and a dual
organization was formed because of over-conserva-
tive policy of the Boot and Shoe Workers' Union,
which was more anxious to protect its union label than
to extend its protection to employees working in non-
label shops. The United Shoe Workers was organized,
and it has outstripped the original union in many cen-
ters of the shoe industry. Leaders and members in
both unions were originally of the same nationalities,
although in recent years the United Shoe Workers has
greatly extended its membership among the foreign
nationalities in the industry.
The causes of these secessions are economic, not
nationalistic, though immigrant races complicate the
conflicts. With proper policies for avoiding secessions
of its members, a union would have little to fear from
secession movements or dual organizations of immi-
grant workers.
This is further emphasized by the jurisdictional dis-
putes among unions. These occur frequently when
two unions claim jurisdiction over the same work.
Each national union affiliated with the American Fed-
eration of Labor has its jurisdiction defined, and con-
flicts are usually referred to the Federation for settle-
ment. Plumbers have fought with steamfitters, elevator
constructors with several other crafts, carpenters with
sheet metal workers, coopers with brewery workmen,
machinists with glass workers, and so on, where no
question of immigrant workers was involved. When,
however, a union whose membership is composed
mainly of immigrant workers, enters into a dispute
with another union of predominantly American mem-
bership, it soon takes on the character of a conflict
of nationalities.
Thus, the Jewelry Workers' International Union
was organized in 1916 as an industrial union and given
229
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
jurisdiction by the American Federation of Labor over
all workers in the industry. This union made rapid
progress and soon the machinists and the metal pol-
ishers claimed jurisdiction over the tool and die makers
and the polishers in the industry. The union of
Jewelry Workers is small and its membership is in the
main foreign born. It contended that the other unions
had done little or nothing to organize their crafts in the
jewelry shops, and these skilled men were needed in
the Jewelry Workers' Union, for without them as a
nucleus, the unskilled could not be organized. It,
therefore, refused to give up the skilled mechanics and
was suspended from the American Federation of
Labor.
Again, the United Cloth Hat and Cap Makers'
Union received jurisdiction over the workers on
women's hats in 1903 and made considerable headway
in organizing them. In 1916 the United Hatters of
America claimed jurisdiction over women's hat work-
ers, and the convention of the American Federation
of Labor ordered the Cloth Hat and Cap Makers to
turn the women's hat makers over to the United
Hatters. The latter is an organization dominated by
American born and the former is made up mainly of
immigrants. The Cap Makers' Union offered to settle
the controversy by merging the two unions, but its
suggestion was not accepted and it was suspended for
refusing to turn part of its membership over to the
Hatters which had done little to organize the women's
hat workers. At the convention of the American
Federation of Labor in Atlantic City in 1919, the
Hatters introduced a resolution to have their juris-
diction extended to include cloth hats and caps, while
a delegate from the Journeymen Tailors' Union pre-
sented a resolution renewing the proposal to unite the
two unions. Nothing but the fact that the Cloth Hat
230
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
and Cap Makers is composed mainly of immigrants
can explain the remarkable action of the Committee
on the Executive Council's report, which recommended
approval of the Hatters' resolution. Only the sound
sense and prompt action of President Gompers saved
the convention from approving this resolution.1
Antagonism and division between immigrants in
the ranks of organized labor and the American mem-
bers are caused by these jurisdiction disputes and
secession movements. Unions such as the tailors and
the ladies' garment workers, which are predominantly
foreign born, support the Jewelry Workers and the
Cap Makers at the conventions of the American Fed-
eration of Labor, as they did the Amalgamated Cloth-
ing Workers in their dispute with the United Garment
Workers. The delegates of unions whose membership
is mainly of native birth or of the older immigration
usually side against them in these disputes. Thus is
race division intensified by the purely economic ques-
tion of jurisdictional disputes, which also occur fre-
quently among many unions where immigrants present
no problem.
Here again it is evident that sound policies of union
management which make for unity are the best methods
also of keeping immigrant and native workers united.
Lacking such policies, division and disunion are bound
to occur, and whenever foreign-born workers are in-
volved, national prejudices are engendered which are
the greatest obstacles to common action. Thus it is
most important that the ordinary management of the
unions in each industry be based on efficient and sound
principles of organization and unionism, that will take
in and protect the interests of every worker, that will
recognize the needs of every group, unskilled as well
1 Proceedings, 39th Convention, pp. 387-388.
231
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
as skilled, foreign born as well as native, women as
well as men; and thus avoid secessions, jurisdictional
disputes, and dual unions, with the possibilities of
dividing organizations along racial or nationalistic
lines.
The responsibility for seeing that the existing Ameri-
can unions do maintain efficient union management
and do not leave large numbers of workers in the
industries outside of labor organizations must rest
with the American Federation of Labor. It is true that
the constitution of the Federation gives autonomy
over its own affairs to each affiliated organization.
But in the recent organizing campaign in the steel
industry, the national organizing committee has shown
what could be done to win immigrant workers to the
ranks of organized labor; and when individual unions
neglect great masses of workers who need to be organ-
ized, especially the immigrants, these inevitably turn
to other organizations for help. Either the I. W. W.,
which has no faith whatever in the 'ordinary methods
of labor organization is appealed to, or separate and
competing organizations under leaders of their own
nationalities are set up, and the entire American labor
movement is endangered and threatened with division
along racial lines.
Whatever may be the attitude of American labor
organizations toward restriction of immigration, the
only consistent domestic policy for them is to bring
those immigrants who are already here and employed
in American industries within the folds of a unified
American labor movement. The immigrants need help,
guidance, direction, and education in the purposes and
practices of unionism. If they get it from the exist-
ing labor organizations, they will be won over to
these and united in a common mind with the Ameri-
can laboring population. If they do not get it from
232
UNION MANAGEMENT AND THE IMMIGRANT
this source, they will naturally turn to leaders of their
own nationalities and depend upon their own resources.
Thus will unity be destroyed and the American labor
movement will fail to stand for the union of native and
foreign born.
CHAPTER XII
TRADE UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
LABOR organizations meet regularly in local unions,
shop meetings, district councils, and national conven-
tions, to discuss the problems of their trade and indus-
try. They send delegates to city central bodies, to
state federations of labor, and to annual conventions
of their national organizations and of the American
Federation of Labor, which concern themselves pri-
marily with matters of common interest to all working
people, with methods of unionizing unorganized trades,
with financial, and moral support of strikes, with legis-
lation, politics, and with the relations of labor organiza-
tions to the state and to the public. They maintain
insurance funds against sickness and death, homes for
the aged and infirm, employment bureaus and out-of-
work benefits for the unemployed, schools, educational
classes, and trade union colleges. Recently they have
begun to establish banks. Their officers and representa-
tives negotiate agreements with employers fixing terms
and conditions of employment, and they set up admin-
istrative and judicial machinery for settling disputes.
Obviously the immigrant who participates in organi-
zations, institutions, and activities of this kind learns
in a most practical way to cooperate with his American
fellow workers for mutual benefit, and through such
participation, unity of mind is developed between the
native and the foreign born. Through parliamentary
practice made necessary by the organizations, through
election of representatives, officials, and delegates,
234
UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
through voting on agreements with employers and on
other policies, through the business dealings of his
union, through discussions of men and measures, and
through the public activities of his organization and
its officers, the immigrant learns American methods,
traditions, governmental practices, and problems in
the best school the adult can have, the daily experiences
surrounding his work.
Professor William Z. Ripley of Harvard pointed out
many years ago:1
Whatever our judgment as to the legality or expediency of the
industrial policy of our American unions, no student of contempo-
rary conditions can deny that they are a mighty factor in effecting
the assimilation of our foreign-born population. Schooling is pri-
marily of importance, of course, but many of our immigrants come
here as adults. Education can affect only the second generation.
The churches, particularly the Catholic hierarchy, may do much.
Protestants seem to have little influence in the industrial centers.
On the other hand, the newspapers, at least such as the masses see
and read, and the ballot under present conditions in American
cities, have no uplifting or educative power at all. The great
source of intellectual inspiration to a large percentage of our in-
choate Americans, in the industrial classes, remains hi the trade
union. It is a vast power for good or evil, according as its affairs
are administered. It cannot fail to teach the English language;
that in itself is much. Its benefit system, as among the cigar makers
and printers, may inculcate thrift. Its journals, the best of them,
give a general knowledge of trade conditions, impossible to the
isolated workman. Its democratic constitution and its assemblies
and conventions partake of the primitive character of the Anglo-
Saxon folkmoot, so much lauded by Freeman, the historian, as a
factor in English political education and constitutional development.
Not the next gubernatorial or presidential candidate, not the ex-
pansion of the currency, nor the reform of the general staff of the
army; not free-trade or protection, or anti-imperialism, is the real
living thing of interest to the trade-union workman. His thoughts,
interests, and hopes are centered in the politics of his organization.
It is the forum and arena of his social and industrial world.
1 William Z. Ripley, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 93, 1904, p. 307.
235
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
What the mine workers' organization has meant to
the immigrant workers and to the districts in which
they live cannot be more succinctly stated than in the
words of a writer who studied conditions in the mining
communities some years ago.1
The one bright ray of hope lighting up the uncertain future is shed
from the activity in these coal fields of the United Mine Workers of
America. With this organization, to a much greater degree than
most of us realize, rests the solution of many of the problems pre-
sented in the hard-coal producing communities. Its power of uniting
the mine workers of all nationalities and creeds and tongues . . .
of bringing together the Slav and the English-speaking employees
on the common ground of industrial self-interest . . . has only
recently been demonstrated. Through this it is breaking down the
strong racial ties which until its entrance into the region kept the
two groups apart. In brief, this organisation is socializing the
heterogeneous mass.
But for the effect of the union on the individual
immigrant, we may best follow the career of such a
worker from the time he first enters an industry in
which a union is recognized by the employers as the
legitimate representative of the wage earners.
We may imagine an Italian coming into a shop
where men's or women's clothing is made, for in these
shops he will find many of his own nationality employed,
and the membership as well as the leadership of the
unions which operate in these industries is predomi-
nantly foreign born. The union in the women's cloth-
ing industry is affiliated with the American Federation
of Labor, the one in the men's clothing industry is not.
Both are unions which have succeeded in organizing
permanently the so-called new immigrants, and both
are chosen to illustrate the powerful Americanizing
influences of labor organizations.
As a beginner in the industry the newcomer finds that
he is to be paid $12 to $15 per week, or whatever hap-
1 F. J. Warne, The Slav Invasion and the Mine Workers, p. 9.
236
UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
pens to be the wage for beginners, fixed in the agree-
ment between the union and the employers. He may
not know this at first, but when the shop chairman,
who represents the union in the shop, comes to ask
him to become a member of the unions he will be told
how the union established the minimum scale for all
beginners. He will want to know what this union is,
and in most shops he will be given two weeks in which
to make up his mind whether he wants to remain in
the industry and assume his share of the burden of
maintaining the union.
He learns that a shop meeting is to be held after
working hours, and he goes with the other employees
to a hall a few blocks away to attend the meeting.
He finds someone who talks English is in charge of the
meeting. He is told that it is a business agent of the
union, and there is also an organizer present who will
translate into Italian the gist of the chairman's re-
marks. It appears that a new shop chairman is to be
elected. A man gets up and explains something in
English. It is translated and our immigrant finds that
this shop chairman doesn't like his job. He is tired,
he says, of constant request for increases in wages by
individual workers who want more than was given in
the general increase that all the people in the shop
received. The people should know that they cannot
get such individual increases. He is a piece worker and
he cannot afford to lose time taking up complaints
in which the workers have no just claims. He resigns.
Then there is a lot of discussion — heated discussion —
after which nominations are made and a new shop
chairman is elected.
This is interesting. In America, it seems, they elect
not only the officials of the government, but also the
officers who govern them in the shops. Our Italian
friend has decided to join the union. He finds he has
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ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
to pay dues of thirty-six cents a week — he can under-
stand that — but he objects to paying $10 as an initia-
tion fee. What is that for? The shop chairman explain-
to him that this initiation fee was only recently estab-
lished. When they first formed the union anybody
could come in by paying a dollar. But they had to
conduct strikes, pay benefits, and there were many
other expenses in building up the union and winning
recognition from the employers. It was the dues of
the members as well as special assessments which paid
for all this, and as a result increased wages have been
secured for everybody and the working hours have been
reduced to forty-four a week. A newcomer gets the
benefits of all this and he is required to pay the initiation
fee for this reason. The immigrant is still not entirely
convinced, but he feels he has to pay it, and is relieved
to find that the union will let him pay the fee in small
weekly installments.
After a few days the shop chairman brings him a
little book, which, he is told, is his union book. On
the first page is his name and a statement that he is a
member of the Italian Local Union No. 21 of the
national organization. Then there is printed the con-
stitution and rules of the union in Italian as well as
in English, and in the back are several blank pages,
ruled with squares in which a few stamps have been
stuck indicating the amount of dues he has paid.
Each week when he pays, a new stamp will be put in
one of the squares. The shop chairman explains that
after he has learned English he can be transferred to
another local union where all the people who do the
same kind of work that he does belong, whether they
are Jews, Poles, or Americans. They all talk English,
in that local, however, and he will be more at home in
the Italian local until he learns some English. His
local has a meeting every other Tuesday, and he had
238
UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
better get his friend in the shop to take him to the
meeting the following Tuesday.
He goes to the meeting and he hears the secretary
reading many communications. It seems they all come
from the Joint Board and they tell what occurred at a
recent meeting of this board as well as what the mana-
ger of the union and the business agents have been
doing. Someone gets up to discuss one of the com-
munications. Our Italian finds out that this man is
one of the delegates to the Board. There are seven
of them from each of the local unions and all the dele-
gates from all the locals together meet once a week and
constitute the Board, the governing body of the union
in the city.
The delegate who arose explains that the Joint Board
voted to request the employers to change the time of
beginning work from 8 in the morning to 7:30. Then
the people can stop work at 4:30 instead of 5 in the
afternoon, and they will have more time after work to
enjoy the summer afternoons, perhaps to work in a
garden. The action has to be approved by the local
unions before it can be presented to the employers.
Some people object. They say the clock has recently
been moved ahead an hour and this makes it entirely
too early to get up in time for work at 7:30. The
chairman calls for a vote. Our immigrant feels impelled
to get up and vote for the change in hours. He finds
most of the members get up with him. The action is
approved. He is pleased. He has had something to
say about the working hours he must keep.
Another delegate gets up to speak on the communica-
tion which tells that the Joint Board desires to appro-
priate some more money for educational work of the
union. He says that the woman who has charge of
this work appeared before the Joint Board and ex-
plained that various members had asked for more
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
classes and lectures on different subjects. She needed
an additional teacher to start another class in English,
and she would like to have some special lectures on the
history of trade unionism and also on political economy,
but she needs money to get them. After some more
discussion the action of the Joint Board in appropriat-
ing $116 additional for the education work was also
approved.
There is more to this union the immigrant finds
than just the work of the shop. He will have to inquire
about those classes in English that were mentioned.
Presently a speaker is introduced, a national organizer
of the union. He speaks in Italian. He tells of the
growth of the union and the success it has had in other
cities.
Everywhere the workers in this industry are lifting up their
heads. They are no longer the sweatshop slaves people used to
write about in the papers. They have, by their union, won better
conditions for themselves than most American workers have. No
longer can it be said that the immigrants in this industry keep down
the wages of Americans. It is we who have the higher standards
now and we might complain that the Americans hold us back.
But we know it is not their fault. Only when they organize and
stick together in a strong union can they improve their conditions
and maintain high standards. We should be proud to know that
they cannot say it is we who are holding them back. And we shall
be glad to help them in every way to improve their conditions as
we have improved ours.
The immigrant goes away from the meeting with
new ideas, new interest in life. He finds at later meet-
ings that people bring up grievances and complaints
about wages at the local union. They are told, how-
ever, that they must take these complaints up first
with the shop chairman in their own shop. It seems
that there is an agreement between the union and the
employers to this effect. The shop chairman takes the
worker's complaint to the boss and talks for the worker.
240
UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
Then, if the worker is not satisfied, the matter may be
taken to the union.
At one meeting a group of workers complained that
the employer would not take them back. About a
dozen of them had quit in a body because of some
action of the foreman. The union business agents,
however, would not take their complaint. They said
the men had no right to quit work. They should have
stayed at their work and then complained to the union.
Now the employer does not have to take them and the
union officers can do nothing for them. There was
much warm discussion. But the chairman explained
that the agreement between the union and the manu-
facturers provided there must be no stoppages. The
employer cannot discharge a man unless he has a very
good reason; if he does the union can put him back
or he will be reinstated by an arbitrator. In the same
way, the workers are not allowed to quit work in a
body. We must learn not to be hot-headed, but to
take up our complaints in the regular way provided by
the agreement.
Soon our immigrant finds that he is doing as much
work as other men near him in the shop, but they are
getting more wages than he does. He doesn't think
this is right, but he is afraid the foreman might not
like it if he complains. He speaks to his friend about
it, who tells him there is no need to be afraid. Go to
your shop chairman. He will take it up for you.
The shop chairman tells him that the union has made
an arrangement with the employers that all the people
who do his kind of work shall get $30 a week after
they have worked at it six months.
"How long have you been working here?"
"Two months.'*
"What are you getting?"
"Twenty dollars."
241
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
"Have you been raised at all?"
"No. I began at twenty dollars."
"All right, I'll see what I can do for you. In the
morning you will go down to the office with me and
we'll take up your case."
In the morning he goes down to the office of the
labor manager with the shop chairman. The latter
talks English. The foreman is called down. He and
the office man do not seem at all angry; but it seems
that the firm refuses to give him any raise. The next
day he is called down to the office again. This time
there is an officer of the union besides the shop chair-
man to talk for him. He is asked by the shop chairman,
in Italian, if he is sure that he turns out as much and
as good work as the others who are at the same opera-
tion. He is sure of it. Still the firm does not agree,
and the shop chairman tells him to keep on working —
"We'll take it to the Impartial Chairman/ "
Several days later at quitting time the shop chair-
man calls him to go to the Impartial Chairman's office.
There he finds things arranged like a court. The
chairman sits at a desk. His shop chairman and the
union representative sit at one side of a table. At
the other side are the men to whom they talked in the
office, the labor manager, the foreman, and the man
who examines his work. The Impartial Chairman asks
the union representatives what the case is about. He
and the shop chairman talk in English. Then the fore-
man and the office man talk. Presently the chairman
says something and the immigrant is asked in Italian
to tell what he wants and why in his own language.
It is translated. After that the examiner is asked to
speak, and then there is a good deal of discussion back
and forth. The chairman at the desk speaks a long
time. Finally everybody gets up, and the shop chair-
man explains in Italian: "It is all right. You are to
242
UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
get $1.50 a week raise every month until you reach
$30. He says that it is only fair that you should be
raised right along this way, since the examiner finds
your work as good as any the other men do, and you
are doing as much work as they are."
From this time on the immigrant becomes enthu-
siastic about the union. He wants to become an active
member. He feels the great handicap of the lack of
English, and he joins the union class or he takes lessons
in some other way. He interests himself in the meet-
ings of his union and in the shop meetings of the
people in his factory. He votes on many questions and
he finds that it is important to inform himself on those
questions. He hears that a shop chairman has been
removed in one place because of improper action. He
must be careful to vote for good men as shop chairmen.
He begins to read the paper which the union has been
sending him every week since he joined. It is in Italian
and tells him all about the questions that are discussed
at the meetings. It also tells him about conditions in
his industry in other cities throughout the country.
In this way he learns much about the country. There
is an English edition of the paper he gets every week
and he begins to spell things out in it and gradually
learns to read it. This teaches him much more about
his union, his industry, and his new country.
In the union he finds he has to vote on many questions
submitted by the national organization. Shall the
office of the national treasurer be combined with that
of the national secretary? Shall the membership of
the Executive Board be enlarged from nine to fifteen?
Shall the union work for the abolition of piece work
in the industry and shall it adopt standards of produc-
tion for all week workers? His paper tells him there
was hot discussion of all these questions at the last
national convention. He reads the reports of the
243 '
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
speeches, and he talks the questions over with fellow
members of the union. He goes to the meetings of
other local unions and of the Joint Board, to hear
further discussions of these questions. He meets many
people of many nationalities interested in the same
things that interest him. Finally he makes up his mind
and votes.
He likes this voting business. It is a new experience
to him. He helps to elect officers of his local union,
delegates to the Joint Board, business agents, members
of the National Executive Board and other national
officers, and he takes part in choosing delegates to the
national convention. At the meetings he attends and
at the conventions about which he reads many resolu-
tions are passed on questions not only affecting his
industry, but also on legislation adopted or to be
adopted by Congress or state legislatures, on acts of
the President of the United States, governors, and
courts. He would like to become a delegate or an
officer himself and learn more about all these things.
The government of the United States seems to be run
on the same plan and in the same way as the union is
conducted. He could become a citizen and know how
to take part in the government just like the Americans.
Thus has the union not only assured him an Ameri-
can standard of living, so he can bring over his family
and educate his children American fashion, but it has
also furnished him a practical school in citizenship,
giving him practice in voting, elections, and lawmak-
ing, teaching parliamentary practices, methods of law-
making, obedience to the agreements of the union and
the employers, which are the laws of his industry, and
introducing him to judicial processes and methods
through the arbitration procedure which the agreement
has established. The union is a miniature republic,
training him for American citizenship by teaching him
244
UNIONS AS AMERICANIZING AGENCIES
American democratic methods of dealing with the
problems of his work and wages, the things of most
vital interest to him. It is the same kind of a school
for Americanism that is provided by the "Junior
Republics" for young people, which recognize that
American citizenship can best be taught by practice
in collective action on problems of interest to juveniles
rather than by lectures and exhortation.
A trade union needs to engage in no Americanizing
or proselytizing campaigns to make Americans of
immigrant workmen. If it is efficient and successful
as a union, it unites all the workers in the industry and
imperceptibly fuses native and foreign born into a com-
mon folk.
CHAPTER XIII
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
"Few years ago when I came to United States," wrote John L —
to his teacher, "I did not understand anything because I were not in
State of Delaware." Perhaps in his enthusiasm, Mr. L — put the
case of Delaware rather strongly, but he expressed a feeling preva-
lent among the foreign-born people of the state that they have been
given very unusual advantages through the schools. 1
THIS was the reaction of an immigrant to the work of
the Delaware State Department of Immigrant Educa-
tion. But the Delaware Americanization Committee,
which started this work and then induced the state to
take it over, realized that schooling is but one of the
problems which the immigrant has to meet, and in
regard to which the people of the state have a responsi-
bility toward the aliens in their midst. The Com-
mittee's program includes neighborhood work, com-
munity gatherings, and a "Trouble Bureau," to which
any sort of a problem affecting immigrant residents can
be brought for solution. Like the classes in English
these services are undertaken so that the immigrant
may know he "were in the state of Delaware/'
Says the report of the Delaware Americanization
Committee:2
In attempting to express the spirit of America to the foreign-born
people through these various channels, the Americanization Com-
mittee has kept steadily in view an objective which is common to
all the work of the Service Citizens — the progressive development
of activities which should ultimately become a public function. . . .
