Part II: American Business

Chapter Synopses

Chapter VI: Business and Immigration

Unless immigration is a paying investment to the immigrant, to business, and to America, all other attempts to deal with it will fail. It is, therefore, the responsibility of American business to make it pay as a dollar and cents affair. In emigration countries, business and government cooperate to make emigration pay: in America, business and government pull against each other. The international character of the immigrant workmen has not yet penetrated the consciousness of American employers, so they deal with the matter as a local issue. Bolshevism was the first test of the ability of business to deal with the immigrant as an international unit, and it failed to meet the situation, because it did not understand the nature of the movement and its application. While Lenin was using economic formulae in Russia to promote Bolshevism, American business was resorting to political methods for its defeat. Business relied upon Americanization—a patriotic movement to offset Bolshevism which was economic in character. Its counter propaganda was desultory and local, and the method of dealing with it has upset industrial morale and has lowered production. Americanization workers have rarely consulted the immigrant workman nor has their effect upon him been estimated. He, therefore, to some extent, embraced Bolshevism; and resented Americanization. These issues distracted the attention of business from its responsibilities- the economic assimilation of immigration through the day's work at the points where he finds work, where he buys his goods, where he banks his savings, and where he obtains his opinions about America. Therefore, a business system of receiving, distributing and adjusting the immigrant into American economic life still waits; and the native American economic system has yet to absorb the racial economic system which supplies the needs of the immigrants.

Chapter VII: Immigrant Man Power

The first effect of any change in emigration policies will be upon production. Therefore, industry has the responsibility of maintaining an adequate and fit labor supply. Certain industries are almost wholly dependent upon immigrant labor, for none other is available. The shortage is a matter of serious concern because of loss in numbers and because of the change in the availability as well as in the adaptability of the present immigration. To the cost of labor turnover must now be added the cost of immigration turnover. The deterioration in the quality of our output, due to the falling off of immigration, must also be considered. Agriculture shares with industry the burdens caused by the shortage and by the change in quality of immigration. The experiment of importing Mexican labor has not been wholly successful and is not an argument in favor of an extension of the plan. The organization of the labor market is, therefore, the first necessity; and is the joint responsibility of business and government. Previous attempts have failed because the two have not cooperated. America has permitted Europe to organize and control the immigration market because of this failure to organize the labor terminal for immigration. The internationalism of the new immigrant makes a change of view on the part of the employer imperative, and this must extend to his plant where the racial expert may soon find a place. Welfare and personnel work must come to include the immigrant, and panaceas which he cannot understand should be eliminated. He is the final test of the soundness and practicability of plant measures upon industrial relations and his coming to and staying in America will, in the last analysis, depend upon the way in which he is treated in industry; as will also his assimilation through the day's work.

Chapter VIII: Foreign Markets in America

The foreign market of 15,000,000 foreign born people in America to- day is more complicated than was its total market a century ago. It is open to exploitation from Europe, no less to- day than then. Economic assimilation of immigrants is needed to protect this market as the tariff was needed to protect our general market. The control of this foreign market means the establishment of the American standard of living among immigrants which comprises not only the use of American commodities, but also an understanding of American ideas and opinions. It also includes a knowledge of the English language, which, with lessons to be sold in the open market, is as much a commodity to promote the American standard of living as is any other commodity. This market is now a part of the racial economic system and is not integrated, as it should be, into American commerce, because the American merchant has thought it unimportant; the profits small; and its class of business undesirable; and has assumed that the immigrant did not want to live like an American. The failure to control the foreign market when competition becomes keen will eventually affect our foreign market abroad. We are trying now to sell goods to races whose compatriots in America know but little about American goods. We are letting thousands of immigrants return home without making them, while in America, potential salesmen for us abroad. We find the humble workmen in our shops who, before the war took orders from us, now in a position of trust abroad, giving orders regarding contracts which we seek. We possess among our thirty- two races the best school of salesmanship in the world in which to train the men who will engage in business abroad and we utterly neglect the opportunity. We have excellent "ready made" salesmen among the races whom we do not use for this work. We have racial colonies which are valuable assets to foreign trade, which are the center of attraction to foreign buyers in America, but which we ignore. In the meantime, the adoption of an American standard of living waits upon the merchant to whom is entrusted this phase of economic assimilation.

Chapter IX: Savings and Investments

Nine immigrant workmen out of ten save money. It plays little part in American finance because the immigrant banker controls these savings. The immigrant banker is another cog in the racial economic system, and he also is counselor, guide, and friend. The immigrant has been exploited in his investments, deceived in his transmission of money, robbed of his deposits, and cheated in land deals, until he is afraid of American investments and banking institutions. He has come to blame the country for this condition as well as to blame his own countrymen. The American banker is largely responsible for this because he has neither protested against these conditions nor has he helped the immigrant. He has not cared for the immigrant's business because he did not need it; he was afraid of this class of trade; the profits were too small; and he did not like to associate with the men already engaged in the immigrant banking business. But the European banker thinks the immigrant's savings very well worth while and does all he can to encourage their transmission to Europe; also he helps the immigrant with his business ventures in America. The American banker, as his share of the economic assimilation of immigration, has to educate the immigrant concerning American banks and methods and about investments; he has to encourage the immigrant to invest even his smallest savings; he has to extend credits to the immigrant business man and to help make every immigrant workingman a small capitalist as soon after arrival as possible. The American banker is also under further obligations to see that the immigrant's savings are protected by American banking laws; and if need be, by Federal legislation. Also the American insurance company has a responsibility to compete with the racial benefit society if the immigrant is to look to America for his full incorporation into American life.