Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1902 — THE WATSON BILL [ARTICLE]

THE WATSON BILL

William Jeonidga Bryan, who no longer ago than 1900 received more votes for the presidency in Indiiua than have ever been given to any other Democrat, has this to My of the leaders who dictated this year's platform of the Indiana state Democracy: ‘‘They talked londly about harmony, but they are willing to disrupt the party nnlees the party humiliates itself a surrender of its position. The men who now boast of the increased production of gold as a reason for the abandonment of silver, favored the abandonment of silver before new gold was discovered, and as they wanted a dear dollar then, they will, if iutiusted with power, find some was ol depriving the people of the bentfi’s of a larger gold supply ” It will probably occur to at least a few of 309,584 Indiana Democrats who voted for Mr. Bryan iu 1900, that if he was right then be is right now, and if he was wrong, that they were wrong and ought to get right by Toting the Republican ticket,

Over the protest of a Democratic member of oongress from Tennessee Indiana's war claim for $635,859.20 bas passed the house. The amount will.in the not far distant fntare be transferred to the Indiana treasury, and will soon be applied to the further reduction of the state's vanishing debt. The return of this money to the Indiana treasury breaks the foroe of a plank in the Democratic state platform of 1864. which deo'ared: “That we disapprove of and condemn the aotion of Governor Morton in establishing a ‘financial bureau,’ an institution unknown to the constitution, the laws and the usages of the state of Indiana; ineecuring, disbursing and squandering the funds of the state in borrowing money on the faith of the state and pledging the property and the energies of the people to pay such loans and interest thereon, end in paving out such money in open and flagrant disregard of the constitution and laws of the state, without any appropriation directing the payment thereof and without any of the shocks and safe -guards-that the wisdom and experience of the past have demonstrated were necessary for the eafety, preservation and economical expenditure of the money of the people of the state.” When it isrememberel that every dollar allowed to Indiana under this claim has been appropriated only after careful auditing in the treasury department at Washington, it will be seen that the money in qaestion was not squandered, and that despite the absence of “checks and safeguards” every cent was properly accoounted for by Indiana's great war governor.

Gompers Says Legislation Favored By Congress* men Should Be Enacted. -yr— — 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 afTeeting 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 Watson has been actively advocating a bill similar in some respects to that introduced by Senator Fairbanks two or three years ago, providing against the admission of illiterate immigrants to the ports of the United States. President Gompers’ Statement.

In support of this bill Representative Watson introduced the other day a letter from President Gompers of the American Federation of Labor, which clearly sets forth the reasons why legislation .of this character should be had. Mr. Gompers says: “I have observed with much pleasure your activity in the cause of*the regulation of immigration, and in particular 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, oompartlvely unimportant. If it is worth while to take up the question of immigration at all, it 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, upless law or labor organization sfops it. Jn just the same way Chinaman and others drive out the American, the Gergian, the Trishman. “The tariff keeps out cheap foreign goods. It is employers, not wbrkingmen, that have goods to sell. Workingmen sell labor, and cheap labor Is 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 there are less men out of work than there were a few years ago. But the flood of chesap labor is increasing, and its effect at the slightest stagnation 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 goods they produce. This hastens the time when overproduction or underconsumption will show itself. That meanß 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 reasons the American Federation of Labor believes that the present opportunity ought not to be allowed to pass without the adoption [ of an effective measure for the proi tection 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.”