Chairman. in the first place. we are not a seafaring people and will never again become such until our necessities drive us into that occupation. We have a young and energetic civilization that is now and has been for fifty years engaged in developing and building up our Internal resources. That little civilization which a hundred years ago was gnawing indentations on the western slope of the Alleghenies has spread throughout the Middle and great West. making farms. building cities. developing the mines and forests. the great systems of transportation. and the thousands of factories. and notwithstanding the fact. sir. that more than a million immigrants seek our shores annually. still the cry is for more men to labor in the fields. the mines. the forests. and the factories. By and through our beneficent system of protection we htve builded up a standard of wages and standard of profit to capital unknown elsewhere in the world. and this very prosperity for our capital and labor forms an insuperable obstacle to the building up of our merchant marine. Gentlemen speak of its profitable condition prior to 1850 and seek for the cause of its decline.
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immigrants