President. is the matter to which I wish to address myself now. As I have said. it was a complete surprise to me that any opposition should have been raised which involved the integrity of the c6ntractlabor laws. The contractlabor laws antedate the immigration laws. They proceed on a wholly. different basis. The purpose of the contractlabor laws from the beginning has been to defend the workingmen of the United States from a competition that no workingmen could possibly stand. If it were possible .for great corporations. either in manufactures or in railroads. to go across the water to any country in the world. save China. and there make contracts to bring in labor at the prices assented to in a foreign country. and further than that. to bring in labor which was made responsible in its wages for the price of its passage to this country. it would be utterly out of the question to think that the standard of American wages or the standard of living of American workingmen could be maintained. for as fast as the laborers induced in this method to come to this country became accustomed to American standards and desired to achieve American wages and American forms of living. they would be confronted by fresh bodies of contract laborers brought in under rates of wages far lower than ours by contracts made in countries where the wages and standards are alike lower than ours.
Keywords matched
immigration contract laborers