Speech #470032516

The character of the laborer has degraded the labor. We have seen that in a smll way in this part of the country. I can recollect when. torty years ago. as stated by the Senator from Massachusetts the other day. the best girls in the land went into the kitchen and did work. and were the equals of everybody else in the comnmunity in which they lived. but when there cane a class of immigration to this country not quite equal to that class of help in intelligence and education. a class that did not feel themselves the equals of these American girls. and when they went into the kitchens all over the country. then the American girl went out of the kitchen and renmains out to this day. So it is in California. It is a rule that has never failed. the history of the world for two thousand years will show that it has never failed. that whenever you put an inferior class of people to doing a particular sort of work. that moment the superior class of people decide that they will not do that kind of work. and labor is degraded exactly in proportion as the character of the man who does it is lower than that of the man who has heretofore done it.