Expansion is not always inimical to our interest. but expansion may. and it does now. threaten to be so extensive as to weaken and exhaust us by sapping our resources in its maintenance in opposition to the consent of the people over whom it is proposed to maintain our unwelcome juisdiction. As a matter of policy there are many reasons why we should not perfect our claim to the Philippine Islands. Their distance from us. 7.000 miles. the difference in the customs. manners. and mode of living of these people and our own. the insurrectionary spirit of the people. the immense cost of maintaining a large standing army and navy to enforce obedience from a refractory people to our laws. the deleterious effect of competition of the labor of that section with our own. the competition in manufactured products. the production of the unpaid and unfed labor of the islands. with theproductsof American workingmen. the injurious effect of competition with these people in agricultural products. the admission to equal rights with our laboring people in their homes in the States of this alien Asiatic race who could and would overrun our marts of labortheseare some of the reasons why. in sound public policy. the Philippines should not be annexed. We can not bring the cheap laborers of these islands to the standard of living and wages of the American workman. but we may reduce the standard of living and wages of our own people by enabling free and easy competition in the field of American labor by the Asiatic. The true policy would seek the elevation of the labor of our country. Our workingmen should have better wages that they may have better opportunities.
Identified stereotypes
The speaker generalizes that the 'alien Asiatic race' would overrun American labor markets and lower the standard of living for American workers.