Speech #620269503

Y.. November 1123. 1.912. with reference to Senate bill 3175. explains the present position of the organization in regard to the matter: The illiteracy test advocated by the American Federation of Labor was added to the bill and passed by the Senate. In the January. 1911. issue of the American Federationist. under the title of " ImmigrationUp to Congress." President Gampers. of the American Federation of Labor. says: The final inning of the tug of war over Immigration has now begun. In this contest tremendous forces are engaged. On the side of America are the upholders of two distinctive American sentiments. the maintenance of the American standard of living for our wageworking classes and the maintenance of American institutions as they are. unimpaired through the financial degradation of tile working class(:s. On tile proimmigration side is the powerful immigration machine. composed of the transoccan combine. with all its thousands of agents and other innumerable parasites. the bankers. padrones. etc.. wvho ar coining money out of the millions of immigrants coining in the course of years into this country from Europe. The center of this tug of war has at last shifted to Congress. No longer is the discussion indefinite. casual. or partisan. or without an immediate object. conducted through the press and other insufficient agencies of Information and debate. No longer. either. is it backed up merely by individual impressions or the partial investiga tions heretofore promoted by various private institutions. The Federal Government undertook four years ago the solution of the immigration question throigh scientific means. It set out to ascertain the undeniable facts. and after three full years of research its commission has brought forward no less than 46 volumes on the subject. covering every possible pIhase. Its recommendations it has brought forward in concise form in a separate pamphlet. A reading of these recommendations confirms the facts of the case as they have been accepted by the American Federation of Labor after the serious study its members had given the question for decades. The local. and then the international unions. and finally the annual conventions of the American Federation of Labor itself have had immigration up for consideration as one of the principal labor topics on literally thousands of occasions. The membership as a whole. from upholding the sentiments the great majority once entertained. namely. that this country could go on indefinitely absorbing the entire possible stream of innigration. have reluctantly. in view of the facts. passed over to the sway of the sentiment that their own good heartedness towird the immigrants and the laborers of the Old World was being exploited by large employers for the purpose of reducing wages as well as by the steamship combine and Its myriad of parasites for the sake of their own profits. At last the great body of the American industrial wageworkers have come to see one fact above others. -which is. that the immigrants are assimilated in America through the wageworking class. This means that the Americanborn wage earners and the foreign wage carners who have been here long enough to aspire to American standards are subjected to the ruinous competition of an unending stream of men freshly arriving from foreign lands who are accustomed to so low a grade of living that they can underbid the wage earners established in this country and still save money. .Whole communities. in fact whole regions. have witnessed a rapid deterioration In the mode of living of their working classes consequent on the incoming of the swarms of lifelong povertystricken aliens. Entire industries have seen the percentage of newly arrived laborers rising. until in certain regions few American men can at present be found among the unskilled. [ie following Is the most significant passage of the United States Immigration Commissions report (1p. 39) : " The Investigations of the commission show an oversupply of unskilled labor in basic industries to an extent which Indicates an oversupply of unskilled labor in the industries of the country as a Nhole. and therefore demands legislation which will at the present time restrict the further admission of such unskilled labor. rhe commission also believes that In order " to protect the immigrant against exploitation. to discourage sending savings abroad. to encourage perumanent residence and naturalization. to secure better distribution of alien immigrants throughout the country." the States should enact laws strictly regulating immigrant banks and employment agencies. and that aliens who attempt to persuade immigrants not to become American citizens should be made subject to deportation. and that the division of information should cooperate with the States desiring immigrant settlers. At the recent St. Louis convention of the American Federation of Labor the president in his report called the attention of the delegates to the fact "that a veritable flood of bills " designed to check inmigration had been introduced in the last session of Congress. and the report of the executive council on the presidents report expressed the hope that this flood of bills and the work of the Immigration Commission would result "in the enactment of legislation which will protect the workers in this country from the unfair competition resulting from indiscriminate immigration." On behalf of American labor it Is to be said that the action of the tradeunions in this country on this most delicate International question involves a step that touches the heart of every man contemplating it. That step. the advocacy of exclusion. is not prompted by any assumption of superior virtue over our foreign brothers. We disavow for American organized labor the holding of any vulgar or unworthy preiudices against the foreigner.