Most of the responsibilities first undertaken by the Americaniza-
tion Committee have been progressively transferred to the jurisdic-
1 Americanization in Delaware, Bulletin of the Service Citizens
of Delaware, Sept., 1921, p. 9.
2 Ibid., p. 51.
246
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
tion of state and local educational authorities. Beginning with
July 1, 1921, the work carried on by the Committee in class rooms
has been taken over by the Department of Immigrant Education.
All the activities mentioned in Chapter II of this report (teacher
training, publication of Americanization news, community gather-
ings, etc.) except the financing of community gatherings, have been
provided for in the new budget of the State Department of Immi-
grant Education, and it is hoped that the public day schools will
take over the "steamer" classes. . . .
With these responsibilities taken off its shoulders, the Americani-
zation Committee will be free to concentrate all its energies on
Home Classes for Mothers and the Trouble Bureau. Each of these
fields offers almost inexhaustible possibilities for service to the
people of Delaware. It is our hope that in the future they, too,
may become a part of the state's official program for its foreign
born — a program that shall not miss any conceivable means of
sharing the best gifts of America with all who seek the protection
of her flag.
SHARING THE GIFTS OF AMERICA
A program that shall not miss any conceivable means
of sharing the best gifts of America with all who seek the
protection of her flag — (the words will bear repetition)—
this is the responsibility of the government as it is
conceived and gradually being worked out in the state
of Delaware.
It was in this spirit that most of our states in the
early days of the republic opened wide their resources
as well as the privileges of citizenship to aliens. In
the New York State Laws of 1802 we find the follow-
ing: l
Whereas many good and industrious persons being aliens, have
emigrated to this state with an intention to settle and reside therein
and have expended the greater part of their capital in purchasing
and improving real property; and whereas such emigrations have
tended to promote as well an improvement in the agriculture as the
manufactures of the state; and it is deemed just and right not only
to protect the property which they have acquired, but also to
1 New York State Laws, Chapter 49, p. 78.
247
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
encourage others to settle and reside within this state by enabling
them to purchase and hold real property; Therefore be it enacted by
the people of the state of New York represented in Senate and Assembly,
that all purchases of land made, or to be made, by an alien or aliens
who have come to this state and become inhabitants thereof shall
be deemed valid to vest the estate to them granted and it shall and
may be lawful to and for such alien or aliens to have and to hold the
same to his, her or their heirs or assigns forever, and to dispose of
the same, any plea of alienism to the contrary thereof notwithstand-
ing. . . .
(A proviso is made limiting the amount of land an alien may
hold to 1000 acres, and it is further provided that any conveyances
that may not have been properly made according to the law may
be corrected within twelve months after the adoption of the act.) J
The legislature seems to have thought that protection
to the foreign born, in their efforts at earning a living
and in the fruits of their labor, was most important in
inducing them to remain in the state and become good
citizens. Agriculture being the main occupation at
that time, the legislature directed its attention to
encouraging the alien to acquire and to own real
property. It did this not by discriminating against the
alien and preventing him from owning land until he
became a citizen, but on the contrary it gave him as
an alien the same rights that citizens enjoyed.
The example of the state of New York was followed
by most of the other states; some limiting the number
of acres to less than 1000, and others placing no limi-
tation whatever on the amount of land an alien might
own. A few states placed time limits on the alien's
property rights, but most states permitted aliens to
own and dispose of real property, as long as they
remained residents of the United States. This policy
of our states with respect to land ownership is further
illustrated by a law enacted in Delaware in 1881,
which exempted from state and court taxes for a period
of ten years certain marsh lands occupied by colonies
of immigrants.
248
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
RESTRICTING THE IMMIGRANT'S OPPORTUNITIES
In striking contrast with this earlier policy of sharing
the land of America with the immigrant is the present
policy of many states in limiting his opportunities
both for land ownership and for employment.1 In
Michigan an alien cannot get a barber's license. The
labor law of New York requires that stationary engi-
neers, moving picture machine operators, master pilots,
and marine engineers shall be licensed, and non-
citizens are disqualified by the license laws. Florida,
Oregon, Texas, and Washington prohibit aliens from
catching and selling fish and oysters, while in Arizona,
California, and Idaho license fees for fishing and hunt-
ing are from two and a half to ten times as high for the
alien as for the citizen. Virginia prohibits aliens from
planting oysters in certain river beds; and game laws,
either placing prohibitions entirely on aliens or charg-
ing them higher license fees than citizens, are common
in many states. In Louisiana an alien printer may
receive no public printing to do. Virginia requires
licenses for junk dealing and no non-citizen may receive
such a license. In Georgia a person must have declared
his intention of becoming a citizen before he can secure
a peddler's license; and in Delaware a discriminating
fee of a hundred dollars is charged to aliens for traveling
peddler's licenses in addition to the fee charged to
citizens. In pre-prohibition days liquor licenses were
issued to citizens only in many states, such as Ohio,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Texas, Florida,
and Washington.2
1 See Immigrants Day in Court. Kate H. Claghorn. Americani-
zation Studies, p. 298.
2 See Immigrants in America Review, Sept. 1915, p. 73.
249
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
This is not an exhaustive list of restrictive laws.
It is merely illustrative. And in addition to the state
laws there are innumerable municipal ordinances
excluding aliens from licensed businesses and occupa-
tions. In Philadelphia only citizens may get licenses
as "hawkers, peddlers, etc., of fish, vegetables, fruits,
berries, general produce, coal, wood, or any wares of
merchandise." New York City denies licenses to
"cartmen, hackmen, expressmen, drivers, junk dealers,
dealers in second-hand articles, hawkers, peddlers,
vendors, coal-scalpers, common show men, dirt carters,
or stand-keepers within stoop lines" who are aliens.
Toledo denies licenses to aliens who would be taxi
drivers, and Buffalo will not permit non-citizens to
operate pawn shops. Licenses for street trades are
denied to foreigners in Bayonne, N. J., Niagara Falls,
N. Y., and other cities; and several Massachusetts
cities prohibit aliens from dealing in junk or second-
hand articles. Where liquor licenses were controlled
by municipalities, as in Connecticut, California, Ore-
gon, and Wisconsin, many cities also prohibited these
to aliens.
The City Council of Chicago, in December, 1917,
adopted an ordinance providing that no person shall
be granted a license to engage in any occupation for
which a license is required, unless such a person is a
citizen of the United States or has legally declared his
intention of becoming a citizen. This ordinance came
to the attention of the Swiss consul in Chicago and he
entered a vigorous protest to Secretary of State Lansing.
The Secretary wrote to the Governor of Illinois, point-
ing out that such legislation might involve the United
States in serious difficulties with other nations who,
under treaties with this country, grant rights and privi-
leges to Americans in their jurisdictions on the condi-
tion that the same treatment shall be accorded their
250
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
people in America. Treaties of the United Stsftes being
among the supreme laws of the land which are binding
on the states, the Secretary requested that the Chicago
ordinance be repealed. It was only when the Mayor
of Chicago called attention to these facts that the
Council repealed the ordinance.1 The discriminations
against the alien usually remain effective, and where
the state or city acts in a proprietary capacity, as in
employment on public works or regulation of hunting,
fishing, oyster planting, etc., the discriminations against
the immigrant are probably well within its powers.
But the policy of restricting the alien's opportunities
for employment is not confined to licensed callings.
States like California, Idaho, Louisiana, Pennsylvania,
and Wyoming exclude alien common laborers from
employment on public works. Many other states,
including New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, Louisi-
ana, Utah, and Washington, give preference to Ameri-
can citizens on all public works and permit aliens to
be employed only when citizens are not available.
The same policy of restricting opportunities of employ-
ment on public works is followed by most of our munici-
pal governments. City charters, local ordinances, or
civil service regulations discriminate against aliens who
may want to earn a living at street contruction, sewer
digging, subway building, or any other public work.
Cities like Baltimore, Providence, Philadelphia, and
Pittsburgh forbid entirely the employment of aliens
on public works. Others permit them to do the com-
* The treaty between the United States and Switzerland provides
that citizens of either country shall have the right to "acquire,
possess, and alienate property, to manage affairs, to exercise their
professions, their industry, and their commerce," in either country,
and that "no pecuniary or other more burdensome conditions shall
be imposed upon the enjoyment of the above-mentioned rights than
shall be imposed on the citizens where they reside nor any conditions
whatever to which the latter shall not be subject."
251
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
mon labor, but usually only after citizens cannot be
secured.
In 1915 Arizona attempted to extend her restrictive
anti-alien labor law to private industries, by an enact-
ment which required that employers who have more
than five employees must see to it that at least eighty
per cent of these are citizens of the United States.
This lavr was declared unconstitutional by the United
States Supreme Court on the ground that it conflicted
with the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution,
which prohibits the states from enacting laws denying
the equal protection of the laws to any persons within
its jurisdiction.1 Morally the laws and ordinances
discriminating against immigrants on public works
also violate the principle laid down in the 14th amend-
ment, but legally they have been upheld by the courts,
on the ground that cities and states, when they stipu-
late the kind of workers who may be employed on
public works, are acting in the capacity of proprietor,
and as such they may employ or not employ whom-
ever they see fit.
But the Fourteenth Amendment could hardly pro-
tect nonresident families of immigrant wage earners
who suffer industrial accidents in this country and
whose families are excluded from the benefits of work-
men's compensation laws. In fourteen states the
compensation laws contain no provision for nonresident
alien dependents of immigrants killed or injured in
industry. Fourteen others recognize such dependents,
but limit the benefits they may receive under the com-
pensation laws either to amounts smaller than resident
families, or to restricted classes of beneficiaries or both.
Two states, New Jersey and New Hampshire, exclude
all nonresident alien dependents of any immigrant
1 Traux w. Raich, 239 U. S. 33.
252
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
workman injured in their industries. Only seven
states include beneficiaries of alien and citizen alike,
and provide full compensation.
EFFECTS OF DISCRIMINATION
The reason for the laws prohibiting or restricting
employment of aliens on public works is stated as
follows in the Constitution of the State of Illinois:
"to protect the labor of native and naturalized citi-
zens." 1 This is, no doubt, the motive behind most
of the state and municipal legislation which discrimi-
nates against unnaturalized immigrants. But another
motive is to hasten the naturalization of immigrants;
and many private employers, in furtherance of what
they consider patriotic endeavor, are following the
example of the state and municipal legislatures and
denying employment to aliens.2
To the Trouble Bureau of the Delaware Americanization Com-
mittee came an Italian who was "sent in by the Associated Charities
to get a copy of his naturalization certificate," without which it was
almost impossible for him to obtain employment. Investigation
revealed that the Court had no record of his naturalization. Then
it came out that he had not gotten his papers in court at all, but from
a "boss" who had charged him $5 for his declaration and $10 for
his final paper. "I guess maybe that boss, he fool me," he said
simply. "No speak English — no understand." He had been under
the impression all these years that this is the way the great American
nation beatows the priceless gift of its suffrage upon newcomers.
A m? n must live in Rome for thirty years before he can become a
Roman citizen.
Yet this man's conception of American citizenship is not so
different, after all, from that of the employer who would compel
all aliens to take out papers or be cut off from the employment
without which they cannot find food for themselves or their families.
Since jobs began to be scarce, the office of the Trouble Bureau has
1 Chapter 6, sec. 10.
2 Report of the Delaware Americanization Committee, 1921,
p. 41.
253
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
been besieged by men and women who want to become citizens,
and incidentally voters, not because they have learned to love this
country better than any other in the world, but because would-be
patriotic employers insist on the nation's granting a vote to all whom
they employ.
Just as the Delaware Americanization Committee
does not find that employers tend to make better
Americans of immigrants by denying them employ-
ment, so the New York State Bureau of Industries
and Immigration did not find that the laws which
discriminate against aliens tend to make better citizens
of them. On the contrary : 1
One of the results of such legislation has been to educate the
immigrant in law-breaking and to debase his ideals of citizenship.
When laborers are in demand, "first papers" are sometimes given
to them so they may "comply" with the law; when their votes are
needed, politicians use them. In one of the states where, as soon as
an alien has filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen,
he is given full electoral privileges, the number filing their declara-
tions in a presidential election year was 660 from July to October;
from October to July there were only 71. On one public contract,
when the alien labor law was being tested in the courts, first papers
were supplied to each laborer who renounced his allegiance to his
own country and pledged his faith to a new one for the sole con-
sideration of $1.75 a day.
These experiences make it evident that we cannot
deny opportunities for employment to the alien immi-
grant, in order "to protect the labor of native and
naturalized citizens," and at the same time expect
these aliens to become loyal and patriotic Americans.
We have seen the undesirable effects of a trade-
union policy which excludes immigrants from its mem-
bership, how it develops antagonism between the native
and the foreign born, and prevents the development of
a common mind. We have seen how the employer
1 New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration — First Annual
Report, 1911.
254
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
who discriminates against foreign labor in hiring
methods and other labor management policies tends
to produce the same effects. For a state or municipal
government to restrict opportunities for employment
or otherwise to discriminate in its legislation against
its alien residents is not essentially different from either
of these. Congress may see fit to prohibit or restrict
immigration in order to protect American standards;
but those immigrants who have been admitted by the
federal government cannot be denied the privileges
of America without danger to the nation. The framers
of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution
saw this clearly when they provided that no state shall
"deprive any person of life, liberty or property without
due process of law; nor deny any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." It was
intended to guarantee the privileges of America to all
persons resident here, not to citizens alone.
A nation whose hope it is to weld together its immi-
grant and native-born population into a single citizen-
ship can pursue no other policy and expect to see its
hope realized. Not by exclusion from American indus-
trial opportunities and privileges will the immigrant
be adjusted to American economic life. Such a policy,
whatever its purpose, can result only in making it
more difficult for him to establish himself on a basis
of self-support and well-being. If we desired to have
a subordinate class of alien laborers who are not to be
of us, but who would merely work for us, then this
would be a proper policy to pursue. As long as our
aim is to fuse the immigrant with the native born
into a common citizenship, he will have to share in the
privileges and opportunities of America, and he will
need guidance and assistance during his first years of
residence in the country, his most trving period of
adjustment.
255
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITY AS SOME STATES SEE IT
The State of Connecticut seems to have realized this
when in 1895 it enacted a law providing that: 1
The commissioner of the bureau of labor statistics is hereby
authorized to appoint some competent person or persons, familiar
with the language of Italian, Polish, or other alien laborers, as special
agents of the bureau, whose duty it shall be to inform said laborers,
either personally or through printed matter in their language, as
to their right of contract under the laws of the State and to prevent,
as far as possible, any illegal advantage being taken of said laborers
by reason of their ignorance, credulity, or want of knowledge of the
English language.
With such assistance from the state the employment
contracts of the recent immigrant could be given the
same protection as the real estate contracts of the
older immigrants received. The law, however, appears
to be a dead letter on the statute books. Under date
of November 26, 1918, the Commissioner of Labor
of Connecticut wrote to us: "The law you referred
to was passed in 1895, and I have no means of knowing
now what the reason for its enactment was. I find
upon inquiry that no question was ever raised under
it during the term of my predecessor nor has there been
any appointment during my term of office."
While Connecticut was the first state to recognize
in legislation the special protection which the immi-
grant wage worker needs to remove the handicaps
under which he labors and to place him on an equality
with his American fellow workers, it failed to create
the agencies for putting the law into actual practice.
The state of New York, however, created in 1910 a
Bureau of Industries and Immigration as a division
of its Department of Labor, for the purpose of dealing
1 Public Acts, 1895, Chapter ccxcv, 9. 638.
256
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
in a comprehensive way with the problems of protec-
tion, supervision, and assimilation of the immigrants
arriving and residing in the state. The creation of this
bureau resulted from the investigations and recom-
mendations of an Immigration Commission authorized
by the legislature of 1908, and it was the first attempt
by an American state to organize deliberately the
forces and agencies of Americanization under a public
authority, and to create the administrative agencies
necessary to further the work of assimilation. l
Believing that an alien's first impression, his first experiences on
arrival, and his first contract with American institutions, are the
most lasting; that if his property rights and liberty are not respected
on arrival he can not be expected to respect those of people resident
here; and that if he has not been given a square deal he will later
visit his early experiences upon his newly arrived brothers; the state
has undertaken, so far as its facilities permit, to make these early
experiences forces for real civilization. . . .
The report of the legislative commission brought to light a great
volume of frauds and exploitations practiced upon these foreign-
born people. It emphasized the need for greater correlation of
activities on the part of public and private agencies for their protec-
tion and preparation for citizenship. On the commission's recom-
menc'ation the bureau of industries and immigration was established
with functions broad enough to enable it to become the agency for
inspecting, investigating, and promoting cooperative effort to meet
these increasingly difficult problems.
New Jersey, shortly after New York, appointed an
Immigration Commission to investigate the same
problems in that state, but the legislature did not see
fit to enact the laws it recommended. California, how-
ever, created, in 1914, a permanent Commission of
Immigration and Housing which has during the seven
years of its existence done some of the most effective
work with immigrants that has come to our attention.
1 First Annual Report, New York Bureau of Industries and
Immigration, 1911, p. 15.
257
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
This Commission states its duties and outlines its
responsibilities in the following words:1
All the problems which touch the immigrant take on a distinct
aspect peculiar to no problem of the native born . . . The foreign
born suffers great hardships because, from the moment of his arrival,
he is placed at a disadvantage, and that, in order that he may be
placed on an equal footing with his native-born neighbor, definite
constructive aid must be given him in overcoming his handicaps.
Furthermore ... as the immigrant suffers from his shortcomings so
does the community in which he lives suffer with him.
Ordinarily the immigrant is so situated that he becomes an easy
prey to exploiters, that he finds it almost impossible to get on his
feet economically; misfortune drags him into the overcrowded
quarters of our slums, those breeding places of disease, immorality,
crime, and ignorance; education in English and civics is almost
impossible to attain. Such a man is not on the road to becoming a
useful citizen. Indeed, unguided and unprotected, he is liable to
become a menace. The correction of these evils is no more than a
matter of our own self-protection. . . .
But the immigrant is not merely a potential menace from whom
we must protect ouselves. With the proper encouragement, he may
become a positive source of benefit to our civilization. Each man
brings to our shores certain inherited racial and national talents as
well as certain personal faculties which we may encourage and
develop to our own advantage. . . . The protection of the foreign
born from exploitation, the building up of proper standards, and the
opening up of economic and educational opportunities are what are
involved in the conception of a domestic immigration policy.
About the same time that the California Commission
was created, the city of Cleveland established an Im-
migration Bureau in its Department of Public Welfare
with functions similar to the bureau in the state of
New York. In 1917 Massachusetts also established a
Bureau of Immigration following recommendations of
a legislative commission, and the law creating the
bureau states its purpose as follows:
1 California Commission of Immigration and Housing, Annual
Report, 1916, pp. 131-2.
258
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
It shall be the duty of the bureau to employ such methods, subject
to existing laws, as, in its judgment, will tend to bring into sympa-
thetic and mutually helpful relations the commonwealth and its
residents of foreign origin, to protect immigrants from exploitation
and abuse, to stimulate their acquisition and mastery of the English
language, to develop their understanding of American government,
institutions, and ideals, and generally to promote their assimilation
and naturalization. For the above purposes, the bureau shall have
authority to cooperate with other offices, boards, bureaus, com-
missions, and departments of the commonwealth, and with all
public agencies, federal, state, or municipal. It shall have authority
to investigate the exploitation or abuse of immigrants, and in making
any investigation it may require the attendance of witnesses and the
production of books and documents relating to the matter under
investigation.
We have already mentioned the Delaware Ameri-
canization Committee, which is gradually turning over
its work to the state. The "Service Citizens of Dela-
ware," the organization which finances this work in
cooperation with the state, thus states its purpose
in its last annual report:
Wht n the people of Delaware began three years ago to plan how
they might bring the foreign-born residents of the state closer to
the best life of the American community they called the plans they
made "an Americanization program." The purpose of the move-
ment they thus described has always been very simple and direct.
We referred to it in a previous report as "the planting in the hearts
of all who live under our flag an understanding love for America."
For many immigrants the love they bore the America of their
dreams has faded in cruel disillusionment before a grim reality which
they have learned to call by her name, but which is no less unlike
the America we know than was their first idealistic vision. Those
of us who have found America a country beautiful and dear must
somehow share our experience with our friends from overseas if we
expect them to believe in it, too. There are two ways of doing this.
The first is by the spoken word. The second is by the living deed.
Delaware is using both to reach her foreign born to-day.
259
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
STATE DEPARTMENTS OF IMMIGRANT EDUCATION1
In discussing factory English classes in a preceding
chapter we mentioned the tendency of state and local
school authorities to take over the responsibility for
instruction in these classes. The prevailing system
at the present time is for the employer to furnish the
classroom with heat, light, and other equipment while
the schools furnish instruction, supervision, and educa-
tional material. In Massachusetts, New York, Pennsyl-
vania, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, California, and
other states divisions of immigrant education have been
established, for the purpose of giving special attention
to the schooling of adult immigrants, and classes con-
ducted by school authorities in the daytime at the
place of employment have proved to be the most
effective means to the end desired. In states where no
special laws have been enacted providing for adult
immigrant education, local school authorities have been
just as eagerly entering into arrangements for "co-
operative classes" in the factories.
These cooperative classes have emerged as the most
successful method of teaching English to immigrant
wage earners, after many experiments with public
evening schools and factory classes conducted by em-
ployers, both of which failed to bring the results which
were expected of them.
The old idea of community responsibility for the
education of adult immigrants was limited to the
1 For much of the material in this section we are indebted to an
unpublished report by John T. Mahoney and Charles M. Herlihy
entitled "Industry and the Non-English Speaking Employee." Mr.
Herlihy is now supervisor of Americanization in the Massachusetts
Department of Education, and Mr. Mahoney formerly occupied
the same position.
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
establishment of evening schools. The facilities for
evening instruction were provided in most of the larger
cities, but the idea seemed to be that the instruction
was for the benefit of the immigrant only, and if he
chose not to take advantage of it or was unable to do
so, after a long day's work, so much the worse for him.
The result was that only the unusually ambitious took
advantage of the evening schools and the main body of
non-English-speaking immigrants was left untouched.
During the war, when the presence of great numbers
of illiterate and non-English-speaking immigrants in
industrial plants began to be recognized as a danger
to industry as well as to the community, factory classes
sprang up like mushrooms. All sorts of pressure was
brought to force attendance at these classes and almost
any foreman or clerk who was willing to undertake the
work was considered competent to teach the classes.
The result of this, as we have seen,1 was that the classes
died out as fast as new ones were being started.
As a result of this experience with evening schools,
a few states enacted compulsory attendance laws for
illiterate minors.2 But the model act designed to
provide English instruction for adult immigrant wage
earners is that of Massachusetts, adopted in 1919.
