"It is learning the problems of enterprise and management by actual experience. This again is the working out of the American ideal in industry. It is the beginning of a more complete economic equality among all the people. I believe it to be the beginning of an era of better understanding, more sympathy, and more fellowship, among those who serve the common welfare through investment and management, and those who serve as wage earners. We have yet a long way to go, but progress has begun and the way lies open to a more complete understanding that will mark the end of industrial strife.
It is my policy to continue these conditions in so far as it is possible and to continue this march of progress. There are two important domestic factors in this situation. One is restrictive immigration. This has been adopted by this administration chiefly for the purpose of maintaining American standards. It undoubtedly has a very great economic effect. We want the people who live in America, no matter what their origin, to be able to continue in the enjoyment of their present unprecedented advantages. This opportunity would certainly be destroyed by the tremendous influx of foreign peoples, if immigration were not restricted. Unemployment would become a menace, and there would follow an almost certain reduction of wages,
with all the attendant distress and despair which is now offered in so many parts of Europe. Our first duty is to our own people. The second important factor is that of a tariff for protection. I have already given you some examples of the wages paid in Europe. Such a scale means goods can be produced much cheaper there than they here. If our policy of protection is to be abandoned, the goods which are now made by the wage earners of America will be made by the wage earners of Europe. Our own people will be out of employment. Our entire business system will be thrown into confusion with the want and misery which always accompany the hard times of attempted economic readjustment. Under free trade the only way we could meet European competition would be by approaching the European standard of wages. I want to see the American standard of living maintained. We shall not be misled by any appeal for cheap goods, if we remember that this was completely answered by President McKinley when he stated that cheap goods make cheap men. By restrictive immigration, by adequate protection, I want to prevent America from producing cheap men."
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