POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION § 1. Nature of the population problem. § 2. Complexity of race problems. § 3. Economic aspects of the negro problem. § 4. Favor able economic aspects of earlier immigration. § 5. Employers' gains from immigration. § 6. Pressure of immigration upon native wage workers. § 7. Abnormal labor conditions resulting from immigration. § 8. Popular theory of immigrant competition. § 9. Divergent views of effects on population. § 10. The displacement theory; its fundamen tal assumption. § 11. Magnitude of the inflow of immigrants. § 12. Earlier and recent effects of immigration upon wages. § 13. Laissez faire policy of immigration. § 14. Social-protective policy of immigra tion. § 15. Post-war restriction of immigration. § 16. Population and militarism. § 17. Problem of maximum military power.
§ 1. Nature of the population problem. No one of the problems of labor thus far discussed is of so great im portance in its ultimate bearings upon popular welfare as is the "problem of population." By this is meant the problem of determining and maintaining the best rela tion between the population and the area and resources of the land. What is to be deemed "best" in this case depends, of course, on the various human sympathies and points of view of those pronouncing judgment. Very generally, until the nineteenth century, the only view that found expression was that of a small ruling class which favored all increase in population as magnifying the political power of the rulers and as increasing the wealth of the landed aristocracy. This view still is unconsciously taken by the members of a small but influential class, and is echoed with out independent thought by many other persons. But more and more, in this and other labor problems, another more 417 democratic standard of judgment has come to be taken, that of the abiding welfare of the masses of the people. This is the point of view that must be taken by the political econo mist in a free republic.
The problem of population presents two main aspects: one as to composition, and the other as to numbers of the people. Changes in either of these respects concern the welfare of the masses. Changes in the kinds of people, or in their relative numbers, may greatly affect the welfare of the people, in some cases touching special large classes, and in others affecting the whole mass of the people.
tions are complex and go beyond the limits of mere economic considerations, touching the most vital political and social interests of the nation. Indeed, they involve the very soul and existence of peoples, for who can doubt that ultimately racial survival and success are mainly to be determined by physical and spiritual capacity? The negro in America is the gravest of our population prob lems. In large portions of our land it overshadows every other public question. Yet the negro is here because men of the seventeenth century ignored the complexity of the labor problem and thought only of its economic aspect. The land 1 Even more important than these is the relative decrease of the suc cessful strains of the population, briefly treated in Vol. I, cji. 33. This is the problem of eugenics, the choice and biologic breeding of capable men to be citizens of the nation, and, broadly understood, it includes both the negro and the immigrant problems.
owners wished cheaper labor, and, reckless of other conse quences, they imported slaves from Africa to get it. They gained for themselves and a few generations of their de scendants a measure of comparative ease, but at a frightful cost to our national life—a cost of which the Civil War now seems to have been merely a first instalment on account, rather than a final payment.
§ 3. Economic aspects of the negro problem. The negro as a wage-earner is found very little outside of the least skilled branches of a limited range of occupations. Of these the principal ones, as is a matter of common knowledge, are farm work, domestic service (including janitor service in stores and factories and work in hotels), and crude manual outdoor labor. Repeated attempts to operate factories with a labor force of negroes have proved unsuccessful. In some of the better-paying occupations in which large numbers of negroes were found in the North soon after the Civil War, such as barbering, waiting on table in the best hotels, and skilled manual work, they have been largely displaced by European immigrants. Negroes are a disturbing and unwel come influence in labor organizations, and even when nom inally eligible to membership are in fact rarely accepted. They very frequently are employed as strike-breakers, and this fosters race antagonism both immediately and perma nently.