e old days there was always the outlet of free
land on the frontier, now closed. Always there has been a better
opportunity for natives to move into higher positions of foremanship
or as employers of immigrant labor.

As the wage-earners have become relatively more numerous, many of
them have felt more keenly the pressure of competition from immigrant
labor. Moreover, the immigration since 1890 has been increasingly
from southern and southeastern Europe, from countries with much lower
standards of living, and has been of enormous proportions. Here are
some significant figures as to immigration since 1820.

--------------------------------------------------------------
| | | Immigration,
| Immigration | Increase of | per cent of
Decade | in the period | population | population-
| | | increase
-----------------|---------------|-------------|--------------
1820-30 | 124,000 | 3,300,000 | 3.8
1830-40 | 528,000 | 4,200,000 | 12.3
1840-50 | 1,604,000 | 6,100,000 | 26.3
1850-60 | 2,648,000 | 8,200,000 | 32.3
1860-70 | 2,369,000 | 8,400,000 | 28.2
1870-80 | 2,812,000 | 10,400,000 | 27.0
1880-90 | 5,246,000 | 12,700,000 | 41.3
1890-1900 | 3,687,000 | 13,100,000 | 28.1
1900-1910 | 8,795,000 | 16,000,000 | 55.0
Total, 90 yrs. | 27,800,000 | 82,400,000 | 33.7

Sec. 7. #Abnormal labor conditions resulting from immigration.# The
labor supply coming from countries of denser population and with low
standards of living creates, in some occupations, an abnormally low
level of wages and prices. Children cannot be born in American homes
and raised on the American standard of living cheaply enough to
maintain at such low wages a continuous supply of laborers. Many
industries and branches of industry in America are thus parasitical
A condition essentially pathological has come to be looked upon as
normal. The commercial ideal imposes itself upon the minds of men in
other circles.

Statistics show that the prevailing wages for unskilled manual workers
in America have risen much less since the Civil War than have other
wages.[4] Wages in the great lower stratum of the unskilled and
slightly skilled workers are much lower in America relative to those
of mor