President. in view of what has been said by the Senator from Ohio . I would l.ke to make an explanation. We were receiving. just prior to the World War. a very large number of immigrants. over a million a year. and from southeastern Europe we were receiving. upon an average during the Last three years preceding the war. about 735.000. They were induced to come by reason of the remarkable expansion there had been in the manufactures of the United States. The movement presented a problem even at that time which alarmed a great many people. � When the war broke out that immigration stopped. On the other hand. the manufactures of America were stimulated by.. the orders which they received from abroad and from our own Government. and they were driven to the very highest point of production. In order to secure labor they were compelled td offer extraordinary wages and appeal to American labor to come in and fill their shops. As I was saying. we secured substantially no European immigration during the war. because there were more who returned to southeastern Europe during the period of the war than were received from that source. So while for four or five .years we were doing a larger business in manufacturesthan wel had ever done before. and without any aid from Europe. which had contributed nearly a million of aliens a year previous to that time. the shortage in employees had to be made up by. the American boys who had not been called to the ranks. and the result was that they responded from every rural community and entered into the shops of industry. In my own State I had occasion to notice it.
Keywords matched
immigration immigrants