CHAPTER XVI

INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS. CRISES. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION. POLITICAL EFFECTS

It has been observed already that the great argument for immigration during the past half century has been the economic one. The main defense for immigration has rested upon the claim that it has decidedly increased the industrial efficiency of the American people, and has facilitated the development of our resources, and the expansion of industry, at a rate which would not have been possible otherwise. The facts in regard to the age, sex, and physical soundness of the immigrants are mustered to establish them as a peculiarly efficient industrial body.

This contention rests upon two assumptions. First, that our alien residents constitute a net addition to the total population of the country; second, that if there had been no immigration, and the population, particularly that part of it which constitutes the labor supply, had been smaller, that there would have been no inventions and improvements in the way of labor-saving machinery which would have permitted the same amount of work to be accomplished with a smaller amount of labor.

In the light of what has been said in regard to the relation between immigration and the growth of population in