Speech #470036861

Pixley. on page 19. continues: And here comes the question. How does their employment affec our white labor ? We answer. and this is the burden of our arraignment of this Chine a immigration: it is not our sympathy for the wealthy classes. it is our sympothy for the labor classes. upon which. whatever may be our feelings. flopends really the whole superstructure of our Government. It is admitted by every man who studies the genius Of Auierican institutions. that labor is noble and ennobling. that the man who has arrived at a competency must labor to hold his own and not relax into that system of donothingness which we sea in other countries. In other words. the idea of the American is that every man must work. and that all protection which can be planted about the laborer shall be given. that his hard toil may be aiply compensated. for he has nothing to sell but his days work. and that he ought to receive the highest wages which can be paid for the labor which he performs. And yet you invite. by throwing your doors open to competition -with these Chinese laborers. whose maximum wages is $5 a month. a countless number of men to compete with our labor at a price which cannot be borne. When you go to your people. you who have looms andspindles and forges. you who are going to vote against this bill. I ask you to explain to your laborers how it is possible that you have left. the doors all open to a competition by which their labor may be entirely rooted up and destroyed. and by which their children and themtelves may become paupers. for that isthe inevitable result unless you restrict this immigration. I quote again front Mr. Pixley: One hundred of them would live in this roomnThe room in which the testimony was takenwhile the poorest Christian family of five in the State would thinl: themselves crammed in double the space.