Speech #550032336

Or will you only give them lip service at 3 cents a day as a tax levied on their competitors? There are so many iniquities disclosed here as to the methods of the coal barons and the railroads in dealing with these people that it would be good reading to give it all to you. but I can only pick out at random an occasional instance of the infamies that are practiced. I am not dealing with that special subject. however. and prefer to go on and present the facts as to why these people ask you to protect them by restricting immigration and giving the country time to absorb and assimilate this vast inpouring of millions of foreigners who have come here so rapidly that we have not been able to Americanize them or give them work. The surplus labor in and about the anthracite mines contributes largely to the present condition of affairs. After the strike of 1875 the influx of foreign immigration began and has continued with but little interruption to the present time. While the country has always encouraged foreign immigration. yet since the time mentioned a class of foreignershave been coming in to which particular objection is made on the part of those employed in the anthracite mining regions. namely. the Poles. Hungarians. Italians. and Slavs.