Speech #600143929

I always listen to what he has to say with a great deal of interest. On this occasion I heard him with amazement. He puts the opposition to Chinese immigration into the United States on the wrong principle. As I understand him. his view of it is that nobody but a lot of cowards and demagogues are opposed to it. I do not believe that I am a coward. I hope that I am not a demagogue. He says that opposition to Chinese immigration is at the behest of the labor organizations. The labor organizations are against that imumigration. and the labor organizations are dead right in being against that immigration. But it is not only organized labor that is against that immigration. It is every laborer in the United States who understands his rights and values his own interests. I have been a laboring man all my life. In my youth I worked as a hired hand on a farm [applause]. and there is no harder work that I know of among men. I am as proud of that as of having been elected to Congress eight times. [Loud applause.] It is just as essential a fact in my history that men may understand my conduct here and elsewhere. The gentleman from Iowa says that he does not believe that onetenth of the people in California are really at heart opposed to Chinese immigration. and he does not believe that onetenth of the people of the United States are opposed to it. Now. it happened that I served six years on the Committee on Foreign Affairs of this House. and we had hearings on the last Chineseexclusion bill that we passed. They were remarkable hearings.