This law authorizes the holding of classes in industrial
establishments and other convenient places, and pro-
vides for state aid to local educational authorities who
undertake the work to the extent of fifty per cent of
the expense.3
1 Chapter VI.
2 See Thompson, Schooling of the Immigrant, Chapter X, for details
of these laws.
3 "The Massachusetts Law. General Laws, Chapter 69, Sec-
tions 9 and 10. Section 9. The department (of education) with
the cooperation of any town applying therefor, may provide for
such instruction in the use of English for adults unable to speak,
261
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
A national conference of educational directors in
industrial plants was held in Nantasket in June, 1919,
and this conference came to the same conclusion that
public educational authorities had reached. They re-
commended :
"1. That instruction in English for non-English-speaking people
should be carried on in cooperation with the public educational
forces, provided those forces are prepared and will assume the respon-
sibility. We pledge our aid in our respective communities to bring
about this cooperation.
"2. That the industrial representatives here gathered disap-
prove making naturalization a condition of employment."
Pursuant to the Massachusetts law the State Depart-
ment of Education and the Associated Industries of
Massachusetts held a conference under joint auspices,
and at that conference the following report on state
policies and procedure with respect to adult immigrant
education was adopted:1
POLICIES
(1) The significant statement has been made in this conference
that 800,000 immigrants landed on our shores during the year end-
ing June 30, 1920, in contrast with 141,000 the previous year. The
read, or write the same, and in the fundamental principles of govern-
ment and other subjects adapted to fit for American citizenship,
as shall jointly be approved by the local school committee and the
department. Schools and classes established therefor may be held
in public school buildings, in industrial establishments, or in such
other places as may be approved in like manner. Teachers and
supervisors employed therein by a town shall be chosen and their
compensation fixed by the school committee, subject to the ap-
proval of the department.
"Section 10. At the expiration of each school year, and on
approval by the department, the commonwealth shall pay to every
town providing such instruction in conjunction with the depart-
ment, one half the amount expended therefor by such town for said
year."
1 Massachusetts Department of Education, Division of University
Extension, Americanization Letter No. 5.
262
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
immigrant tide is again on the rise. America welcomes these new-
comers from overseas. America has learned, however, the danger
of allowing in our midst thousands who are with us but not of us,
mainly because of the language barrier. Hence the imperative need
of education in English and the principles of American citizenship
to the end that OUT American institutions may endure.
(2) Thousands of our non-English-speaking immigrants are to
be found in the industries. Because of this, the cooperation of
the industries with the educational authorities will go far to help
us solve the difficult problem of assimilation. The spirit of co-
operation between the industries and the schools displayed at this
conference is a happy augury of achievement for the coming year.
We believe that the delegates here gathered should do everything
within their power to spread this cooperation over a wider and
wider area.
(3) The education of the immigrant is a public function, and
wherever possible should be carried on by public educational authori-
ties, in accordance with the plans formulated by the State Depart-
ment of Education following out the provisions of Chapter 295,
Acts of 1919. Industry should avail itself of the educational facili-
ties offered by the public schools, and should cooperate in every
feasible way to perfect these facilities.
(4) Public educational authorities must appreciate that adequate
plans for educating the immigrant call for the expenditure of many
times more money than is now being provided. The choice, however,
is between illiteracy which breeds anarchy, and education which
indoctrinates good citizenship. There is nothing between. This
convention goes on record as endorsing a generous expenditure of
public funds for this public work, and urges that public educational
authorities everywhere become more keenly alive to their duty in
this field of educational endeavor.
(5) The Americanization movement has been subject to some
criticism because the term Americanization has been given so many
false connotations. We believe in an Americanization which has
for its end the making of good American citizens by developing in
the mind of everyone who inhabits American soil an appreciation
of the principles and practices of good American citizenship. We
conceive of Americanization as a process of giving, not of taking
away. We believe that English is only the first step in this process,
but it is a very necessary step, and the task to which the school
should primarily address itself. We deplore wholesale denuncia-
tions of immigrant groups as constituting a menace to our American
institutions. We hold to the opinion that Americanization should
not be compuslory. And we boldly express our confidence that if
263
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
we in the true spirit of America will do our duty towards the immi-
grant, he will not be found wanting in his attitude towards that
America which native born and immigrant are together daily build-
ing.
Procedures
To carry out the foregoing policies, this Committee, after care-
fully analyzing the findings of the industrial and the school groups
and considering the suggestions given in discussion, recommends
the following set-up for the two agencies, respectively:
(1) The Schools:
(a) Accept provisions of Chapter 295, Acts of 1919.
(6) Appropriate enough money to get the work well done.
(c) Provide for classes in industries whenever organized.
(d) Provide a director of immigrant education.
(e) Train and supervise teachers.
(/) Provide suitable text material, including motion pic-
tures.
(g) Organize courses of study.
(2) The Industries:
(a) Centralize responsibility in a plant director or com-
mittee or other effective agency.
(6) Conduct preliminary study to learn the extent and
nature of the problem.
(c) Recruit classes.
(d) Provide satisfactory school accommodations.
(e) Establish an efficient follow-up.
(/) Provide incentives.
(g) Collaborate in training teachers and in providing special
text material.
As a corollary to the above, we endorse the report of the Findings
Committee of the industrial group to the effect that "no dictum
should be expressed as to the time when classes in industry should
be held. Each industry should decide this question on the basis
of its own hours of labor and other working conditions." Further-
more, we hold with them that any community plan for the education
of the immigrant will be successful only when it has received full
endorsement and support from both management and workers in
industry, and from teachers and all other responsible parties in the
school. And, finally, we most heartily concur in their findings that
any cooperative program such as is suggested above will be effective
only when based on mutual confidence and respect on the part of
the two agencies, each for the other."
264
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
That this new policy of government responsibility
for English classes in industrial establishments promises
to overcome the failures of the earlier efforts with
evening schools and classes conducted entirely by
employers is evident from the following records of the
factory classes conducted by public school authorities
in Massachusetts since the law referred to was enacted :
Year Number of Classes
1919-20 131
1920-21 827
1921-22 366
Most significant in this record is the increase in the
number of classes during the years of industrial depres-
sion and restriction of immigration. In many states
where public responsibility for such instruction had
not been assumed, as in Massachusetts, factory classes
dwindled and disappeared as industries were struck
by the depression.
COMPLAINT OR TROUBLE BUREAUS
In his attempts to adjust himself to American industrial
conditions the immigrant often gets into trouble
because of his ignorance, his inability to speak English,
and the presence of people in every community who are
ready to take advantage of the helpless. The govern-
ment that desires to assure the immigrant the protec-
tion of our laws and to assist him in the process of
adjustment must find out what his troubles are.
So in California the Commission of Immigration
and Housing reports:1
From the start the Bureau of Complaints became the point of
contact between the state and the people whom the Commission
was to serve. From the start it became evident that it was to be
1 Annual Report. 1919, pp. 13-14.
265
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the chief protective branch of the Commission and from the start its
work divided itself into three parts. . . .
Not to theorize concerning the problems and difficulties met
with by newly arrived immigrants, but to find out from the immi-
grants themselves what those facts are, this was the first work of
the complaint bureau. ... In the capacity of clinic, the bureau
takes up the work of research. . . . Here the causes of the immi-
grant's difficulties are sought out.
Then the individual complaints are adjusted. Land frauds, in-
surance frauds, wage claims, industrial accidents, bad housing condi-
tions, unsanitary camps, and unnumbered other difficulties are
referred to their proper departments and settled in the best way
possible.
The work of legislation forms the third part of the work and is
the logical end of research. And the Commission takes just pride
in the laws which have been enacted for the protection of the stranger.
Similarly in Delaware: l
Our attempt to demonstrate to the foreign people of Delaware
that America is in very truth the land of "liberty and justice for
all" would be empty indeed if we ignored the tragic injustices and
misunderstandings that do occur and have done so much to destroy
the foreigner's faith in the country of his adoption.
If we are unwilling to face these facts and to take definite steps
to change them, all our fine phrases about patriotism will be worse
than wasted. That is why we could not feel that we were keeping
faith with the foreign people of Delaware or with the fair name of
America if we did not have some such institution as the "Trouble
Bureau" to which any sort of a problem affecting immigrant resi-
dents can be brought for solution.
The nature of the troubles and the kind of assistance
immigrant wage earners need may be gathered from
the experience of the Massachusetts Bureau of Immi-
gration: 2
The Bureau has received numerous applications for assistance
regarding collection of wages. The Bureau in no sense aims to act
as a collection agency, but difficulties due to the migration of the
immigrant from place to place, his inability to speak English or write
1 Americanization in Delaware, 192Q-21, p.87.
2 First Annual Report, 1919, p. 18.
266
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
for himself concerning money due him, the uncertain delivery of
mail, and the confusion which sometimes arises from the use of
check numbers were often eliminated by friendly correspondence
with the employer, which cleared up many of the misunderstandings —
frequently those of the employee — in the matter of wage contracts.
Such cases as could not be settled by friendly intermediation were
referred to the State Board of Labor and Industries, if the evidence
warranted such reference, or to the Legal Aid Society.
Once the work of a government agency becomes
known, immigrants come to it not only with their
complaints, but also with requests for information and
advice.1
Men come to ask concerning laws on land, on wages, on naturaliza-
tion, on housing, on bad camps. Men come for help with money
orders, with letters, with loans, with investments. The Commis-
sion's agents must know how a divorce is obtained, where free
blankets and free seed samples are to be had, must be able to advise
on labor unions and pastimes, on charities and dentists — on every-
thing which touches human life.
The Bureau2 has aimed to become a clearing house of information
useful to the immigrant, whose ignorance of the language renders
him particularly liable to misunderstanding, fraud, and abuse. He
is often ignorant of the civic, social, and philanthropic resources of
the community. ... In many cases our service has been to per-
sonally bring the applicant coming for advice and assistance into
direct contact with the proper agency. Often additional aid in
interpretation has been given because of ignorance by the applicant
of the English language. In many cases, a preliminary investiga-
tion by the Bureau assisted in the solution of the problem by the
agency to which it was assigned. From the beginning of the Bureau,
September, 1917, up to December 1, 1918, 3905 applications for
service have been made at the Bureau on which it has been neces-
sary to have correspondence. For the same period of time, 2018
applications for service have been made which needed no corre-
spondence.
1 Annual Report, California Commission of Immigration and
Housing, January, 1919, p. 15.
2 First Annual Report, Massachusetts Bureau |ofjjmmigration,
March, 1919, p. 13.
267
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
The complaints registered with immigration bureaus
and the nature of the advice and information sought,
have been the best guides for these public agencies as
to the methods to be pursued in accomplishing their
tasks. Among the complaints and requests for assist-
ance, industrial maladjustments stand out most
prominently. Of the 10,800 complaints received by
the New York Bureau in 1918 over 2500 were claims
for wages, more than 1300 related to employment
agencies, 511 concerned conditions in labor camps.1
Of the 5000 cases handled by the Massachusetts
Bureau during the first year of its existence, 102 related
to employment, 179 to compensation for injuries,
100 to claims for wages.2 And the California Com-
mission reports almost 2000 wage claims, 483 industrial
accidents and compensation claims, 812 cases of breach
of contract, 400 cases of employment agency frauds
and misrepresented employment, 927 complaints of
unsanitary labor camps and 460 land frauds of a total
of 7200 complaints between January 1, 1916 and July
1, 1918.3
The need of better industrial adjustments which
these complaints show cannot be met by the action
of a public bureau for immigrants alone. Licensing,
inspection, and supervision of private employment
bureaus are usually in the hands of another authority.
The State Department of Labor commonly conducts
the public employment bureaus, and where wage pay-
ment laws have been enacted these, too, are enforced
by labor departments. Industrial accidents are handled
1 Annual Report of the Industrial Commission of New York,
1919, p. 214.
2 First Annual Report Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration,
p. 42.
'Annual Report of California Commission of Immigration and
Housing, 1919, pp. 6JMJ9.
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
by workmen's compensation commissions, and condi-
tions in factories and labor camps are supervised by
various authorities. The bureaus for immigrants,
however, undertake the duty of making these public
agencies function for the immigrant, bring him in
contact with them, impress upon them the special
needs of the immigrant, and assist them in giving the
special services that he needs.
PUBLICITY MEASURES
It is not enough to have a bureau where complaints
may be made and advice secured. Many will come, but
many more will never hear of the bureau, and active
efforts are needed to reach the immigrant. A public
authority desiring to help the stranger in its jurisdic-
tion cannot afford to wait for him to learn through
his own efforts of the existence of a bureau for immi-
grants. It must advertise.
To tell the immigrant that the government is ready
to lend a helping hand various expedients are used.
The Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration placards
railway stations, public buildings, factories, churches,
etc., with notices in English and in numerous foreign
languages making its existence known, giving the loca-
tion of its offices, the office hours, and the character
of the services rendered to immigrants. This bureau
also uses local correspondents to acquaint the foreign
born with its work in cities and towns where it has no
branch office, but where any considerable number of
them live.
The Cleveland City Bureau published small hand-
books in various languages, describing its operations
as well as the services that other agencies in the city
were ready to render to immigrants. These were
widely distributed in the districts where the foreign
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
born live, and given to the arriving immigrants at the
depots.
In New York the Bureau of Industries and Immigra-
tion established a press information bureau and kept
almost a thousand foreign-language newspapers sup-
plied with information relating to the activities of the
bureau. A file was created showing the editors, loca-
tion, and nationality of each paper, and the policy
and nature of the material it uses. Through this
medium any group of aliens could be immediately
reached. Realizing that prosecutions and remedies in
individal cases will not necessarily prevent further
frauds, a group of fifty newspapers, representing all
nationalities and languages, was selected by the New
York Bureau early in its existence, and whenever wide-
spread frauds were detected and proved, exploiters
apprehended, or fraudulent institutions closed, notice
was sent to these papers, asking them to acquaint
their countrymen with the facts.
A placard widely distributed by the California
Commission of Immigration and Housing was this
organization's first step in making its existence
known to the foreign born of California. This
was printed in twelve different languages and offered
assistance to immigrants. These posters were placed
conspicuously in all immigrant centers throughout
the state.
This Commission is firm in the belief that Americani-
zation must begin before the immigrant can learn
English, that his need of knowing America and her
institutions is greatest before he can hope to under-
stand the language. Aside from the regular inter-
preters, therefore, it sends foreign-language speakers
among the immigrants of the state to make clear to
them in their own tongue those things which perplex
and baffle them in their new environment. They
270
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
explain the laws which so often the foreign born trans-
gress through ignorance; they learn the grievances of
immigrant laborers in labor camps and act as mediators
between them and their employers; they make clear
to the newcomers their duties to their new country as
well as their rights and privileges.
SUPERVISION OF WORK PLACES
Labor camps on construction works, in the woods, on
railroads and in connection with mining, road building,
reclamation projects, and harvesting fruits, hops, and
other agricultural products are typical work places of
the newly arrived immigrant. In New York the Bureau
of Industries and Immigration has power only to inspect
these and to make recommendations, but the California
Commission in 1915 was also given authority to enforce
the Labor Camp Sanitation Law. The Commission
prepared plans and specifications with drawings and
descriptions for building and maintaining sanitary
labor camps, and its agents assist superintendents in
making camps habitable and up to standard at a
minimum of expense.
As a result of five years' work in this direction, labor
and living conditions in California's camps have been
revolutionized and, whereas in previous years strikes
and riots were common forms of rebellion against
unsanitary camp conditions, no serious labor trouble
of this kind has arisen recently. In the lumber camps
the Commission visited when it began its work only
one bath was found. At present practically every
lumber camp in the state has bathing facilities. The
standards of sanitation for fruit, berry, and miscel-
laneous camps have been entirely changed, and in con-
nection with these the Commission has evolved plans
of community camps, a number of small holders erecting
271
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
a camp at a central point and operating it jointly,
thus making it possible to maintain decent camps
which no small holder could individually afford. Rail-
road companies are building model car camps for their
section and extra gangs and bridge crews, and mine
operators have made many improvements in their
camp conditions.
What these improvements may mean to the country
as well as to the immigrant is suggested in a letter from
a ranch superintendent to the Commission. He wrote :
During the past summer there was a labor shortage in the Im-
perial Valley. While many other farmers in the valley were unable
to handle their crops promptly on account of shortage of men, we
scarcely felt the shortage at all. . . . We attribute this largely to
our housing accommodations. . . . We farmers must realize that
the farm laborers, as in fact almost all laborers, have really never
had a fair chance and are entitled to better things. . . . Imperial
Valley farmers should show good profits, provided they can get
their crops harvested. . . . Part of these profits rightfully should
and must go into the installation of sanitary labor camps and living
accommodations.
It makes little difference whether the enforcing of
American standards of working and living conditions
for the immigrant is entrusted by law directly to the
immigrant protective authority, as in California, or is
left to other authorities as in New York and Massa-
chusetts. The bureau for immigrants must, however,
have power to investigate, inspect, supervise, and
recommend the special measures necessary to insure
American standards for the immigrant which it learns
to know from its daily contact with him.
EDUCATION AND NATURALIZATION
The work of fostering citizenship may be illustrated by
the Division of Naturalization in the Massachusetts
Bureau of Immigration. The division gives assistance
272
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
in filling out both first and second papers, it explains
and eliminates technical difficulties, and it organizes
instruction for better preparation for citizenship. Lists
of those eligible for second papers are kept on file, and
letters are sent to declarants informing them of the
assistance and instruction available to prospective
citizens and by whom given in all the communities of
the state. There are many educational agencies willing
and anxious to give this instruction to immigrants.
The division helps to organize classes, and it conducts
conferences and classes for practical training of teachers
of citizenship. The difficulties and complaints brought
by the immigrant to the Bureau are discussed by the
teachers and they learn to teach not the right and duties
contained in formal legal documents, but the living
responsibilities and privileges that the foreign born
may encounter in their daily experiences.
INADEQUATE APPROPRIATIONS
These descriptions are sufficient to indicate the nature
of the responsibilities which some states and municipal
governments have assumed toward the immigrant
worker and the manner in which they attempt to meet
these responsibilities.
It should be mentioned also that the California Com-
mission and the New York Bureau of Industries and
Immigration are given authority to inspect and super-
vise employment agencies dealing with immigrants,
labor camps where immigrants are employed, docks,
ferries, and other landing places of immigrants, rela-
tions between immigrants, and steamship or railroad
ticket agents, banking and savings institutions and
sheltering of immigrants in hotels and lodging houses.
The New York Bureau licenses lodging houses and the
California Commission is given broad authority over
273
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
the housing conditions of the immigrant population
of the state.
Unfortunately, however, only the California Com-
mission has received anything like adequate financial
support to enable the work to be carried on. The
New York Bureau began with an appropriation of less
than $10,000 and much of its work had to be done by
volunteers and with financial aid from private sources.
By 1914 the appropriation was increased to $26,000,
but in 1917 it was cut to $19,500. A report on the
administration of this bureau by the New York Bureau
of Municipal Research made in 1917 showed that 1
In two years the number of employees has been reduced from
twenty-nine to sixteen, and the salaries of those retained have also
been reduced. . . . The work described does not measure up to the
possibilities for constructive undertaking in the field covered by the
law creating this bureau. It shows lack of vision and efficient
administration. The broad functions laid down for the bureau
at the time it was established are of no less importance now than
then. The bureau can be of inestimable service to the state. To
abolish it would be a step backward. What is needed, rather, is a
complete reorganization and the preparation of a thoroughgoing
program for its work in the future.
A visit to the Cleveland Bureau not long ago showed
a similar decline in activities. It seems to be assumed
that because fewer immigrants have been arriving
during the last few years, therefore, there is less need
for the activities of the bureau. California seems to
realize that the primary work of its immigration com-
mission is protection and help in assimilating the aliens
that are already with us, but in most states, while
great interest is evidenced in educational and naturali-
zation work, little attention is given to the establish-
ment and maintenance of public protective and guiding
agencies which are needed to lay the basis for a proper
1 American Labor Legislation Review, June, 1917, pp. 451-462.
274
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
adjustment of immigrants. The Massachusetts Bureau
of Immigration began with an appropriation of $10,000
in 1919. Since then it has been made a division of the
Massachusetts Department of Education, and in 1922
its appropriation was $37,500.
A UNIFIED POLICY
Public policy with respect to the foreign born has
become confused since the days when immigrants were
solicited to come to our land and inducements given
them to stay and become part of us, equal members of
a new American nation.
Then our duty was clear. The stranger's necessities
in earning a living had to be safeguarded. He had to
be assured equal opportunities to adjust himself to
the economic life of the country. Laws were enacted
by our states to safeguard the immigrant's right to
acquire, own, and dispose of property; to look after
the comfort and welfare of aliens in transit across the
states; to assist those who became residents in finding
work and proper boarding places; and to care for the
orphans of deceased immigrants. In New York mas-
ters of vessels were required to report to the mayor the
name, age, occupation, place of birth, and other infor-
mation about each incoming immigrant passenger, and
every alien who was landed was required to report
himself to the mayor, so that the city might know its
newcomers and proper care could be given to them.1
When, however, the federal government adopted the
policy of immigration restriction, the exclusion from
the country of those who were considered undesirable
was carried over into the states in laws and policies of
1 First Annual Report of the New York Bureau of Industries and
Immigration, 1911, p. 11. See also Report of the U. S. Immigration
Commission, vol. 39, State Immigration and Alien Laws, p. 489.
275
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
exclusion from economic opportunities and rights that
citizens enjoy.
This meant not only conflict of policy between the
nation, which permits the immigrant to enter and the
states which limit his opportunities for employment;
but also confusion in the mind of the immigrant as to
whether it is desired that he should become an Ameri-
can and as to what he may or may not do in America.
If we do not want immigrants among us, working side
by side with American workmen, living as neighbors
and equals of Americans, then let us keep them out.
But they cannot be admitted to the country and at the
same time opportunities for earning a livelihood denied
them and handicaps placed in their way to prevent
raising of their standards — if we are to remain a united
nation. If those aliens who are admitted by the federal
government are not to be reduced to the position of a
subject class, if we want all that live among us to
develop a common American mind, then the old policy
of the states toward alien residents must be re-estab-
lished.
To accomplish this, the repeal of discriminatory
laws is necessary first. But this negative action alone
will not suffice. Positive measures and constructive
governmental agencies are also needed to insure pro-
tection and guidance to the strangers in our midst,
and to make certain that they are put on an equality
with their American neighbors in their struggles for a
footing and existence in America. The States of
Massachusetts, New York, Delaware, and California,
and the City of Cleveland have pointed the way for
the nation to follow, and they have developed the
methods which need but to be extended and expanded.
For, in the words of the Delaware bureau: l
* Bulletin, September, 1921, p. 50.
