The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1913-10-24
WILL DISCUSS
IMMIGRATION
LABOR DELEGATES FROM
THE PACIFIC COAST CITIES
WILL MEET IN S SEATTLE
NOV. 7-8 TO CONSIDER PAN
ANA CANAL PROBLEMS.

100000 SA1ANEAAA 4 AVID
Secretary Charles Perry Taylor of
the Pacific Coast immigration Confer
ence reports that credentials are COM
ing in fast for the coming meeting to
be held in Seattle November Z and 8.
1t is hoped that two hundred or more
delegates from the northwestern group
of states will be in attendance
The program of the first day will
include addresses from men of both
local and national reputation in the
labor world upon the vital subject of
immigration. Committees will be ap-
pointed and after discussion of the
best methods to be used in arriving at
a solution of this important problem, a
program of action will be outlined by
a program committee and reported
back to the convention for discussion
and action on the second day of the
session.
Organized labor on the Pacific coast
should have awakened to a considera-
ton of this question two years ago.
For that length of time at least agents
of transportation companies, land spec
ulators, and others pecuniarily inter-
ested in promoting large immigration,
have been active throughout continen-
tai Europe. Various estimates have
been placed upon the number of immi-
grants that will settle on this coast
during the five years following the
opening of the Panama canal. The
number at so large a figure that there
is grave question whether this number
of people can be placed upon the
vacant lands or in industrial pursuits
with a shadow of an opportunity to
become self supporting. 1t is agreed
by all serious students of the question
that any immigration that does not de-
velop the soil, adding to the natural
richness of the country, but that
swarms into industrial pursuits, crowd
ing out those now here and threaten
and living conditions now established,
must work harm rather than good to
this country.
Land and industrial conditions, the
total unpreparedness of the govern
ment to handle at ports of entry this
large immigration because of lack of
congressional appropriation, will form
a few of the topics that will be dis
cussed at this conference.
Labor does not oppose an immigra-
ton movement directed to the soil
under conditions that will benefit the
whole people. 1t does and will oppose
any immigration movement that at
tacks industrial conditions through an
overstocked labor market. 1t is point
ed out that there are thousands of
workman constantly out of employ
ment on the Pacific coast, not because
of a lack of desire to labor but be-
cause it cannot be had. A press dis
patch states that there are today in
Western Canada twenty thousand
Chinese in a starving condition be-
cause work cannot be had.
Organized labor on this coast feels
that the immigration problem is one of
national import rather than local, and
it is for that reason that the confer
ence is to be held Just preceding the
annual convention of the A. F. of L.
The sessions will be held in the
Labor Temple at Seattle Friday and
Saturday, November Z and s. There
is no limit to the delegates that each
local union may send and additional
blank credentials may be had by ap-
plying to Secretary Taylor at Tacoma.
If there are any unions that have not
elected delegates they are urged to do
so at once.
Secretary Stack of the Oregon Fed
Grafton of Labor is president of the
conference and Charles Perry Taylor
is secretary. President Marsh of the
Washington State Federation of Labor
will welcome the delegates on behalf
of the labor movement OF this state.