When I was addressing the Senate a few days since upon this bill I was interrupted by the able Senator from Connecticut . who propounded some questions to which I attempted a reply. In the course of my remarks I referred to the fact that in his State a protective policy had enriched the few. that the manufacturers and others who had secured high tariff rates at the hands of the Republican Party had made inordinate profits. but that in so doing they had exploited the people. I also called attention to the fact that his party had been "so anxious to protect the American laboring man " that it had encouraged and promoted the importation of what some have called "pauper labor." The Republican Party following the Civil War inaugurated a policy which sought to force down American standards of living and American wages. and. in order to accomplish that end. millions of persons from southern Europe were brought into the United States and put into the mills and factories and mines at wages so low as to drive therefrom thousands of Americans. And wages were so low as to make it impossible for the heads I of families to earn sufficient to provide for the necessities of their families. The sad and pitiful spectacle was presented of motlers being compelled to enter the factories and mills in many of the protected industries in order to supplement by. their labors the meager wage paid to their husbands. and we know that thousands of little children were employed in the same factories and mills. because the combined earnings of fathers and mothers were in many cases insufficient for the maintenance of the family.
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pauper labor