Speech #750167670

I stated at the outset that this administration had assaulted American labor. I shall now present the evidence to prove the first count in the indictment. The first assault on American labor was made by the administration when it deliberately took steps to circumvent the restricted immigration laws. These laws were placed upon the statute books in the interests of American labor. No person. I am sure. will contend that industry initiated the policy of restricted immigration. This is obvious because a million immigrants entering the United States each year would lower the cost of production by reducing wages. I voted for restricted immigration. and I deplore the fact that the administration Is defeating the purpose of the act. Labor saw. and saw clearly. that competition for jobs could mean only a lower wage scale and. therefore. a lower standard of living. To the American workingmen it was selfevident that 1.000.000 immigrants entering this country year after year would therefore be disastrous to them and to their families. The restricted immigration law was passed. but. I repeat. this administration has defeated its purpose. Without the possible benefit to be derived from 1.000.000 more consumers for our goods. as some compensation for permitting the immigrants to enter. the policy now in operation is far more disastrous to American labor than the former one of unrestricted immigration. yet no person interested in solving the unemployment problem would vote to open the floodgates to immigration. The immigration law is a dead letter so far as intended benefits to labor are concerned. Even under the present lax policy of administration. it is not the immigrant who now enters the United States and takes the job of the American workingman. but. instead. it is the foreign products. manufactured abroad by cheap labor. which now enter the United States and crowds from the merchants shelves the products of our wage earners. The home industry cannot afford to make goods it cannot sell. consequently It does not employ men. I maintain that. great as the injury may have been to the American laboring man to meet the competition of 1.000.000 immigrants entering the United States each year. the suffering he now has to endure from the importation of foreign goods is infinitely worse. If the administration persists in its policy of free trade. then the 10.000.000 men now idle and those working on part time can regain their jobs only by submitting to a wage scale as low as that of their foreign competitors. Bear in mind that this means a standard of living as low as that of Japan. a country that has the same modern machinery of production as that now used in the United States. coupled with the cheapest water transportation in the world with which to place its goods in our market.