mining and transportation companies. The agitation
against this evil carried on by the labor unions finally resulted in the
enactment by Congress of legislation forbidding the importation of labor
under contract of employment. This, however, did not, and even if it had
been efficiently enforced, would not have given the American workingman
any real protection against cheap foreign labor. The incoming tide of
foreign immigration has been rising and the civic quality of the
immigrant has visibly declined. The free lands which formerly attracted
the best class of European immigrants are now practically a thing of the
past, and with the disappearance of this opportunity for remunerative
self-employment the last support of high wages has been removed. With
unrestricted immigration the American laboring man must soon be deprived
of any economic advantage which he has heretofore enjoyed over the
laboring classes of other countries.

There has been one notable exception to this immigration policy. The
invasion of cheap Asiatic labor upon the Pacific coast aroused a storm
of protest from the laboring population, which compelled Congress to
pass the Chinese Exclusion Act. But this legislation, while shutting out
Chinese laborers, has not checked the immigration from other countries
where a low standard of living prevails. In fact the most noticeable
feature of the labor conditions in this country has been the continual
displacement of the earlier and better class of immigrants and native
workers by recent immigrants who have a lower standard of living and are
willing to work for lower wages. This has occurred, too, in some of the
industries in which the employer has been most effectually protected
against the competition of foreign goods.[181]

The time has certainly arrived when the policy of protection ought to be
more broadly considered and dealt with in a public-spirited and
statesman-like manner. If it is to be continued as a national policy,
the interests of employees as well as employers must be taken into
account. The chief evils of the protective system have been due to the
fact that it has been too largely a class policy, and while maintained
in the interest of a class, it has been adroitly defended as a means of
benefiting the classes who derived little or no benefit--who were,
indeed, often injured by our tariff legislation.

The large capitalist may grow eloquent in defense of that broad
humanitarian policy under w