Speech #680082580

President. do not come 3.000 or 5.000 miles. suffering the utmost hardships of a transAtlantic voyage. parting oftentimes with the last penny in order to obtain passage. by a desire that is not worthy and commendable. Can there be a higher proof of devotion to the benefits and blessings of our country than that men and women to come under its blessings will take all. the discomforts and risks of journeying to a country of whose language they are Ignorant. to whose customs they are strangers. leaving their home and their fireside. .often their most loved ones. and the associations of all the generations that preceded them? Leave your places of comfort and visit the places where the immigrants are found in American life before you condemn them. Whose faces are those going up and down in the shafts that bring to the surface of the earth our mineral deposits? They are those of our immigrants. Stand at the mill gates and the exits of the sweatshops. where those commodities are manufactured that require the most exacting labor. Our immigrants are the "factory hands." Watch at the entrance of a savings bank in our industrial centers. The depositors most numerous in the lines are our immigrants. Whose children are those running In and out among the vehicles of the city streets. with no playgrounfd but the crowded and littered roadway In the midst of the cities marts? They are our immigrants. Whose weary and careworn facesmothers facesare leaning out over the fire escapes in the tenement rows trying to catch a breath of fresh air? They are our Immigrants. Look In at the winter sessions of our evening schools. Who are the men and women. simply clad. with drawn countenances and calloused hands. seeking a knowledge of our language and the history of our country? They. too. are our immigrants. The records. Mr. President. show that immigrants must seek employment where they can find it. and as they are without funds to travel any great distance. they are obliged to enter the mines and mills near the places of their arrival. We have made them the slaves of our industrial system. Our greed and not their selfseeking has directed them and sent them and their families into the factories. sweatshops. down into the depths of the earth and on the docks of ourwaterways. wlerever there is lowly and fatiguing work. In 1918. 58 per cent of the steel and Iron workers were foreign born. 61 per cent of our packers labor. 62 per cent of the bituminous miners and wool weavers. 69 per cent of the cottonmill operators. 72 per cent of clothing shopmen. and 65 per cent of the sugar refiners help came from abroad. Mr. President. we have.