Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-09
MEN WE DON'T NEED.
The Time Has Come to Place Restfic-
tions on immigration.
EFFECT ON THE RATE OF WAGES.
Advantages Of Employing Convicts or
Roads and Public Works.
MONEY SENT OUT OF THIS COUNTRY
WRITTEN FOR THE p1spArcR1

| :
then sown-much of it fell in stony place:
and in sandy soil-fell in good ground and
is developing into large crops through the
agitation occasloned brought by the landing
on our shores by the hundred thousand, o
foreigners of every degree of worth, poverty
and crime. They are filling our stores, fac
tories, foundries, workshops and are driving
out our American skilled craftsmen anc
| filling their places with second rate work.
men at second-class wages, which of course
degrades the character of the work turned
out; for there is no evidence of skill and
high finish or of so beautiful a mechanism
in all of its parts turned out in any part of
the world as is or has been turned out in
this land of heretofore good wages.
The tariff since the war has been high
enough to protect American labor from for
eign competition. and as result American
workmen have prospered, and a majority OF
them own their own homes, humble though
many OF them may be. They have hitherto
been able, with hard work, good wages,
patience, and. above all, temperance, to save
enough to buy little place, and be proud
when they can go home in the evening to
their own home. wife and children.
THE CLOUD THAT THREATENS.
But a great cloud has come upon them.
and hordes OF people from every land under
the sun have arrived aud are arriving daily
The weak and miserable, poor and starving,
manned, halt and blind, thieves, thugs and
murderers, who have left their country for
their couutry's good, are swarming in, and
50 per cent of them settling northeast of the
Mississippi and Ohio rivers, the manufactur-
ing center of this country.
Many OF these people are criminals from
European jails who are deported and
assisted by the authorities of their own
countries-and no difference how careful
the gatekeepers at New York are, they
manage to get in. Many of them are paid
to come here, and we are compelled to keep
up vast prisons, jails, hospitals and reform
atories at great expense to keep ourselves in
ordinary safety, while we keep these
outcasts in idleness and fatten them with
out deriving any benefit from them.
The American skilled mechanic has en-
dured this invasion because of his spirit
OF fairness and the idea that this country
is free to all; but now that they are coming
to see their danger, they are for the present
nonplussed to know what to do, for they see
no way to keep this vast crowd of labor de-
pressors out, although Dennis Kearney
kept out the Chinese, which was clearly
against both the Constitution and our
treaty with China.
A PROPOSED REMEDY.
There is a remedy which can be adopted
which would be very efectual. The writer
five years ago advocated the assessment of
$500 upon every immigrant who landed in
New York, to be paid back to him when he
left the country. We don't want any more
offscourings of the world. We have enough,
and more than enough now, and if $500 was
charged very few would come. Every man
or woman landing on these shores should
have certificate Of moral as we'll as physi-
cal health, and passport from the country
he or she came from, indorsed by our Con-
sui nearest their place of starting. If we
are increasing our population so fast now,
we will have in the year 1000 about 75, 900, :
600 inhabitants, and in 100 years from now
there will not be farm of any size or value
for our descendants.
We should all be on the lookout for those
who follow us, as our ancestors worked and
planned for US, and consequently it is the
duty of our Congress and treaty-makin
powers to stop immigration as far as pos
sIble. If the Chinese can be stopped, so can
all the rest of the natives of the earth, and
their rulers would be only too glad to help
us stop it. The Chinese then, and their far
more ignorant prosecutors, would be on a
par. We have had more than enough of the
impecunious. Now let US try the other kind
awhile.
BENEFITS THAT WOULD RESULT,
IF the beggars, Iazaroin, thieves and
tramps are kept out, our taxes would be re-
duced and our safety more assured; and if
many of the so-called mechanics were kept
out, labor would be advanced and become
more intelligent and ennobled, and with
higher pay, education and privileges the
workman will hold up his head among the
upholders of the world, for nothing gives
man more confidence and pride in himself
than the consciousness of his own intelli-
gence and ability.
There is outside Of the influences above
spoken OF, great cancer eating into the
heart of the American laborer's cause, and
that is the hordes of Ownnothings, knights
of Laziness, Communists, Socialists, Nihi-
lists, Red Flags, Dynamiters, Land Lotters
and other slyer and more terrible people
who are gathering in our large cities. They
are men without means, without employ
ment or homes or the fear of God, or the law
of the land; without anything except a
frenzy of hate TOR anything prosperous, re-
igious, law-abiding, better educated, better
clothed, better citizens than themselves, for
almost without exception they are low-class
foreigners, mostly lazy, drunken or crimi-
nal, who own nothing.
THE MEN WHO LEAD.
The few exceptions are men who know
what they are about and work their frantic
hearers once in while to do desperate
deeds, bv demagogic and insiduous appeals
to the debased passions of the brutal and
ignorant.
These leaders are generally of the Most
tribe, compelled to leave their own countries
for cause, who make their headquarters in
saloons and whose whole time is given to
working on the passions and sympathies of
their credulous fellow men. American
workmen generally steer clear of these men
and to their credit be it said there are not
verv many of them in Pittsburg
Emigration from all parts of the world is
presenting problem for our great political
economists to solve. The great trouble with
most of the criminals, tramps and paupers
is that they would rather die than work.
A sentence for crime Of five years is hard
enough to a criminal, but when hard labor
is attached to it, he frequently squirms.
The sitting down in warm Jail with plenty
to eat and good warm bed to sleep in for
the winter months is desirable location for
a tramp, but if he is called out to work, his
happiness is ended.
We have many country roads to repair
and we have many sewers to lay and streets
to pave and clean, and why not put our
criminal class in Jail and workhouse out on
the stone piles and mudholes, at suitable
wages, and then after deducting their board
and keeping, pay each man when his time