Speech #590060694

I have only thirty minutes. and must decline to yield. * * S * * * * In giving the reasons why he was opposed to the bill fixing a $5 head tax. was because. he said: " It is paid by the steamship companies." He then says: If there ever was a bill that should have been labeled "A gift to foreign steamship companies." it is that bill. Who pays this head tax? The law says it is a lien on the steamship. and the steamship company pays it. How does it pay it? Why. of course. in the en the money does not come out of the funds of the steamship company. but it is put on the ticket. and there is but one price for tickets. In one breath the gentleman tells us the steamship company pays the head tax. in the next breath he tells us that they do not. that they add it to the price of a ticket and the immnigrant pays it. Then lie says the bill should be labeled " For the benefit of foreign steamship compaies." Now. let me sun up just for one minute and show you how this bill will hurt them. My friend says there is but one price on tickets now. and that it includes the present head tax of $2. When the *tax is increased to $5 the ship- companies will either have to raise their passage $3 or lose $3 on each passenger. Of course they will not lose the $3. which would have aggregated more than $3.000.000 last year. But they will add it to the price of every ticket. which will to some extent lessen the number of tickets sold and thereby curtail their profits. and these are the true reasons why they are exerting their influence to defeat this bill. I give my friend credit for making one important admission. but I wont say he did it intentionally. He says: -We want to keep out the man who comes only for a few months stay to earn money and return home with it. and that a head tax will not affect hin at all. that it simply means that he will have to make arrangements not only to get the money to pay his fare across the ocean. but to pay the additional $3. which will be deducted from his first weeks or months earnings. Can anything be stronger than this admission that people are being brought here in violation of the contractlabor law? * * * he pretends to find fault with me for making an insinuation against the people of the great city of New York. which I deny doing. On the contrary. I. like every other patriotic citizen. should be proud of this great metropolis of our country. filled. as it is. with its hundreds of thousands of devoted. loyal. and patriotic citizens. who daily contribute their unselfish aid to the widening and extending of her field of usefuless. But. like every other community. either large or small. she has her bad men. her dark side. her trials. and her troubles. Many of these I can justly refer to. because they are. in ily jufdgmeat the offspring of the very evil against which I spoke. and the result of our foreign immigration. while others I will refer to lave no such connection and had better be left unsaid. and would be if I did not think it necessary to expose and show up the effort of the gentleman in its true light. Mr. Chairmalln. the gentlemans labored effort reminds me of the Missouri negros speech made in the campaign last fall.