the
migrating worker, of the unsettlement of habits, and the change of
surroundings and social environment, working in connection with the
changed climatic conditions, and the often total change in food. This
is one phase of the immigrant problem which deserves the most careful
study. And when, as too often in the case of the Russian Jew, this
complete alteration of life is piled on top of the persecutions so
many of them have endured, and the shocks so many have sustained
before leaving their native land, the normal, usual effects of
the transition are emphasized and exaggerated, and it may take a
generation or longer before complete Americanization and amalgamation
is brought about.

The longer such a change is in being consummated, the more is the
new generation likely to retain some of their most characteristic
qualities permanently; to retain and therefore to impress these upon
the dominant race, in this case upon the American nation, through
association, and finally, through marriage. Especially is this a
probable result where we find such vitality and such intensely
prepotent power as among the Jews.

In reference to trade-union organization among women, while each
nationality presents its own inherent problem, there is equally
no doubt but that each will in the future make its own special
contribution towards the progress and increased scope of the movement
among the women workers.

As matters are developing today, the fulfillment of this promise of
the future has already begun most markedly among the Slavic Jewesses,
especially those from Russia. These young women have already brought,
and are every day bringing into the dreary sweatshop and the
speeded-up factory a spirit of fearlessness and independence both
in thought and action, which is having an amazing effect upon the
conditions of factory industry in the trades where they work. So also,
supporting and supported by the men of their own race, these Russian
Jewish girls, many of them extremely young, are inspiring their
fellow-workers and interpenetrating the somewhat matter-of-fact
atmosphere of American trade unionism with their own militant
determination and enthusiasm. With most, the strike has been their
initiation into trade unionism, often the general strike in their own
trade, the strike on a scale hitherto unparalleled in trades where
either the whole or a very considerable proportion of the workers are
women. Some again, especially among the