Chapter VI:
Business and Immigration
Although the epochs through which immigration to America has passed have been so largely industrial in character, American business has taken far less interest in the subject than is generally supposed. And toward future immigration, already on the verge of becoming an adjunct to international commerce, American business still remains indifferent. And yet, the whole subject, as we face it to- day is first of all a dollar and cents affair.
Much as some of us would like to dwell upon the humanitarian movements which should be part of this period of reconstruction, there is no mistaking the spirit of the age which is impatient of all else while the economic task remains undone. The question which we are to consider in the succeeding chapters is, therefore, whether future immigration will pay.
Business all over the world is proceeding on the theory that this is an economic age, one in which material welfare, individual profits and the control and development of resources and of man power will take precedence over everything else. It is but natural, then, that business leadership will count for most, and that there will be no peace throughout the world until the material prosperity and economic stability of all countries are more nearly equalized. This is the logic which has made immigration so largely an economic question. It partly explains what sometimes seems to be the selfish point of view of business, since it is willing to leave to others the aspects of immigration which are not concerned primarily with the day's work. Much as business men may be tempted to participate in general immigration movements, they know that unless immigration is a paying investment for the country. For themselves, and for the immigrant, everything else connected with it will fail.
Up to the present time immigration has paid. better than any other single element in production. This is true because it has cost industry comparatively nothing to secure immigrant workmen; it has cost little per man to maintain their efficiency; and it has cost comparatively little to replace immigrant man power. This hitherto unfailing source of supply has kept down the cost of production and has increased output. American business then should be prepared to deal with the new questions which will be involved, if there is to be a change in either the volume or in the quality of immigration and if it is to become a matter of state economics and regulation between nations instead of a matter of individual initiative. For it is production which will be most affected, if the trend of immigration is unfavorable to America. If, in the future, deposits of men are to be as much a matter of competition to protect and to control as are deposits of ore and oil, it is to business that the country must turn for assistance. in meeting the new problems of immigration.
The tendency of government to rely upon business organizations to deal with the grave problems which have resulted from the war is illustrated by the manner in which France and England, in their different ways, are meeting the present situation in which racial relations play so large a part.
France is concentrating her attention on internal affairs, and the minds of none of her leaders are to be diverted from the task in hand. Her people are working long hours, harvesting great crops and saving, even when there is a surplus. She is patiently repairing the ravages of war at each minute and specific point. There, unrest is being quietly controlled by the exclusion from power of its leaders, by the circulation of a sense of prosperity, by the equal distribution of available necessities and comforts, and by the elimination of "undesirable foreigners." Everything in the country is French and for the French. Competition in its internal affairs is desired from no other race. The country through the united efforts of all her people is rapidly being built into an economic fortress; a fortress which, it is hoped, will withstand not only the revolutionary tendencies of the present age, but also the economic wars of the future.
Great Britain, keenly alive as is France to her home problems, is concentrating her attention upon the stabilization of world affairs. She believes that the internal solidarity of no one nation will be strong enough to preserve the present economic order so long as Soviet propaganda continues. She sees the imminent disintegration of the present economic order, so long as the smaller countries are at war; so long as the backward races are neither self- governing nor safe from new oppression and despoliation, and so long as the new republics, which owe their birth to the collapse of Russia, are without stable governments. Great Britain sees also the imperative need of wide vision and careful judgment in dealing with the many nationalistic claims and movements springing up on every side; in settling complicated boundary questions whose determination is fraught with difficulties; and in stemming the Bolshevik tide, which is appearing in countries ill- adapted to embrace a Soviet régime, such as Egypt and China. She accepts her share of the responsibility of deciding whether a country shall have an autonomy, a mandate, a plebiscite or complete independence.
But in America, government and business cooperate less sympathetically and openly than abroad. Of late, government and business have been inclined to go their separate ways. When such aloofness extends to international affairs, the results cannot but be disastrous to American interests. Nothing, perhaps, illustrates better this truth than the way in which immigration has been dealt with by business in the past and the way in which it is regarded to- day.
