Speech #590016986

Now. our Democratic friends shout on this floor about having the Panama Canal constructed by contract. They tell us and the people that in this way it can be done at less cost to the American people than if it is done by the Government. I ask them to tell us where there is a contractor who. in the face of that law. applying as it does to alien labor and all other labor employed on the Isthmus. that would undertake to dig a yard of that canal by contract. How. then. can our Democratic friends reconcile JMTuARY 26. their opposition to the removal of this obstacle to the building of the canal in the only way they say it should be constructed? They know that nothing but alien labor can be employed in the manual work of digging that canal. They seek to make it impossible. if that should be found to be the best policy. to let a yard of that work be begun by contract. by insisting on the eighthour law. which was meant to apply to American labor. never intended to apply to alien labor. applicable to alien labor -is well as American labor. and thus increase the cost of that canal to the extent of $50.000.000. according to the testimony of the men who are charged with the responsibility of constructing that canal.