Speech #610200090

We have not expended our Public Treasury for their education. Nor was our time expended in making them selfsustaining. It would have made a difference in our progress if fifty years ago Immigration had ceased. It would have made still more difference if somewhere else on this globe there had been another continent that offered to our young men and women much better inducements than our own. thus inducing them to emigrate. That was the condition with which the old nations had to contend. To justify our prosperity as sufficient because it is greater than in these old countries is evading the consideration of our natural advantages. We have permitted some to come who have not made desirable citizens. but until recently comparatively few such have come. and such are a mere fraction. No careful student denies that a part of the prosperity we boast is due to the immigrants who have come in the full vigor of youth to join us in our industry. Our prosperity is not so much the result of wise government as it is due to natural conditions over which legislation has exercised no control. but. on the contrary. by the failure has permitted certain interests to acquire exclusive control of the resources. and that control has limited our progress and put up the price of our necessities. Discriminating freight rates in favor of the railroad centers have created abnormal conditions. extravagance. and overdevelopment in those centers.