Speech #620009531

We have but to look around to see that even in the same occupation. wages paid for labor whose products sell freely together are generally higher in large cities than in small towns. as they are higher in new parts of the United States than in the old. as they are higher in some parts of one State than in another. The American workingmen do not have to fear in our markets the products of cheap foreign labor. but the importation to our labor markets of that labor itself. Here. then. is the fallacy with reference to the protection of American wage earners. which. while imposing duties upon goods under the pretense that they are made by pauper labor. freely admits pauper labor itself. The American Congress in the past did not consider that there was as much danger in the importation of Chinese commodities as the importation of Chinese labor. On some of the former there is a tariff which has a tendency to keep out Chinese goods. while on the latter there is an absolute prohibition which does keep out Chinese labor.