Speech #550002326

Then we will have to quit trading with foreign countries. for we will have nothing with which to pay them. and then our revenues to support the Government will cease. Would it not be better for our Government to quit being unjust to 40 per cent of our people. that portion which is the salt of the earth. that portion which has ever borne in the past. as it does now. the burdens of government? . The idea seems to be universal in the manufacturing centers that the Western farmer is not an integral part of our population. that when we say the American laborer must not be brought into competition with the pauper labor of the world there is a mental reservation. and he is always excluded. It is all right for 40 per cent of our population to compete with the moujik and the fellah. but it is not the proper thing for the rest of the population. It seems to be taken for granted by the advocates of this bill that this protective measure is solely in the interest of the Ameican laborer.