Speech #500001769

I simply wanted to say to Senators who think they can escape this question by saying it is a question of capital. and who think they can escape it by highsounding words. by talking about wringing from the people taxes. by talking about the robbery of the people. that they are mistaken. they will not deceive anybody by such talk. The American people know that their prosperity is in a great degree the result ofthe productions of this continent that have given them varied industries and a multitude of employment fitted to the capacity of different classes. with different intelligences and different interests. When a question came before the Senate some years since about excluding from this country a class of people who competed with our laborers. who came here without homes. without property. without families. and who contributed nothing to church. who contributed nothing to state. who contributed nothing to schools. who contributed nothing to the bodypolitic. but who lived on wages that the American laborer could notwhen we said we will exclude them. the other side of the Chamber pretty generally voted for their exclusion upon the theory that they would not bring the American laborer in competition with the Asiatic laborer. on American soil. where he must wear to some extent American clothes. where he must eat American food. but now they would give him the opportunity in China to manufacture there and send the manufactured article over here. I have been told by a Senatoron the floor since this discussion commenced today that goods can be brought from China and landed on our coast for $10 a ton with a great profit to those who transport them. and it is proposed by this system of reduction of the tariff to allow the 450.000.000 Chinamen living upon wages thatthe poorest American in this country would starve upon. to compete with the American laborers in everything that they can manufacture. and they can manufacture everything that the cunning of mans brain or the skill of his hand can manufacture. and they are to be brought not to our doors. not where they would eat our grain and pork. but where they shall consume only the productions of their own country. and yet shall compete with ours. I do not believe that such a measure will be a very practicable one in this body.