The Political Case Against 'Human Freight'

The Republican platform, framed at Minneapolis, favors the enactment of stringent laws for the restriction of criminal, pauper and contract immigration. The plea against the coming of a vast stream of criminals and paupers is as simple as refusing to let a man connect his sewer with his neighbor’s well of drinking water. The restriction upon contract immigration is consistent with the policy of protection, because a tidal wave of cheap labor would tend to degrade the American workingman. Twenty-two years ago, Wendell Phillips discussed the Chinese question, noting that while immigration must be spontaneous, the importation of human freight is an unmixed evil. He argued that capital could flood the labor market with Chinese, whose vote would enable their importers to control the ballot box. Even without suffrage, the Chinaman working for 70 cents a day would crush labor down to a pauper level. Phillips concluded that wages high enough for a workingman to lift himself from the deadening routine of toil stand for American progress.