Speech #630383859

It would have made impossible the entrance into our country of President Andrew Johnson. who never knew how to write his name or read a line until he was taught by his wife after his marriage. If that test had been applied years ago. there are honorable and distinguished Members of this exalted body who would not today be occupying seats:in this Chamber. Senatos. we are all a nation of immigrants. Every white man in the United States today is.elther an immigrant or the descendant of an immigrant. How can you justify yourselves now- iifiviolating the ideals that yod have preached for a century and. with the quintessence of selfishness and ingratitude. be willing. to close the doors7 and shut the. gates- upon those unhappy people in other lands who arelooking forward to the day when they. may be free men upon the free soil of this great Republic? It is suggestedthat by permitting free and unrestricted immigration we are doing some injustice to American workmen. that the foreigner comes into competition with American labor. Senators. that has been true for a century. and what is the result of this- competition. such as it has been. for that long time? In no place in all the world are the wages of the laborer and workman so high and the hours of service so short as in the United States. But it is not correct to say that! the immigrant comes into competition with American workmen.. The work that. every succeeding generation of! Immigrants. does is the work that the American will not. do. They carry on the tiresome grind with which the Americanworkman willnot stain his hand. It is the most unremunerative work. It is the. work of building your railroads. of excavating your tunnels. and.doing all of that class of work that fortunately the American workman does not find it necessary for him to uhdertake. Check this immigration and you paralyze our development and arrest the progress of the Nation: We have no better educated normore patriotic citizenship than the children of the sturdy. though Illiterate. aliens who throng to our shores. The percentage of literacy among the children of. alien parentage is- far higher than among the children of native whites. Immigrants and their offspring have done their share in building up our country and developing its resources. Unskilled labor. which the country needs on the farm and in the workshops and in great mining and railroading euterprises. must. necessarily be recruited from the illiterate aliens. The value of the immigrant does not depend upon his ability to read 40 words. It depends upon his industrial capacity. his usefulness for the work of the country. and his probable behavior as a lawabiding citizen. A man meeting these reasonable tests has an economic value which it would. be unwise to destroy.