Everett Labor Unions Demand Immigration Restriction
Citing an influx of 'pauper labor' from Southern Europe, the Everett Trades Council lobbies Congress to stem the tide.
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The Everett Trades Council has taken active steps in urging Congress to enact more restrictive legislation governing the admission of foreigners to the United States. The council will ask every central council and state federation in the United States to adopt similar resolutions and petition their congressmen and senators. The resolution states: 'Be it resolved by the Everett Trades Council; That we hereby protest against a continuance of existing conditions governing the admission of foreigners to the United States, and call upon our representatives in Congress for legislation to check the flood of foreign pauper labor now pouring into the country. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, government statistics show that more than one million aliens landed in the United States, of which number more than six hundred thousand came from southern and eastern Europe and western Asia, the poorest and most undesirable immigrants known. The effect of this alien deluge is to depress the wages and destroy the employment of thousands of American workingmen, as has been shown in this city by the influx of Greeks during the past two years.'
“The effect of this alien deluge is to depress the wages and destroy the employment of thousands of American workingmen.”
Everett's labor history is complex, blending strong class solidarity with the xenophobic exclusionism common to 1910s American unionism. This resolution highlights how local economic anxiety—specifically regarding the Everett labor market—was channeled into national anti-immigrant advocacy, a dynamic that remains a recurring feature of political discourse in the Pacific Northwest.
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