Speech #670330647

Massachusetts. and Illinois. pay more for the care of alien defectives than do States which have fewer aliens. but the average cost is 7 per cent of all State taxation. This does not Include costs of aliens in county institutions. such as jails. 1ospitals. and poorhouses. And yet because the restriction of immigration to 3 per cent of the various nationalities here in 1910 has played a considerable part In the increase of wages to common labor. the cry goes up from those who would benefit most that we must have more immigrants In order to supply us with more and cheaper labor. Joining in the chorus are those who would bring from Greece as many of the 1.000.000 refugees as can be brought and those who would bring all of the other stricken peoples from all parts of the world to our shores if they could. About one person in every five in Greece is a refugee from some place in Asia Minor. Mr. Chairman. what are those who are demanding an influx of cheap alien labor thinking about? Do they think of profits. or of population. or posterity? Do not they know that the quotas of immigrants permitted to come from the north countries of Europe are unfilled? Must they always have a hole at Ellis Island opened big enough to admit a million or a million and a half Immigrants per year. so that they may give wretched employment to possibly onefourth of that number? They talk of alien labor as they would talk of that many tenpenny nails. They seem never to think of the wives and children of these aliens. who must either come now or remain behind. to be part of the wretched wreckage of Europe. Does not the pitiful story from Pennsylvania. printed the other day. of the alien mother of several children who received $1 a month from her wretched husbands miserable pay check for work in the coal mines. after it had been through the abominable "company store " process. make even a dent upon those who preach Americanization and yet want a million idle aliens always .4tanding around waiting for jobs?