The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-01-17
THE PROPER CURE.
From the Wilkes Barre Record.


Notwithstanding the unsatisfactory ex-
pcriencc of Pennsylvania with its alien
tax law, the New York legislature pro-
poses to try a similar experiment. A bill
either has been or will be introduced I'M
posing a tax of ten cents per day on en-
ployers of unnaturalized aliens for each
such person employed. That is some
what more drastic proposition than was
embodied in the Pennsylvania law, which
limited the tax to three cents per day.
II seems that In New York, as in Penn
sylvania and other states, there are COM
munities where the taxpaying working
men who are citizens have been crowded
out of their employment by cheap labor
foreigners who are willing to work for
wages at which a self-respecting Amcr-
can citizen who maintains a home for his
wife and family would starve TO death.
These American workingmen are demand
ing some kind of protection. They help
to support the government, bear their
share of the responsibilities which gov
ernment by the people imposes upon
them, and claim the protection against
foreign competition that will enable them
to earn living in the communities where
they have built up homes.
o
We have no faith in any such scheme
as levying a per diem tax on foreigners
as a means Of protecting American labor.
u
stitutional. There is a better way less
complicated and that will prove more
effective 1t Is admitted by the most care
full statistcians in this country that there
is a larger volume of labor here now than
can be profitably employed c"cn under
conditions of the highest prosperity. The
| industries of this country can not he eN-
| pcctcd TO be prosperous if the production
| is greatly in excess of home consumption
| and foreign demand. When we produce
| in excess of that, prices will break down,
wages be reduced and idlcncss and de-
| preston ensue. We have now moro than
| enough labor to produce all that can be
| consumed here. or for which there is dc
mand from abroad. That is the reason
wages are as low as they arc. If there
| were not already an excess of labor
| wages would go up and general prosper
| ity be increased
| Taxing alien or any other kind of labor
| is no remedy for AN excess of labor. De-
| creased immigration is the only proper,
| effective and legitimate remedy and when
| that Is applied there will be renet, not at
| once probably but in the course Of time,
when all the labor already here will he
| employed. The New York or no other
state legislature holds in its hands the
remedy the evil calls for; that remedy
rests in the congress of the United States.
Theorists and phianthropists may decry
immigration restriction bills u3 they will;
We hold that our first duty as nation
| Is to protect the industrial classes already
| here; to open the way for every indus
| trous. honest workingman to earn
enough to provide comfortably COR hhn
sci, arG his family. That he cannot do
as long as immigrants flock into the
country and stand ready to underbil the
| American workinEman and take his sit
uation from him by offering TO work for
wages on which the American citizen can
not live. To protect the intelligent. indus
trious American workingman a: the same
| time that we protect his employer, is one
of the national issues of the near future.