Speech #500117906

The Chinaman demanded his pay. and if he underbid the still cheaper labor of the colored man. lie was coming here in multitudes. but he would have his pay. and by rejecting him and driving him out our Southern friends were able to preserve their colored labor with its existing cheapness. costing them nothing in the world but its mere sustenance. just enough to keep them in good order as a laborproducing machine. and they were free from Chinese competition. To be sure it is a hundred thousand who are permitted to remain in the country. but that does not occasion them any trouble. Vowever. if you permit Chinese immigration to the United States we shall not have the six or eight million people. which is the number of colored laborers you now depend upon. The Chinaman can come in like a flood and drive out the negro. and supply in fact the whole country and extirpate the laborer both North and South. There. I think. is the real secret why the instinct of our friendswho owned the labor of the South before the war and during the war and since the war has driven them to take the position on this subject which the North has attained by strong conviction and a benevolent regard for the real interests of the laborers of the land. because the Chinese could not be naturalized and could do no voting. There is another point to be considered. If the Chinaman were the laborer of the South would not the negro be driven out and be deprived of his inestimable right of suffrage? There are many things to be thought of about this question. but the real secret of it all. it seems to me at least. is this. and I shall read it once more in order that it may impress itself upon the minds of the laboring people of the North. fbr it is well for them to understand the motives of their friends who are so strongly the opponents of Chinese immigration today. They were going to bring over any quantity of cooliesto supplant the negroes on the plantations. and some experiments were tried. I think with very ill resulls. Q.