Speech #500049205

This truth is selfevident. Hence we see that all the benefits derived from protecting our capitalists against the capitalists of other countries accrues to capital and not to labor. The only way to protect labor in this country. or wageworkers. would be to reverse the system. that is to say. to let the cheap commodities that go into the consumption of life. manufactured by the pauper labor. so called. of other countries. come here and supply atcheap prices the laborer of this country. Thus laborers here would get the benefit of labor and capital abroad. and. on the other hand. to prohibit by law or by a tax all immigration or importation of any character of laborers from other countries to our shores to break down the labor market. This wageworkers in these protective industries are deinanding at the hands of Congress in so fhr as to prohibit the importation of contract labor. but we know how easily this law maybe evaded and secretly set at naught. Besides. immigration is free. people go and come as they choose. and this law is of no practical benefit. So that this whole system has resulted in this state of affairs. namely. capital is demanding protection against the capital of other countries. Then labor. seeing the disadvantage at which it is placed. is demanding protection from immigration from other countries. If both these are to be accommodated. we have but one of two things to do. Either to build a Chinese wall around our country or else with a vast fleet and army to gulrd our coasts against the approach of every foreigner and all foreign importation.