Speech #540022508

I wish to state that this resolution is prompted by the action of the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco. which in resolutions recently passed called the attention of the country and of Congress to the invasion of manufactured products from Oriental countries. particularly Japan. and called upon Congress to prevent this disastrous competition with American industries. In California we have felt the effect of various phases of Oriental competition. You all recollect the agitation over the Chinese immigration. At first the opposition of California to Chinese immigration was regarded as a coarse expression of race prejudice. That sentiment was indulged by the higher intelligence of the Pacific Coast at first. and was almost unanimously the sentiment of the East. Gradually the entire country came to the conclusion that race preservation demanded that legislation should be secured that would cut off the ruinous competition of Chinese labor in California and adjoining States.