nsanity, etc.

The result of such a scheme would probably cut away entirely
contract-labor; for it would not longer pay. But this does not mean
barring the gate to all foreign labor. As an aid to the employer and to
our own native workingman, we must, sooner or later, and the sooner the
better, establish a chain of labor bureaus throughout the Union. The
system must be placed under Federal direction, largely because the
Department of Labor would be charged, _ex officio_, with ascertaining the
"true demand" for immigrant labor, and it could only accomplish this end
effectively through such an employment clearing system. This true demand
would, of course, be based not only upon mere numerical excess of calls
for labor over demands for jobs, but would also take into account the
nature of the work, working conditions, and above all the prevailing level
of wages. According to this true demand the Department would adjust a
sliding scale of admissions of immigrant laborers.

Much might be said in favor of an absolute embargo upon all immigration
until such a body as the Industrial Relations Commission has time to make
an authoritative economic survey of the whole country, or until the
Unemployment Research Commission recently called for by Miss Kellor could
make the three years' study contemplated by her as the only way out of the
unemployment morass. Twenty years ago men of the type of General Walker
frankly urged that the immigration gates be closed for a flat period of
ten years or so. But the sliding scale plan contemplates no such radical
step. Indeed it is radical in no sense whatever. The proposed immigration
act now before Congress (The Burnett Bill, H.R. 6060) paves the way for
it, and provides a working principle, which apparently is accepted on all
sides. Section 3 includes this clause: "That skilled labor, if otherwise
admissible, may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be
found in this country, and the question of the necessity of importing such
skilled labor in any particular instance may be determined by the
Secretary of Labor...." A really workable test for immigration, superior
by far to the literacy test or any other so far suggested, might easily be
developed by simply enlarging the scope of this clause, making it include
unskilled as well as skilled labor. No machinery other than that
contemplated by the present act would be required.

The immigration problem can never be satisfactorily ha