United labor bulletin., 1911-02-02

Inc llHal inning OF the tug OF war over
immigration has now begun. In this con-
test tremendous forces are engaged On
the side of America are the upholders of
two distinctive American sentiments
the maintenance of the American stand
ard of living for our wage-working class
es and the maintenance of American in
stitutions as they are, unimpaired
through the financial degradation of the
working classes. On the pro-immigra-
ton side is the powerful immigration
machine, composed of the trans-ocean
combine, with all its thousands of agents
and other innumerable parasites, the
bankers, padrones, etc, who are coming
money out of the millions of immigrants
coming in the course of years into this
country from Europe.
The center of this tug of war has at
last shifted to Congress. No longer is
the discussion indefinite, casual. or par
tisan, or without an immediate object,
conducted through the press and other
insufficient agencies of information and
debate. No longer. either, is it backed
up merely by individual impressions or
the partial investigations heretofore
promoted by various private Institutions
The Federal Government undertook four
years ago the solution of the immigra-
ton question through scientific means
It set out TO ascertain the undeniabls
search its commission has brought for
ward no less than forty volumes on the
subject, covering every possible phase.
Its recommendations it has brought for
ward in concise form in a separate
pamphlet.
A reading of these recommendations
confirms the facts of the case as they
have been accepted by the American
Federation of Labor after the serious
study its members have given the ques-
ton for decades The local, and then
annual conventions of the American
Federation of Labor itself, have had i'm
migration up for consideration as one of
the principal labor topics on literally
thousands of occasions. The member
ship as a whole from upholding the SEN
timents the great majority once enter
tanned. namely. that this country could
go on indefinitely absorbing the entire
POSSIBLE stream of immigration, have re
over to the sway of the sentiment that
their own good heartedness toward the
immigrants and the laborers of the Old
World was being exploited by large en-
ployers for the purpose of reducing
wages as well as by the steamship COM
bine and its myriad of parasites for the
sake of their own profits At last the
great uOuN OI Jue American lAuuStr1al
wage-workers have come to see one fact
above others. which is, that the immi-
grants are assimilated in America
through the wage-working class. This
means that the American born wage
earners and the foreign wage-earners
who have been here long enough to as
pire to American standards are subjected
to the ruinous competition of an unend-
ing stream of men freshly arriving from
r-hA Al 70,
low n grade of living that they can un-
derbid the wage-earners established in
this country and still save money. Whole
communities. in fact whole regions have
witnessed rapid deterioration in the
mode of living of their working classes
consequent on the incoming of the
swarms of lifelong poverty stricken
aliens. Entire industries have seen the
percentage of newly arrived laborers
rising, until in certain regions few Amer
lean men can at present be found among
the unskilled
BY the Commissions report 1t Is shown
that in many communities as high as so
and even 20 per cent. of the children in
the public schools are the offspring of
foreign fathers. This remarkable change
in America, ii must be kept In mind. is
almost wholly in the wage-working class
1t was recognized by our wage-workers
in many parts of the country that this
radical change in population was taking
place. aud hence delegates to the trade
union conventions began some years ago
to give their testimony as to the need OF
restriction OF the evidently assisted. or
artificially promoted. immigration. op-
position to those who supported these
views brought about a continual sitting
and searching for the truth as It affected
trade unionism and the general wage