At present a state of affairs
is being created where class distinctions are likely to be barriers to
the promotion of individual worth--and equally, of course, to the
demotion of individual worthlessness.
Even if an immigration is not assimilated, then, it yet has an indirect
effect on eugenics. But there are other indirect effects of immigration,
which are quite independent of assimilation: they inhere in the mere
bulk and economic character of the immigration. The arrivals of the past
few decades have been nearly all unskilled laborers. Professor Carver
believes that continuous immigration which enters the ranks of labor in
larger proportion and the business and professional classes in a smaller
proportion than the native-born will produce the following results:
1. Distribution. It will keep competition more intense among laborers
and less intense among business and professional men: it will therefore
raise the income of the employing classes and lower the wages of
unskilled labor.
2. Production. It will give a relatively low marginal productivity to a
typical immigrant and make him a relatively unimportant factor in the
production of wealth.
3. Organization of industry. Immigrants can only be employed
economically at low wages and in large gangs, because of (2).
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