Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-08-11
IMMIGRATION AND WAR
By Frederic J. Haskin

TMMIGRATION into the United
States has been cut down to about
seven per cent of what for several
years, we have considered the normal
annual addition to our population
from that source. If the number of
aliens who left the United States in
1914 be subtracted from those who
came in, about 500, 900 will remain as
the net addition to our population
from overseas. In 1915, the net gain
was a scant $4,000.
For the United States. this i'm
mense falling off in immigration is
one of the most important present
and future effects of the war. There
has always been a strong, though
minority, demand in this country for
the rigid restriction of immigration.
America for Americans has been their
motto. Now they have it. An expert
mcnt in restricted immigration has
been forced upon as. The hordes OF
men from Europe who for years have
railroads, harvesting our crops, have
ceased to move in this direction.
Furthermore, in Europe they are dy-
ing like plague-smitten sheep; and
when the war is over, conditions will
be altogether changed.
How will those changed conditions
affect immigration? Will the horde
again, or will these men stay at home
to rebuild their countries? Among
eAperts-there are two opinions. Some
believe that immigration will not only
remain at a low ebb after the war,
but that it will be positively reversed,
foreign-born citizens will return to
their native lands. These prophets
foresee a new era of prosperity and
power for labor, with Europe and
America competing for its services,
anc wages steadily rising. They also
foresee a wonderful development Of
machinery, so that the power of each
man may be multiplied a thousand
times. Others believe that after the
war there will be new rush of i'm
migration toward this country, and
that more rigid exclusion laws will be
made necessary.
If it is impossible to reconcile these
two opinions, we can nevertheless shed
a good deal of light on the subject
by considering both present effects
and future tendencies.
There is no doubt at all but that
the United States is already feeling
the loss of it's supply of cheap labor.
Wages have risen; labor has won a
series of easy victories in it's strikes;
is already showing a sense of the
quickening power which may work
tremendous changes in the near
future. Industry, however, is pretty
we'll manned. 1t is always the less
remunerative and less desirable classes
of employment that feel the pinch of
scarce labor first. These are espe-
cially domestic service and farm
existed in the United States veritable
dearth of servants. Not only are but
lers and Wallets and French maids
hard to obtain, but the girl of all
work, who has a place in millions of
families. is becoming far too rare for
the demand. Many women are forced
to do their own housework because
they cannot find servant to accept a
place at good wages.
Farm labor in many sections is al
most unobtainable, and Is nowhere
abundant. The West Is calling for an
army of men to harvest its wheat
crop, and they are nowhere to be
found. The federal employment
bureau has demands many times as
great as 1t is able to fill. These, then.
are the effects of the labor shortage
in the United States so far: Higher
wages and shorter hours for labor,
easy victories for strikers, a serious
shortage OF labor for domestic serv-
Ice and the farm. To this might be
added a constantly increasing use of
labor saving machinery: Steam shovels
and electric cranes are working to-day
with one or two men where a few
years ago great gangs of laborers
would have been seen. Ships are be-
ing loaded by great steel grabbers
that pick up ten to fifteen tons at a
time and place them in half a minute.
Inventors and makers of machinery
face a new prosperity.
Now. as to the course of events
after the war. Will this scarcity of
labor continue. or will the United
States be overrun with Europeans sick
of strife and poverty?
In support Of the latter opinion the