Speech #540118221

It is the law of selfpreservation that demands it. It is quite as necessary that we should protect ourselves against cheap labor as that we should protect ourselves against the products of cheap labor. It is just as important that we should defend our civilization against the ravaging inroads of other civilizations when those ravages come through the immigration of cheap labor as when they come through the product of that labor. The forcible remarks just made by the gentleman from Indiana followed this line and struck. as it seems to me. to the very heart of this controversy. The civilizing process. so far as it relates to the products of cheaper labor. comes through protectivetariff acts. We can not civilize the goods themselves. but we can prevent their invasion of civilization. that is to say. we can prevent their lowering the rewards which the American citizen receives for his labor. It is the purchasing power of this reward which fixes the character and quality of our civilization. The civilizing process. so far as it relates to the importation of the cheap labor. cons through laws restricting immigration. How can these laws so operate as to minimize the deteriorating effects of modern immigration? Viewed from one standpoint. two classes of people have come to this country from other shores. One is made up of peoples who. when they mingle with the American people. become Americans. of those who freely and naturally commingle with our people and our ways. who raise themselves to the American standard. who love the American flag. who become all that the American people are.