Do gentlemen realize that skilled work is seldom if ever exercised on the earth itself. but always on some product of the earth? No mechanic. whatever his skill. can become productive until he obtains raw material on which that skill may be employed. And those raw materials must be produced by that manual labor (the most poorly paid. yet the most important). to which the American laborer will not stoop. but which the immigrant gladly embraces an opportunity to perform. Every immigrant who brings from the bosom of the soil a single commodity gives employment to others instead of wresting employment from them. The coal which he produces with his pickax gives employment to the railway hand who transports it and to countless others at every stage of its progress from the mouth of the pit where It is mined to the furnace where it is consumed. The agricultural laborer who turns a furrow in the field and scatters seed upon it is producing grain which when harrested must be carried to the mills and there ground into flour. and then transported to bakeries. where it is made into bread for the consumption of millions. and at every stage of this production men are furnished employment by the raw product of unskilled labor.
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immigrant