Speech #540123397

At least. it was the balance of power which selected our rulers in this country for the next four years. I am delighted that the structure which has been built up and used is now beginning to trouble gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber. When. however. you invoke it. when you bring it in here simply because there is an attempt to vote down a conference report which excludes the honest wife of an honest immigrant merely because she can not read the Constitution of the United States in some language. and tell us that this foreign corporation is at the door of Congress throttling Senators and Members. and that it is the power which is standing up for these poor women. the wives of these immigrants. the Senator from Massachusetts will permit me to say it is begging the question. It has nothing to do with it. The numbei of immigrants. the women we propose to let in. who would come upon the North German Lloyd steamers would be insignificant. You can not hide behind the corporation this shameless attempt to pievent a man from bringing his wife with him to this country. o picture of corporations. which is distasteful to every man on this side of the Chamber. and would be. I have no doubt. on the other side. so far as the attempt to influence legislation is concerned. can deter us from doing our duty in preventing a committee from violating the rules of this body and the general parliamentary law by excluding from the bill t*o features which both Houses have agreed to. The Senator from Massachusetts ought to know that the German bLloyd Company and all the other steamship companies have no Opecial influence on this side of the Chamber. I could quote to the Senator the statements of members of his own party who frankly admit that but for the influence of the German Lloyd Company and the balance of the steamship companies and the corporations and the immigrants of the very class whom it is proposed to exclude. your party would now be in the minority. Of the votes of Americans. the Democratic party stands representing very much more than half. almost twothirds. It was the Germans scattered from Maine to the Pacific and this class of voters whom you now propose to exclude who gave you your majorities in all the States of the West which you carried. and nearly all of the States in the East. The understanding. growing out of political emergencies. with that large body of American citizens who are intensely American demanded some. restriction in immigration. that the mechanics of this country could be more thoroughly f rotected hereafter. And yet under the provisions of this bill here is not to be excluded a single man of genius or a mechanio of any ability. There is no relief to the industrial people of this country even under the bill as it stands. except for the laborers who go into the cotton fields in the South and in the trenches to work on railroads and canals. the most subordinate positions in the country.