Speech #740162749

This often results in scant heed being paid to the facts revealed. Great as partisan prejudice may be against the policy of a protective tariff. it would seem that the realities. so abundantly fortified by experience and by facts. should be sufficient to overcome such prejudice. I am sure that the thoughtful Members on this floor would not seriously contend that it would be beneficial to American labor at this time to have unrestricted immigration. especially with the Orient. Do you believe that it would be detrimental or advantageous to American labor to permit the working people of the Orient to enter the United States without restraint to bid against workers for jobs? There are few Members on this floor. if any. I venture to say. who would support such a proposal. The recent action taken by the Congress1934--restricting Filipino immigration. even fixing the quota as low as 50. is evidence that you sense the danger to labor and to agriculture from immigration. But while you object to unrestricted immigration of cheap oriental labor. yet many Members are indifferent to the importation of products that displace our labor in the factory and the field. I maintain that to let in the foreign goods is more injurious to the Nation as a whole than to let in the foreign laborers themselves. I am opposed to the admission of either.