Speech #600134597

About onefourth are females and threefourths males. From onefourth to onethird of the adults can not read or write a single line in any language or dialect. not even their own. But. to return to the question of the congestion of the present immigration in our large cities. let me call your attention to what the Commissioner of Labor says In his seventh annual report. where he points out that of the slum population of Baltimore 77 per cent are foreigners. of Chicago 90 per cent. of Philadelphia 91 per cent. and of New York City 95 per cent. and that southeast Europe furnishes from twenty to seventyone times as many as does northwest Europe to these congested districts. where they are such a fertile field for the irresponsible agitator and corrupt boss. A year or two ago Mayor McClellan directed Doctor Darlington. president of the New York City Board of Health. to make a special investigation of the pushcart nuisance. At the conclusion of his investigation Doctor Darlington reported. among other things:. I have heard the assertion that immigration is necessary to carry on our public works. to build railroads. to dig canals. and the like. But the present immigrants now coming over do not come for that purpose and will not do that sort of work. No. they prefer to become pushcart peddlers and to live in our cities In poverty. breeding crime and disease. They occupy our streets. the streets for which our taxp ayers have paid heavily. They interfere with traffic and break the laws of sanitation which we have decided are necessary for the preservation of public health. Now. it is proposed by certain interests to distribute this slum population over the South and West in order to make room for more of the same kind. and one even finds such a paper as the Jacksonville (Florida) Metropolis publishing matter sent out by the railroads under the caption of "Immigration labor for the South." The Manufacturers Record tells us that Congress is likely to be asked to set aside a fund for transporting laborers from one place to another and to be thus used on a loan basis. and the reason for this fund is given as follows: For lack of funds for transportation thousands of aliens living in large cities and who appeal for work are deprived of obtaining remunerative employment. From all parts of the country the cry comes for efficient help. but the laborer in many instances is unable to go because he has not the means to pay his railroad fare. This Is the situation confronting the Department of Commerce and Labor. who are trying to promote a beneficial distribution of aliens among the States and Territories desiring laborers. The editor commenting on this plan. which is nothing more than a plan to relieve congestion in the principal cities and a plan to make more room in which to dump still more immigrants. pertinently says: "It must be confessed that these southern immigration schemes and other sociological. educational. and economic movements engineered from New York disregard the fact of the Souths forty years fight for the maintenance of white civilization. It must be confessed that if the diverse schemes succeed white civilization must pass from a portion of the South. What care the schemers for that. and what care they for the disinterested warnings as long as the public mind of the South can be diverted from the fundamental questions?" I take occasion to say just here. lest I be misunderstood. that I. in common with many other Southerners. would welcome to our midst homeseekers. whether they be of foreign or native birth. who from choice have embraced our form of government and wish to be part and parcel of us. and will work with us to build up the waste places and contribute to a free and stable government.