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Immigration An Economic Issue

By Joe Guzzardi

For more than 50 years, the roiling immigration debate has been wrongly framed. The arguments for or against immigration increases are seen as liberal versus conservative, Democrat versus Republican or expansionist versus restrictionist. While those labels may be accurate, they distract from a discussion about the core issue of economics.
 
Congress, the media and employers argue passionately for higher immigration levels – an annual 1 million-plus or higher. Restrictionists maintain with equal vigor that immigration should be reset from today’s record highs back to its historical 250,000 total, the intake for the nation’s first 200 years, 1776-1976.
 
Congress’ obligation, which it ignores, is to determine what amount of immigration is best for American workers, and to protect the nation’s wage earners. Vernon Briggs, Emeritus Cornell University professor and labor economist, broke down America’s immigration history as it affected the U.S. labor force into eras: Continental Expansion, 1820-1879, immigration average, 162,000 per year; Industrial Revolution, 1880-1924, 584,000 immigrants; Rise of Middle Class, 1925-1965, 178,000 immigrants. Briggs found that during a high immigration period – the Industrial Revolution – wages for American workers were suppressed. But during tight immigration, the Rise of the Middle Class period is recognized as four decades of upward mobility, accompanied by increased productivity and innovation.

Since the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1965, the U.S. has experienced significant legal and illegal immigration growth. Since the INA, about 60 million immigrants, exclusive of illegal aliens, have entered the U.S. Most have lawful permanent resident status that includes among its affirmation benefits a lifetime valid work permit.
 
Employment-authorized lawful residents plus nonimmigrant employment-based temporary workers can add up to more than 125,000 immigrants monthly, again, exclusive of illegal immigrants who enter the labor market and compete for jobs with unemployed Americans and recent high school graduates. Since the 1965 Civil Rights movement, the income gap between blacks and whites has remained largely unchanged. Black households’ net worth is about 10 percent of white households, a statistic that’s held steady for nearly six decades. Significantly expanding the labor pool year after year through immigration has depressed wages – labor excesses help employers and harm job seekers.
 
In his book, “Back of the Hiring Line,” Roy Beck detailed the 200-year history of immigration surges, reductions, employer bias and black wealth depression. For black Americans, immigration surges translate into stagnation or repression in their quest for the middle class. On the other hand, moderate immigration, the Rise of the Middle Class decades, helped blacks get pay raises, better jobs and buy new homes.
 
Previous White Houses, Congress, the media, independent academics, Goldman Sachs and the Congressional Budget Office know the adverse impact immigration has on U.S. workers, and have spoken or written about its negative effect, especially on black Americans with less than a college education.
 
In his 2006 autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” then-Sen. Barack Obama wrote, “There’s no denying that many blacks share the same anxieties as many whites about the wave of illegal immigration flooding our Southern border – a sense that what’s happening now is fundamentally different from what has gone on before,” a reference to previous tight immigration eras. Yet Obama bitterly disappointed blacks on immigration. As his second term drew to a close in 2015, information gathered from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, acquired through a Freedom of Information request, and published by the Center for Immigration Studies, found that the Obama administration had issued approximately 7.4 million more work permits than congressionally set limits allowed.
 
During his presidential campaign, Biden introduced “Lift Every Voice,” his plan to give black Americans a “fair shot.” He promised to “advance the economic mobility of African Americans and close the racial wealth and income gaps.” But by immediately opening the border during his first year in office to 2 million low-skilled, undereducated aliens, many of whom will be looking for jobs that will displace blacks, Biden is dooming African Americans to more of the same – dead-end jobs, stagnant wages and lost hope.
 
 
PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Immigration An Economic Issue Immigration An Economic Issue

 

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

By Joe Guzzardi

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I set out to determine the best-ever Irish baseball players. The task was more challenging than I imagined, but also more rewarding. Reviewing the Irish baseball greats and their stellar diamond accomplishments was a welcome diversion from the troubled world around us.

To get started, I read the Society for American Baseball Research’s player biographies and then referred to Baseball-Almanac’s statistical records. Early on, I realized that identifying a single best-ever Irish player is impossible. I broke the Irish greats into four groups: best hitter, best pitcher, best manager and most influential – the player responsible for creating a baseball buzz that brought droves of new, but still curious, late 19^th century fans to the ballpark.

