St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-02-13
AS TO FOREIGN LABOR.
Cheap Labor Denounced by
Civil Service Commits
sioner Roosevelt.
How American Citizenship
Is Debased by Immi-
grafton.
Steamship Companies Are
Bringing Many Worth
less People.
A Stirring Address Before the
Hamilton Club Of Chi
cago.

To the honest, healthy, manly lmlhl-
grant, anxious to become an American
citizen in all that the name implies, and
sturdily able to support himself, as I'M
willing to wrong others as to suffer
wrong at their hands. we cordially ex-
tend our hands now as we have in the
past, said Theodore Roosevelt before
the Hamilton club, of Chicago. We re-
ceive every year scores of thousands.
even hundreds of thousands of immi-
grants whose presence is boon to the
land. who themselves become good citi-
zens, as good as any in the country, and
whose children are Americans of the
best type; but we also receive scores of
thousands, and it is to be feared that
under certain conditions we may receive
hundreds of thousands. of immigrants
who are as emphatically curse TO us as
their fellows are blessing.
They may be curse in any one of
several ways. If they refuse to aSsimi-
late with us, and are, indeed, incapable
of such assimilation, then they should
be kept out. | have always heartily be-
lleved in the justice of keeping out rhe
Chinese, although 1 have with equal
neartiness reprobated two or three very
iniquitous laws by which that end
was sought to be reached. 1t is a
good thing to keep out the Chinese.
We don't wish to have race trouble
OH the Pacific slope to complicate the
race troubles already existing in some
other parts of the country. Again, if
the immigrant can be aSsimilated, but II
it must be work of many generations.
chnnId thnn nnlu o6 D1it him in email
quantities. and not tax too severely the
national digestion. Yet, again, if he is
of immoral character he should be
kept out entirely. Murderers, conyicts
and felons of every kind should be
rigidIy excluded; and we have no
place here for the anarchist, the dyna-
inter, or the socialist, who wishes to
attain his end by blood and revolution.
Over this country there is room for but
one flag, and of all flags there is none
more alien to the stars and stripes than
the bloody flag of anarchy. 1t is as
distinctly hostile to our nation and our
system as the flag of any political or
religious deSpotism. Anarchy,violence,
laWlessness, licentiouS disregard Of life
and property, are the handmaidens OF
bigotry and tyranny. the sure forerun-
ners of oligarchic rule or personal
despotism, and therefore the most
deadly foes to a free republic.
The Oppressed Become OppressOrs.
Again, even if the immigrants are
morally unobjectionable, if they are
used to very low scale of living, and
if they come i'll such swarms as to I'M
| derbid, impoverish and drive out of EN-
| pIoyment American laboring men, they
| should be excluded. We offer the
| United States as an asylum to
the oppressed of all nations, but
| we withdraw this privilege when
I the oppressed of other nations become
the oppressors of our own people here.
| Above all should we be careful to see
that the man who works with his hands,
the man with the dinner-pail, is well
off. We should carefully guard him
| from improper competition with low
priced and alien labor. This republic is
going to prosper just as long as the man
with the dinner pail is Self-respecting,
hard working, thrifty and fairly sue
cessful citizen, and the minute he ceases
to be such that very minute the whole
commonwealth is in danger. We need
| not be alarmed about our lawyers,
clergymen or bank presidents of native
origin being brought into unfair compe-
tition with Immigrants entering the
same professions, but we have every
reason to be alarmed lest the standard
of the men who till our farms and break
our roads, who dig the mines and build
the houses, is lowered by undue compe-
tition with the multitudes poured upon
our shores through the Storage cabins
of the countless European steamships.
In this country we can't afford to
have cheap labor. AS mere matter OF
national protection our labor must be
dear, at least in the sense of being well
paid. When manufacturing hands in
our mills and factories have their wages
lowered by the competition of the
wretched thousands who form the prey
of the sweater; when the men who dig
our mines are driven out of employment
by uncouth myriads who kennel twenty
in a hut and live on otfal in the midst OF
pestilence-breedlng filth-when these
things and others like them happen
then the American workman is III dan
ger, and it is time to see that he is moi
seriously Wronged.