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| Immigrants form a makeshift band on shipboard during trip to America. |
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More Dates May/Jun 1899 Mar/Apr 1899 Jan/Feb 1899 Nov/Dec 1898 Sep/Oct 1898 Jul/Aug 1898 May/Jun 1898 >Mar/Apr 1898 |
In November, 1897, McGuire ran a long statement, excerpted here, from New York City Local 309, which was a response to a request by the UBC executive board for discussion of a resolution on immigration by the American Federation of Labor.
"At the extra general meeting of the Local Union No. 309, New York City, it was unanimously resolved, by a vote of 557, that this union sees no good reason to have the laws on the subject of immigration made more severe.
"The arguments of the advocates of anti-immigration in the ranks of labor may be summed up as follows: 'There is a surplus of labor in the market. The demand for jobs exceeds the supply of jobs. Immigration increases the surplus and makes jobs scarcer still. Hence we must stop immigration.'
"It is true that there is a surplus of labor, but it is not true that immigration has brought it about.
"What has really produced the surplus of labor complained of is not immigration, but the astounding displacement of labor that has been going on for years and is still going on with undiminished rapidity because of the development and extended application of machinery, the concentration of capital in fewer hands, the trustification of industries, and the ever-lessened ability of the broad masses of the people to consume the wares produced in such profusion, because their purchasing power grows less as the produce of their labor increases.
"Hence the great army of unemployed. Hence the pressure upon wages brought to bear by them. Hence an ever lessening consumption, industrial depression, business panics, dull times, and the elusive character of the much-promised prosperity.
"Thus we see that anti-immigration is a remedy that remedies nothing. To find a remedy that is a remedy, we must look beyond the petty questions of the day as formulated by self-seeking politicians, intended only as a sop to labor.
"We cannot expect any help from without. The redemption, the salvation of the working class rests with the workers themselves, and with them alone.
"Let us welcome to our organizations every fellow-worker who comes to us with an open heart and a clean purpose and is willing to stand in line with us to battle against unjust conditions and for the ultimate aims of the labor movement, no matter where he was born or from whence he has immigrated."
- P.J. McGuire
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