Speech #450105307

With. demanderestricted to their simplest animalneeds. freed from the cost of domestic life and theburdens of government. they have been placed uponvantageground as competitors with American laborers. andhave succeeded in obtaining exclusive control of certain industries in California. They construct the railroads and other works of improvement. occupy the fields of placer minin and agriculture. fill the places of domestic servants. andhave absorbed the workand business of manufacturers in certain interests. The effect of theirpresence and influence has been to exclude and retard desirable immigration from Europe and the States east of the Mississippi River. to produce great distress among American laborers. to inspire a profound irritation and discontent among the citizens of all classes. and to create finally among us an alarming apprehension of the still greater dangers that threaten to spring from this source. In corroboration of the truthfulness of the picture I have drawn of our condition. and as an ex-. pression of the views entertained on this subject by the working classes of our State. I submit a memorial presented to Congress. and signed by seventeen thousand of the workingmen of California. I introduce this memorial further to show that this movement is indorsed not b� the ignorant and vicions. but by the intelligent and lawabiding citizens of California: rarIriON. The petition of the undersigned citizens. resident in the State of California. respectfully shows: Thatyourpetitioners view with greatalarm thesystematioimportation and immigration of Chinese laborers into thoUnited States to be employed at rates of wages ruinous to the free labor of our citizens.. That the vast sums granted by Congress in bends and public lands to aid in the constrution of transcontinental railways are perverted to the employment of this debased Asiatic labor while thousands of our own citizens in all parts of the me. public are destitute of work. That your petitioners cannot regard such a misdirection of the revenues collected from the industry of thepeople but as a flagrant abuse of the objects contemplated in these munificent graut4 of the national resources. That in all future measures of congressional aid provision should be embodied against such abuse. and that supplementary legislation to this end should be pro. vided in the exercise of existing grants.