Speech #740240942

The first attack is aimed at the alien. During this period of unemployment the alien is an easy target. The native American and the naturalized in many instances has been made to feel that his unemployment is due to the fact that some alien is occupying his job. Unfortunately a great majority of the unemployed workers have become easy and ready victims of this silly propaganda. Therefore. the suppressionists find great support in their program of deporting aliens. Mind you. however. they are not interested in deporting the docile alien who is willing to work for starvation wages. They are not interested in deporting aliens who are willing to work under conditions such as exist in many of our publicwork project colonies. where the worker at the end of the month owes more money to the commissary than he actually receives in wages. They are not interested in deporting aliens who are willing to work as scabs. strikebreakers. industrial ammunition. and agricultural peons. The alien who organizes. the alien who protests. the alien who joins his fellow worker in trying to better their living conditions is the alien whom they are seeking to deport. It is the old. old story over again. Prior to 1920. when the industrialists were ever hungry for cheap labor. we find. for instance. the American Manufacturers Association severely opposed to restrictive immigration. This was only natural. They found alien labor cheap and submissive. However. this cheap alien labor refused to be cheap labor for long. This submissive alien laborer refused to remain submissive for long. He began to organize. to strike. and to protest for better working conditions. He was impelled by human desire to better his standard of living and that of his children. This alien laborer was able to beat the sweatshops of New York City to a standstill. It was the pioneer spirit of the alien who brought the torch of unionism among the textile workers of New England. Labor leaders may come and go. but the two outstanding martyrs of the labor movement will always be two aliens. Niccola Sacco and Bartolemeo Vanzetti. Alien labor on the whole was no longer docile. and no longer submissive. and no longer willing to be exploited. Consequently. this type of alien labor was no longer desirable to the exploiter of labor. In 1922. the American Manufacturers Association and all of the industrialists insisted on closing Americas door to immigration. and in 1936 the suppressionists seek to deport the alien whose conduct becomes inconsistent with the best interests of the exploiter of labor. The depression paved the way for this program of deportation. People were made to believe that fewer aliens in America would make more jobs for Americans. Hence any form of deportation can very easily receive the approbation of a great portion of the American people. especially among the unemployed. Here the suppressionists find very fertile territory for their scheme. This bill. therefore. is the first shot fired in this campaign against the progressive alien.