Great Falls tribune., 1922-01-12
The HQski,1 Letter
b. FREDERICK
J. HASkLN
THE PROLIFIC FOREMAN.

CAOA lS LAdl IL AdllS W uIcSOtSA
class which is highly prolific, and re-
veals, for instance, that road workers
and clergymen run a neck and neck
race in the production of children,
while garbage men and scavengers have
on an average only 7-1O of a child more
per family than lawyers, justices and
judges.
It is true that this tabulation shows
the professional classes as averaging
about onethird less prolific than the
people who work for wages in city;
but it gives one very strongly the
impression that the poor mans huge
family, which is always held up to us
such an unfortunate and common thing,
must be much less common than IS
supposed. If it were common, some
Of these averages would inevitably be
higher.
Factory Workers
For example, the largest wage-earn-
ing class IN the cities is that OF rae
tory workers In the factories you
find most of those immigrant families
which are reputed to be so large. This
tabulation lists about 40 different oc-
cupations in manufacturing and the
mechanical industries. The highest av-
erage number of children living per
family is found among furnacemen,
smeltermen, heaters and pourers, who
perspire to maintain an average OF
3.4 children per family. Electricians
and engravers are found to be the
least prolific men in the manutactur-
ing industries, averaging only 81 chill
dren living per family. The great ma
jority of the types of workers in fac
tories have less than three children
living on an average.
Comparing these with the profess
sionals we find that clergymen are
average of three living children. Archi-
tects, artists and sculptors have two.
Musicians, photographers, doctors,
teachers and Writers are in the same
class with an average of but 81 chill
dren per family. Actors, chemists,
dentists, inventors and engineers all
average slightly less than two living
children per family.
Thus it would seem that the differ
ence in size Of families between wage
workers and professionals is not near
" as large as has been assumed, and
that families of more than three or
four children must be rare everywhere
in the United States.
1t is also commonly asserted that
among working people many more chill
QE0Q HTe DOTH W Olt tudu unOH6 tAS
well to do. but this is also hard to sub
stantiate from the figures. 1t is true
that the discrepancy between number
Of children born and number living is
slightly larger among laborers, steve
dores and loom fixers than it is among
doctors, lawyers and judges, but the
difference is not large. Stevedores av-
erage 3.S children born and 3.2 chill
dren living. The child of lawyer has
only little better chance to survive
than the child of a stevedore, ac-
cording to this.
1t is only in the country that con-
sistently higher rate of Increase is
found. Farmers. farm workmen and
farm Iaborers have 3.4. 81 and chill
dren living on an average per family,
respectively. Here is slight increase,
which doubtless accounts in part for
the movement from the farms toward
the city.
In general, the picture which this
tabulation draws is that of country
where competition is hard in all occu-
pations and reproduction therefore
naturally slow. It is country getting
over its age Of pioneer expansiyeness,
reaching the point when its population.
II let alone, would become relatively
stable But this population is being
constantly increased from without by
the influx from countries where the
standard of living is lower.
The immigration we were getting 90
years ago was one we needed. There
was abundant room for the immigrant
then to attain to the American stand
ard of living. There is no real room
for the hordes who are coming now
no land, no jobs. They can find places
only by displacing, by underselling
someone else