Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/257

Rh A depressing influence upon wages is exerted by the competition of the rural factory or shop. The manufacturer in the rural community often receives a bonus, exemption from taxes, free water or other inducements from the municipality. He finds abundance of cheap labor, men, women and children, who can afford to work below the wage scale of the city, because of the lower cost of living. He is thus enabled to place his products upon the market at a cost much below that of the city-made product, and to compete with him the city manufacturer is forced to reduce his wage scale. This competition of the rural shop or factory is felt in tobacco, cotton, silk, leather and many other industries. Many of the industries of the south are of a similar competing character. The wages paid, the standard of living and cost of necessaries are all much below those of the North. This cheap native labor of the south is felt most as a competing factor by the textile industries of New England, who are forced to secure cheap labor for their own salvation.

The difficulty of maintaining efficient labor organization is the cause ascribed by many labor leaders for wage depression. In this difficulty the immigrant has played an important part. The failure of the strike of 1875 in the coal mines, and of the great Homestead strike in the steel and iron industry, is explained by the introduction of alien labor. After years of effort the aliens in the mining fields have been organized successfully and are now, for their own betterment, heart and soul in the movement for living wages. The cheap native labor in the soft coal mines has caused the organizer much more trouble than the alien laborers.

Most of the skilled trades are able to maintain their unions and their wage-standards in spite of foreign immigration. In some occupations, however, the stream of skilled alien addition is so great and so constant, that disorganization and confusion result in the trade, and wages drop to a minimum. In this confusion and disorganization caused by the influx of foreign skilled labor, the clothing trade suffered more than any other industry. So constant has been the stream of foreign tailors to this country that they have now almost monopolized this occupation. The wage scale has descended to a point where the American can no longer compete, and he has been finally forced out of the business as a workman. A revolution has taken place in the manufacture of clothing. The wholesale manufacture of ready-made clothing has superseded the output of the individual tailor shops. Under the present system of wholesale manufacture of ready-made clothing, the work is subdivided into many branches. Formerly a tailor made and completed the garment himself, by reason of skill which it took four or five years to acquire; now the garment passes through the hands of a dozen or more workers, who are each skilled in some particular