Speech #620269503

I am of the opinion that it will tend to improve our citizenship. and that means that it will improve the condition of the working people. If the foreign working people who are educated and who desire to come here and secure a home for themselves and become citizens of the United States would endeavor to understand our institutions and exercise an influence for the improvefient and betterment of the working people. instead of permitting themselves to be used to reduce the standard of wages. legislation of this sort would probably be less desired. but since facts prove that there has been rapid deterioration in the mode and standard of living of the working classes consequent on the incoming swarms of lifelong povertystricken aliens I believe that the educational teht should be adopted. since it would tend to eliminate to a great extent the undesirable element of foreign countries coming here and thus tend to again place the social life of the American working people up to the standard that we desire. The organizedlabor movement has always been in favor of a restriction of immigration by means of the literacy test. At the Pittsburgh convention of the American Federation of Labor in 1905 the following resolutions were adopted: A further check should be put upon assisted Immigration. The law now permits the passage of an alien to be paid by any relative or friend" living in this country. Every employer who wants to bring in cheap laborers Is of course a " friend " to them. or can find somebody to play the part. It is one of the readiest means of evading the contractlabor law. The privilege of paying the passage of others should be rstricted to the nearest relativesfathers. mothers. and children. brothers and sisters. husbands and wives. In accordance with the views here outlined. we recommend that you authorize your officers to use all honorable means for the amendment of o.r immigration laws so as to exclude persons physically unfit. to check the evil of assisted Immigration. to introduce an educational test. and to provide that ports of entry shall be confined to those on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. a In the 1909 convention of the American Federation of Labor at Toronto. Canada. these resolutions were indorsed: Whereas the Illiteracy test Is the most practical means for restricting the prescent stimulated influx of cheap labor. whose competition is so ruinous to the workers already here. whether native 8r foreign . and Whereas an increased head tax upon steamships Is needed to provide better facilities. to more efficiently enforce our immigration laws. and to restrict immigration . and Whereas the requirement of some visible means of support would enable immigrants to find profitable employment. and Whereas the effect of the Federal bureau of distribution Is to stimulate foreign immigration : Therefore be it Resolved by the American Federation of Labor in twentyninth annuial convention assembled. That we demand the enactment of the illiteraay test. the money test. an increased head tax. and the abolition of the distribution bureau . and be it further R~esolved. That we favor heavily lining the foreign steamships for bringing debarable aliens where reasons for debarment could have been ascertained at time of sale of ticket. The following extract from the annual report of President Gompers. of the American Federation of Labor. which was indorsed at the recent convention held at Rochester.