Business confronted by the evils which have resulted from a decrease of immigration and from an exodus of the foreign born, and from infection of the immigrant with Bolshevism, has turned from international to local solutions for the problems thus created. It has proposed measures that are largely local and individual in dealing with lower production; with increased cost and inferior quality; with decreased efficiency and increased pay; with the rising cost of living; with the display of extravagances; with the spectacular instances of enormous profits; with unrestrained speculation; with the use of leisure primarily for amusement; and with the prevalence of strikes, and disorder, and employment.
Later, when the cause of these conditions was found to be largely international in character, such as a reduced supply of men and material, the disarrangement of industrial organization, or Bolshevist propaganda, business persistently applied to one or all of them remedies that reckoned little of events outside of its own immediate field. Strikes for this reason have been deprecated and adjusted, as though they were purely local affairs. Bolshevism has been fought only in localities where it has dared too prominently to raise its head. Retrenchment has been counseled only when extravagance ran too high. Production has been spasmodically urged to meet the mounting cost of living. Business has been tirelessly on the watch to prevent local disasters, but it has made few attempts to bring together its forces to meet the general situation.
The dangers inherent in this highly developed local point of view, and in this superficial method of handling situations, have already shown themselves in two important aspects of immigration affairs in this country, with which business has been called upon to deal. The first of these was the appearance of Bolshevism. When the Bolshevist propaganda reached America, the business man regarded it as a new species of anarchy. It was not until its activities began to show an increased unrest, in "striking on the job," in unusual demands, and in increased labor turnover, that business began to take a serious interest in the phenomenon. When the usual measures of relief were applied—increased wages, shorter hours, or better working conditions—business found that these palliatives had lost much of their efficacy. Then only did business discover that it was dealing with sources of power not only beyond its knowledge and control, but located far beyond American borders. Business then learned that the speakers, literature, and theories which were upsetting plant production and morale came from centers which it could not reach and that they contained arguments which, because they were international in scope, it did not know how to refute. Much of this propaganda was in a language which business men could not read, and it dealt with forms of thought with which their workmen were often far more familiar than they were themselves.
What was the real nature of the attack which business was so slow to appreciate? Bolshevism relied upon formulae and alleged facts which were economic in character. For those who recall chiefly the newspaper headlines, it may be well to repeat a few of these formulae and to show the nature of the alleged facts which were used in their support.
Bolshevism's first formula was that "labor creates all wealth," and therefore capital is unnecessary and all private property should be abolished. To convince the credulous of the genuineness of this formula, its leaders twisted and distorted excerpts from books written by economists. They did not hesitate to garble statements of leading authorities on history and current affairs. They did all this, secure in the knowledge that the great mass of people who read them did not know the original sources from which their "proof" was drawn.
Bolshevism's second formula was that "the profits of industry go to the employers and not to the workers"; and the general slogan used most frequently by them was, "go after the works." To support this formula, its leaders published statistics, data and illustrations which were taken for the most part from corporation statements and from financial reports. Information concerning costs and earnings were presented in such form, and in such part, as the Bolshevist writers saw fit, and were generally sent out as "official information." Rarely did the Bolshevist publicist deal in generalities. Much of his skill as a writer lay in his ability to give the impression that his conclusions were always based upon "facts."
Bolshevism's third formula was that "the capitalistic system was nothing but human oppression and injustice"—the mildest terms of description used by its propagandists. Public occurrences, such as industrial accidents and accounts of excess profits, were worked up with painstaking care in support of these charges of oppression and injustice. The skill with which the details of each story were presented was indicative of the high degree of efficiency with which the whole Bolshevist program of propaganda was developed.
Bolshevism's fourth formula was that "no job is safe under capitalism" and, therefore, capital should be abolished by "direct action." The workingman was advised to "work as slowly as possible," and to "strike on or off the job," whichever proved most effective.
An illustration of the kind of facts used to support these formulae is shown by the following excerpts from an editorial in one of the radical publications which is typical of the teachings of the various revolutionary bodies which though they maintain separate organizations, all have the same common destructive aims.
"Do you know that the income of the United States in 1915 was 33 billion, while in 1918 it was 73 billion, an increase of over 100%?"
"Do you know that labor produces all wealth and without labor no wealth could be produced?"
"Do you know that only 38% of the people of the United States actually labor; 36% are the young, old and crippled, while 26% do no work of any kind, yet receive the best of everything?"
