Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1902 — THE WATSON BILL [ARTICLE]

THE WATSON BILL

Gompers Says Legislation Favored By Indiana Republican Congress* men Should Be Enacted. WORKINGMAN NEEDS PROTECTION From a Threatened Invasion of the Cheap Labor of Southern Europe and Asia—Republican Leadership Alive to the Welfare of the Wage Earner. The Republican members of the Indiana delegation in congress have been conspicuously active during the present session In behalf of legislation advantageously affecting the interests of the American wage-earner. The strongest speech delivered in the senate in favor of the most stringent legislation against Chinese immigration was that of Senator Fairbanks. In the ! house Representative Cromer spoke forcibly in behalf of the most restrictive law proposed against “the yellow peril. in the house Representative I Watson has been actively advocating a bill similar in some respects to that i introduced by Senator Fairbanks two or three years ago, providing against the admission of illiterate immigrants j to the ports of the United States. President Gompers’ Statement. In support of this bill Representative Watson introduced the other day a leti ter from President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, which clearly sets forth the reasons why legI islation of this character should be had. Mr. Gompers says: i i have observed with much pleasure your activity in the cause of the regulation of immigration, and in particu- , lar your introduction of a bill providing that no adult immigrant shall be admitted to our country till he has acquired the first rudiments of education. It is for this reason that I now address you with regard to pending and prospective legislation. “The organized workers of the country feel that the existing immigration laws, while not without their value, are of trifling effect compared with the needs and the just demands of American labor. “The elaborate bill reported to the house by the committee on immigration is for the most part a simple codification of the existing laws, and modifies them only in some few details. I believe that the changes proposed are for the most part desirable. They are, however, compartively unimportant. If it is worth while to take up the question of immigration at all, it is worth while to introduce a genuine and effective regulation. Prosperity Endangered. “The strength of this country is in the intelligence and prosperity of our working people. But both the intelligence and the prosperity of our working people are endangered by the present immigration. Cheap labor, ignorant labor, takes our jobs and cuts our wages. The fittest survive; that is, those that fit the conditions best. But it is the economically weak, not the economically strong, that fit the conditions of the labor market. They fit best because they can be got to work cheapest. Women and children drive out men, unless law or labor organization stops it. In just the same way the Chinaman and others drive out the American, the German, the Irishman. | “The tariff keeps out cheap foreign goods. It is employers, not workingmen, that have goods to sell. Workingmen sell labor, and cheap labor is not kept out by the tariff. The protection that would directly help the workers is protection against the cheap labor itself. Educational Test Favored. “The Nashville convention of the American Federation of Labor, by a vote of 1,858 to 352, pronounced in favor of an educational test for immigrants. Such a measure would check immigration in a moderate degree, and those who would be kept out by it are those whose competition in the labor market is most injurious to American workers. No other measure which would have any important effect of this kind is seriously proposed. The need of regulation may be less sharply felt at the present time, when j there are less men out of work than there were a few years ago. But the flood of cheap labor is increasing, and its effect at the slightest stagnation j in industry or in any crisis will be | fearful to the American workmen. “A fall in wages or a relative fall of ' wages makes the workers unable to | buy as large a share as before of the i goods they produce. This hastens the time when overproduction or underconsumption will show itself. That means hard times; and when hard times come the mass of immigrants that prosperity attracted will be here to increase the burden of unemployment. "For these reaspns x the American Federation of I.abor believes that the present opportunity ought not to be allowed to pass without the adoption of an effective measure for the protection of American labor. “I earnestly hope that you will be able to procure the embodiment of an illiteracy test for immigrants in the bill (H. R. 12199) which the house now has under consideration.”