Speech #640001503

Indeed. the people of this country are themselves largely responsible for the incoming of the Japanese. They are more than willing to exploit them and profit by their labors. but are unwilling to accept them as citizens or privileged to hold lands of their own. One of the greatest evils this country has to contend with Is commercialismthe exploitation of men. women. and children. especially immigrants from other countries. land. and property for gain. It has brought thousands of criminals. paupers. and other objectionable foreigners to this country who have Increased crime. taxed our charitable institutions. peopled the slums with criminals and incompetents. and demoralized and degraded our citizenship. Amongst other things it has brought to this country thousands of Asiatics who are not allowed to become citizens. who are not accepted on an equality with our own people because of their race. They are encouraged to come here for purely mercenary purposes. and nothing else. and are exploited by our own people because more of their labor can be had for less money than that of our own people. They are thus put In competition with home labor. and honest labor degraded until the native or naturalized citizen nmst bring himself down to their standard and mode of living and labor as theylabor or -be driven out of employment altogether. It tends to landlordism in this countrylarge tracts of land held by a few to the exclusion of the many with Asiatics as tenants or farm hands. In view of the fact that we are looking at this condition of things with the object of determining whether additional provision shall be made by Congress against war with other nations. let us stop a moment to consider what number of Japanese are. in this country. how they might be used if we should be unfortunate enough to be brought into war with that nation. and what their presence here would mean in that case. I take from the census of 1910 the following statement: Total number of Japanese in the United States in 1910. 72.157.