"Do you know that we have 400 more millionaires in 1918 than in 1913?"
"Do you know that the workers (the only wealth producers) pay, every year, 602 millions in rent, for the privilege of living on the earth?"
"Do you know that you pay 668 million dollars every year in interest?"
"Do you know that 2,136,000,000 dollars is extracted from your labor power every year in the form of profits?" "Do you know that 376 persons in the United States receive an income from rent, interest and profit of 200 million dollars every year?
"Do you know that the children of fathers earning less than $450 per year die at the rate of 170 per 1,000 before they reach the age of 3 years?
"Do you know that children of fathers earning between $650 and $850 per annum die at the rate of 100 per 1,000 before they are 3 years old?
"Do you know that children of fathers earning between $850 and $1,000 die at the rate of 80 per 1,000 before they are 3 years old?
"Do you know that only 60 per 1,000 under three years old, die whose parents earn $1,250 and over?
"Do you know that the profits of the 'big five' were 95 million dollars in 1918?
"Do you know that the profits of the American Sugar Refining Company in 1918 were $6,661,683, and this is in the year of sugar famine?
"Do you know that the United States Department of Labor in Bulletin No. 232 states that the labor cost of a pair of welt lace shoes is 36 cents?
"Do you know that the 36 cents represents the wages of the fireman, the bookmakers, the watchman and the superintendent as well as the wages of those who handle the product directly?
"Do you know that the total amount of labor time necessary to make a pair of shoes is 86 minutes?
"Do you know why a pair of shoes cost as much as $12 and $15 a pair? It is because 67 persons in the United States receive an income of $6,000,000 yearly from rent, $21,000,000 from interest, $84,000,000 from profit and $178,000,000 from dividends, a total for only 67 persons of $289,000,000.
"Do you know that out of 171,691 school children examined by the Board of Health it was found that 29,781 were perfectly nourished, 104,908 were on the border line of under- nourishment, 31,718 were greatly under- nourished, and 5,284 were in a chronic state of under- nourishment?
"Do you know that 100,000,000 dollars were voted in Washington in 1919 to feed starving Europe? 78,575 children in New York City died in 1919, and 12,568 of them were under one year of age?
"Do you know that New York City has 50 Baby Health Stations, and in 1919, out of 20,000 quarts of milk required there could only be supplied 9,000 quarts because the Dairymen's League (a combine of six men) desired to hold up the city for ransom?
"Do you know that when asked what they did with the surplus the Secretary of the League stated that they gave the milk to the pigs and that it was no concern of theirs that 11,000 children had to go without?
"Do you know that if you wish to stop this contrast, poverty for the workers and riches for the idlers, you must join the One Big Union known as the I. W. W. and unite with your fellows so as to put a stop to all exploitations and assure to the workers the full value of the wealth that they themselves create?"
The Bolshevist program was entrusted to trained workers, able publicists, expert investigators and capable speakers and writers. They were engaged in a cause in which they believed with their whole hearts; but they were supported by a considerable constituency which hoped to profit by the downfall of capitalism.
Effective opposition to this program lay with industry through a counter reply to the propaganda; through an anticipation of misstatements by giving workingmen the facts concerning industry and capital; through the promotion of personal contacts between management and men; through the granting of an increased participation in profits; through the greater assurance of security of employment; and through finding new incentives to production. To carry out such a program required no less able leadership and a no less well trained staff than that to which it was opposed in the Bolshevist camp.
When it dawned upon business interests that the attacks of Bolshevism were not so much against government as against business; when it saw that it was not the Republic but capitalism which Bolshevism wished first to destroy— what did business do? Did it analyze the nature of the attack? Did it unite its forces and concentrate against it? Did it assemble its leaders to plan a counter campaign and to unite judgment under capable generalship?
It did nothing of the kind. True, here and there an enlightened trade organization dealt intelligently with the menace of Bolshevism; but more often it listened respectfully to an exposé of its methods and then debated whether or not it would contribute $100 to a campaign against it. In the meantime, thousands of workingmen all over the country were giving regularly a large part of their week's wages to revolutionary funds. It is true, that some corporations also carry on a desultory campaign among themselves. They paid for messages against Bolshevism and bought space in the press for their distribution. They contracted for space on billboards and bulletin boards. They financed moving pictures and paid for speakers and promoted educational measures and publicity. Local business paid local men to conduct local anti- Bolshevist campaigns and expected them to attack an enemy, concerning whom they themselves knew little, and of which their campaigners knew less. In all of this spending few business men worked together, and no intelligent, rational plan of action was developed, and no general staff under competent leadership was selected to prepare and execute these various campaigns.
