migration were in
line with the long-continued policy of the country from the earliest
colonial times.

But a new force had come into American politics--the wage-earner. From
this time forth the old policies were violently challenged. High wages
were to be pitted against high profits. The cheap labor which was
eagerly sought by the corporations and large property owners was just as
eagerly fought by the unpropertied wage-earners. Of course neither party
conceded that it was selfishly seeking its own interest. Those who
expected profits contended that cheap foreign labor was necessary for
the development of the country; that American natural resources were
unbounded, but American workmen could not be found for the rough work
needed to turn these resources into wealth; that America should be in
the future, as it had been in the past, a haven for the oppressed of all
lands; and that in no better way could the principles of American
democracy be spread to all peoples of the earth than by welcoming them
and teaching them in our midst.

The wage-earners have not been so fortunate in their protestations of
disinterestedness. They were compelled to admit that though they
themselves had been immigrants or the children of immigrants, they were
now denying to others what had been a blessing to them. Yet they were
able to set forward one supreme argument which our race problems are
every day more and more showing to be sound. The future of American
democracy is the future of the American wage-earner. To have an
enlightened and patriotic citizenship we must protect the wages and
standard of living of those who constitute the bulk of the citizens.
This argument had been offered by employers themselves when they were
seeking a protective tariff against the importation of "pauper-made"
goods. What wonder that the wage-earner should use the same argument to
keep out the pauper himself, and especially that he should begin by
applying the argument to those races which showed themselves unable
rapidly to assimilate, and thereby make a stand for high wages and high
standards of living. Certain it is that had the white wage-earners
possessed the suffrage and political influence during colonial times,
the negro would not have been admitted in large numbers, and we should
have been spared that race problem which of all is the largest and most
nearly insoluble.

For it must be observed in general that race antagonism occurs on the
same comp