CHAPTER XV

CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE COUNTRY. WAGES. PAUPERISM. CRIME. INSANITY

Turning to those aspects of the immigration situation in this country which more immediately affect the life of the American people as a whole, we find that they group themselves under nine main heads, as follows: wages and standard of living, pauperism, crime, insanity, industrial efficiency and progress, amount and distribution of wealth, crises, social stratification, and politics. In each of these categories certain preliminary effects are already observable, and other much more extensive ones may be predicted on a theoretic and hypothetical basis.

As regards wages, we have already made a careful study of what may be taken as typical immigrant wages. The question now is, how have these wages affected the earnings of the great body of American workmen? Has this admittedly low wage scale of the foreign labor body exercised a depressing effect upon the remuneration of the native American, or has the latter been enabled, by relinquishing the lower grades of labor to the foreigner, to avail himself of higher and better paid positions?

This question, like many others of its class, involves the problem of determining what would have happened if history had been different in some single particular. It is a most perilous, and often profitless, field to enter. It is apparently impossible for statisticians to determine with certainty what has been the course of real wages within the past half century or so. There is no doubt that money wages have gone up. There is also no doubt that the average price of commodities has gone up. The question is whether average prices or average wages have gone up the faster. The most reliable tables covering this subject are probably those of the Bureau of Labor, and these have been discontinued since 1907. As far as the showing which they make can be depended upon, it seems to indicate that there has been a very slight rise in the purchasing power of full-time weekly wages since 1890.[269] Granting this, the question still remains, would not the American workman have enjoyed a much greater increase in real wages during this period, if he had been allowed to reap the full advantage of his economic position in the country, without having to meet the competition of vast numbers of foreign laborers? The answer to this question must rest on pure theory, as its statistical proof would involve a reënactment of past history, which is a manifest impossibility.

According to the established laws of economics there are two ways in which immigration may operate to lower wages. First, by increasing the supply of labor in the country, and thereby diminishing the amount of remuneration which the individual laborer can command. Second, by introducing a body of laborers whose customary wage in the countries they come from, and whose corresponding standard of living, is much lower than the prevailing standard in the new country. This factor operates, not by increasing the number of laborers bidding for employment, but by lowering the amount of the initial bid on the part of a sufficient number of laborers to fix the remuneration for the whole lot. As to the first of these ways, if the argument contained in