Speech #620267212

Says I. "Italians? Cant you find labor in such a densely populated country as Germany?" " No." he said. " Germans are doing a better class of work. they will not build railroads. we can not get them for this purpose." And he said that the Italians were sober. industrious. aInd reliable. and particularly competent in railroad construction work. and for these reasons they employed them. There you have a country with 308 people to the square mile. and yet not one word of protest is raised on the part of labor against the employment of these Italians. while here. in a country with but 25 people to the square mile. the cry is persistently kept up that immigration should be stopped on the ground that it is a serious competition with America. labor. If you will look at the latest bulletin. the October bulletin. issued by the Department of Commerce and Labor. you will find a very remarkable fact. Mr. Chairman. in relation to the departures. I am glad the figures are now being given in regard to the departures. At the time I was chairman of the Immigration Committee. 18 years ago. we could not get any figures on the departures of emigrants. In this bulletin you will find that in the year ended June 30. 1911. 155.000 laborersI only give the round numberscame to this country. and in the same year 172.000 laborers departed. in other words. 18.000 more laborers left our country than came here as immigrants. Now. is not that a very important fact? And this strange phenomenon seems permanent. Look at the figures for the fiscal year 1912. You find in the official reports that of the class of immigrants styled "laborers" there arrived during the year ended June 20. 1912. 135.726. while in the same period 209.279 departed. In other words. over 73.000 more left this country than arrived in that period of time. These figures certainly show that immigration is no problem at this time.. The total immigration last year w.as 878.000. Deduct from that number the 295.000 who returned to their native countries and we have 582.000 left. Deduct from that number the 246.000 women and children. who certainly should not be counted as competitors with American labor. and there is left a total of only 336.000.