Speech #620312878

They knew in advance just where they were going. They .went .to the Atlantic division of States. to the seatsof the great industries. where they found brothers. cousins. and friendsmen who speak their own ilanguage and .live under the conditions to which .they .have been accustomed. That the labor market.in all these !places has become overcrowded can not be doubted by anyone who will take -the re.ports of the Immigration Commission and patiently examine the facts there set .forth. .A comparisonof the yearly and the weekly wages shows that fact very clearly. I have in .my hand .a statement showing that in the iron and steel industrythese are statistics gathered by the Immigration Commissiontme .weekly wage was $14.35. but. on an.average. the men received for a years service only $346. showing that they were employed less than onehalf of the time.. and. of course. there was an overcrowding of that class of labor if that was the fact. In the bituminous coal industry. while they were receiving $2.19 dally.-we found .that upon .an av:erage they were receiving only. $443 annually. which indicatedthat they worked less than twothirds of the time. The same was true of those engaged in silk manufacturing. andin %woolen and worsted..and in leather. while those engaged in the -manufacture .of clothing probably worked substantially threefourths Of the -time. So I might go on down through the different industries. �but all thetestimony wasof thecharacter of that which I ihave just cited. -in that a comparison .of .the yearly wages with the weekly wage showed that the men -were largely out of employmernt. I want to remark just here that the commission investigated .200 different communities where they found this overcrowded condition .of common. unskilled labor. the .result of the great increase in immigration duringthe.last 10 -years. -When we had examined those 200 different localities where the foreign element predominated and conditions were -so unwholesome. we sought -to :find a typical American manufacturing community. that we might compare the conditions .existing in each. W\e searched the country over. but we failed to find such an American community in the manufacturing sections. It does not exist.