In all of this misdirected and disorganized effort on the part of business men, they forgot, if indeed they ever knew, what Bolshevism really was; and it became common to confuse every species of liberal thought with radical action. The simple principles of Lenin's formulæ—the abolition of property; the gospel that every man who eats must work; the theory that the hand worker is the equal of the brain worker; and the proposition that there should be established a dictatorship of the workers—all of these principles which were essentially economic in their nature, were completely ignored.
At this time two significant things were happening. While Lenin was adopting capitalistic methods to promote Bolshevism in Russia, Bolshevist leaders in America, in order to promote Bolshevism, were attacking the very methods which their chief was adopting in Russia. While Lenin was using economic formula to promote Bolshevism in Russia, business was resorting to political methods in America for its defeat. This anomaly is but one of many which occurred.
In furtherance of his own concept, Lenin's new program for his followers in Russia included factory discipline, the Taylor System, rigorous control of individual efficiency, a compulsory minimum output, piece payment and premium payment for all above a certain standard, and the employment of specialists at high salaries.
This inconsistency between the teachings of the disciples of Lenin in America and the acts of Lenin in Russia would have given American business men a ready weapon with which to check Bolshevism, had they but known of its existence. In the one instance, where Lenin's own rules regarding "iron discipline" were printed in a radical newspaper in America, over five thousand protests were received from readers who made inquiries regarding the truth of the statement or denounced it as untrue.
If American business, as an organized body, did little to oppose Bolshevism, the management in certain plants did much, and it is to them that America owes much of its rout—for it is only a rout and not a defeat; as Bolshevism has been driven in, not out. Also a considerable part of its rout was due to the American Federation of Labor. A special attack was made upon the conservative element of this body and there have been many times when that leadership was near dethronement. This organization, alone among all other international labor bodies, has refused to deal with radical international bodies which are defending Bolshevism.
Bolshevism, thus unable to capture the first line of industrial trenches—the basic industries, or the second line of trenches—organized labor, has now changed its methods. Its leaders have concluded that capitalism cannot be overthrown from without, so long as the efficiency and prosperity of the present order prevails. It is now quietly boring from within industry and is establishing personal contacts to educate the workingman. It is waiting for a business depression to further its ends. In furtherance of these more intelligent tactics, Lenin has said:
"It is impossible to construct communism without science, knowledge, culture, and this reserve is in the hands of the bourgeois specialists, who are accustomed to living with the capitalists and working in their interests. Among them, many do not sympathize with the Soviets. And without them we cannot build up communism. It is necessary to disarm them with the work of commissaries, with the work of the communists, with the environments of comradeship, with the friendly workers' and peasants' activity, to make them work in accord with the worker-peasant army."
