The herald., 1893-09-09
PROTECT AMkRIcAN LABOR : UP WITH
THE GArBS.

mined to keep his hand in as to all that
relates to the well-being of the Ameri-
can workingman. He has introduced
bill into the house of representatives
snspen6inR for five years the admission
or importation of European laborers into
the United States. We use the word
importation" sdvisedly, as four-tifths
OF the laboring men who now come to
this country from the old world are
really imported on labor contracts.
AT the frat glance measure of this
kind would look like political proscrip
tion-something like the old native
American bgotry. A little considera.
tion, however, will show that there is
nothing in common between the pres-
ent rational movement to protect the
American laborer and the old and fero-
cious crusade that was directed against
alienism and the Roman Catholic reli.
gion. Forty years ago the population
of the United States, when regard was
had to our enormous territory, was quite
small. The work which had to be done
in order TO supply us with adequate rail-
way and other transportation facilities
was prodigious. The people then in the
United States were utterly incapable of
doing the things that had to be done to
insure to our people the expansion and
development that would be naturally
expected from virgin country with
practically boundless possibilities.
In addition it must not be forgotten
that, at that time, the class OF immigra-
tion that reached this country was
mainly of a highly desirable kind. 1t
had all the promise of giving the United
States sturdy and useful population.
The immigrants came voluntarily, and
generally brought with them some
means. Few OF them were OF the shift
less. psuper class. Fewer still were of
the violent, anarchistic type. The man
who landed at Castle Garden forty years
ago was prepared to 90 to work and was
proud of the privilege accorded him of
becoming an American citizen. He
readily assimilated with our people, and
his children are in the main today o
credit TO the country.
Far different is the case as to recent
immigrants. Our population now prob
ably approaches seventy millions. AL
ready we see the evils of this redundant
immigration in the crowding of our
cities by imported laborers that know
nothing and care nothing about our in
stitutions. They bring here ideas that
frnctify in riot and bloodshed. With
out saying anything derogatory to the
races to which they belong, some OF them
having heroic histories, it is an easily
demonstrable fact that ages of oppres-
eion have made most OF them revengeful,
bloodthirsty and unruly. They come to
this country to enter into deadly COM
petition with better and law abiding
men. The inevitable effects are riots
and decentralization. They reduce wages
and they replace prosperity and content
ment by turmoil and bloodshed. In
this picture absolutely nothi lg is over
drawn.
1t is curious thing that while there
are hundreds of lave on our statute
books nominallv designed to protect
American manufactures, although really
intended to to enrich the manufacturers,
there has never been law, with the
exception of the acts devised to exclude
Chinese laborers. that ever aimed to
protect American labor. Everything
has been remembered but that.
IT, hot -,
plated by Geary in his bill there is ab-
solutely nothing Objectionable. Relig-
ious bigotry cuts no figure in it. nor is
there anything of the old race hatreds.
There is certainly nothing bigoted or
proscrlptive in. the cry of America for
Americans" when the newspapers have
made everybody acquainted with the
fact that the labor market is greatly
overstocked, and the introduction OF
more and cheaper labor from Europe
can only have the effect OF disastrously
lowering wages and taking the bread
out of the mouths of our own people.
Mr.. Carter Harrison, the mayor OF Chi
cago, said Elk weeks ago that there were
two hundred thousand people out of
employment in that city. His sources
of information are undou btedly good, as,
in addition to being mayor of the city,
he is the proprietor of one OF its most
prominent newspapers, which employs a
large and alert corps of reporters, to
whom the city is an open book. If there
are two hundred thousand idle men in
Chicago with the fair in full blast, how
will it be when the Columbian episode
has expired? The number then is more
than likely to be five hundred thousand.
In lesser degree, the same state of
things exists all over the country. Roll
ing mills, cotton mills, -four mills and
pretty much all forms OF manuiactur-
ing industries having succumbed to the
general financial paralysis. But even
when the times are nominally prosper
ous the surplus of unskilled labor in
the United States is appalling.
The logic of the situation calls fol-
some such bill aH Geary's. Let every
one, Cinnamon unregistered excepted
who is now in the United States, stay
here. Let him feel that there is 9
place for him and his children that viii
not be taken away or rendered intoer
able by big thrush of pauper and con
tract labor from the countries OF South
ern Europe. Five years would test the