Speech #590092336

From the beginning of their lives up to the time they come to these shores their associations have been those of ignorance. their surroundings have been such that they could not by association and absorption acquire sufficient knowledge or understanding to become in virtue of character and intelligence good and competent citizens of a republic where every man is a sovereign. Coming to us. as they do. steeped in ignorance. without any conception of the principles of liberty or of freedom. without any knowledge of the principles of selfgovernment. in many instances with their beciouded minds and depraved hearts filled with hatred toward all law and government. they gain nothing by way of absorption in that knowledge which goes toward making good and useful citizenship. They gain nothing after arriving by association and contact with our people. because they do not. like the immigrants from northern and western Europe. distribute themselves among our people. but huddled together in mining or railroad camps or in the slums of the great cities. and working. when engaged in regular employment. under the padrone system. they seldom learn to understand or. speak our language. or only so far as may be necessary to communicate their wants or as may be indispensable in the business employment or traffic in which they may be engaged. I repeat. living after they arrive here largely in the slums of the great cities. or working in the railroad camps. or huddled together in the great factories generally under the padrone system. they remain to the end of their lives. if they remain here that long. in a state of dense ignorance. the fires of hatred toward law and order kindled in the wretched environment of their old home is never extinguished and they form the nucleus under the leadership and incitement of a wicked but higher intelligence of the disorders and riots. which are becoming a disgrace to our civilization and a handicap to our industrial progress and development. Mr. President. in this connection I want to read a short extract that appeared a few days ago in an editorial in the Washington Post on this subject. It was an editorial intended to warn the South. in their eagerness to secure labor to supply the demand which at present exists in that section. against the class of immigration which I have just been discussing and feebly attempting to describe. It is as follows: There is no better agricultural laboring class in the world than the real Latin peasantry of Italy and Spain. but they are not greatly given to emigration and we see very few of them in the United States. The great bulk of the socalled " Italians" who come over here to cut throats. throw dynamite. and conduct labor riots and assassination fraternities are nothing more than the degenerate progeny of the Asiatic hoards which. long centuries ago. overran the shores of the Mediterranean and were the pirates. the spoliators. and the mercenaries of those bloody ages. They have taken the language of the countries upon whose seaboards they swarm. but they are as different In nature. in principles. in idealsin all essential qualitiesfrom the real people as black is from white. or as wickedness is from virtue. Here and there. in certain localities. one finds a colony of genuine Italians and is impressed with their industry. their thrift. their lawabiding tendencies. and their amiable disposition. These. however. constitute but a drop in the stream of the immigration we receive in the name of Italy. They are a class not prone to leave their homes. Ninetenths of the rift raft army that descends upon these shores are the spawn of the Phoenician curse. expedited fervently by our great and good friends of the Quirinal. who are only too anxious to be rid of them. The Post further -says it "is not especially concerned in the troubles of the great northern corporations that deliberately encourage this sinister and vicious immigration merely in order to speed their fight against organized labor." but from the .South. in whose welfare it is profoundly interested. it would. if pbssible avert this blight. The Post continues: It is not only that we know the negro to be the best. the most faithful. and desirable laborer for -the South. it is also that we would keep the. section free from the turmoil. the anarchy. and the social disaster which will surely follow huge accumulations of the human garbage shipped from southern Europe and dumped in that as yet unpolsoned air. The South is the appointed stronghold of the free Institutions for which our forefathers shed their blood.