There are many business men who believe that the raids of the Attorney General, the sailing of the Buford, the activities of the New York State Lusk Committee, the expulsion of the Socialists from the New York Assembly, and similar repressive measures, are responsible for the apparent rout of Bolshevism and for the present security under which they assume they now live. There are others who believe that these measures have only further demoralized the alien worker, and that deportations and laws will not prevent men from trying to secure steadier jobs, more pay, better conditions and a share in management; whether the route is by way of a recognized body like the American Federation of Labor, or by way of an outlaw body, like the Communist Party. This extract, from a western journal, tells at least one side of a story which the employer rarely sees:
"A well known employer said to me the other day, 'I know all my men are loyal and true blue. They are happy and contented. They do not need the teachings of American democracy. They know them all by heart. Labor papers only contaminate them.' His smug contentment roused me to the serious question of realities. For five days I rode on the same cars at five o'clock with a number of his workmen. And this is what I discovered: No. I, John J——, an Englishman, was reading 'God and My Neighbor,' by Robert Blatchford, England's greatest socialist writer. John informed me that this country was rotten to the core, ripe for the overthrow and due for a terrible lesson at the hands of the proletariat. No. 2 was American born, from American parents. He asked me to read this paragraph. 'There are but two nations in the world—that of the exploiters and that of the exploited. The more powerful is the prisoner of the other, and we all belong, proletarians of battles, to the one that is vanquished. Such is the tragic, mad, shameful reality. All the rest is but foul superannuated sophisms which will bring the world's end by mere force of absurdity—if slaves remain slaves.' No. 3 was a Pole. He had been over here eleven years. He had letters in his pocket from his old father in Poland, telling him that the Bolshevik government was their only hope. This contented workman was reading 'Soviet Russia.' He was the most ardent advocate of the Proletarian Revolution. No. 4 was a Swede from Stockholm, a socialist from his boyhood days. All he could see in the United States was the chance to make enough money to buy a farm in Sweden. He admitted that he worked his passage over as a coal passer on a ship out of Liverpool and ran away from her in Boston. At forty- two years of age, with a Swedish wife and three children, a ten acre chicken and berry ranch, a Ford car and fifteen hundred dollars in the bank, all made since the war, he still found the country 'no good.' When I asked him for his reasons he said quickly: 'She ban one damned capitalist country.' No. 5 was another American born citizen. He said he was a Republican, a Spanish War Veteran—a follower of Teddy Roosevelt. I asked him about these workmen. His reply was characteristic: 'I tell you, frankly, what I feel about it. Most employers are asleep. The American business man is a hopeless optimist. You can't make him look facts in the face. He sleeps on the edge of a cyclone, like a babe in a swingcot—he is due for a rude awakening. Even though these fellows are making lots of money they are discontented and disloyal to Uncle Sam. They are better fixed now than ever before in their lives, but they want it all and still hanker after the old country. They have been debauched by Socialist and revolutionary propaganda put out in this country by men like themselves. They were at outs with everybody and everything in Europe, now they are sore at everything in America."
In the effort made by public authorities to defeat the spread of Bolshevism, the immigrant was made to pay the heaviest penalties. While many native born were also engaged in spreading Bolshevist doctrines, aliens alone were raided and arrested, because the Attorney General could secure convictions only under the deportation law and not in the courts. This led the public to believe that immigrants were the chief offenders.
American business is now beginning to pay the cost of these methods in the loss of immigrant man- power, in lessened production, in resentment toward American methods of justice and in the general loss of morale among the hitherto well disciplined and amenable immigrant workingmen.
Thus Bolshevism furnishes an excellent illustration of the way in which business regarded the first invasion by international agencies of American business. As an experience with foreign influences in American industrial affairs, it has a national value if it but leads to a better preparedness in dealing with manpower questions which have an international significance.
A second movement of an entirely different character, but also involving the foreign born, was Americanization. This also knocked at the door of business, but instead of increasing its troubles it offered to solve them and business was again misled, not so much with regard to its character, as to its possibilities. Many industrial leaders, in their desire to be patriotic and also to shift some of the burdens of management, opened their plants to Americanization activities, and thus patriotism and production became hopelessly confused. Plants began to create Americanization Committees, and to install English language classes and to require workingmen to have their first papers, in order to hold their jobs or to secure promotions. To "fire the alien first" came to be regarded as good Americanism.
But business soon asked the inevitable question, "Does it pay?" It then found that Americanization could not as a rule financially justify its existence in business organizations. Most cost sheets showed it to be an unimportant factor in increasing production at a lower cost. Where it did prove to be of value, it was discovered that better results at less cost were usually achieved by the community than by the plant. Thus, workmen were required to have first papers to hold their jobs, but in time of labor shortage this proved to be more expensive than did the labor turnover which was due to their non- citizenship. That part of the Americanization program which comprised the teaching of the English language upon company time, and which has been adopted by many concerns, seems in some cases to have paid, but its value in relation to the cost of immigrant turnover has never been definitely proved.
