Speech #640066335

The Democratic policy of free trade will unquestionably very speedily. destroy the trusts and monopolies. but it will at the samp time destroy everything and everybody else. My theory is to enact and maintain a sane and sensible tariff. The tariff originally designed to raise revenue and protect industry and labor has been a success in accomplishing the former. but so far as the laboring man is concerned. in the presence of 1.200.000 unskilled laboring immigrants coming in each year. it is a farce and a joke. Immigration as conducted today puts unskilled American labor on the free list. And with 10 workingmen to 1 in the professions or in business. what chance has the Republic to live on if the American laboring man is not given wage enough to sustain himself. support his family. and send his children to school. and who must compete for his wage with a foreigner who can and does often live on 10 cents per day? We do not hear much said against immigration in public speech or the public press. If anything is said. it is usually a protest. and sometimes the pretest is a gentle hint. but more frequently a violent assault. against those whose attitude like my own is assumed from purely patriotic motives and through a desire to save the workingmen oC the land from the penury. degradation. and competition with the foreigner of lowstandard living. and which condition must speedily grow worse unless MAIRc 24. this bill offers relief. In the same newspapers which oppose the bill may be noticed many clothing store advertisements and in some displayed steamship announcements. The absence of outspoken interest for this bill might be because lawyers are afraid of their clients. members of the legislature and State senate tremble in the presence of a few recently naturalized foreigners. and in some instance because Congressmen residing in centers of population where there is a congestion of foreigners and a large foreign vote do not wish to commit political suicide. and so it is left to those of us who (1o not have many foreigners in our districts to speak out in meeting and speak the truth and what we think and what others think. as well. We have accepted tile responsibility of supporting and sustaiing this Republic. Tile foreigner of today. in many instances. does not do this.