The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1922-11-23
.onsEss BY CONNER MALoTT
At BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET
econunued fIoin Page ~

A..
-otion of foreigners to per cent of
tbe population from each foreign land,
shown by the census of 1910. It
- TO be that we had annually an
,,flux of Irish, Germans and English
,olowed later by a movement from the
eoondinavian countries. For nearly
On wears. however, this immigration
81 from northwest Europe has been prac-
ticaIlv at a standstill. Instead we
have had literally millions of Russian
and Polish Jews Italians, Slavs and
natives of the Balkan lands. There is
Ivory reason to fear that these swar-
q +bv types. with their tendencies to
settle in colonies. would come in fast
or than they could possibly be absorb
cd In any event these new factors of
citizenship must have a profound eff
feet upon our national life and our ma
tional genius. The present immigra-
tion laws were aimed to prevent a
sudden and violent change in our ma
tional type and characteristics. With
that ideal it is easy to have complete
agreement.
but in deciding whether we want
this new policy maintained, augmented
or modified, let us look at the newt
able results already manifest. Rightly
or wrongly it is a fact that the native
born white American refuses to en-
gage in the heavy manual work of the
world Coal mining railway construc-
ton, the drudgery of building opera
tions, the hard grind of the steel in
dustries-all these have been main
tanned by a constant influx OF foreign
labor The institution of negro slav-
cry in America more than two hundred
years ago, was the result of pressure
to get field hands for heavy work on
the southern plantations. That same
policy of importing our common labor
has been kept up in various forms con-
tinuously ever since. 1t used to be the
Irish who handled the pick and the
shovel on the railway grades. 1t used
to be the Irish girls who were the
mainstay for homework. When did
you see an Irish immigrant who had
reached America within the past 20 I
years? Then we relied upon Swedes |
and Norwegians for heavy work, and |
the Lena and the Olgas did the kitch /
en- work. That tide of immigration
has stopped The German influx had |
subsidized before my time. Now our
immigrants are of the type that we
call collectively Bohunks or Dagoes or
Yiddishers.
Even in agriculture, long the |
stronghold of native Americans, we
find the field occupied by a constant
~ increasing number of Mexicans, /
Russians or Japs The beet sugar in
dustry of southern Idaho and Utah |
would be paralyzed over night if this
foreign labor supply of men, women
and even children half a dozen years |
of age. were withdrawn from the beet I
fields
Schools and Foreign Children.
"By some strange human alchemy, |
the same influence that makes the ma
tive-born Americans avoid hard work |
at any cost casts its Transforming in
fluence upon the first generation of |
children sent by these foreigners to
our public schools. The little Jap or
ton under American teachers in con-
tact with American playmates abhors
work just as vigorously as though he
were a simon-pure descendant of our
first immigrants who came over in
the Mayflower Our public school
system and manual labor have abso- I
lutely nothing in common. Not for {
moment am I criticising this aspect of
education. The urge for a better,
broader and more comfortable life is
the characteristic that has made Am
erica But we must recognize the
fact that our schools are steadily de-
pleting the volume of manual labor +
which is absolutely necessary if we
are to sustain life, much less improve
our standards of living and civiliza-
ton.
Problem of Labor.
1.-THE advocates of restricted immi-
gration-I would speak more exactly
if I said the advocates of prohibited
immigration-arg that if we termin-
ate the supply of ignorant foreigners
and remove their cut-throat competi-
ton. for jobs at starvation wage, we
would be able by reasonable wage to
recruit our labor force from the in
telligent and educated manhood and
womanhood from among our native
born Inevitably the wage paid this
superior type would be vastly in ex-
cess of the wages that suffice our
swarthy immigrants Indeed, with the
competition of these foreigners remov-
ed.our section hands and steel mill la
borers would draw wages that would
make many a chap on a white-collar
job look like pauper.
"This is no dream of the hazy flu
ture. 1t is an imminent reality. Last
year 100000 common laborers left
America for foreign lands. The total