Speech #630134887

I think it resolves itself absolutely into one question. and but one. It Is absolutely a commercial question. and the people who labor and toil in this country realize fully that it is a question of wages and a question of competition in the life of the wage earner. because when men are competing for the same job you get cheaper labor. but when men who want men to work for them are competing for that labor you can maintain the standard of American wage and you can not do it unless you do that. The men who are the great employers of labor want cheap labor and much immigration. I understand one. a railroad president. in a meeting of business men who were interested in the employment of labor. offered a resolution about 12 months ago in which he proposed that you shall receive from China and Japan and from India the coolie and Hindu labor for the purpose of putting them in various lines of industry on the railroads. Those men in this country who employ men for a low wage are those men who. when they get a certain unit of work done for a smaller amount of pay than they would otherwise get. are the people who profit by this horde of alien labor which comes to this country. and that is why it was that a short time ago in a labor organization meeting there was passed almost without opposition by the representatives of the American wage earners organizations a resolution favoring this literacy test. It is a question fairly and simply whether or not the American who lives in this country shall be able to maintain his wage or shall compete with those people who come here from year to year. as the monopolists say. to supply muchneeded labor. And. gentlemen of the committee. when you analyze the situation in America you find the men who are behind this movement. controlling the public press. appealing to Congress to prevent legislation of this kind. are the men who are employing labor.