Speech #530119183

In at least ten different States of the American Union there is a state of war. and it is because most of the riotous men whom my Republican friends are proposing to protect by their protective tariff legislation are not American citizens. Many of them are men who. if I could have my way. would not be here at all. I believe that if we want to protect our laborers. we ought to protect them upon their own soil from contact with what you call pauper labor. There are men in the mining regions of the country now who vote by number instead of by name. who go up to the polls and vote according to the number which they use when they receive their provisions. or what little is left at the end of their weeks or months pay. from the "pluck me" stores. It is our vicious. dangerous. destroying legislation which has brought this condition upon the people. It was begun in 1864. and now we have this class of men all over the country. No one of the workingmen whom I have heard speak upon the subject at all objects to the immigration of men who come here to be citizens with us. to help us develop our wonderful resources. help us to make the Republic what it ought to be. who come to be Americans with us. We welcome them. and nobody more warmly than the men and women who work in the factories and the fields. but it is that class of men. who are not worth more than 15 cents a day. which they earn in their own country. who come here in order to take partof the wages which our workingmen have arranged for them when they come. Then. if so be that a dispute arises between theemployer and theemploysas to therate of wages. and they see proper to stop work while they can arrange the matter amongst themselves. the employer bids the aliens come in.