Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1907-02-21
SIMMONS ON IMMIGRATION.

Saturday was aday of speech-making
gress on the immigration bill, now be-
fore that body. This bill, as we under
stand it, is in the nature of confer
ence report, ard is much less objection
able to the South than the bill passed
by the two houses. The educational
feature has been stricken out, and the
head tax has been reduced to 81. It has
long been but 50. But there is still a
provision in the bill requiring the new
conner who desires to build up both
himself and this country to have a
small cash capital on his person when
he arrives.
of this bill is amazing. After Cutting
themselves with immigrants they urn
about to say the South shall not have a
like opportunity because b process
displeases themselves, offending at
times their senses of sight or smell.
Two-thirds of the South is untitled and
unoccupied, and they. do not care if it
stays forever in that condition. They
simply do not desire to see so many i'm
migrants unloaded in their own cities.
They are thinking of themselves, and
letting the rest Of the country go IN
satisfied.
There is no objection on the part Of
Southern Senators to the Japanese
coolie clause" which is intended to be
a settlement of the labor and school
and Tillman both said they favored the
clause in question, but they are op-
posed to the clauses that the effete and
o~ver-stuffed East has devised for the
purpose of restricting immigration.
Senator Simmons, too, spoke for an
what different view from that enter
tanned by Messrs. Bacon and Tillman,
who carried on their opposition to the
immigration bill to the last moment,
only stopping short of a ilibuster. 1t
was a vigorous presentation, several
of the Senators declaring that MI. Sim
mons argument had changed their
views on the subject. He declared b.
was willing to follow people of the
Pacific coast on these questions, as he
believed they were willing to follow
the South on b negro question. He
said that the South, and especially the
manufacturing States of the South,
were greatly handicapped at this time
for lack of both factory and agricul-
tural labor; and that if he thought the
amendment to our present immigra-
ton laws made by the confreres would,
as the Senators from south Carolina
and Georgia seemed to think, embar-
rass the States of the South in their
efforts through State agents in foreign
countries to supply this need, he would,
as much as he sympathized with peo-
pie Of the Pacific coast, vote against
the report; but he commended hat the
only substantial change his report
makes in the existing law affecting the
rights of the States to solicit and assist
foreign immigration is that it prohibits
State immigration bureaus from tax
ling money from individuals and cor
porations to pay expenses of securing
Immigrants with the implied under
standing that they are to have prefer
ence in the distribution of immigrants
who are thus induced to come.
He contended that if individuals and
corporations furnished the money to
pay these expenses when the immi-
grants came they would get them all to
the exclusion of the balance of the peo-
pie, and, as it was, the natural desire
Of everyone to get the cheapest avail
able labor, the result would be we
would get that class of immigrants
the people of North Carolina do not de-
sire.
He claimed that his people had be-
come reconciled to the idea of promot-
ed immigration to the State only upon
and under condition that it should
come under guidance and control OF
the State through it's regularly consti-
tuted agents, because, he said, he be-
lieved that if this immigration was
kept under strict control by the pro-
cess of judieious preference and .ex-
clusion the State would get only such
classes of aliens as the people wanted
to come and such classes as they did
mot want to come would be kept out.