276
THE GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSIBILITY
These services, important as they are to the individuals to whom
they are rendered, have an even greater significance to the com-
munity. Not one in ten of those whom the bureau reaches gives
the credit for benefits received to the Delaware Americanization
Committee. It all goes to "America." The first experience in
the new land is often bitter and discouraging; but this is the faith
that has been put into the hearts of the immigrant people of Delaware:
"No matter what happens, America cares, America helps, America
never willfully neglects her adopted children."
277
CHAPTER XIV
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
PRACTICALLY every immigrant race and nationality
has formed some kind of organization to assist new-
comers of its own kind to self-support in this country.
In addition, groups of immigrants of various national-
ities have developed other agencies for meeting special
problems in connection with finding work, with trade-
union control of jobs, and with employers' policies, as
well as with efforts to keep down the cost of living.
IMMIGRANT AID SOCIETIES
The earliest and most familiar of these organizations
are the immigrant aid societies, which concern them-
selves mainly with new arrivals. Their purposes may
be gathered from a statement of the president of one
of the oldest and most successful of them, the Hebrew
Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society: 1
Away back in the eighties, at the outset of the early immigration,
when the pioneer Jewish immigrants who came here had neither
kith nor kin to receive them, the Jewish Community acted as their
relative pro tern, and looked after their welfare until they became
independently self-supporting. In so doing they were maintaining
the sacred covenant of the first Jewish immigrants to guard and
cherish their own poor and to administer to their own sick. . . . Our
Society has assumed the r61e of Agent for the Community and
welcomes the new arrival as a guest for a short time, affording the
means for him to reach his relatives. . . . We must know what be-
comes of him, and make sure that he finds what he is seeking — a
home and a living. We owe a debt also to our country, in that we
1 Address of President, Annual Meeting, January 21, 1912.
278
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
must be sure that each newcomer from our own race is an acquisi-
tion to, and not an incubus upon, the country, that he is sell-support-
ing, and that he duly falls into the ranks as an American.
To make sure that he finds a home and a living, that
he is self-supporting and that he duly falls into the
ranks as an American — these are the results to be
achieved from successful adjustment of immigrani and
industry. Concretely the "objects" of the Hebrew
Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, as stated in its
constitution, are:
To facilitate the landing of Jewish immigrants at Ellis Island;
to provide for them temporary shelter, food, clothing, and such
other aid as may be deemed necessary; to guide them to their destina-
tion; to prevent them from becoming public charges and help them
to obtain employment; to discourage their settling in congested
cities; to maintain bureaus of information and publish literature
on the industrial, agricultural, and commercial status of the country;
to disseminate knowledge of the United States Immigration Laws
in the centers of emigration in Europe with a view of preventing
undesirable persons from emigrating to the United States; to foster
American ideals among the newcomers and to instill patriotism and
love for their adopted country through the medium of lectures and
literary publications.
The Society begins its work abroad. An information
bureau sends circulars and warnings to foreign co-
operating societies, to prevent people from leaving their
homes who cannot hope to be admitted to the United
States. The number who are deported is still large and
the Society is giving careful consideration to methods
of preventing people liable to deportation from leaving
their homes. Plans are afoot to elect men of the highest
standing in Europe as members of the Advisory Board
of the Society and also to station at the leading sea-
ports of Europe representatives of the society, trained
in this country, whose business it would be to warn
immigrants likely to be refused admittance to the
United States from embarking.
279
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
At Ellis Island the Society has stationed a representa-
tive who meets and greets people of his own nationality
who have not been called for by relatives or friends.
He turns them over to guides, who take them to the
home of the Society. Here they are carefully ques-
tioned as to the name, address, and relationship of the
people to whom they are destined, and a staff of guides
is employed to deliver them safely to the addresses
which they have. If an immigrant's address proves
to be wrong, the guide brings him back to the home,
where he is given lodging and board until his friends
can be located. An advertisement is then inserted
in the Jewish daily papers, giving the name and a full
description of the immigrant who has arrived, and
asking readers to inform the Society of the present
whereabouts of the people whose address he had.
Almost invariably this method leads to prompt dis-
covery of friends or relatives of the immigrant.
The immigrant who is destined to mere acquaintances
and not to relatives remains at the home until a
representative of the Society ascertains what they are
able and willing to do for him. If it is found best to
keep the immigrant at the home and assist him to
establish himself, it is done without hesitation, and
work is sought for him through the Society's Employ-
ment Bureau.
The employment agent in charge of this bureau
solicits work for immigrants from employers who are
in a position to use such labor. Many of the immigrants
wish to observe the Jewish Sabbath and all the Jewish
holy days, and employers are sought who will permit
this. Then there are those who have no trades what-
ever and for whom must be found opportunities for
learning a trade, while those having occupations must
be placed in positions where they can learn American
methods of work. In many cases the immigrant has
280
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
to be guided to his place of employment until he be-
comes familiar with the streets and car lines. The
guides of the Society are used for this purpose.
How the immigrant is assisted in dealing with work
problems that confront him at the very beginning of
his career in America, is thus described by the employ-
ment agent of the Society;
In case of difficulties arising in respect to wages, etc., the Em-
ployment Bureau has settled these matters without having recourse
to court proceedings. . . . Through the agency of the Bureau, immi-
grants detained at Ellis Island have been admitted when it was
shown that there were bona fide offers of employment. . . . When
offers of employment came from cities outside of New York, the
standing of the employer and local conditions, whether there is a
strike, etc., were carefully investigated, and not until it was made
certain that the immigrant would be well placed was he allowed
to proceed to the destination. . . . The Employment Bureau has
made arrangements with many labor unions, whereby concessions
for immigrants applying for admission to these labor organizations
have been obtained.
The Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society
maintains branch offices in Baltimore, Boston, Phila-
delphia, San Francisco, and Seattle, and it is supported
by voluntary contributions from its members and from
other Jewish organizations.
Almost every other race and nationality has a similar
organization doing similar work at the ports of entry.
The Polish National Alliance maintains a home in
New York City for Polish, Lithuanian, and Ruthenian
immigrants who do not promptly locate relatives or
friends. It maintains a representative at Ellis Island;
furnishes information and employment; investigates
cases of abuse against immigrants, and aids them
in their complaints or grievances against unlawful
treatment. The Irish Emigrant Society and the Ger-
man Society of New York jointly maintain an Immi-
grant Labor Bureau which seeks work for immigrants
281
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
throughout the country and places them in positions
free of charge. Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Norwe-
gian, Italian, Greek, and Belgian societies do the
same work of meeting people of their nationalities at
Ellis Island, sheltering them and placing them in
employment, as well as affording that guidance and
protection which the newcomer so sorely needs. In
addition, there are religious and missionary societies
engaged in similar work.
The work of the Society for Italian Immigrants is
probably more extensive than that of any other of these
organizations. It has given temporary lodging to more
than 22,000 Italians in a single year, and has found
employment and aided in various other ways as many
as 45,000 a year. This society also meets immigrants
at Ellis Island and guides them to their destination or
to a place of shelter. It conducts a lodging house for
Italian immigrants temporarily in New York, main-
tains an employment bureau, and affords protection
of all kinds that immigrants need. In addition, it
establishes and conducts schools for Italians in labor
camps and maintains agents on steamship docks, to
assist Italians leaving the United States to return to
their native lands. It is supported by voluntary con-
tributions and also by a subsidy from the Italian
Government. Says the New York State Bureau of
Industries and Immigration:1
It is obvious that the sudden influx of thousands of reservists
into the city and their concentration here awaiting embarkation
during the winter months would have created a hardship had not
the situation been so admirably handled by this society. The fact
that this Bureau has not received a single complaint in consequence
of these extraordinary conditions attending the arrival and depar-
ture of 81,000 Italian emigrants, and that the Society for Italian
Immigrants has cared for, housed, and assisted 45,495 aliens, the
Fifth Annual Report, 1915, p. 28.
282
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
bulk of whom arrived in this city during the past seven months, is
the most remarkable achievement ever attained by an institution
of this character. This society is highly organized and its agencies
coordinate throughout the United States and Italy. . . . The im-
mense number of 2313 immigrants were lodged by the society
during the year 1915, totaling 44,024 days maintenance, j* total
of 25,058 Italians were met at railroad stations and accompanied
to steamship docks direct and 20,437 were met at railroad stations
and accompanied to the society, making a total of 45,495 Italians
assisted during this year by this society. . . . The statistical report
of the society for 1915 is a truly remarkable document and its activi-
ties for the year 1915 are highly commended by this Department as
a social and economic benefit not only to Italian immigrants but to
the state as well.
IMMIGRANT DISTRIBUTION AGENCIES
The Society for Italian Immigrants and most of the
other immigrant aid societies attempt through their
employment bureaus to direct their people away from
the congested centers of immigrant populations, as far
as this can possibly be done with non-English-speaking
immigrants. Jewish philanthropists and social workers,
however, have developed a specialized agency, known
as the Industrial Removal office, to distribute Jewish
immigrants over the land and help them settle in the
more sparsely settled centers where the process of
adjustment would naturally be less difficult. It was
clear that if the Jewish immigrant population was to
reap the full benefit of the opportunities offered in the
new land, many of them would have to settle in the less
congested cities, where competition was less severe and
housing conditions more favorable.
A beginning was made when the Baron de Hirsch
Fund supplied transportation to those immigrants who
had expectations of employment outside the large
cities, or who had relatives or friends in small towns
willing to receive them and care for them. In 1900 the
Industrial Removal Office was organized through the
283
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
cooperation of the National Conference of Jewish
Charities and with the aid of Jewish communal agencies
throughout the country. Since that time this organiza-
tion, maintained by the Jewish people for the distri-
bution of Jewish immigrants, has been more or less
of a model of what proper distribution work ought to be.
The work of the Industrial Removal Office is thus
described in the Jewish Communal Register of New
York City.1
To bring home the importance of the proper distribution of
Jewish immigrants, educational work was at first carried on among
the newly arrived immigrants and in the interior communities
through every available agency of publicity. Within a few years
after the movement was first inaugurated, the work of the office
and the number of applicants had assumed such large proportions
that it became possible to discontinue practically every form of
propaganda, as the reports of the successful settlement of a great
majority of persons sent by the organization to the interior, brought
to the central office a larger number of desirable applicants than it
could properly make provision for.
The general method of procedure was to receive applications for
removal at the central office in New York, to make a careful physical
examination of the applicant, to secure if possible evidence of good
moral character and fair competence in some trade, to select from
carefully compiled data on industrial opportunities throughout the
United States a community where the applicant and his family, if
he had any, could make a reasonable living, to make arrangements
for his reception, and then to keep in touch with him through the
local agencies and the traveling agents of the central office. While
in some cities the entire work is in the hands of a paid agent of the
central office, who works under the supervision of a small committee,
composed of representative members of the community, in other
localities it is the function of the Independent Order B'nai B'rith.
In the smaller communities the Rabbi is the acting representative
of the central organization.
From 1900 to 1917 almost 74,000 people were sent
from New York City to about 1500 cities and towns
1 Published by the Kehillah (Jewish Community), 1918, pp. 1246-
1247.
284
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
situated in every state in the Union. Of these 37,700
were adult wage earners and the rest members of
their families. Over 1500 families were moved,
together with the heads of the families, while 5900
families were moved to join their heads. Married lien
whose families remained in New York numbered 3700
and 11,600 married men were moved whose families
were in Europe. Unmarried men and women, all wage
earners removed from New York, were 17,176. In
addition branch offices, established in Boston and
Philadelphia, distributed from those cities about 5000
individuals, making a total number of removals in
seventeen years close to 79,000.
The Industrial Removal Office is not an employment
bureau. It does not send immigrants directly to
employers who apply for help. The people are sent to
communities where it is thought they can adjust them-
selves most easily. Local committees in these places
receive the immigrants, care for them, and find employ-
ment for them.
IMMIGRANT LABOR FEDERATIONS
In adjusting himself to the trade-union movement of
the country, the immigrant has found it necessary to
develop his own organizations just as he has had to do
in locating himself in the country and finding work.
The prototypes of these labor organizations were the
United German Trades, central labor federations made
up of delegates from German-speaking local unions of
various crafts, which were organized in the 'seventies
and 'eighties in New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, and
St. Louis. These bodies carried on a propaganda for
trade-unionism among German workmen by means of
the labor papers which they supported and published
and by lectures and speaking campaigns. After they
285
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
were thus organized, they could be brought in touch
with American trade-unionists and joined to the lat-
ter's organizations.
An offshoot of these German organizations is still
to be found among the Bohemian wage earners of New
York City, a federated central body consisting of dele-
gates from about a dozen Bohemian local unions.
This body carries on organization campaigns among
Bohemian workers, raises strike funds, distributes relief
during strikes, and conducts negotiations with employ-
ers for local unions affiliated with it.
In 1888 a similar central body of Jewish immigrant
workers was formed in New York City, known as the
United Hebrew Trades. It grew slowly at first, but
now has affiliated with it over a hundred local unions
with a combined membership of more than 250,000
workers. Its purpose is to spread unionism among
Jewish-speaking working people, organize them into
local unions, and affiliate them with the American
trade-union movement. It is recognized by the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor as a valuable aid in bringing
immigrant workers into the American labor movement,
and has the support of that body. It provides leader-
ship and funds during strikes of Jewish unions, con-
ducts negotiations with employers for the weaker
unions, and carries on a constant campaign for trade-
unionism among Jewish wage earners. Similar bodies
have been formed also in Chicago and Philadelphia.
Samuel Gompers, who was a member of the New
York State Factory Investigating Commission, in
questioning the secretary of the United Hebrew Trades
at a hearing of the commission brought out clearly the
relationship between these immigrant labor federations
and the American Labor Movement : 1
1 Preliminary Report of the Factory Investigating Commission,
1912, p. 1628.
286
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
By Commissioner Gompers:
Q. What is your trade, Mr. Weinstein?
A. I was at several trades. The last one was the boiler business.
Originally I was a cigar stripper. I went all the way through.
Most of the time I have been devoted to labor organizations.
Q. You worked with me at one time?
A. I worked with you in the same shop, Mr. Gompers. I was
floor boy in Stachelberg's shop twenty-nine years ago. I used to
pick your cuttings while you made Spanish cigars.
Q. For the information of the Commission and for the value it
may have, will you relate the primary purpose of the United Hebrew
Trades in its organization?
A. We found out that the Jewish-speaking people coming
over into this country, in order not to compete with the workers
over here who were previously in this country, ought not to work
for cheaper wages. At the same time, that they should have better
conditions, better wages, and shorter hours, we found that they
would have to be unionized.
Q. That is it.
A. To keep up the standard of wages.
Q. That is it, to prevent the exploitation of their helplessness,
either to tiieir own injury. . . .
A. That is the main thing.
Q. Or to the injury of America?
A. The main thing is to give the same protection and we have
our hands full with it ... getting short hours now. I remember
twenty-five years ago — not as far as that, but twenty-two years
ago, when the sweating system in the tailoring trade prevailed,
tailors would go to work at three o'clock in the morning and work
until ten o'clock at night. Now the longest they work in the tailor-
ing industry at present is ten hours, not all of them. They average
about nine hours for work, every one of them.
Q. Without going into the details of these matters, is not one of
the purposes of the formation and the work of the United Hebrew
Trades to form a sort of probationary class of Hebrew workmen
who come here as immigrants, so that they may take their position
among the workmen of the United States, who have preceded them?
A. Exactly, but those who are first-class mechanics, they can
join at once.
Q. It is a probationary step?
A. Exactly.
Q. Toward a fuller membership of the workers of America?
A. Exactly so.
287
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
In November, 1919, an Italian federation of this kind
was organized, known as the Italian Chamber of Labor.
At the convention where the organization was formed
there were delegates from the following trades : barbers,
carpenters, excavators, hod carriers, ladies' garment
workers and men's clothing workers, painters and deco-
rators, piano makers, and printers. These delegates
came from local unions whose membership was either
entirely Italian or in large part Italian, and it is claimed
that 30,000 Italian wage earners were represented.
The purpose of the Chamber of Labor is trade-union
organization. It will help the trades in which Italians
are employed and which are not organized or weakly
organized to form strong organizations of labor. In
addition, the Chamber proposes to regulate the flow
of Italian immigration to this country by exchanging
information with the Confederation of Labor in Italy
and discouraging wage earners from coming to this
country when the American labor market is over-
crowded. It issues monthly bulletins in Italian and in
English. At present the Italian Chamber of Labor
operates only in New York City, but it plans to estab-
lish branches in other cities as well.
AN IMMIGRANT BUREAU OF INDUSTRY
In 1914 there was established by the Jews of New
York City a Bureau of Industry to study and deal
with the special industrial problems existing in those
industries where both employers and employees are
mostly Jewish immigrants. This bureau was active
for three or four years, but since then it has practically
ceased functioning. However, its purposes and plan
of operation offer an excellent program of immigrant
self-help in industry, which sooner or later is likely to
be revived.1
1 Jewish Communal Register (1917-18), pp. 1158-1159.
288
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
The Jew in industrial life in this city presents a distinct and
separate problem.
The problem is due largely to the fact that the overwhelming
majority of Jewish workers and employers in the city belong to the
first generation of immigrants, who were trained for indusuy under
conditions entirely different from those obtaining in New York
City at the present time. . . .
Industry, as far as the Jewish population of New York City
is concerned . . . presents the following specific problems: Race
prejudice; Sabbath observance; employment of minor boys; work-
ing girls; oversupply of labor in certain trades and undersupply in
others . . . unsatisfactory relations between employers and em-
ployees; handicapped workers; untrained adult workers.
A comprehensive plan to alleviate the distress and to overcome
the difficulties resulting from this maladjustment presents a problem
of economic and human conservation which only social engineering
by the entire Jewish community can adequately meet. . . .
The Bureau of Industry, through its Division of Surveys, gathers,
analyzes, and interprets the vital facts bearing on the various
specified Jewish industrial problems of the city.
Through the Division of Mediation and Arbitration, it helps
in the development of rational organized effort among groups of
employers and employees. . . . The Bureau mediates in the settle-
ment of strikes and lockouts; it arbitrates specific disputes between
employers and employees submitted to its representatives; it nego-
tiates collective agreements between unions and employers' associa-
tions. . . .
The Division of Employment is for the present conducting an
employment bureau for such workers whose needs at the present
time are not and cannot be met by another agency.
Through its Division of Vocational Guidance and Training . . .
the Bureau of Industry hopes to coordinate and develop facilities
to improve, through training and guidance, the condition of workers,
many of whom have not had, and have not now, full opportunities
to acquire skill in their respective trades and callings.
IMMIGRANT COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES
Another group of organizations have been developed
by the immigrant wage earners to meet their needs as
consumers. These are the cooperative societies.1
1 James Ford, Co-operation in New England, 1913, p. 4.
289
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Many conditions of the immigrant's life in America make co-
operation on racial lines desirable. Newly arrived immigrants are
unfamiliar with American goods and prices, have difficulty in under-
standing and making themselves understood in trade, and when
unorganized are often the victims of fraud. Cooperation is fre-
quently resorted to in self-protection, a linguist from among their
number being chosen store manager. An added reason — that
delicacies from the home country can be imported cheaply in large
quantities.
In the large cities these needs are commonly met by
groceries and other stores, conducted in the ordinary
way by business men of the nationality of the people
inhabiting the neighborhood. Outside the large cities,
however, particularly in mining and steel towns, the
problem of buying the things that he needs and wants
is a serious one for the immigrant. This was first met
by large immigrant mercantile houses conducted by
clan leaders to cater to the wants of the newcomers.
The following description of a Bulgarian mercantile
house in a steel town of the Middle West may be cited
as typical: l
A number of separate enterprises united under one central man-
agement somewhat like an American holding company with sub-
sidiary corporations. The business centers in the banks, which act
as a central point of management, is a clearing house. Mercantile
houses are not incorporated and are usually under an informal
partnership. A typical house of this description will own a number
of brick buildings, usually grouped together, the ground floors used
for business purposes, and the upper floors used for living purposes.
A typical mercantile house includes the following lines of business:
grocery, meat, dry goods and clothing shop, saloon, coffee house,
bakery, bank steamship agency, pool room, theater, real estate and
rental, newspaper, dairy, restaurant, baths.
The stores are as good if not better than the average American
store. Bakeries turn out Bulgarian bread. Direct patronage of
saloons comes from Austrians, Servians, Magyars and Croatians. . . .
These institutions tend to retard Americanization.
1 U. S. Immigration Commission, Iron and Steel Manufacturing,
Vol. II, pp. 107-113.
290
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
The remarkable fact to be noted is that the expansion of business
has been made through the profits realized. We must infer that
profits could not have been earned by ordinary business methods.
They must have made exceptional gains from labor afe?ncies or
similar sources.
These larger mercantile houses control and give the stamp to
the business life of the immigrant sections.
Public opinion is largely influenced by the alien press and the
press in turn is controlled by representative mercantile houses.
The typical mercantile house will have a patronage of from four
to five hundred persons, who look to the manager for advice in all
the affairs of life.
Partly to get away from the influence of these foreign
mercantile houses and from company stores, or as the
miners call them the "Pluck Me" stores, the United
Mine Workers began about eight or nine years ago to
stimulate the organization of cooperative stores in the
mining communities. This movement has attained
its greatest success among the foreign-born miners of
Illinois, where at the present writing there are about
one hundred cooperative societies.1
Successful cooperative enterprises, according to all
authorities, require mutual understanding among the
cooperators and an interest in small savings. It has
been observed by British cooperators that Americans,
as a rule, are not interested in small savings on their
purchases, and this is one of the reasons that coopera-
tion has made so little headway among them. On the
other hand, when mixed races unite in a cooperative
enterprise mutual understanding is likely to be
lacking; and, therefore, the success among coopera-
tives has attended mainly those enterprises which
are carried on by persons of a single racial or national
group.
1 Details of immigrant cooperative societies are omitted here, as
they have been fully described hi the volume of this series entitled
America via the Neighborhood, by John Daniels.
291
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Does this tend to separate such groups from the
American community and thus make adjustment more
difficult? The answer may be found in the values
obtained through cooperation as described by a close
student of the subject : l
There are many values obtained through cooperation not readily
obtainable from other sources. (1) It provides important practical
education in business methods for adult wage earners. (2) It pro-
vides training for citizenship. Questions of broad policy are in-
evitably discussed in meetings of cooperative associations. This
discussion develops knowledge, ability to understand, and to handle
men, which renders the cooperator valuable in public service.
(3) It discovers what Professor Marshall calls "our greatest waste
product," namely the latent abilities of workingmen, and utilizes
those latent abilities not only in the fields of business and citizen-
ship but throughout the entire range of social conduct. (4) It
habituates men to altruistic modes of thought and of conduct. The
motto "each for all and all for each" finds daily expression in co-
operative activities. The more a man buys from the cooperative
shop the more he stabilizes the business and increases his profits and
his neighbor's dividends. (5) It not only increases the income
of individual members, but creates a collective capital which can
be used on occasion to free the working classes from any form of
exploitation.
