If the Senator will look at the report of the Immigration Commission which relates to the place which he has mentioned in MassachusettsLawrenceI think he will find that probably 60 per cent are foreign born. I have not the figures before me. but a very large percentage60 per cent and above. I think. of the male population of that town are foreign born. and while threefourths are made up of English. Scotch. Irish. Scandinavian. and FrenchCanadians. we have onefourth of that population that is of the recent immigration I have spoken of. who were farm laborers in their own country and have come here and have gone to these congested sections. and they have overcrowded the local market for labor until the prices for that common labor have been so low that they had a right to complain of them. I never would criticize anyone for complaining of the wages paid to that class of labor. but it has resulted in the overcrowding of that class of labor in this country. That is the very basis upon which the commission recommended the literacy test as being the most feasible one to relieve that pressure in those centers.
Keywords matched
Immigration immigration foreign born literacy test