In deciding whether Americanization paid, few employers ever consulted their immigrant employees, either as to their desire to be Americanized or concerning the best way in which to undertake the work. They judged of its results largely by its technique. If classes for English were full, then it was held to pay; if men under compulsion applied for citizenship papers, then it was assumed that they would remain at work in America. But Americanization also alienated the immigrant from the native born American. Some of the reactions of the immigrant to Americanization are already beginning to find their way into cost sheets. It was unfortunate that the various Americanization campaign came just at the time when the immigrant's friends and family at home were threatened with extinction and when frantic appeals were reaching him for help. Americanization in some subtle way thus came to mean to him a turning of his back on them and a loss of his identity with the things which he had known all of his life. So, instead of responding to the appeal, the immigrant came to distrust classes in English; he failed to follow up his application for citizenship, and he conceived a thorough dislike for the word Americanization and for everything connected with it. It was more than dislike; it was distrust. He saw no vital connection between Americanization and his daily life—a life usually so hard, so simple and so elemental, that unless he found practical proofs of the teachings of Americanization in his day's work, he did not believe greatly in its sincerity.
The immigrant, therefore, shut the door, perhaps needlessly, in the face of well intentioned Americans. He was highly critical and contemptuous of new advances that Americanization made. He applied practical everyday tests to the sincerity of the movement and expected superhuman results from outsiders who, because they were not an influential part of business, were unable to assure him of its economic benefits. He compared the alien baiting and the raids and the public utterances of unfriendliness by prominent Americans with the more specific personal promises of the Americanizers. Then he cast up his own balance sheet and, according to its showing, went forward with the Americanizer, or stayed with his racial leader, or joined the Bolshevik, or returned home—whichever course he thought held the most promise for his future.
The wisdom of including Americanization in industries is still a matter of nation wide controversy. The Associated Industries of Massachusetts is committed to a program for teaching English in plants to immigrant workmen; while industries in other states are opposed to it. This subject formed one of the topics of a three days' conference which was held recently by personnel managers. They were about equally divided in their opinion upon whether it paid well enough for them to recommend that English be taught on company time. The Packard Motor Car Company, after years of experience with compulsory citizenship, has abandoned this work at a time when other industries in Detroit are planning its introduction.
Those who oppose Americanization say that since both its introduction into a plant and its control are governed, by mixed motives, it creates suspicion and unrest among foreign born workmen. They say that Americanization movements which aim to help native born people to understand the immigrant, and vice versa; that Americanization expositions which are held to acquaint the native born Americans with the arts of other races; that Americanization courses which propose to teach the principles of racial relations and which provide for the training of instructors to teach English, all these should unquestionably have the support of business; but only on condition that all Americanization work is kept out of the plants.
There are, however, many employers who differ from this point of view and who see in its by- products alone a justification for introducing a widespread Americanization movement into industry. As representing this point of view we may take the report of a conference committee, representing ten of the leading industries in the country, in which it says:
"The need of Americanization is now recognized as a national problem. Radicalism in the United States finds its most fertile field among those of foreign birth who cannot understand the English language and who have in no way been made a part of American community life. If we invite them to come among us, perform our labor and share in our self- government, it is our duty to them, to ourselves, to reveal to them the spirit of our institutions. Otherwise, when they rebel against law and order under which alone freedom can endure, it may not be so much their fault as our own. Education is the solution of the problem. The education of the alien should include:
- "The teaching of English; a common language is first essential.
- "The imparting of knowledge in regard to the United States, its government, its history and traditions, its institutions, and the advantages of citizenship.
- "Instruction in the fundamental economic principles of American industry and the property rights of individuals and corporations, upon which the security of the nation and of the individual depends.
"Americanization in a large industry may well be carried on by the industry itself, with or without the Americanization service provided by tested local agencies; in the case of a group of small industries much of this work may well be done by existing, approved Americanization agencies; but in all cases the official sanction and backing of the industry is essential.
"Americanization work to be successful requires the full cooperation of the various racial leaders and of the local organizations coming in contact with the immigrant. Often it is desirable to organize an Americanization Committee in which naturalized Americans may well be members. Plants having Industrial Representation plans have found such plans of great value in furthering Americanization work. In fact, an Industrial Representation Plan in itself may be made to play a very important part in the employee's training in the democracy on which American institutions are based.
"Americanization should not be forced, but rather aliens should be shown the advantages of citizenship, thus creating a desire on their part to become citizens. Through the public schools the children of aliens should be encouraged to interest their parents in Americanization. Any Americanization work encouraged by the corporation should not be confined to the plant, but should include the promotion of higher ideals within the home.