It is in the isolated immigrant colonies that coopera-
tives among the foreign born have been most success-
ful. The immigrant's activity in these cooperative
societies tends to bring him into contact with American
economic life and to teach him to know it in a way that
few other agencies can provide.
In the state of New York the law concerning co-
operatives provides that the Division of Foods and
Markets shall aid in the organization and operation of
cooperative associations, and agents of the depart-
ment are in constant touch with these immigrant
1 "Distributive Cooperation," address by James Ford at National
Conference of Social Work, Pittsburgh, 1917.
292
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
societies, giving them the encouragement of the
state government. The Director of the Department
writes :
As to the things we are doing to assist consumers' cooperation,
we are first of all at the service of any group of people in the state
who want to start a consumer's or a producer's cooperative enter-
prise. We advise them as to the methods of organizing their under-
taking and how to incorporate it under the laws of the state. Any
group of people interested in cooperation that will communicate
with our Department will receive our assistance. If it is possible a
representative of the Bureau of Cooperative Associations will meet
with the group and help them work out the details of their plans.
We will see that the articles of incorporation are sound from a legal
and business point of view and file them with the Secretary of State.
The same assistance is given in the preparation of by-laws governing
the details of operation of the business. It is our purpose to bring
to the new association the experience of others, to steer them away
from the rocks on which others have capsized. It is our desire that
they come back to us whenever they have problems of organization
or problems of business operation in which the Department can help
them. But we do not attempt or desire to exercise any control
over those organizations, once they have become established on a
sound basis and started to work.
In New York City the consumers' societies may find out from
our office the wholesale market prices on any of the principal food
commodities. If they are in doubt as to whether they are getting a
good price on a commodity, or have doubt as to the quality, and have
no facilities for finding out themselves, we will find out for them.
We will tell them whether or not they are getting fair treatment from
the tradespeople with whom they are dealing. We hope in the near
future to be able to establish a course of training for cooperative
store managers, to teach them, not the principles of cooperation,
because the Cooperative League of America can do that better
than we can, but to teach them the practical details of buying and
store management. The purpose would be to cover the things they
have to know in order to make their store efficient and render the
same quality of service to their customers as their customers can
get elsewhere.
It is also our intention to serve as a clearing house of information
regarding the condition of existing cooperative societies and to
analyze their experience for the benefit of each other and new
societies.
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
There are now twenty-eight states having fairly
comprehensive statutes covering the incorporation of
cooperative businesses. Such direct contact as this
between all these states and the immigrant coopera-
tives would not only bring the members of these socie-
ties more quickly into adjustment with American
economic life, but it would also bring to the American
people a contribution in thrift, efficiency, and social
outlook in the ordinary business of supplying daily
needs that would be of the utmost value to the nation.
COMMUNITY
What is true of the immigrant cooperative societies
in bringing people of foreign nationalities into adjust-
ment with American economic life is also true of the
immigrant aid societies and immigrant labor federa-
tions. But there is also a certain amount of danger in
these organizations. It is not America which is doing
all these things. It is the immigrant's own nationality,
perhaps even the government of the country from
which he came, that is affording him these services.
As in the case of the immigrant aid societies, the
immigrant labor federations serve a very useful pur-
pose during the transition period between the immi-
grant's arrival in this country and the time when he
has acquired enough knowledge of English to join an
American union. We have seen, however, how some
American trade unions have held themselves aloof from
the immigrant, been indifferent to his interests, neg-
lected to organize him, and even have deliberately
excluded him from their ranks. This made the exist-
ence of racial and nationalistic organizing bodies all
the more necessary, and engendered some antago-
nism between these bodies and the American trade
294
IMMIGRANT SELF-HELP
unions. Quite frequently local foreign-speaking unions
were kept from affiliation with existing national unions,
and sometimes dual unions were formed. Under such
circumstances the loyalty of the immigrant trade
unionist is apt to go to the organization of his own
nationality which brought him into a union, and secured
increases in wages and improved working conditions
for him, rather than to the general labor movement of
the country. Again, the immigrant labor federations
naturally interest themselves in problems of their native
lands, in which the American trade unions have little
concern. This tends to give them a consciousness of
their own, distinct from that of the general labor
movement in America; they are inclined to perpetuate
themselves as nationalistic organizations, instead of
merging with the general labor movement of the coun-
try as soon as their membership becomes English-
speakirg.
Although the United German Trades of New York
City was one of the constituent organizations which
helped to form the American Federation of Labor,
serious difficulties arose between it and the Federation
at a later time. Similar difficulties have arisen between
the Federation and the United Hebrew Trades, and
almost invariably when the Federation has expelled
trade unions for violation of its rules, as in the case
of the Jewelry Workers, Cloth Hat and Cap Makers,
or when it has refused to recognize a union which com-
petes for jurisdiction with one of the unions affiliated
with it, as in the case of the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, the United Hebrew Trades has supported
the expelled or unrecognized union.
As long as the American Federation of Labor has
no immigrant organization department of its own to
do the work of these federations, these difficulties are
bound to arise, for the individual foreign-born wage
295
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
earner will adhere to the organization which was most
helpful to him in improving his status in America.
Each new nationality as it becomes conscious of its
position in American industry, is likely to seek self-
expression. The Italian Chamber of Labor represents
the latest foreign-born group of wage earners to seek
such self-expression and it has already asserted its op-
position to a number of policies of the American Fed-
eration of Labor.
When the national trade unions affiliated with the
American Federation of Labor learn to follow the
policies of such organizations as the United Mine
Workers, the need for separate immigrant labor federa-
tions will disappear, and the immigrant wage earner
will be more likely to feel that it is the American unions,
the American labor movement, and America itself
which has helped him to join hands and unite him with
his American fellow workers.
296
CHAPTER XV
SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN IMMIGRANT
WORKER
WHEN the immigrant worker is a woman, her adjust-
ment to conditions of American industrial life requires
the assistance from the employer, the trade union, the
government, and the people of her own nationality
which has been described in the previous chapters with-
out regard to sex. Her adjustment involves something
more, however. She combines the problem of the im-
migrant in industry with that of the woman in in-
dustry. The difficulties which she would naturally
encounter as an immigrant, in finding work in America,
in becoming accustomed to new occupations and new
industrial methods, and in acquiring a new language,
new associations, and new customs are greatly multi-
plied by the fact that she is a woman. We propose
in the present chapter to describe some of the prob-
lems that are peculiar to the immigrant woman in in-
dustry, and the methods of solving them which have
been helpful in bringing her into closer adjustment
with American life.
EXTENT OF EMPLOYMENT OF IMMIGRANT WOMEN
To just what extent immigrant women are at work
outside their homes it is difficult to estimate. Prelimi-
nary figures of the Fourteenth Census show that there
were 8,549,000 women gainfully employed in 1920.
This represents an increase of nine per cent over the
figures for 1910. The war was responsible for bringing
great numbers of women into industrial employment,
297
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
and it was confidently expected that the Census of 1920
would show a much greater increase in the number of
women employed than has actually been reported.
Of the 8,075,000 gainfully employed women in 1910,
fifteen per cent were foreign born. The percentage for
1920 is not yet available, but it will probably be some-
what less than fifteen per cent, as the percentage of
foreign-born population as a whole fell slightly between
1910 and 1920. The comparatively small increase in
the total number of women employed between the two
censuses, however, may be due to the change in census
date from April 15, 1910 to January 1, 1920, and it is
possible that if the last census had been taken on
April 15, a great many more women might have been
found in employment. April is normally a month of full
employment, while January is usually a slack month.
Of the 1,222,000 foreign-born women gainfully em-
ployed in 1910 about one third were in manufacturing
and mechanical industries and 46 per cent in domestic
and personal service. In each of these groups they con-
stituted 22 per cent of the total women employed.
A square of which the corner posts are Maine,
Minnesota, Missouri, and Maryland comprehends
most of the foreign-born women industrially employed
in the country. The only outposts in which the
United States Census of 1910 shows a concentration of
1000 or more so employed, are California and Florida.
A clear contrast is found in the case of domestic service;
for in this work foreign-born women stretch their
thousands from Atlantic to Pacific, skipping only a
South Atlantic section, and a state-wide belt in the
mountain region bordering upon the states of the
western coast. Foreign-born women, serving as whole-
sale and retail dealers, midwives, and nurses, are con-
centrated in Middle Atlantic and Lake states, and in
California.
298
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
In the manufacturing and mechanic?./ industries,
covering what is ordinarily referred to as industrial
employment, we find the foreign-born women dis-
tributed among the industries, as follows :
TABLE VIII
TOTAL NUMBER OF WOMEN, AND NUMBER AND PER CENT OF FOR-
EIGN-BORN WOMEN, GAINFULLY EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTURING
AND MECHANICAL INDUSTRIES IN THE UNITED STATES.1
INDUSTRIES
TOTAL
NUMBER
FOREIGN-BOBN
Per cent
of foreign
women
Number
Per cent
of total
women
All industries
1,712,157
48,000
9,322
79,486
15,872
301,685
443,919
54,440
18,847
77,411
3,005
16,626
32,820
122,447
37,180
76,676
379,977
386,140
5,883
1,032
21,886
1,683
112,330
69,040
10,382
2,890
11,807
395
1,892
6,166
13,640
6.444
5,087
116,633
22.8
12.2
11.1
27.5
10.6
37.2
15.S
19.1
15.3
15.3
13.1
11.4
18.8
11.1
17.3
6.6
30.7
100
1.5
0.3
5.7
0.4
29.1
17.6
2.7
0.7
3.1
0.1
0.5
1.6
3.5
1.7
1.3
30.2
Chemical and allied industries
Clay, glass, and stone industries
Clothing iadustries
Dressmaking and seamstress work (not
in factory)
Iron and steel industries
Leather industries
Liquor and beverage industries
Lumber and furniture industries
Metal industries, except iron and steel . . .
Milliners and millinery dealers
Paper and pulp industries . .
Textile industries
Almost half of all foreign-born women in industry
are in branches of the sewing trades, and the greater
number of these are in clothing factories, where they
constitute over 37 per cent of the total women em-
ployed. About 17j per cent of all foreign-born work-
ing women are employed at sewing or dressmaking not
in factories, and of all the women thus engaged 15 per
cent are immigrant. In the textile industry, especially
1 Compiled from United States Census, 1910, vol. 4, table vi.
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
cotton, wool, and silk manufacturing, 30 per cent of
the women employed are foreign born, and these are
also 30 per cent of the total foreign-born women in
industrial employments.
The industrial distribution of foreign born women is
largely a concomitant of that of men. Even though
the immigrant man and his wife both work, the trade
or "job" opportunity of the man is likely to control
the home location; and wage-earning daughters,
among the foreign born generally, will be found where
their parents are. Women and girls who come to this
country apart from families of their own — with the
special exception of some who intend to find work in
textile centers or in domestic service — are likely to
make propinquity to family groups of their country
people a consideration prior to occupational selection.
If industries are found in the neighborhood of such
groups, they will probably enter them; if there are no
industries, they will find other employment as best
they can. Thus it is that we find in mining regions of
Pennsylvania, Michigan, and other states, as well as
in localities in which the principal or only industries
are iron and steel manufacturing, large aggregations
of foreign-born women, but an insignificant industrial
showing.
OCCUPATIONS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA
A study of 610 foreign-born women in the slaughtering
and meat packing industry showed that 520 had worked
"in the fields" abroad; only four had ever been in a
factory before coming to this country.1 This is typical
of all the nationalities from southern and eastern
Europe, with the possible exception of Italian and
1 Louise Montgomery, The American Girl in the Stockyards
District, University of Chicago Press, 1913.
300
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
Russian- Jewish women. These, together with the
immigrant women from north European countries,
show apparently high percentages of industrial em-
ployment in their native lands; but it must be remem-
bered that the general name by which an occupation
TABLE IX
PER CENT OF FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN EMPLOYEES IN EACH SPECI-
FIED OCCUPATION BEFORE COMING TO THE UNITED STATES, BY
RACE, FOR SELECTED RACES. l
NUMBER
IEPOHTING
COMPLETE
DATA
PER CENT OF FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN
EMPLOYED IN
Industrial
Work
^arming or
Farm
Laborers
Domestic
Service
All Other
Occupa-
tions
Bohemian and Mo-
ravian .
107
995
1,804
437
107
360
603
542
738
554
4,057
408
369
282
105
37.4
38.2
95.9
70.9
27.1
85.5
72.7
69.6
72.0
14.6
8.1
36.0
19.8
96.1
23.8
36.4
42.2
.1
16.7
61.7
.6
12.3
20.8
14.6
78.5
86.9
20.1
75.3
.4
64.8
16.8
8.9
1.8
6.0
8.4
.8
11.3
3.7
7.6
6.0
3.6
36.5
2.4
1.4
11.4
9.4
10.7
2.2
5.5
2.8
13.1
3.7
5.9
5.8
.9
1.4
7.4
2.5
2.1
.0
Canadian, French. .
English
German
Greek
Hebrew, Russian . . .
Irish
Italian North
Italian, South
Lithuanian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Scotch
Slovak
is designated abroad and here gives no clue to identity
or even similarity of process. Industrial experience
abroad by no means needs to connote either life in an
1 Compiled from Report of U. S. Immigration Commission, Ab-
stract, vol. i, table 19, p. 362.
301
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
industrial center, or any of the plant organization which
is so forceful a factor in the newly arrived immigrant's
impression of industry here. Those who were textile
workers in continental Europe encountered machines
different from ours, and a tempo of work much slower.
The clothing shops met by the Jewish girl abroad
rarely initiated her to the power machine, and the organi-
zation of processes was entirely unlike that which she
finds in this country. It is commonly known that
Italian women, overseas, have proficiency in fine hand-
sewing; but this sewing is likely to have been done at
home.
The experience that immigrant working women are
likely to have in their native lands may be illustrated
by the stories of two women who applied for work at
a public employment office:
The first, a Bohemian, now in Chicago, comes of a family which
owned only the cottage it lived in and very little land. At twelve
the little girl was provided with a "pillow" which contained her
bedding, and was taken by her father to a peasant who lived some
distance away. Here she was to work for a year receiving in return
a training, her living, and eighteen dollars not for herself but for
her father.
Early in the morning she went out into the fields; she fed and
milked the cows; she washed the dishes and helped the cook; she
went out into the fields again, looked after the children, watched the
geese, brought the sheep home; fed cattle and washed dishes again —
getting to bed at ten or eleven o'clock to be called early in the morn-
ing again for a new day's work. Sunday mornings she went to mass,
but Sundays except for this were just like other days. The year
over, she went home for a little vacation; and then, for twenty-four
dollars a year, when she was not yet fourteen, she became the cook
for a wealthy family living in a city.
A childhood story similar in experience is that of an Italian
woman. She was sent to school in or near Naples when she was
four; at six, after she had finished the second grade, but before she
had learned to read or write her parents decided to let her "live
out" with a fine family several miles away who wanted help in the
household. The mistress of the house promised her mother that
302
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WuRKER
she would have the child taught reading and writing, but there
never seemed to be time for this, and though the promise was re-
newed still more solemnly at the beginning of the second year, she
cannot remember any real teaching. She prepared the vegetables,
helped in the garden, carried water, and received ten cents a week,
which was paid to her mother. For four years she lived with this
family, going home on holidays. Her sisters worked on farms and
went home nights, so that their mother taught them needlework
after dark, but she never had a chance to learn any skill with a needle,
for she rarely saw her mother. When she was ten it was decided
that she would live out regularly at housework, receiving two dollars
a month. It did not mean a great change, except that she had
heavier pails of water to carry and did a larger share of the washing.
ADJUSTMENT ADVANTAGES IN EMPLOYMENT
The women, in the case of the foreign born, may find
their employment the best means they have for learn-
ing the ways and spirit of this country; and for many
it may be, for a time, the only means. It is common to
find among the non-English-speaking women, who do
not "go to a job," complete ignorance of the city's
streets and street car lines. If the children's school is
not within a few blocks' radius from the home, that,
too, is covered with mystery; and of the work places
to which the mother's boys and girls go, not even the
name may be known. She tries to live the old country
life as well as she can, with the handicap of new con-
ditions of tenement living and piecemeal buying.
But her neighbor, who came to America when she
did, takes a half -hour's walk or ride to work, every day,
crossing perhaps the main thoroughfare of the city.
She can say a few words of English, and if she cannot
"read the cars," at least she can tell one car from
another; and the destination of some, at least, is not
a blank to her. She knows how to pay her fare and use
a transfer. She passes people of many kinds on the
street, she notes their way of dressing, and forms an
idea of what she thinks they are like. She sees many
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
things in shop windows — clothing, furniture for one's
house, and food. When she reaches her shop she joins
a group of workers, among whom are some of her own
nationality, whom, naturally, she chooses for her com-
panions. But those of other nationalities are not over-
looked. She watches their workmanship and habits,
and reacts from them or toward them, as the case may
be. Unconsciously, perhaps, she will appropriate or
imitate whatever appeals to her as of value in the life
that goes on around her. Americans in the shop will
especially interest her. She will gradually build up a
little English vocabulary, which, small as it may be,
will give her a decided advantage over her shut-in
neighbor at home in the process of adjustment.
There is a Bohemian girl on the upper East Side of
New York City who finds excellent working conditions
in the little dressmaking shop where she is employed;
and she is proud of her good salary. She looks at
America, as through a windowglass, and thinks it is a
wonderful country! But she finds she does not share
in American life, because of her handicap in English
speaking; she cannot, seemingly, make American
friends or other American contacts because she "talks
like a greenhorn" — and she is very lonely. Her eleven
years here have been spent, in work, in a Bohemian
shop; and, in living, with a Bohemian family. And
although she goes to night school for English, and under-
stands the language readily and speaks it grammatically
the "foreignness" does not wear off. She enjoys
reading and music, has an intelligent understanding of
a wide range of interests; and she could be a companion
that any girl, American or otherwise, might be proud
to have. But, through lack of the language and con-
sequent timidity, she finds her only diversion in the
Bohemian theater, on Sunday afternoons, and she is not
what she wants to be — an American in America, find-
304
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
ing joy in America, in the fullest sense of the word.
If this girl had worked in an American factory these
eleven years, it is possible life would wear for her a
brighter color now, because of the daily opportunities
she might have had for improving her English in the
shop, and the acquaintances made there who might
have enlarged her experience outside.
To the elements of American life which make for an
improvement of the status of the foreign-born woman —
in the eyes of her family and herself — industry can
and does contribute in several important ways. The
question of status concerns itself largely with the immi-
gration of peasant women from southern and eastern
Europe, especially Italian, Greek, and Slavic. Repe-
tition of statements from such women shows that
among the prizes of American freedom are more con-
siderate treatment from the men of their family than
was received in the old country; more freedom than
they formerly had in going and coming — although
Italians assimilate this slowly; and, in the case of girls
who come unmarried, more freedom of choice in the
matter of taking a husband. If an industry employ-
ing both foreign-born men and women pays some
attention to the human relations of its women workers,
and if it has forewomen as well as foremen, and both
women and men serving as representatives on its shop
committees, the effect of this cannot help reaching
back into the home attitude of the foreign-born men
who are witness to it. They thus learn in a poignant
way America's standard for women. They may not,
immediately, adopt this standard, but it means some-
thing that they have seen its demonstration.
The opportunity, through industry, to have money
of her own is of great significance to the foreign-born
woman and it gives her acknowledged importance if she
is the housekeeper. But younger, unmarried girls in
305
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
foreign households in America may not know much
about this independence, so prevalent is the custom,
with them, to turn over the pay envelope — unopened
it may be — to the family budget. 1
Economic independence for the woman in a sense conveyed by
the modern use of these words is as yet unknown and incompre-
hensible. It follows that what the girl earns is easily appropriated
by the parents, and, broadly speaking, obediently surrendered by
the girl. Among the 300 girls between sixteen and twenty-four
years of age, there are 290 who have no independent control of their
own wages.
The parents here referred to are, predominantly,
Poles, Bohemians, Irish, and Slovaks. A New York
employer of several hundred girls of foreign birth or
parentage found in this situation a resultant lack of
personal interest in the pay, which acted as a deter-
rent to ambition in earning; and he was considering
the possibility of assembling the foreign fathers and
mothers at an evening entertainment and of attempt-
ing to persuade them that their daughters would earn
more money if they were allowed even a small share
of it, for their own disposal.
The shop lunchroom, too, is an important educator.
Here the women may learn much more than they would
otherwise know of the varieties of inexpensive food
available in America, and of ways of preparing and
serving it. If there is table service, they have addi-
tional opportunity for observing customs that are
American. It does not need to be inferred from this
that American cooking and table customs are neces-
sarily better than the foreign ones; but we know that
being "different" through ignorance of American ways
works hardship on the immigrant girl. Moreover, the
food available in the stores is likely to be the Ameri-
1 Louise Montgomery, The American Girl in the Stockyards Dis-
trict, p. 57.
306
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
can kind, except in the case of those, who live in self-
dependent national groups.
Association in employment with service workers and
nurses, or with native and foreign fellow workers of
higher living standards than their own may have a
favorable effect on the personal habits and appearances
of some foreign-born women who consciously care to
improve their condition. An employer in a metal
industry proudly cites the case of Italian immigrant
girls who, as soon as they are adjusted to the work in
his factory, appear in silk stockings and high-heeled
shoes. If any are dubious of the advantage of this
Americanism, at least they must grant that it serves
to illustrate the power of imitation. Companies which
maintain summer homes or camps, and are successful
in getting the foreign-born women to visit them, have
an opportunity to show these women the whole daily
cycle of American living.
IMMIGRANT MARRIED WOMEN IN INDUSTRY
A Western company which employs 1000 women,
55 per cent of whom are foreign born, has taken
a definite stand against the employment of married
women who have working husbands. This action was
taken after the company had made a voluntary inquiry
into the home situation of its family women employees
and proved to. its own satisfaction that the living
standards and the children are the worse because of the
outside work of these family women. The prevalence
of married women among foreign-born workers has
been apparent throughout this study, some of it due,
without doubt, to circumstances attending the war.
But, whether or not the influx of married women
brought into industry by the war has become a perma-
nent factor, we have evidence in the Report of the
307
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Immigration Commission that their employment even
in normal times is, in certain trades, extensive. Table
10 shows the percentages of married foreign-born
women to be highest in cigar and textile manufactur-
ing, of the industries for which information is given.
TABLE X
CONJUGAL CONDITION OF FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN SIXTEEN YEARS
OF AGE AND OVER, GAINFULLY EMPLOYED IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES l
INDUSTRY
TOTAL
NUMBER
SINGLE
PER CENT
MARBIED
WIDOWED
Cigar and tobacco manufac-
turing. . ,
4,122
55.6
37.4
7.0
Clothing manufacturing
5,004
71.9
22.6
5.5
Cotton goods manufacturing. .
