Speech #530043242

I am aware that this is not the sole cause of this extraordinary migration. I know that the steamship and railroad companies have sent their agents abroad to harry the mountains and the valleys for the purpose of bringing men here who in the first place would pay theirfares. so as to enable these companies to run their lines with profit. and in the second place. to ship them on to our great unsubdued regions. in order that railroad lands might be taken up and occupied by them. to such an extent that today. in the settlements of the far Northwest. there are regions where not a word of English. or any other language cognate to it..is spoken by the inhabitants in their daily intercourse. But the strongest reason that has induced this unprecedented immigration. that which has been the mainspring to all this. is the false and alluring cry. dinned in the ear of the laborer. formerly contented in Europe and elsewhere. that here he could have higher wages. and the consequence of these causes combined. and especially of the last. has been that. until the opening of last year. when the cholera scare came upon us and for a time a rigid quarantine checked the movement. there was a movement of foreign populations into this country as great almost as the movement of the Moors out of Spain or of the Israelites out of Egypt. I denominate an immigration so obtained as artificial. And what was the consequence? When. in addition to the expenditure of the surplus. paying it out upon every hand till there was a bankrupt reasuryat the national capital.in addition to a vast balance of trade against us which had to be paid. we found 500.000 men and women and children coming into our midst each year to be taken care of. we did not find them saeking these homes in the far West in full extent. but. as the flies are drawn to the honey. they went to the places where they were told these wages were to be had.