Everett Unions Push for National Immigration Restrictions
Following the Everett Trades Council's lead, Boston labor unions adopt resolutions calling for the restriction of immigrant labor to protect domestic wages.
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A few weeks ago the Everett Trades Council took up the matter of agitation for federal restriction of immigration of laborers from southern Europe. A committee was appointed to confer with Daniel Keefe, commissioner of immigration, and promise was secured from him that he would cooperate as far as possible to the end that American labor might be protected from the horde of cheap European labor. Resolutions were drawn up calling for further restrictive legislation by congress and copies sent to state and central bodies all over the country. The first answer was received this week when the central body of Boston, Mass., adopted the resolutions and went on record in emphatic language as favoring the further restriction of foreign cheap labor. Other central bodies are expected to join in the agitation with a view of awakening public sentiment and bringing pressure to bear on congress and the federal authorities to bring relief.
“American labor might be protected from the horde of cheap European labor.”
This reflects the complex and often exclusionary history of the American labor movement, which frequently used xenophobic rhetoric to frame its economic arguments. It serves as a stark historical record of how organized labor leveraged political influence to shape national immigration policy in the early 1900s.
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