Shoe manufacturing
Silk manufacturing
Woolen and worsted goods
Slaughtering and meat packing
19,329
956
1,853
9,238
1,788
56.6
64.1
66.9
60.0
69.8
37.3
27.9
27.5
34.3
24.9
6.1
8.0
5.6
5.4
5.3
Total
42 290
602
338
5 9
The war-time shortage of labor drove many employers,
previously unaccustomed to relying much on married
women workers, to take them on in numbers; and even
to solicit their help. There is little doubt that the high
war wages tempted some women to desert their fami-
lies for the shop unnecessarily; and others were forced
to do it by high prices and by the reduction of the
usual income from the male members of the family and
the boarders who had gone to war. The great cause
which in normal times sends a continual stream of
immigrant women, mothers of families, into industry
1 Compiled from Report of Immigration Commission, vol. 20,
Table 41, p. 818.
308
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
must be financial necessity. No other reason could
make them submit continuously to the lack of leisure
and neglect of home which daily employment entails.
An inquiry among 580 married foreign-born women,
employed in several plants located near together in
the region of their homes, drew from the women these
statements of their reasons for working:
TABLE XI
NUMBER, PER CENT, AND REASONS FOR WORKING, OF MARRIED
FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN
REASONS FOB WORKING
NUMBEB
PEB CKKT
Insufficient income (Husband working)
249
42.9
Insufficient income (Husband ill, dead, or absent)
To pay debts .
176
50
30.4
8.7
To educate children
12
2.0
To buy property
69
11.9
To save money
24
4.1
Total
580
100.0
A Lithuanian woman asserts that many of her
countrywomen come to this country alone, unmarried,
expecting to find life easier, and after coming they
refrain from marrying because they see that the married
women have it harder. The single woman has only
work; the married woman has work and all the respon-
sibility of a household added. The Franco-Belgians,
who have an insistent desire to maintain a good and
ascending living standard, find a way to meet the eco-
nomic stress by limitation of children.
The attitude of husbands seems to be a factor in
pushing many family women into mill and factory
work. Especially has this been found true of Greeks
and some of the Slavic people. They seem to look upon
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
wives as an extra pair of hands to help boost the family
income. A French girl with a young baby said she was
not going back to the mill — her husband, an Italian,
would not make her go. "Would most husbands? " she
was asked. "Oh, sure," was the answer. This family
lived in a small mill town. Among Italians in cities,
"there is to some extent a certain social sentiment with
regard to women leaving home to work after marriage
and mingling with men in the shops. Some of the
Italian men who would not permit their wives to go
back to the shop after marriage, have not the same
delicate feeling regarding home-work, and are satisfied
to have the family income supplemented in this man-
ner." l Syrian men, too, as a rule, seem to favor their
wives remaining at home, or doing only occasional,
supplementary work outside.
The appearance of a day nursery in the neighborhood
of a plant or of the homes of its workers suggests three
things: the kind and social-minded endeavor of the
employer or other agency to make the best of a bad
situation by giving comfort and protection to children
who would otherwise be neglected; the inevitable
plight of family women whose husbands are lost to
them or incapacitated for work; and the fundamental
wrong in an industrial condition that seems to compel
the combined, daily labor, away from home, of both
adult members of a normal family, of father, mother,
and children — so that there is no care for the children
and no person to make a home. This third considera-
tion has been brought out arrestingly in studying the
situation of the foreign-born woman worker.
A labor leader in a mill town who ascribed the
employment of married women to low wages paid to
heads of families said to an investigator for this study :
1 Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, vol. ii,
p. 300.
310
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
These wages make it in almost all cases necessary for the mothers
to be earners. You can scarcely find a Portuguese family in which
the mother does not work. The French-Canadians somehow man-
age to avoid this situation. This is possible, to some extent, because
the French men do not get so low in work as the Portuguese do; and
the French, because they believe so strongly in the need for the
women to stay at home and take care of the younger children,
put their older children to work just as soon as the law allows them
to be taken from school. This is a city of neglected children. They
are practically unlooked after when the days get good enough for
them to play out of doors. When in the house, they may be care-
lessly treated by women who are supposed to look after them, and
they are very ill-fed.
This city is one of those wherein the government has
thought best to make inquiry into the causes of the
high rate of infant mortality.
Of another mill town, a Polish community worker
who has since done special work for her people in the
employ of the United States government, said:
It is the custom for foreign-born married women to work just
as unmarried women do. It is an unusual thing to find a woman in
the foreign section who does not go to the mills. Children are taken
care of in groups by old women, or other women incapacitated for
work, or not taken care of at all. It is even true that the women
seem to lose caste among their neighbors if they do not work; but
the underlying reason for their working is that heads of families aie
so insufficiently paid that every person in the family of working age
must do his share to make an existence budget.
There is an arrangement, by no means unusual among
the foreign born, whereby a husband and wife alternate
with day and night work, so that one or the other will
always be at home on the children's account. The
woman often chooses the night work, so that she may
have the daytime with the children; and of course
the one who does this is bound to get few hours of
sleep. So well is this plan understood that employment
agents in plants and persons in charge of public or other
311
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
employment bureaus have given their cooperation to
promote it.
The neglect of housekeeping, incident to the mother's
work at the factory or mill, has helped to earn for
foreign-born women newcomers the generalization that
their standard of living is low. Even women who have
the intelligence to plan and organize their housework
and possess a high standard in the matter of being clean
and of making their families comfortable, may find it
difficult to realize all this in the fringes of time before
and after the daily work outside. Is it to be wondered
at that women less favored in training and mental
development fall down when the odds are apparently
all against them? A French woman told us:
High living cost and relatively inadequate wages — these keep
up a continual struggle. Wives must work in the mill or factory
with their husbands and in addition they must come home at night,
cook the dinner, fix the house, get the lunch ready to take to the mill
next day, go to bed perhaps not before eleven o'clock, and be up
early in the morning, because of the children. So it goes on forever.
An Italian woman tells of getting up each day at five o'clock in
order to have time to take the children to the woman who is to care
for them. When work is over, after five-thirty o'clock in the after-
noon, she gets the children, and takes them home. When supper
has been prepared, and finished, it is after nine o'clock. It takes
such a long time because she "has to light the stove." On Sunday
she does not go to the mill, but then she must do the washing. An-
other Italian woman tells of a similar program. She takes her
three children to her mother, who "holds them for her." After she
comes home at night, she gets supper and puts the children to bed.
This done, she has no more time.
Helene, a French girl, is a young mill worker. When the family
finances get in a bad way, as they have done after illness or when
the brother was in service, Helene's mother goes back to the mill.
But this is very unsatisfactory. There is no one at home then to
keep the house clean, and Helene's evenings have to be spent wash-
ing dishes and "cleaning up "; and her Sundays in helping her mother
to do the washing and ironing. "What are we in this world for,"
she said, "if we have to work all the time and can never go out and
have any fun?"
312
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
In various parts of the country experiments have
been made with part-time work, as a solution for the
problems of married women workers. These experi-
ments have been made by persons in charge of public
or philanthropic employment bureaus, or by other
social agencies, and have grown out of a desire to com-
promise wage earning and home making. Whether
this compromise can meet the situation, is a matter of
individual circumstance and capacity. But although
employers have given sincere cooperation in the work-
ing out of such employment, through shifts, alternates,
or reorganization of process, and small groups have been
carried for a period on a part-time basis, the success of
this as a plan for great numbers has not yet been
demonstrated.
A summer evening's walk through the mill section of
a New England town revealed streets overhung with
great shade trees, rows of little white cottages with a
continuous sweep of green lawns, and flowers here and
there. In the growing dusk people were resting and
chatting pleasantly, sitting on doorsteps or in ham-
mocks or swings in the yards. So far as one could
see, the surroundings were faultlessly neat, with no
sign of litter or waste either in front or back of the
houses; and it could be imagined easily that the house-
keeping, inside, was consistent. The paint on the
houses was very white; and on nearly all of them win-
dow boxes bloomed. One caught the impression of
relaxation, contentment, and comfort. Next day, at
the mill it was learned that these people are French
Canadians, Poles, and Italians, very few of whom were
born in this country. The secret of the apparent clean-
liness and comfort of their living may have been exposed
when the superintendent showed a register of mill
families, which records the occupation or school grade
of all the members, and takes care to indicate for each
313
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
family which person is housekeeper. It is the policy
of the mill, he said, to know that there is a housekeeper
in every home, and that wherever possible this person
is the mother.
LEARNING THE LANGUAGE
Time and place, seemingly important to both men and
women workers in any plan of English instruction, are
perhaps of utmost importance to women. If men's
leisure is precious after the hours of labor, the women's
is more so; for all women, single or married, are
likely to have certain household responsibilities, which
make the margin for recreation, personal needs, or
relaxation still more narrow. Even those foreign-born
girls who board with friends or relatives may find
themselves included in the family when it comes to
doing the "work" — and all women have necessary
sewing and "fixing" to do. Among several nationali-
ties, notably Italian and Syrian, there is a traditional
disapproval in regard to permitting women to go out
at night for any reason, unescorted by their men, and
so long as this persists it makes daytime lessons for
such women the only practicable arrangement.
Two factors of place invite consideration; these are
convenience and familiarity. Convenience is really
only another expression of time. The desire for a
familiar place, if based on reticence and group feel-
ing, is more insistent for women than for men; the
fewness of women's contacts outside of the home makes
for greater shyness. Moreover, as in the matter of
being out at night, the foreign tradition is likely to
oppose going to "strange places" on the part of the
women. It seems to have been demonstrated by many
cities and many agencies, that the enrollment and
regularity of attendance of women at English classes
314
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
are largely dependent upon the points here noted; and
thus the work place or the parish house, the hall or
school of the home neighborhood, has been experimen-
tally tried, and each has reaped its set of pros and cons.
We can only point out, for the industrial worker, that
from a standpoint of time saving, classes in the shop,
during working hours or just before or after working
hours, obviously rank first; and such classes satisfy
the two conditions of place.
In providing for the teaching of English or definitely
encouraging workers to learn it elsewhere, employers
generally have lagged in interest so far as the women
have been concerned. Provision for teaching English
was greatly stimulated by the war. Thus it was to be
expected that this inquiry, made in 1919, would un-
cover many incipient or experimental English teaching
arrangements. The women in most plants have been
left out of these; in some instances, where classes for
men had been launched, the company was consider-
ing the women's side of the matter, with the hope that
something might later be started.
The reason for overlooking women in English-teach-
programs is in part accounted for by the fact that
practical demands, like the pressure , of citizenship and
the necessity to carry on business transactions, bear
less obviously upon the women. The connection
between shop safety and knowledge of English is felt
less for women than men. It does not so often happen
that the women are doing work which endangers life
if accident precautions are not understood; and such
injuries as they are personally subjected to are likely
to be of a minor sort. Moreover, it is true that the
employer has to contend with the women's reluctance
to learn; and this reluctance is, with most nationalities,
greater among the women than among the men. The
women are less optimistic than men about their ability
315
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
to learn. It is easy for a woman past her youth to
think she is too old; and instances are known of Greek,
Syrian, Lithuanian, and Polish husbands who discour-
aged their working wives from learning on the ground
that a woman does not need to know things.
An illustration of conquering the reluctant attitude
of the women by change of method is provided by a
steel plant. The Polish women employees knew so
little English that their work on war orders was handi-
capped. The company tried by the usual methods to
give them instruction, but the women's interest was not
reached and classes did not "go." Then, the company
took its problem to a local Girls' Trade School, believ-
ing, with reason as it proved, that the trained teachers
at the school could find a solution. The answer was a
clever and promising experiment which the director of
the school devised, and has described as follows: *
With the entry of foreign-born women into industry, came the
great need of their understanding enough English so that they could
comprehend what a foreman meant when he gave them the simple
directions for carrying on the work which was assigned to them.
In certain parts of some industries a high degree of intelligence
was not essential and work could well be done by the "scrub- woman"
type, a group who had not found it necessary to know much English
up to the present crisis. Now some vocational English of a simple
nature would make the worker much more useful in the part of the
job she was hired to perform.
This type of worker is not stable on the job, being easily disturbed
by higher wages somewhere else, or by an unusual demand made in
connection with the work. How was it possible to teach her English
without opposition on her part? Going to school had not been an
attractive matter in the past, and might arouse antagonism which
the employer could little afford to risk when it was very difficult to
find all the help needed in the rush of war work.
During the summer of 1918, conservation of food was being
pushed in many quarters and was popular with all women. During
a visit to one factory, wishing to train these women above described,
1 Helen R. Hildreth, Worcester Girls' Trade School, Worcester,
Massachusetts.
316
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
it was observed that many of the operations in the industry were
analogous to those of canning fruits and vegetables. The women
sorted the good from the imperfect shells, placed the good ones in
baskets and dipped them into a liquid solution and out again. Vege-
tables were sorted, the good placed in baskets for blanching and
dipping, and then canned.
Consultation with the foremen brought out that certain phrases
would be advantageous for the women to understand and be able
to use. These were very simple and could be repeated many times
during a canning demonstration when the attention could be easily
held; "education" was not apparent and interest was uppermost.
The phrases were as follows: "Good keep, bad throw away"; "Dip
basket into water"; "Take basket out of water," etc. Other words
used in the demonstration were not rehearsed by the pupils, but
were explained by one or more women who happened in class and
understood a little English. The drill was only on the few words
which were of vocational value to the work. The operation of
canning would get over, without special emphasis on the words
used in describing its process, except those referred to.
The women came directly from the shop with dirty hands and
clothes, so some idea of cleanliness could be enforced by having
them wash their hands before sorting the vegetables and repeating,
"Clean hands with food"; "Dirt makes sick"; etc. This associa-
tion with health is very fundamental.
The idea of time could be developed, for the vegetables had to
be blanched for from five to ten minutes and cooked or sterilized
for one or two or more hours. These time durations could be shown
on the face of the clock and their name lengths learned.
The pupils were held for half an hour only, without any loss of
pay and with little loss of time to the employer.
Since the chief aim of these lessons was to form a habit of coming
to class, no attempt was made at this time to teach any great amount
of English; that was to be followed up later when the women had
become used to submitting to instruction. Four of these canning
lessons were given as an experiment and then the teacher was on
vacation until September.
In the fall regular instruction in English based on familiar actions
of everyday life was begun, but was soon discontinued because there
were, by that time, too few women employed to make the class worth
while.
This method of getting the interest of the women seems sound,
but it could not be thoroughly tested since the same women did not
come each time, due to press of work as well as to the change of
personnel of the employees. War conditions seemed to breed con-
317
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
stant labor turnover, and the women drifted out of one factory and
into another in a bewildering succession. This vocational training
should hold them if one could get their attention once focused on it.
The other alternative for English teaching is the
night school; but if employers do not admit a maximum
of eight hours for the working day, there is slight use
of dependence upon .voluntary night education for
foreign-born women employees.
The best way to arrive at understanding of the for-
eign-born women's situation with respect to night
classes, especially of the married working women of
whom there are so many, is to try to think of one's
self in her place — and thus to imagine the early rising,
the quick necessary touches to things of the house
before starting to work, the hours of application in
factory or mill, the home-going and probably the pre-
paring of the evening meal; and this over, washing
the dishes. If she has had a nine or ten hour day, it is
seven o'clock now at least; and she is facing the ques-
tions: Shall she go to night school? Shall she sit on
the doorstep instead and chat with the neighbors, if
it is a mild spring evening? Or shall she let the warm
kitchen lure her, if a winter wind is blowing?
If she is married, can she with easy peace of mind,
forget the heap of washing that ought to be done, the
children who may need attention, the ragged rents that
should be mended somehow, the food that should be
prepared in advance of another work day? Against
all this can she array the advantage of knowing ulti-
mately the English which falls so strangely on her ears,
and makes her so sleepy when she hears it read in class?
If she could go one night in the week and be done with
it! But one should give up two or three evenings, if it
is really to count. Of course there are women who have
all these duties, and the same apparent question of time,
who can nevertheless transcend them, and go to night
318
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
school with persevering regularity until they at last
are "English speaking." But we have no evidence
that most of the women have the understanding to
treat their problems this way when the working day is
long; and it is for the "most" that present plans must
be laid.
BOARDING HOMES FOR IMMIGRANT WORKING GIRLS
Charles Dickens, on his trip to New England mills, was
witness to this country's earliest development for
housing wage-earning women. He wrote in American
Notes:
They reside in various boarding houses near at hand. ... I am
now going to state three facts, which will startle a large class of
readers on this side of the Atlantic very much. Firstly, there is a
joint-stock piano in a great many of the boarding houses. Secondly,
nearly ali these ladies subscribe to circulating libraries. Thirdly,
they have got up among themselves a periodical called "The
Offering."
From the days of a housing problem for little groups
of American girls and women, who came from homes
in neighboring towns, industry has passed to the much
more complicated problem of enormously greater num-
bers of workers, of widely ranging nationalities, and
for most of them an ocean between them and their
homes. Or perhaps their present housing plan is all
there is, and — so far as they know — all there is to be,
of home.
It seems impossible to know, from any comprehen-
sive statistics, the number of such "non-family groups
of women," who, in normal times, have been coming
here from foreign lands. Figures by age and national-
ity, for single, widowed, or separated women are avail-
able; but they do not show how many of these came
with or to join families, or how many of the single girls
319
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
came expecting to be married immediately on reaching
this country. Between the years 1910 and 1915 the
total number of unmarried women immigrants, under
thirty years of age, was 5Z5,6QQ.1 More than 100,000
of these were Poles; more than 80,000 were Hebrews;
nearly 75,000 were Italians. The remainder represent
about twenty different nationalities. During these
years the Immigrants' Protective League of Chicago
received from ports of entry the names of 26,909
women and girls, all of whom came from Europe to
Chicago.2
In all of the city of Chicago there is just one organized
home designed especially to give permanent accommo-
dation to foreign-born girls. This is a Polish home, in
a Polish and Lithuanian district; and the capacity is
forty-six. A woman physician interested in the chil-
dren of this community, eight or nine years ago, became
aware also of the crowded, unsuitable living situation
of unmarried, foreign-born girls. At her instigation
the Catholic Woman's League of Chicago raised funds
necessary for starting the home. It is now under the
direct guidance of the priest of a nearby Polish church,
although it is open to residents of any religion. Among
its wage earners' boarding houses of general character,
Chicago has a few which intend to serve foreign-born
workers as well as natives; but at the time of inquiry
none of these had in residence as many as a dozen girls
of foreign birth.
In Cleveland, a small home for Jewish girls is the
only one that has been established specifically for
the foreign born. This home, during the period of
normal immigration, received some girls directly from
Europe. It was then located in a good residential part
1 Report of Commissioner General of Immigration, 1915, p. 56.
2 Grace Abbott, The Immigrant and the Community, p. 61.
320
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
of the city, in a neighborhood largely Jewish, of the
American generation. It has since moved to another
section which is not essentially Jewish, and some non-
Jewish girls are among the residents. The home is
attractive, comfortable, and pleasant in all its arrange-
ments. The girls are looked after and given freedom in
ways that are likely to bring individual capacities or
talents to discovery, and needed educational help is
found for those who seem to show that they will use it
well. The immigrant girl who comes to this home has
an unusual opportunity for adjustment under most
favorable circumstances; but the very care, expense,
and individualness of the method almost preclude a
large undertaking along these lines. This home is
aided by philanthropic contributions and is directed by
trustees. Four homes, of general character in Cleve-
land, are open to the foreign-born girl. One of these,
however, seems always to have its capacity of residents
as well as a waiting list filled with American-born girls.
In the other homes the number of the foreign born
actually in residence is negligible.
New York City's list of homes for wage-earning
women seems, on the surface, to give some hope that
the foreign-born unmarried woman is being taken care
of. But inquiry has shown that homes planned es-
pecially for her are chiefly the temporary type — the
needed refuge which a great port of entry and debarka-
tion like New York must provide for the emergencies
connected with landing, meeting relatives, deportation,
or voluntary return; or they are transient homes de-
signed to care for governesses, maids, servants, and
other homes or institutions for workers in the intervals
between positions. The table, appended to this chapter,
shows that the only permanent, non-private facilities
in Manhattan for organized living specifically intended
for foreign-born women industrial workers are two, a
321
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
home for Jewish girls, and the boarding home of the
International Institute of the Y. W. C. A. The com-
bined capacities of these homes is fifty-one. The table
shows also a few permanent Jewish organizations which
admit the foreign-born industrial workers, but the
number of these in residence was found to be very
small.
There are, in addition to these possibilities, twenty-
seven organized homes in Manhattan which are willing
to serve foreign-born girls, among others, and they do
have some representation of girls of this class. Eight
of the homes, whose combined capacity is 550, have
"many" or a "majority" of foreign born; the nineteen
remaining homes, whose capacity totals 1223, have
"only a few," or "a small minority." Thus, by the
most liberal estimation, only a few hundred of New
York's thousands of foreign-born industrial women
workers, away from their families, are being accom-
modated with organized aids in their living arrange-
ments.
All homes open to the foreign born in Manhattan
are from the standpoint of support and control of four
classes; those carried by the church or church societies,
those carried by philanthropic agencies of foreign or
native origin, projects which combine commercial and
social interests, and schemes of cooperative boarding.
The reasons given for maintaining these homes and
organizations include religious influence, protection,
necessity of providing low living cost, and the desire
of girls to escape the dreariness of a furnished room in
a great city.
A number of these homes give employment-finding
service, which is in most cases more or less unorganized.
One home has a graphophone for teaching English;
another has extensive provision of teachers and equip-
ment for teaching trades, in preparation for wage earn-
322
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
ing. The home designed especially for young foreign-
born Jewish girls is run as a "republic," and this method
is believed to aid in home harmony and in developing
initiative. The International Institute Home, which
serves a wide range of nationalities and only the foreign-
born, tries to arrange the manner of living so that
girls who have been in this country several years can
be helpful to newer comers, especially in the matter of
learning English. It is the policy in assigning rooms to
put girls who cannot speak English with those who can;
though in the seating at table this policy is not strictly
observed. The director's only thought about the dining
room is that all shall feel at home and have a good
time, so that here there is likely to be a considerable
amount of foreign language speaking.
There is undoubtedly some "clubbing together" for
living among immigrant working women, after they
have become adjusted enough to the country to make
it possible; yet various private and governmental stud-
ies of housing have found this an occasional arrange-
ment only. Nearly all of these thousands of girls crowd
into the homes of relatives or other fellow-country
people which are probably, before the coming of the
new arrivals, as full as they should be. The cheapness
of this method of living is what makes it endurable;
but discomfort and lack of privacy are obvious con-
comitants. In speaking of the living situation of some
of the foreign-born women workers in Chicago, a gov-
ernment report states : l
All were Slovaks or Galicians, and all worked in the stockyards.
They lived with foreign-born families who had crowded into their
households a number of lodgers. All were living in a most wretched
way. ... In two families, there were eight persons in three rooms.
1 Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage-earners in the
United States, 1910, vol. 5, p. 64.
