Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1912 — “Protecting" the American Laborer. [ARTICLE]

“Protecting" the American Laborer.

The man or the newspaper that would class the Italians—or Dagoe, as they are commonly called —such as come to this country, with the sturdy Irish, German, English, Scotch, Dane, or other desirable emigrants is either devoid of good sense or imagines everyone else is. The ignorant—and many times criminal—ltalian laborers who come to our shores to compete with the American laboring man is of the class of “pauper labor" that our republican politicians and tariff barons have sought (?) to protect the latter from by high tariff walls. They are almost as bad as the Chinese, whom our government has seen fit to exclude from this country, and are not desirable citizens by any means. Many of our real statesmen have agitated the excluding them from America along with the heathen Chinee.

The classing them with the better class of foreigners who have come here to become real citizens, make homes and settled up our western country, to rear families and educate their children, is an insult to the intelligence of the public. But that is another matter. The point we want to impress on the American laborer who thinks he is “protected" from the “pauper labor” of Europe by the republican thrift policy is for him to pause and consider just where his protection comes in.