Speech #620269453

This is the kind of work the illiterate men of Europe do for us. Only last week I talked with a contractor in New York City who had 125 laborers engaged in excavating work. One hundred and fourteen of these were foreign born and 96 could neither read nor write. We have employed in common labor. building our great subway systems of New York City. thousands of men who work with the pick and shovel. We are unable to get anywhere near the number of men we need for this character of labor. and if immigration is cut off 25 per cent you are going to severely cripple tile building of railroads. besides the iumerous private enterprises of the country. These illiterate immigrants are not men who are threatening our institutions. but from close intimate observation I know them to be lawabiding citizens. easy to manage. they live quietly and unpretentiously. so that in the main they stay here. send their children to school. and in the second generation are assimilated by the people of our great city. I have here a statement furnished me by the Department of Commerce and Labor relative to the number of immigrants who arrived at the port of New York between 1881 and 1910: Number of PerNumber illiterates centage Years. of ar- over 14 of illt rivals. years of eracy. ago. Total immigration. 1881 to 1890 ................ 5 246.613 .................... Total immigration. 1891 to 1900 ..................... 3.87.564 ................. Total immigration. 1901 to 1910 .................... 8.795.380 2.126.153 27.5 Italian. South. 1901 to 1910 ....................... 1.761.948 843.300 53.9 Italian. North. 1901 to 1910 ........................ 342.261 36.121 11.6 Total Italians. 1901 to 19LOt ................. 2.104.209 879.421 46.9 It will be observed by this statement that 27 per cent of the inlmigrants coming here between 1901 and 1910 were illiterate. and of a total of 2.126.153 illiterate immigrants 843.300 were from southern Italy. the people who furnish the common labor ill America. The additional fact has not been brought out that at least onehalf of these illiterate immigrants return to their homes. so that. after all. the sum total of the increase is hardly perceptible. taken throughout the country as a whole. I can sum up tile situation in no better way from the economical side of the question than to read the following. extract from an article by Dr. Isaac A. lIourwich. printed recently in one of the current mfagazies: 1. Recent immigration has displaced none of the native American wage earners or of the earlier Immigrants. but has only covered the shortage of labor resulting from the excess of the demand over the domestic supply. 2. Immigration varies inversely with unemployment. It has not increased unemployment. 3. The standard of living of the recent immigrants Is not lower than the standard of living of the past generations of immigrants in the same occupations. Recent immigration has not lowered the standard of living of Americans and older immigrant wage earners. 4. Recent immigration has not reduced the rates of wages. nor has It prevented an increase in the rates of wages. It has pushed tile native and older immigrant wage earners upward on the scale of occupations. 5. The hours of labor have been reduced contemporaneously with recent immigration. 6. The membership of labor organizations has grown apace with recent immigration . the new immigrants have contributed their quota to the membership of every labor organization which has not discriminated against them. and they have firmly stood by their organizations In every contest. Mr. Chairman. this is a big question and one not to be considered in a spirit of prejudice. but to be worked out in keeplng with the great principles of our American institutions.