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
This condition is repeated in other cities, and can be
fairly understood as, at present, this country 's accepted
standard of provision for new-coming foreign-born
women workers who come alone from overseas. Fur-
ther illustration is provided by the Massachusetts Immi-
gration Commission, which records among others the
following pictures.1
In a mill town which has one of the largest Greek colonies in
Massachusetts, in the downstairs tenement of a two-story house,
is a group of eight people living in this way. There are four girls
ranging from sixteen to twenty-four years of age, and four men.
They have two rooms and a kitchen. The apartment is clean and
orderly.
A Lithuanian girl has lived four years in a family of three who
have four rooms and eight lodgers — five men and three women. The
girl works as a stitcher in a tailor shop. She started to go to night
school when she first came, but the landlady objected, as she wanted
her to help out with the housework in the evening.
A sixteen-year-old Jewish girl came with her father, but is not
living in the same house with him. She is lodging in a house where
there are four in the family, three men lodgers and herself, all in
five rooms.
A Lithuanian girl who was eighteen years of age at the time of
arrival has been in this country four years. She lived in three
different places since coming to this country. In the first place
there were five rooms, four in the family and two men and two women
lodgers. At present, she is living in a tenement of five rooms with
a family of three who have three men and one woman lodger.
A Polish girl of eighteen who has been in America four months,
having borrowed her passage money from her brother in this country,
is lodging with a family of four who live in four rooms with five
lodgers, three men and two women. This girl is working seven days
a week washing cars in the railroad yards in Boston.
A recent study of Italian women in industry in New
York found young girls boarding or lodging in Italian
homes where they had not an inch of space which they
could call their own. Even the bed which was theirs
to share at night was folded into a chiffonier by day.
J Report of Massachusetts Immigration Commission, 1914, pp. 60-61.
324
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
Among other pictures drawn by this study are the fol-
lowing. The last picture is given to illustrate the con-
trasting experience of the woman who did have a bit
of space which was unencroachably hers.1
Two sisters were each paying fifty cents a week for sleeping
space in a four-room flat, the home of nine other adults.
A woman was boarding with a brother's family on Elizabeth
Street, where eleven persons were huddled into two rooms.
Caterina, twenty-six years old, who sewed on men's coats and
earned $6 a week, shared the household expenses with a brother and
his wife. As she helped considerably with the housework, her share
of the rent was only $2 a month, although she enjoyed the luxury of
being the sole occupant of a bedroom.
Another woman, who had earned $8.50 in the preceding week as
a finisher on cloaks and suits, but who had been idle about five
months during the year, rented an unfurnished room with the
privilege of gas and the use of the kitchen stove for $1.50 a week.
A folding bed, two trunks, three chairs, and a table made of a soap
box, were the principal articles of furniture, but the room was
decorated with several shelves of gay dishes. The images of eighteen
different saints adorned the head of the bed, bright pictures of the
rulers of Italy, advertising calendars and panels, an alarm clock,
and a guitar hung on the wall. The care of her room was a daily
joy and her only recreation. She prepared her own meals, which
cost between $2 and $3 a week. She was an economical house-
keeper, buying what she could in large quantities.
Five factors have to be considered in any compre-
hensive workable plan for the organized housing
immigrant industrial women workers. These are, loca-
tion in a neighbrhood of their fellow-country people;
opportunity to economize living expenses in their own
way; household arrangements controlled by a fellow-
country woman of their own class; the sanction of the
church — in the case of the great majority who come
from Catholic countries; and a non-philanthropic finan-
cial base.
1 L. C. Odencranz, Italian Women in Industry, pp. 222, 223, 226.
325
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
In Passaic, New Jersey, there is a well-established
demonstration of a boarding home system which is
workable for unlimited numbers; and it appears to
take care of the five factors which this study calls
requisites. This is a cooperative idea which may con-
tain special adaptation to girls of Slavic tradition and
temperament. The Passaic plan is taken as the most
suggestive because it has not only proved its practica-
bility through more than fifteen years, but it is specifi-
cally adapted to industrial workers; it can serve in-
coming immigrants by providing a temporary or per-
manent home, as well as a model which they can follow
later if they desire in starting independent homes of
their own. It is true that the Passaic cooperative
homes are the projects of girls who are members of the
Tercyarki, a religious order, which has its origin in
Europe; and girls who live in the homes must become
members of it. The code of conduct to which the girls
bind themselves may take care of the government of
the home in an important way; but the financial scheme
and general plan of organization should be found
readily adaptable for the great army of thrifty, simple,
well-meaning Slavic girls, and probably some of those
of other nationalities in the great industrial centers of
this country.
The Passaic cooperative boarding houses, of which
there are seven, are neat, comfortable cottages, hous-
ing, in most cases, about thirty girls each, and recogniz-
ing a rule whereby a sleeping room is shared by not
more than two persons. The residents are Galicians;
and all the homes are in neighborhoods of the same
nationality. Four houses are in the better residence
section known as the Eastern End; the remaining
three are in "Dundee," a district wholly industrial.
There is a high standard of cleanliness for all these
homes; clean, simple white curtains are at the windows,
326
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
and the tiny yards are neatly planted with vegetables
or flowers.
The history of the Passaic homes goes back more
than fifteen years, when a. young non-English-speaking
Galician woman left a Buffalo convent and came to
Passaic to work in one of the mills. With native thrift,
she had saved, at the end of a few years' work, nearly
two thousand dollars. It was at that time that the
woolen mills of Passaic were offering work and pay
which attracted unmarried or non-family Galician
girls, and they were coming to the town, to the mill
work, straight from Europe. It is estimated by a local
organization which serves the foreign-born population
that there are now in Passaic about 1200 Galician
women whose families are in Europe; and that some of
these women are married. The single Galician women
in Passaic far outnumber the single men of the same
nationality. Thus, since the immigration of girls began,
the town has had a special housing problem, created by
their coming. This was the situation which the young
Galician woman recognized; and stimulated by her
own experience in trying to live in Passaic comfort-
ably and decently, she determined to use the money
she had saved, in order that something better might
be realized for others.
She unfolded to the priest of the parish her plan for
the first cooperative home, and for establishing the
Tercyarki for single girls in Passaic. The priest ap-
proved, and from that time has given moral but not
other support to all the cooperative boarding ventures.
This woman, with another who also had saved some
money, bought a house, which they soon had filled with
mill girls. She charged them $3 a month apiece for
rent; and, regarding this as a chance to devote her
life to a good cause, she acted as housekeeper and
laundress for three years without being paid. She
327
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
marketed carefully for food, dividing the cost equally
among the residents. At the end of three years the
rental paid by these girls had reimbursed her invest-
ment. She was then married, and gave the responsi-
bility of the home to another; but she has continued
to aid with advice when new hones are started.
Subsequent houses have been self -maintaining. Three
or four mill girls who have been in the country long
enough to have money saved pool their savings and
thus jointly have sufficient to make a good first pay-
ment on the house they decide to buy. The house is at
once occupied by as many as it can hold without over-
crowding; all rooms except the kitchen being given up,
as a rule, for sleeping. The rental of $3 or $4 a month,
paid by each girl, is applied to payments on the house,
and to a salary for one of the owners who acts as house-
keeper. She is usually a young woman, like all the
rest who live there. The other owners and the girl
tenants work during the day in the mills. They have
"coffee" at home in the morning, and dinner at the
end of the day; and in one of the homes, the rate for
these two meals, in the high-cost-of-living times of
1919, was about $3 a week. The housekeeper divides
the cost equally among all, every week. Each girl
does her own laundry work, for which the facilities
are provided in the rent. The girls who have a room
together usually furnish it jointly; but some rooms are
already furnished when the girls come.
During the period of immigration before the war
new-coming girls were welcomed by those who had had a
partial initiation here, and when there was evidence of
demand, a new home was started by girls who had been
living in one of the homes, and had learned the method
by which they are carried on. It is stated by the parish
priest, and others who are familiar with the situation,
that all the girls who have been in the country a few
328
PROBLEMS OF THE WOMAN WORKER
years have savings with which they can combine to
buy new homes; and should the gate again be opened
to immigration it is prophesied that many more of
these homes will be started by such girls. In its whole
development, this Passaic cooperative plan relies
largely upon the foreign-born girl already here, to help
meet the problem of the foreign-born girl who has
newly arrived.
329
APPENDIX TO
TABLE
ORGANIZED BOARDING FACILITIES FOR FOREIGN-BORN WOMEN WAGE
NATIONALITY
Finnish .
French.
German
Hungarian —
Italian...
Jewish
Scandinavian
Slavic.
Spanish ,
International
NAME
Finnish Women's Co-operative
House
French Branch, Y.W.C.A.
French Evangelical Home
Hugenot Home
Jeanne D'Arc Home
Maedschenhein
German Governess' Home
Assn.
St. Mary's Home, Our Lady
of Hungary
St. Raphael's Society for Ital-
ian Immigrants
Clara Di Hirsch Home
Hannah Lavenburg Home
Unity House
Workers' Co-operative House
Young Women's Hebrew Assn.
Danish Mission Home
Norwegian Evang. Lutheran
Home
Norwegian Home for Girls
Swedish Epsorth House
Swedish Lutheran Immigrant
Home
Polish National Allicande Im-
migrant Home
Slavonic Immigrant Society
Casa Maria
[nternational Institute Board-
ing Home
ADDRESS
241 Lenox Avenue
124 West 16th Street
341 West 30th Street
237 West 24th Street
253 West 24th Street
217 East 62d Street
235 East 60th Street
231 East 72d Street
8 Charlton Street
225 East 63d Street
319 East 17th Street
135 Lexington Avenue
1786 Lexington Avenue
3 West 110th Street
154 East 64th Street
45 Whitehall Street
167 East 60th Street
588 Lexington Avenue
5 Water Street
180 Second Avenue
436 West 23d Street
251 West 14th Street
116 East 29th Street
CAPACITY
330
CHAPTER XV
XI
EARNERS. BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, 1919
OTHER NATIONALITIES
SERVED
RESIDENCE PERIOD
OCCUPATION
None.
None
None
None
American and Italian .
None.
None.
None.
None, usually
A few; most are Ai
ican born.. .
A few; all foreign born
A few; not primarily
for foreign born
Intended for workers
of any nationality. . .
Primarily for Jews,
most are American
born
None, usually
None
None, usually
None, usually
None, usually
None.
Cuban, French, and
some Americans . . .
All.
Transient
Permanent and transient
Transient
Transient
Transient
Permanent and transient
Transient
Chiefly transient
Temporary
Permanent
3-6 years permitted
Permanent
Permanent
Permanent
Transient, chiefly
Temporary
Transient
Transient and permanent
Temporary
Temporary
Transient and permanent
Permanent
Permanent
Cooperative, chiefly domestic
servants
Governesses and maids, chiefly
Governesses and maids, chiefly
Domestic workers, chiefly
Governesses
Chiefly married women going
to join family
Trade workers, chiefly
Factory and domestic workers
Cooperative. For members of
Local 24, Dress and Waist
Makers' Union
Cooperative. For men and
women, chiefly in garment
trades. Private enterprise
Domestic servants, chiefly
(For arriving immigrants)
Domestic servants, chiefly
Domestic servants, chiefly
Men and women, arriving
and returning
Few women arriving alone
(Men and women)
(Men and women, chiefly men)
Women are domestic servants
Teachers, office workers, and
fine hand-sewers
Office workers and factory
workers
331
CHAPTER XVI
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY— A NATIONAL
POLICY
ASSUMING that we do not want our immigrant wage
earners to be either "birds of passage" or an inferior
caste for doing the hard and disagreeable work of the
country; assuming that we do want them to thrive
and prosper here and to be merged and fused into a
united American citizenship, what are we doing and
what can we do, as a nation, toward this end?
Whatever may be our ideal of American citizenship,
the basis for common thought and action between the
native and foreign born lies in the adjustment of the
immigrant to the conditions of American economic life.
For most immigrants the necessity of earning a living
and the problems arising in the course of their employ-
ment constitute the major interests of their lives. It
is in these interests, therefore, and in the methods of
solving the problems of their working lives, that the
basis for fusing the native with the foreign born must
be sought.
Whether the nation consciously directs the process
or not, an adjustment of some kind between the immi-
grant wage earner and American industry is constantly
taking place. If, on account of inability to speak
English and ignorance of American industrial oppor-
tunities, the immigrant is unable to find a job and to
hold it, he gets a padrone, an interpreter, an employ-
ment agent, or a straw boss of his own nationality, to
help him overcome these difficulties. Industry, too,
A NATIONAL POLICY
adjusts its methods, processes, and management poli-
cies to the practices of such intermediaries, as well
as to lack of skill and ignorance of its immigrant labor
forces. These methods of adjustment, however, while
ofttimes helpful, develop abuses of their own, which
tend to separate the foreign-born from the native popu-
lation rather than to unite the two.
It is in the first years of the immigrant's life in Amer-
ica that he is particularly subject to these abuses and
maladjustments, and it is the newly arrived immigrant
that presents the greatest difficulties to American
industry. After a period of years, when he has learned
the language and the methods of the American indus-
tries in which he is employed, when he has familiarized
himself with the social agencies of American life that
function in behalf of the wage earner, the immigrant,
in most cases, has substantially improved his economic
position, and is able to command the same treatment
and consideration that native-born wage earners get.
But the newly arrived immigrant is apt to upset the
wage scales, working conditions, and management poli-
cies, often to the detriment of both the immigrant and
the industry; and the experiences of the early years
of his life in America frequently remain in his conscious-
ness as a nightmare, which often crops out to interfere
with the maintenance of proper relations between
employer and employee, as well as between native-
born and foreign-born population.
An attempt has been made in the preceding chapters
to describe the immigrant's industrial experiences in
America and to indicate their effect on his mind and
on his attitude towards things American. The mal-
adjustments which alienate, and the adjustments which
tend to draw the immigrant closer to American in-
dustry and its people, have been described in connec-
tion with the problems he has with finding a job and
333
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
learning to work, with management methods and
trade-union policies. And in connection with each of
these problems, it has been our purpose to indicate the
helpful measures and the agencies, public and private,
which have tended to prevent maladjustments, remove
difficulties, and further as complete and favorable
adjustments as is possible between American industry
and its immigrant employees.
COMBINING EXPERIENCE IN A UNITED STATES
IMMIGRATION COMMISSION
But the methods that have been found helpful in assist-
ing the process of adjustment have in the main been
disconnected instances. Employers here and there, a
few trade unions, a number of states, some immigrant
societies, and private or philanthropic labor agencies
have developed technique, policies, or administrative
organizations, which show what can be done in uniting
the immigrant with the native born, and how to do it.
These instances are, on the whole, increasing from year
to year. More and more is being done, but there is as
yet no concerted national movement, and the work of
uniting all this disconnected experience into a national
policy or program still remains to be done.
This should not be a difficult task, for all the elements
of such a program are already at hand in the various
experiments described in the preceding chapters. All
that is necessary is for some national authority to take
the leadership in spreading information about the
things that are being done and the results achieved,
and in assisting those employers, trade unions, and
government agencies which have remained backward
to adopt the methods of the most progressive.
Such a national authority would naturally be the
United States Immigration Service; but the policy of
334
A NATIONAL POLICY
restriction of immigration, to which our Congress is
committed, is bound to throw more and more quasi-
judicial functions on this Service in addition to its
regular administrative duties and in addition to the
guidance functions which a national adjustment policy
would make necessary. It has been the traditional
policy of the federal government in dealing with prob-
lems involving conflicting economic interests — such as
between shippers and carriers, bankers and borrowers,
employers and employees — to create quasi-judicial
bodies like the Interstate Commerce Commission, or
the Federal Reserve Board and the Railroad Labor
Board, to hold the proper balance between the con-
flicting groups. The restriction of immigration has
already developed conflict between those groups of our
population which desire abundant supplies of labor
and those which desire to restrict labor supplies as a
means of raising wages and other standards of American
life. To adjust these interests properly, it will be
necessary that the immigration authority be organized
in the form of a Board or a Commission with quasi-
judicial functions.
It is outside the purpose of the present volume to
discuss problems that have to do with the admission
of the immigrants into the country. But there is bound
to be a relation between a domestic policy for immi-
grants, with which we are here concerned, and the
policy of admission or restriction. We cannot refrain,
therefore, from pointing out that the sound lessons of
American experience have been to leave to a fact-find-
ing and quasi-judicial board or commission such dis-
putable facts as to whether the country is in need of
more labor or more immigrants of any kind, while
Congress enacts the general law stipulating when and
under what conditions immigrants are to be permitted
to enter or be denied admission.
335
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Just as the Interstate Commerce Commission is
given authority to investigate and determine what are
reasonable rates and adequate service, while Congress
enacts the general law that rates must be reasonable
and service adequate; so the Congress might similarly
enact that normally healthy and moral immigrants
may be admitted into the country when there is need
for them, but may be excluded when the industries of
the country could not absorb them. And the United
States Immigration Commission could be empowered
to ascertain and determine what the needs of the
country are for immigrant labor, and to issue orders
from time to time fixing the number and kind of immi-
grants who are to be admitted in accordance with the
ascertained needs of the country.
IMMIGRATION POLICY — DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
A national policy of adjusting immigrant and industry
would thus require a United States Immigration Board
or Commission with two main functions:
1. Admission — the foreign immigration policy;
2. Americanization — the domestic policy for immi-
grants.
We pass over the first as being beyond the scope of
this work. But the domestic policy must also have its
roots abroad. We have seen how some immigrant aid
societies have their agents in foreign countries, to dis-
courage those who cannot be admitted to this country
and to assist those who are on their way. Here is
suggestive experience for a United States Immigration
Commission to follow. If the government is to assume
more responsibility toward the immigrants in this coun-
try and assist in their adjustment to the conditions of
American life, it ought to know in advance what immi-
grants are coming over in number and kind. At the
336
A NATIONAL POLICY
same time it is only fair to the prospective immigrant
that he should know before he begins his long journey
whether he will be admitted into the United States and
whether there are opportunities for him to make a
living.
At present he gets this information in letters from
fellow countrymen in this country, who may be little
better informed than he is; from steamship companies
which are interested in securing passengers; and occa-
sionally from immigrant aid societies organized for the
welfare of the immigrant. It is proposed, therefore,
that the United States Immigration Commission shall
have stations abroad for examining those who apply for
admission to the United States, and that these agencies
should indicate on the immigrant's papers before he
starts that he will be admitted under the laws of the
United States.
Such a procedure would be equally advantageous to
the immigrants and to the United States, and the organ-
ization of stations in foreign countries would be one of
the first steps necessary in any comprehensive plan of
adjusting immigrants and industry in the United
States. For, besides examining immigrants for purposes
of admission, the agents of the immigration authority
stationed abroad might have the duty of disseminating
accurate information regarding industrial opportuni-
ties, to discourage from coming those classes of labor
for which there are abundant supplies in the United
States, and to aid in the proper selection of those for
whom there may be a special need.
Secretary of Labor, J. J. Davis, has proposed the
examination of immigrants abroad. But under the
present law there can always be an appeal from an
immigration agent to the Secretary of Labor, and the
Commissioner General of Immigration has explained
that most immigrants will take a chance on coming
337
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
over and having their cases heard by the Secretary
while friends interest Congressmen and Senators in
their behalf. Under such circumstances examination
abroad is useless. But if an Immigration Commission
could pass final judgments abroad, and had facilities
for securing accurate information to support its judg-
ments, then the maintenance of immigration stations
to vise the applications of immigrants who desire to
settle in the United States would be both desirable and
practical.
DISTRIBUTION AND PLACEMENT
In the purely domestic policy of adjusting immigrant
and industry, the distribution and placement of immi-
grants among our industries would be one of its first
functions. We have seen how finding a job is the first
need of the immigrant, how private labor agencies as
well as public employment bureaus, trade unions,
employers' associations, and philanthropic organiza-
tions have all attempted to meet the need. All of
them may be said thus far to have failed to meet the
need, but each of them has contributed something that
has been helpful, has had some measure of success. On
the whole, however, our conclusion must be that only
public enterprise on a national scale, a national em-
ployment service cooperating with the states and
municipalities can ever meet the need with any mea-
sure of completeness; and this will have to be supple-
mented to some extent by carefully regulated private
and philanthropic bureaus for specialized services which
the national system is unable to provide.
With such a national system of employment bureaus,
the proposed United States Immigration Service would
have to be closely connected, not only for the purpose
of proper placement of immigrants, but also because
in any policy of admission or restriction of immigration,
A NATIONAL POLICY
a most important consideration must be whether those
who are admitted are able to find employment in this
country.
A United States Employment Service cooperating
with states and cities which operate public employment
bureaus is already in existence. It is wofully crippled
because of lack of funds and lack of civil service require-
ments for its directors and managers. But the measures
necessary to enable it to render effective service are
known and established. They have been described in
Chapter III. All that is needed now is the will on the
part of the representatives of the Nation in Congress
to do it, and the financial means to make an efficient
administration possible.
The functions of the United States Immigration
Commission with respect to the distribution and place-
ment of immigrant labor may be briefly outlined as
follows :
1. It would license and regulate the activities of
those private labor agencies which supply immigrant
laborers. Most of these agencies "ship" immigrants,
as they call it, across state lines, and the states which
have attempted to license and regulate the work of such
agencies have on this account found it almost impossible
to protect the immigrants against the abuses which the
state laws were designed to remove.
2. The Commission would assist the public employ-
ment bureaus in organizing separate departments for
the handling of non-English-speaking workers, lending
its agents to act as interpreters in such departments or
perhaps operating such departments of the public
bureaus outright, in order that immigrant labor might
be placed in industry, to the best advantage of both
the immigrants and the industries of the country.
3. The collection of information about opportunities
for employment of immigrant labor would be primarily
339
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT! AND INDUSTRY
in the hands of the Employment Service, for it is seldom
that an employer uses foreign-born labor exclusively.
His requests for labor would be registered at the em-
ployment offices, and through these the Immigration
Commission would be able to secure accurate measures
of the real need for labor and the available supply.
4. The special services which immigrants need in
their search for work, some of which we have described
in Chapter III, would be the concern of the Immigra-
tion Commission, and as it ascertained these needs and
developed the measures for meeting them, it would
see to the installation of these in the departments for
non-English-speaking workers in the employment
offices.
5. For the purpose of determining whether additional
immigrant labor is needed, whether this is done
by Congress or by the Immigration Commission, the
information secured through the employment offices
would be the most reliable. The ordinary statements
made by employers of shortages of labor and by trade
unions of oversupply of labor are partisan attempts to
increase or decrease supply. Requests for help which
employers register at employment bureaus, however,
are "orders" for which they may be held responsible.
And if the bureaus are united in a national service, an
attempt can be made first to supply the demand from
labor available anywhere in the United States, both
native and foreign born. Then, if this available labor
cannot supply the entire demand, the residue can be
certified by the Immigration Commission as a bonafide
need of the country.
