Labor Problem

Next to poets, probably no class of people has been more consistently underfed throughout the ages than musicians. By way of compensation they have claimed the distinction of artistic martyrdom. It may be significant of a changing social order that U. S. musicians last week filed a brief with the Department of Labor for the right to be designated as "laborers in the field of music" rather than "artists."

According to the present interpretation of the immigration law, anyone who makes his living by making musical sounds is an "artist" and as such, is entitled to admission into the U. S. regardless of his national quota.

The result has been to admit Ignace Paderewski and John Organgrinder on the same basis. Neither Ignace Paderewski nor an organ- grinder (with monkey) annoys the American Federation of Musicians. But the fact that the law makes no distinction between them is distressing, because it harms business. Representatives of the musicians' union point out that "saxophone strugglers, trombone contortionists, bass drummers and French horn oompahs" have been admitted into the U. S. as "artists," thereby flooding the market for musicians and reducing the wage minimum, much as was the case when steel laborers were imported from Europe in former years.

Let these men be known as U. S. musicians would be known-- "laborers in the field of music"--and automatically there will be restriction upon their entrance. Restaurants, jazz orchestras, show producers will have to fall back upon the 138,000 union musicians. They will not be able to lure the beggared fiddlers of Europe to the U. S. with wages that appear fabulous to the foreigner though equal to only half the current scale.

In the last analysis, it amounts to a problem in definition. What is an "artist"? The Labor Department holds that "a professional musician is properly regarded as a professional artist for the purpose of exemption." The Union would restrict the term "artist" to "one who is adept, has attained great knowledge and skill in the fine art known as music and who, as a vocation, practices that art for the advancement and welfare of mankind" (Paderewski, Kreisler, Ysaye, Toscanini, etc.).