"To start and carry on successfully the education of the alien, the following suggestions have been found useful:
"Maintain a nationality census of plant employees.
"Call together racial groups of non- English speaking workers, tell them of the opportunity offered to learn English and to study the American government and American customs, and emphasize the advantages that should result to them by attending the classes. The assistance of the supervisory force and of prominent foreign born citizens should be utilized in impressing them with the importance of this matter.
"Trained instructors are essential, and where an industry carries on the work directly, such instructors may be obtained either from existing agencies, or by having suitable persons already in the industry trained for this work. The native born American has proved most successful in handling groups of several nationalities. Classes of paid or volunteer teachers should be carefully trained to carry forward practical instruction in Americanization.
"Follow up those who start in the Americanization Classes. Assistance should be given in obtaining first citizenship papers and the alien should be actively encouraged and followed up until he has secured his second papers.
"In promoting aliens considerations should be given to increased efficiency growing out of Americanization courses. This will come about naturally, as an employee who can speak English is of much greater value than one who cannot.
"While in principle it is preferable that employees should attend classes on their own time, there are circumstances when it may be desirable for them to attend either entirely or partly on company time.
"Classes should be graded so as to meet the needs of beginners, of those more advanced, and of those soon to take out their second papers. An English course should provide both a vocabulary of the home and the community.
"The foreman should be educated to consider the alien as a potential citizen and to offer sympathetic assistance which will stimulate in the alien a proper attitude toward his work, and a real appreciation of American ideals and principles. This interest on the part of the foreman may be enhanced by having the foreman perform important parts in the Americanization program just as in other shop activities. All citizens should be educated to the necessity of fostering a closer relationship between the foreign born and our industrial and community life."
While business has thus allowed its attention to be diverted by what have seemed to be temporary aspects of immigration, fundamental questions have remained untouched of insuring a labor supply, of using the immigrant as an economic asset, and of planning a system for his distribution and adjustment. The necessity for interesting immigrants to remain in America, by urging them to acquire property interests and by bringing them into contact with American business institutions has escaped our notice. The plans of European countries, by which, as part of their plan of stabilization and commercial expansion, they mean to be masters of immigration have not been recognized. Unless business takes up these matters and does its full share in economic assimilation, which is a task it can delegate to no one else or to no other organization, assimilation must fail, for the simple reason that it pays neither the immigrant nor the country.
What after all is a sound program for economic assimilation which will pay? Will any other measures of assimilation be ultimately successful unless an identity of interest is established between the native and foreign born, through industry by means of production; through commerce by the use of American products; through the press by unity of public opinion; through insurance by providing security against disabilities; and through banking institutions by savings and investments? Here is the program for business, within its own field upon which the country must rely for this essential work—the economic assimilation of the immigrant.
The great problem of the assimilation of immigration is by the war transferred from social and political and educational fields to the economic field. The important thing is to merge the parallel economic systems—racial and native American—which now prevail. Business organizations like merchants' associations, chambers of commerce, and rotary clubs, have a great opportunity to bring together foreign born and native born business men in discussion, in plans, and in profits. Identity of interest will destroy class and racial lines more rapidly than will any other one thing. Industrial organizations like manufacturers' associations and employers' associations have a great opportunity to bring together native and foreign born producers as well as workingmen. The establishment of plants whose managers and employees are wholly or in considerable measure of a single race does not conduce to assimilation nor does the industrial alignment of one race lead to any unity of effort favorable to American industry. Banking organizations like the American Bankers Association, the Savings Bank Association, the express companies, the insurance organizations have their own responsibility to unite the men of all races in America in a common financial program. Not less important is the unity of public opinion for American interests; here the great journalistic organizations of America as well as the leading American publishers have the privilege of bringing together the leaders of racial and American thought in America to secure a unity of American ideals, ideas and policies. No business organization need go far afield to do a thoroughly good task of assimilation, for it is to business that the outcome of the war has assigned the major responsibility for incorporating the immigrant fully into American economic life.
If economic assimilation of immigration is to be accomplished in this way, to what extent is American business prepared to carry it through, not only for the immigrants who are as yet unassimilated, but for the thousands of new immigrants who are now arriving?