In Canada this is the actual procedure. Labor may
be imported into that country with the approval of
the immigration authorities. But when requests are
registered with the immigration department, these are
first referred to the Canadian Employment Service and
340
A NATIONAL POLICY
whatever labor is available in Canada is sent to meet
the demand. Only such workers as cannot be supplied
from within the country are then permitted to come
in. Importation of labor in this manner is prohibited
by our laws; but for the purpose of determining accu-
rately the need of immigrant labor in the United States
an Immigration Commission may well follow the same
procedure.
ADJUSTING THE IMMIGRANTS* INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
Next to the distribution and placement of immigrants
in a domestic immigration policy would come the ad-
justment of the industrial relations between immigrant
employee and American management. Corresponding
to this the proposed United States Immigration Com-
mission would need a Division of Industrial Relations
to study and help in the solution of three problems
which confront our immigrants and our industries alike:
1. Training of immigrant labor;
2. Labor management of immigrant employees;
3. Trade-union policies with respect to immigrant
employees.
Training for work in America is primarily the work
of the employer who uses immigrant labor. The expe-
rience of the war industries in training women and other
unskilled workers to new and unfamiliar tasks has
pointed a way toward the solution of the problem.
"Vestibule schools" conducted by employers, through
which every new employee must pass on his way into
the shops, guarantee that the immigrant's special prob-
lem of adjustment to new tasks and a strange industrial
environment will receive special attention. His capa-
cities can thus be ascertained and his instruction can
be directed to make him fit to hold the place into which
he is put.
341
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
But just as the spreading of "vestibule schools" and
other methods of training had to be stimulated and
directed for war purposes by the Section on Industrial
Training of the Council of National Defense, by a War
Department Committee on Education and Special
Training, and by the U. S. Training Service in the
Department of Labor, so a United States Immigration
Commission will have important duties in connection
with the development of "vestibule schools" and spe-
cial methods of training immigrants in American in-
dustries.
The methods themselves have been described rather
fully in Chapter VI, but they are far from universally
in use among plants employing immigrants. It took
a good deal of education, propaganda, and advisory
services on the part of the agencies mentioned to induce
employers to install systems of training for war pur-
poses, and it will take a good deal more to induce
them to develop training methods in pursuance of a
national policy of adjusting immigrants and industry.
The Immigration Commission will, therefore, have to
follow the methods of the war agencies designed to
promote training of industrial workers. It will need to
publish and distribute bulletins describing the methods
and results of such training of immigrants in industrial
plants. Its agents will have to address Chambers of
Commerce and other employers' organizations, as well
as trade unions, in the interest of training of immigrant
workers; and the Commission must be ready to supply
information and lend assistance in installing "vestibule
schools" and immigrant training departments in indus-
trial plants on request from employers.
A national policy designed to aid in the adjustment
of immigrant and industry requires also that the labor
management methods and policies of those employers
who have been most successful in uniting their employ-
342
A NATIONAL POLICY
ees in common thought and action should be spread as
rapidly as possible to all the industries which employ
immigrant labor. The United States Immigration Com-
mission in administering the domestic immigration
policy for the country would have to make this a most
important part of its work.
It would have a considerable body of successful
experience in this kind of work to follow. During the
war the proper management of labor was recognized
by the nation as an important factor in developing a
united purpose among all our people, and several
agencies were created to assist in spreading the best
labor management policies among the war industries.
An employment Management Section of the Council
of National Defense and a Division of Labor Adminis-
tration in the Department of Labor collected and dis-
tributed information relating to methods of hiring,
selecting, transferring, promoting and otherwise man-
aging labor in industrial plants. They also aided em-
ployers in organizing employment departments to
carry out the most successful policies designed to main-
tain peaceful and friendly relations between employers
and employees and to develop a cooperative spirit.
Similarly, a United States Immigration Commission
would have to collect and distribute information regard-
ing the most successful experience in managing immi-
grant labor, and to advise and assist employers in the
installation of such methods and policies in their
plants.
The development of the science of personnel manage-
ment and its widespread application in American
industries have been due largely to the activities of
war agencies established for the purpose; and theoreti-
cally the new labor management policies developed by
this science were to be applied to all employees without
discrimination. In actual practice, however, many
343
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
employment managers drew a dividing line between
English-speaking and non-English-speaking employees,
and the latter have often been left out of consideration
when the new policies designed to promote a more just
and democratic relationship between employer and
employee were inaugurated.
This neglect was quite natural, for the employment
manager usually understood neither the languages nor
the ways of the foreign-born workers they employed.
But it is just these non-English-speaking employees
that need most the understanding and the humane
labor policies developed by the science of personnel
management. The Immigration Commission would,
therefore, have for its duty the raising of the standards
of labor management of immigrant workers, just as
general labor standards were raised by governmental
agencies in the war industries. Where laws are violated
in the employment and treatment of immigrant labor,
it would see that these laws are properly enforced, and
where no violation of law is involved, its bulletins and
other information would advise employers as to the
best methods of understanding and handling wage
earners of various nationalities.
We have seen that trade unions, like the industries
in which they operate, need to adjust their methods
and policies to the characteristics and capacities of the
immigrant nationalities which abound in so many of
our industries. A number of unions have been markedly
successful both in organizing and holding immigrants
of many nationalities in the common comradeship of a
permanent organization; and the basis of their success
has been the special methods they have adopted for
appealing to and educating the foreign-born workers.
The breaking down of division and antagonism be-
tween American organized labor and the masses of im-
migrant workers in our midst, and the building up of
344
A NATIONAL POLICY
a spirit of common citizenship is another task for an
Immigration Commission entrusted with carrying out
a domestic policy for immigrants. This would be pro-
moted by the study of the methods and policies of
labor organizations which have been most successful
in uniting native and foreign-born in their member-
ship, and the publication and distribution of such infor-
mation among labor organizations in the same manner
that development of proper management policies for
immigrant labor is spread among employers.
RELATIONS OF IMMIGRANT TO AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
Our governments, state, local and national, play their
part in all the problems of industrial adjustment. They
have at times assisted both the immigrants and the
industries in the processes of adjustment, by legislative
and administrative action, and sometimes they have
made adjustment more difficult, by legislation restrict-
ing opportunities for employment or discriminating
against aliens in the protection of the laws. A few
states have taken positive action toward developing a
domestic immigration policy for the aliens in their
midst, and, though usually working under handicaps
of inadequate appropriations, these have shown both
the need of such a policy of studying at first-hand the
problems of the immigrant through complaint and
trouble bureaus, and the effective results that may be
secured by such a policy in helping the immigrant to
adjust himself to life in America and in enlisting him
as a loyal member of a united citizenship.
The immigrant in America has also developed many
agencies of self-help in all the fields of industrial adjust-
ment which we have mentioned, and organizations of
the foreign born help people of their own nationality
to find work, to settle problems with their employers,
345
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
to organize trade unions, to cooperate in maintaining
stores and restaurants, as well as to learn English and
prepare for the duties and responsibilities of American
citizenship. These organizations have developed the
practical methods in many cases, which have later been
adopted by American employers, trade unions, and
public authorities. But when the immigrant has to
depend in large part or for a long time on such organi-
zations to help him meet his problems of adjustment,
there is danger that his loyalty to the organization of
his own nationality, and through it to his native land,
may be perpetuated, and so hold him back from par-
ticipation in American organizations and American
affairs.
To assist and to control the immigrant's own agencies
for adjustment, as well as to work in cooperation with
the agencies created by state and local governments,
the proposed national Immigration Commission would
need another division which might be called the
Division of Governmental Relations. In states like
California, Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware,
where public bureaus are maintained for the purpose
of learning the immigrant's problems and helping him
to solve them, this division would merely have to en-
courage the work by cooperation, especially in help-
ing with problems that involve national laws or that
go beyond state lines and require action by federal
authorities. Where no such state agencies exist, how-
ever, the division might perform this service itself as
best it can until the states are led to undertake it by
the example of the federal government and other states.
Organization of the immigrant's own agencies for
help in adjusting himself to the conditions of American
industrial life would not be discouraged by a United
States Immigration Commission. On the contrary
such self-help would be encouraged. But the commis-
346
A NATIONAL POLICY
sion, as well as the state agencies, would want to advise
and assist in their work; to make it plain to the immi-
grant that America is ready to help, and is helping
through the people of his own nationality, and to make
sure that he will get the most sympathetic and intelli-
gent kind of help during the time when he is unable to
speak English and unable to take care of himself
through the ordinary American agencies.
CONCLUSION
In addition to the work thus outlined concerning the
direct relations of the immigrant and industry, the pro-
posed Immigration Commission ought to have most
important functions with respect to immigrant educa-
tion and naturalization. We omit detailed considera-
tion of these, because the problems of schooling of the
immigrant and naturalization have been treated fully
in two other volumes of this series, and we are con-
cerned here primarily with industrial adjustments.
With respect to education, however, it is not the
immigrant alone that needs to be taught. The Amer-
ican people, too, need education with respect to the
problems which immigration presents to the nation;
and they need to know more intimately the character-
istics and the quality of the alien peoples who are man-
ning our industries and whose children will make up
a very large part of the American people of the
future.
To meet these needs, as well as to aid in the teaching
of the immigrant, a United States Immigration Com-
mission will have important duties to perform in con-
nection with the study of immigrant races in America,
their distribution, industrial as well as geographical,
the kind of work they are doing, skilled or unskilled,
the progress they are making in the economic structure,
347
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
etc. Something along this line has in recent years been
begun by the states. The Illinois Department of Regis-
tration and Education, for example, has published
bulletins one of which is entitled: "The Immigrant
and the Coal Mining Communities of Illinois." And
the Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration began the
publication of a series of short bulletins under the
general title of "Immigrant Races in Massachusetts,"
each bulletin treating of a separate people, e.g. "The
Greeks," "The Syrians."
These studies and the publication of the results
could be much improved if they were directed by a
United States Immigration Commission which was in
close contact with all the immigrants. The data on
which conclusions are based would be more extensive
and correspondingly more reliable. The facts of the
Census Bureau, the immigration stations, employment
offices, employers' records, trade-union experiences, and
"trouble bureaus" conducted by local, public, or private
agencies, all could be more easily studied, and the
results distributed throughout the nation.
A national policy designed to adjust immigrant and
industry requires no elaborate legislation or govern-
mental administrative machinery. What we have
attempted in these chapters — to study the experiences
of immigrants and industries, and the methods of ad-
justment that have proved most successful and bene-
ficial— this needs to be continually done. And a
national public authority like a United States Immigra-
tion Commission, if charged with this authority, would
be in a position to hold up the example of the most
advanced states and the most progressive employers
and trade unions to the rest of the country, and thus
enlist the cooperation of the whole nation in helping
to merge the foreign born with the native industrial
population.
348
INDEX
Abbott, Grace, 320
Accident:
Prevention, 134
Rates, 135-136
Agents:
Americanization, 83-84, 234-
245
Employment, 31, 35-39, 51, 53
Agriculture:
Loss of labor, 43-45
Akron, Ohio:
Goodyear Tire and Rubber
Co., 150, 158
Industrial troubles, 71
Amalgamated Association of Iron,
Steel, and Tin Workers,198
Amalgamated Clothing Workers,
206, 225, 295
Amalgamated Meat Cutters and
Butchers Workmen, 191
Amalgamated Textile Workers,
177, 205-206
America:
Relation of immigrants, 23
American Federation of Labor,
170, 171, 176, 178, 180,
192, 201, 205, 216, 222,
230, 286, 295, 296
Americanization, 246-277
Agents, 83-84, 164, 234-245
Attitude of Labor, 21-23
Employer, 65-66
Classes, 80
Definition, 3-5, 150
Arizona:
Laws Employment, 249, 252
B
Balch, Emily G., 128
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 42
Benefits:
Immigrant, 222-224
Bloomfield, Daniel, 120
Bok, Edward, 3
Bridge, J. H., 175
Brooks, John Graham, viii
Bureau of Immigration, 51
Burroughs Adding Machine Co.,
113, 115
Cahan, Abraham, 129
California:
Commission of Immigration
and Housing, 37, 258, 265,
267, 268, 270-273
Laws:
Education, 261
Employment, 249-251, 257
Cambria Steel Co., 162-163
Canadian Employment Service,
340
Carbide and Carbon Co., 42
Christian Science Monitor, 79
349
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Claghorn, Kate H., 249
Cleveland Stone Co., 42
Cohen, Rose, 18-19, 126
Colorado Fuel and Iron Co., 151
Commissioner-General of Immi-
gration, 301, 308, 320
Commons, J. R., 192
Community :
Composition, 14-16
Immigrant relation, 292-296
Connecticut:
Bridgeport:
Foreign-born, 6
Laws:
Education, 261-265
Employment, 249, 256
Cooperative:
Laws, 294
Immigrant, 292-296
Council of National Defense,
106, 109-110
D
Davis, B, 122
Davis, J. J., 337
Davis, Michael M., 138
Delaware:
Americanization Committee,
73, 82, 142, 246, 253-254,
266, 277
Laws:
Education, 261-265
Employment, 249, 250-251,
259
Demuth, Wm., & Co., 152
Dooley, C. R., 109
Duncan, James, 172
Employees:
Immigrant:
E
Age, 18
Clothing, 206-214
Iron and Steel, 197-201
Management, 80-103
Maturity, 18
Miners, 185-191
Packing-house, 191-197
Representation, 149-168
Textile, 201-206
Employer:
Aid, 102
Association, 43
Attitude on Americanization,
65-66
Employment:
Department, 85, 86
Immigrants:
Agents, 35-39, 62
Attitude to, 19-20
Need, 28
Securing, 29-35
Managers, 59, 88-92, 102-125
Service, 49-65
English:
Need, 134
Teaching, 68, 80, 118-120,
260, 314, 319
Federal Reserve Board, 335
Federation of Miners and Mine
Laboiers, 185
Feiss, Richard A., 90, 99
Fitch, J. A., 175, 197
Florida:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Ford, James, 289, 292
Fosdick, Raymond, viii
Foster, William Z., 200
350
INDEX
Gay, Edwin,
Georgia:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Glenn, John, viii
Gompers, Samuel, 3, 172, 286-
Harding, Warren G., 50
Hebrew Sheltering Society, 39
278-281
Herlihy, Charles M., 121, 206
Hildreth, Helen R., 316
Hillman, Sidney, 209
Housing, 66-67
Husband, W. W., 27
Idaho:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Illinois:
Chicago:
Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, 223
Armour & Co., 124-125
Catholic Women's League,
320
Employment Agents, 35
Foreign-born, 6
Hart, Schaffner & Marx, 208
Immigrants Protective
League, 320
Juvenile Protective League,
72
Laws:
Education, 261-265
Immigrant:
Aid societies, 40, 278-285
Bureau of Industry, 288-289
Cooperative societies, 289-291
Industry:
Adjusting, 332-350
Americanization through,
1-27
Conditions, 126-148
Management of, 80-103
Place, 28-34
Relation, 65-80, 169-184
Trade Unions:
Experience, 185-214
Management, 215-23S
Training, 104-125
Women, 297-330
Labor federations, 285-288
Organizations :
(See under separate organ-
ization)
Protective League, 40
Relation to community
292-296
Industrial Commission of Wis-
consin, 71-72, 136
Industrial Workers of the World,
178-184, 203-205, 232
Industry:
Immigrants :
Adjusting, 332-350
Americanization through,
1-27
Conditions, 126-148
Management, 80-103
Place, 28-64
Relation, 65-80, 169-184
Training, 104-125
S51
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Trade Unions:
Experience, 185-214
Management, 215-233
Women, 297-330
International Cigar Makers'
Union, 228
International Harvester Com-
pany, 120, 128, 158, 161
International Ladies' Garment
Workers, 206, 223
Interpreter :
Employment work, 64
Interstate Commerce Commis-
sion, 335
Irish Emigrant Society, 281
J
Jewelry Workers' International,
229
Jewish Communal Register, 284,
288
Jones, George M., Co., 42
Justice:
Demonstration, 102
L
Labor:
Camps, 71-77
Conditions, 126-168
Organized:
immigrant:
Americanization, 234-245
Experience, 169-184
Unions, 20, 185-233
Turnover, 43-49, 85
Laborers :
Foreign-born, 11, 12, 43, 181
Lake Carriers' Association, 43
Lane, Franklin K., 3
Laws:
Federal, 252
Immigration, 27, 78
Municipal:
Employment, 250
State:
Citizenship, 247
Cooperative, 294
Education, 122, 261-262
Employment, 249-259
Labor, 122
Land, 248-249
Leitch, John, 157, 159, 166
Litchfield, Paul W., 150
Living:
Cost, 74
Livingston, C. A., 124
Louisiana:
Laws:
Employment, 249
M
McCormick, Cyrus, 120, 128
McCormick, Harold, 158
McDonnell, J. P., 172
MacPherson, F. H., 167
Mahoney, John, 260
Makowski, Mother, 37-39
Maryland:
Laws:
Employment, 250
Massachusetts:
Boston:
Foreign-born, 6
Brockton:
English, 125
Bureau of Immigration, 87,
266, 267, 268, 269, 272
Fall River:
Foreign-born, 6
352
INDEX
Framingham:
Dennison Manufacturing
Co., 153
Immigrant Education, 121
Immigration Commission, 324
Lawrence, 6, 204
Woolen mill workers, 119
Lynn:
General Electric Co., 76
Laws:
Education, 261-265
Employment, 249, 258
Lowell:
Foreign-born, 16
United Textile Workers, 203
New Bedford:
Foreign-born, 6
Woonsocket:
Foreign-born, 6
Mauer, James H., 218
Meily, John J., xv
Michigan :
Detroit Sulphite and Pulp
Co., 167
Foreign-born, 6
Duluth, 6
Laws:
Employment, 249
Miller, Hugo, 172
Mills, F. C., 47-48
Milwaukee Employment Bu-
reau, 62-63
Missouri Commission of Labor,
30-31
Mitchell, John, 186, 187, 193, 195
Montgomery, Louise, 300
N
National Association of Manu-
facturers, 116
National Erectors Assoc., 43
National Metal Trades Associa-
tion, 43
National Safety Council, 135,
166
Nationality, 92
Naturalization:
Aid, 273
New Hampshire:
Laws:
Employment, 252
New Jersey:
Bayonne:
Laws:
Employment, 250
Department of Labor, 170
Laws:
Employment, 249, 252
Passaic, 6, 325-329
Paterson, 6, 179
Perth Amboy, 6
New York:
Boarding Houses, 330-331
Buffalo:
Laws:
Employment, 250
Bureau of Industries and Im-
migration, 36, 254, 256-
257, 268, 270-273, 275,
280
City:
Employment agents, 35
Foreign-born, 6
Italian Chamber of Com-
merce, 288, 296
Laws:
Employment, 250
Employment Bureau, 166
German Society, 281
353
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
Laws:
Education, 261-265
Employment, 249, 252
Niagara:
Laws:
Employment, 250
Rochester, 75, 143
Norton Grinding Company, 115
Odercranz, L., 31, 325
Ohio:
Canton:
Timken Roller Bearing Co.,
96
Cleveland, 6
Clothcraft Shop, 139
Clothing Manufacturing, 75
Immigration Bureau, 258,
269, 274
Ladies' Garment Workers,
208
Midvale Steel Co., 77
Prentz-Biedermann Co., 77
White Motor Co., 131-132
Dayton:
Recording and Computing
Machine Co., 112
Laws:
Employment, 249
Toledo:
Laws:
Employment, 250
Oliver Coal Co., 42
Oregon:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Organizations :
(See separate names)
Packard Motor Car Co.. 115
Pennsylvania:
Bethlehem:
Bethlehem Steel Co., 162,
164
East Pittsburg,
Westinghouse Electric and
Manufacturing Co., 86
Laws:
Education, 261-265
Employment, 249
Mine Workers, 187
Philadelphia:
Fayette R. Plumb Co., 127
Laws:
Employment, 251
Pittsburg:
Laws:
Employment, 251
Polish National Alliance, 281
Population :
Ratio foreign to native born,
5-6
Price, C. W., 36
Production:
Increase, 106
"Protocol of Peace," 207
Publications :
Century Magazine, 171
Plant Periodicals, 144-145
Pulitzer, Joseph, 3
Boarding houses, 331-332
Community, 16
Industry, 16
Railroad Labor Board, 335
Ravage, M. E., 33-35
354
INDEX
Rectanus, S. R., 83
Rhode Island:
Providence:
Laws:
Employment, 251
Rice, M., 42
Riis, Jacob, 3
Ripley, William Z., 235
Roberts, Peter, 122
Roosevelt, Theodore, viii
Saposs, David J., xv
Schools:
English classes, 118-125
Vestibule, 111-117
Schurz, Carl, 3
Sicher, D. E., & Co., 119
Society for Italian Immigrants,
39, 282-283
Speek, Peter A., 37
"Square Deal Department," 25
Standard Oil Co., 76
Steiner, Ed., 32
Stevens, Bertha M., xv
Strasser, Adolph, 172
Straus, Oscar, 3
Strikes:
Clothing workers', 207, 211
Homestead, 198
I. W. W., 180
Miners:
Coal, 186, 188, 189
Packing-house, 224
Textile, 203, 204
1919-1920, 78
Talbot, D. R., 42
Tarbell, Ida, 120, 133, 139
Texas:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Thompson, Frank V., 261
Tolsted, E. B., 165
Trade Unions:
(See Labor)
U
Unions:
(See Labor)
Recognition, 74
Relation to Immigrant, 169-
184
United Cloth Hat and Cap
Makers' Union, 230
United Garment Workers, 210
United German Trades, 285.
295
United Hebrew Trades, 286, 295
United Leather Workers, 177
United Mine Workers, 186, 217-
221, 225, 236
United Shoe Workers, 229
United States Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 133
United States Census, 6, 297,
298
United States Commission of
Immigration, 12, 13, 15,
18, 28, 44-46, 170-174,
202, 290, 301, 308, 334-
337
United States Department of
Labor, 110, 112
United States Department of
War, 109
United States Division of Infor-
mation, 59
355
ADJUSTING IMMIGRANT AND INDUSTRY
United States Employment Ser-
vice, 55-59, 61
United States Industrial Com-
mission, 185
United States Steel Corporation,
128
United Textile Workers, 202-206,
228
V
Vermont:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Virginia:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Voll, John A., viii
W
Walter, Henrietta, xv
"Want Ads," 32-33
War:
Civil, 4
World, 4, 5, 26, 27, 58, 77, 85,
97, 106, 108, 122, 184, 203,
261
Warne, F. J.. 236
Washington:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Welfare Work, 66-70, 77, 145-
149
Wells, H. G., 4
Weyforth, W. O., 175
Williams, Talcott, viii
Wisconsin:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Wisler, Willis W.,
Wolman, Leo, 176
Women:
Housekeeping instructions, 68
In Industry, 101. 108-110,
297-331
Woods, Arthur, 50
Wyoming:
Laws:
Employment, 249
Young, Arthur H., 161
Y. M. C. A., 40, 120-125
Y. W. C. A.. 40, 101, 124, 322
356
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