of displacing him downward; if we remember that probably 10,000,000 of our people are in poverty, and that though the immigrant may not seek charity in any larger proportions than the poor of native stock, yet he does contribute heavily to our burden of relief for dependents and defectives:  we are justified in assuming that an analysis of the causes of poverty confirms the evidence from studies of wages and standards of living as to the depressing effect of the new immigration, in particular, upon working conditions for the American laborer.

Consider, too, the question of “social surplus.”  Several American economists, among them Professors Hollander, Patten and Devine, agree that we are creating annually in the United States a substantial social surplus.  But it is evident from the figures of wages and standards of living quoted above that the American laborer is not participating as he might expect to participate in this economic advantage.  Three factors conspire against him.  First, we have yet no adequate machinery for determining exactly what the surplus is, or how to distribute it equitably.  Mr. Babson with his “composite statistical charts” has made a beginning in the mathematical determination of prosperity; but it is only a beginning.  Second, organized labor is not yet sufficiently organized nor sufficiently self-conscious to perceive and demand its opportunity for a larger share.  The significant point here is that recent immigration has hampered and hindered the development of labor organizations, and thus indirectly held back the normal tendency of wages to rise.  Third, inadequate education, particularly economic and social education.  The adult illiterate constitutes a tremendous educational problem.  Over 35 per cent of the “new immigration” of 1913 was illiterate, and this new immigration included over two-thirds of the total.  Ignorance prevents the laborer from demanding the very education that would give him a better place in the economic system; it hinders the play of intelligent self-interest; and it actually prevents effective labor-organization, which is one of the surest means of labor-education.  Jenks and Lauck, after experience with the Immigration Commission, concluded that “the fact that recent immigrants are usually of non-English speaking races, and their high degree of illiteracy, have made their absorption by the labor organizations very slow and expensive.  In many cases, too, the conscious policy of the employers of mixing the races in different departments and divisions of labor, in order, by a diversity of tongues, to prevent concerted action on the part of employes, has made unionization of the immigrant almost impossible.”

For these reasons, and others, we are driven to the conclusion that future policies of immigration must be based on sound principles of social welfare and social economy, and not upon the economic advantage of certain special industries.  Whether we want the brawn of the immigrant must be determined by what it will contribute to the general social surplus, and not by what it adds to A’s railroads or B’s iron mines.