First of all, immigrants have been admitted on the theory that there is an abundance of employment in America. But even so, is business prepared with a system to receive and distribute the immigrant to places where he is needed? Unless there is a proper organization of the terminal facilities of its labor market, can thousands of immigrants be so placed to- day that there will not be in one place a conspicuous surplus of labor and in another a dearth of labor? Can immigrants in search of work, who drift from place to place, receive that protection which will predispose their native countries in favor of America as a destination for their emigrants? Nothing less than a system of distribution, which will promote the identity of interest between native and foreign born, will eventually lead to the immigrants' choosing America as a home and in his giving to it his loyalty, because of his interest and success in the day's work.
Second, immigrants have been admitted on the assumption that we have vast tracts of land that need cultivation. We point confidently to the fact that most of the incoming immigration consists of peasants; and then to the fact that vast areas of land are yet waiting to be put under cultivation. We assume a connection between the two which hardly exists. In fact, there is enough land to absorb all of the incoming immigration, if American business were prepared to help the immigrant to reach the land, and to stake him at the start, as other countries are doing. Can we expect that this will be done by the thousands of racial employment agencies whose profits are greater from the artisan than they are from the farmer? Can we expect that the desultory efforts of a few states, which have inadequate appropriations, and which send representatives to Ellis Island, or elsewhere, to pick up a few unattached immigrants, will provide the needful system? Is it not a shortsighted policy on the part of industry to divert immigrants from farms, and thus materially lessen the supply of raw materials and raise the price of foods, which in turn increases their own cost of production? Later this is sure to hamper them in markets where other nations can sell more cheaply. There are granages and farmers' organizations whose responsibility it is to direct the assimilation of immigrants, through land tenancy and ownership. We shall hardly succeed with economic assimilation until they are prepared to include the immigrant in their program and to do their share of assimilation.
Third, immigrants have been admitted because for the most part those already here have been successful. We affect not to be concerned about the vast amounts of money which are sent home by immigrants, or by the fact that Liberty Bonds and our own government securities are sold in exchange for foreign securities. But is there not something more at stake than the mere amount of money involved? Is not a property stake in a country the best way to hold the devotion of the immigrant? We know that his personal interest follows the money interest which his savings earn for him, and which add to his own wealth and comfort and happiness. Nothing less than a system for reaching and safeguarding these savings for investments will bring about assimilation through the pocket book, and American banks should be prepared to undertake the project.
Fourth, immigrants have been admitted while the American standard of living has been rising and not deteriorating. We hear, with the rising tide of immigration, that the American standard of living may be endangered. What is this standard but the use of American products and facilities bought with the wages we pay immigrant workmen? Does the immigrant really desire to live in inferior homes and eat less food, and dress more poorly, and have fewer comforts and luxuries than his native born neighbor? The remedy seems to be a matter of acquainting him with the American standards, of interesting him to buy American goods, of inducing him to live in American houses, and of showing him the use and kind of foods adapted to this climate. It is the practical effort of convincing him that comforts and even luxuries are within his reach. He will then be against American institutions no more than is the man who has a good job to defend or a good piece of land to till, or American securities to protect. Nothing less than the merchandising of American products, so they will be within the knowledge and reach of the immigrant upon his arrival, will preserve the American standard of living and will make it the objective of the immigrant workman.
And if each of these institutions—the industry, the bank, the farm, and the shop—were separately to enter upon this task, would we not be disappointed in the results, unless they could find a way to work together? The immigrant is the common object of all their endeavors. He is now enmeshed in a racial economic system. Can American business, each group by itself, compete with this highly centralized and effective racial system? As each American business group takes up its own part in economic assimilation, it will find itself drawn more and more into cooperation with others. If, then, immigration is a matter of dollars and cents, it is this racial economic system which business must study and absorb. Neither Bolshevism nor Americanization nor any other activity can be effectively opposed or supported so long as this integration of foreign and native born interests and activities remain unaccomplished.
As we analyze in the succeeding chapters the opportunities and responsibilities of each business group we shall, if we see immigration in the broad way in which Europe conceives it, find ourselves drawing closer together in conferences and confidence and in business enterprise. In no other way can a subject which reaches beyond our shores into the very heart of Europe be wholly appreciated, with enduring benefit to America, with justice to the immigrant and with full integrity in our international relations.