Irish players, mostly Irish-Americans, have been an integral part of the American baseball scene since the post-Civil War era when the sport enjoyed its first popularity surge. By the mid-1880s, just after the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs was formed, players could earn $10,000 a year at a time when the average annual income was $800. Understandably, good athletes were drawn to baseball. Like Italian and Eastern European immigrants, the Irish knew that when they played baseball, they were taking steps toward becoming full-fledged Americans.

Best Irish batsman is Cleveland-born “Big” Ed Delahanty. The eldest of five MLB brothers, Big Ed played most of his career, 1888-1903, with the Philadelphia Quakers, the Phillies, the Cleveland Infants and the Washington Senators. During his 16-year career, Big Ed hit .400 or better three times, and ended up with a .346 career average, the fifth best in baseball history, a .411 on-base percentage, and a .505 slugging average. Delahanty was an excellent right fielder with a rifle arm.

Toward his career’s end, Delahanty’s wife became gravely ill; he lost money at the race track, and he went on extended drinking binges. On July 2, 1903, riding a train across the International Railway Bridge over the Niagara River, Delahanty abruptly left the train, stumbled onto the bridge, fell into the river and drowned. Some speculate that Big Ed committed suicide, others claim he was pushed by an irate night watchman with whom he’d scuffled. The circumstances surrounding Big Ed’s death have never been resolved.

Best Irish mounds man is Tony “the Count” Mullane. The affable, County Cork-born pitcher was a well-known rake and a skilled boxer, as well as a competitive ice and roller skater. During his 13-year career from 1881-1894, mostly with the Cincinnati Red Stockings, Mullane won 30 or more games in five consecutive seasons. In 1884, the height of his career, the Boston Herald wrote about Mullane that he’s “a most effective pitcher; his delivery is low and his command of the ball wonderful. He pitches with left or right arm equally well.” The ambidextrous Mullane racked up 284 career wins.

Best Irish Manager: No list of Irish greats is complete without Troy, NY’s John J. McGraw. McGraw could have appeared as a player with his .344 career batting average and .466 on base percentage. But McGraw is most often remembered as the New York Giants manager who, during his 30 years at the helm, led his team to three World Series crowns.

“In Tales from the Deadball Era,” Mark Halfon wrote that McGraw was an argumentative, profane, belligerent manager who “took no prisoners in a battle for baseball supremacy. Opposing clubs had to prepare for any eventuality when they faced him. The Reds, for example, worried that he [McGraw] contaminated their drinking water. McGraw may not have tainted the water, but it was not beneath him,” Halfon concluded.

As outstanding as Delahanty, Mullane and McGraw’s contributions were, they pale compared to another Troy-native, Mike “King” Kelly. King was baseball’s first 15-year-old player, first matinee idol, first $10,000 earner, first to write his own autobiography – “Play Ball, Stories from the Ball Field” – first to have a song written about him – “Slide Kelly Slide” – and the first catcher to wear a glove and chest protector. Kelly, because of his ability and charisma, changed baseball from a simple, pastoral game into America’s most popular sport.

In his biography about Kelly, “Slide Kelly Slide,” Marty Appel wrote, “There was never a better or more brilliant player. Colorful beyond description, he was the light and the life of the game. … He was one of the quickest thinkers that ever took a signal. He originated more trick plays than all players put together.… As a drawing card, he was the greatest of his time. Fandom around the circuit always welcomed the Chicago White Stockings, with the great [Cap] Anson and his lieutenant, King Kelly.”

Between 1878 and 1891, Kelly played with eight teams, six of which won National League titles. During that period, Kelly won two batting titles and led the league in runs scored three times. Like Delahanty, however, Kelly loved to gamble, spent money recklessly and couldn’t stay out of saloons. King Kelly, sometimes called, “The Only Kelly” died at age 36 of pneumonia.

Delahanty, Mullane, McGraw and Kelly, great Irish players all, revered by a growing legion of early 20^th century baseball bugs, but whose names time has obscured, deserve recognition on St. Patrick’s Day, 2022.
 

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association Member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Best Irish Baseball Players, Happy St. Patrick’s Day