Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1912-01-26
Americas Alien Problem

~ thcici eOOuci VI iaboii WIN w
clash with capital; for where labor is,
there must capital be also, aud the two
classes nowadays seem always able to
find bone of contention. But not
every strike finds its true cause in the
action of capital, although labor may
hold a different opinion. Each side has
its own faults, the one may unjustly br
made the object of attack by the other
Some such thing seems to he transpir-
ing now in Lawrence, Mass, amid tho
great wooden industries. The producers,
forced by the operation of the new
54-hour law, which lessened the number
of legal working hours in the state, put
the employees on reduced time aud de
duced commensurate amount from
the pay envelopes. Then the trouble
started; the employees were willing to
work fewer hours, but baked on the
lessened pay.
The cold logic of the affair seems to
be that if the employees were receiving
fair wage for the So hours work, they
we're not justified in resorting to the
strike because of the essened pay caused
by the operation of the new law. For
if the wage for the longer period were
just, it must have been just hour for
hour aud for any fraction OF the whole
time. If, then, the pay received for the
"a hours is in exact proportion to the
former wage it is difficult to find justi-
fication for the calling into use the
workingman's formidable weapon OF
final resort-the strike. All of which
reasoning is purely IN the abstract and
must wait upon the. possibility that
there are facts that are not generally
known.
The real problem at Lawrence seems
to be that presented by the foreigner
and his inability most natural though
it may be-quickly to sense the "Amefi-
can idea. In no place in the world are
representatives of so many different
nations crowded into such limited
space az are the wooden workers in the
Massachusetts city. And it is signlti-
cant that the trouble makers there are
from southern Europe, from race that
is not noted for its cold reason, to say
the least. These aliens come to this
country as "struggle- -liters'', who at
first are willing to fight for subsistence
at the lowest level And they are ac-
customed to a very low standard of liv-
ing at that. The next stage in their
life history seems to be marked at a
point where they realize that the OPP
pressive measures to which they had
been accustomed are not in, play here,
aud they froth at the mouth like a
freshly uncorked wine bottle. Then
they experience the firm hand of the
law, the foam subsidies, and they are
r we'll on the way to assimilatian. This
is the boiling in the melting pot. Their
children in all probability will be Amer
leans.
1t must ever be remembered that
alien labor, is in strange environment
finds itself subject to a set of influences
which it cannot understand, and it is
: not to be wondered at that it reacts tC
these external agents in the old time
, Old Country way, which, of course, is
. not the proper way. Time and expert.
: ence are the aliens teacher. From i'm
migration itself, immigration that does
L not concern itself with individual un
y desirables, there is no cause for painting
u a dark picture of the future. The fact
~ that aliens of certain class, admitted
y to our shores after having displayed the
. qualifications the government deems
," worthy, are among us and at times dis
play un-American instincts, should no
70 cause permanent alarm. Where thos'
:" who have been through the melting pc
. and come to be real Americans shoulc
= show caution is in the granting of thu
u rights of citizenship to those who, Will,
y they are equipped to be a part of GU
y industrial structure, have not yet OBJ
20 tanned to that ripened knowledge tina
~ observes full freedom of political ex
10 pression.-St Adams Messenger.