Speech #520079537

Then the beneficiaries of the tariff desired to tax the American consumer for the benefit of labor. It was the American workingman about whom they were solicitous. But the people and the American workmen have discovered that at the time these advocates of special privileges were before Congress asking protection in the name of labor. they by their agents were bringing into this country contract laborers for the purpose of reducing the wages of American workmen and crushing the independent spirit of the American laborers. We find the very men. the American laborers. in whose name the passage of our tariff laws were asked. compelled to come to Congress and ask the passage of the "contractlabor law." forbidding the importation of contract labor in order to preserve themselves from these very menthe "Uriah Heaps" of the generation. who sought the passage of laws to enrich themselves under the guise of "benefiting labor." Investigation has shown that not to exceed 5 per cent of the labor employed in the protected mills and mines of the country are American laborers. If pauper laborers are sought for in this country the place to find them is among the cmployds of the protected mill and mineowners of this country. This being the fact. some other plea had to be advanced to defend this unjust taxation. and the representatives of these special interests withdrew their former plea and make their defense upon the claim that the natural inclination to trade is dangerous unless you trade with them. that commerce consists in exchanging what they manufacture. that the farmer must not trade with foreigners. It is not American.