re: That ole-time common sense
That's a great piece. Most of it was right on the mark. Look what happened to America just from 1896 to 1930?
The Italians he disparaged brought gang warfare and organized crime to America. Chicago, New York. Las vegas and other cities are still reeling from that blow.
With no stop-check on immigration it led to the food shortages and soup lines of the great depression.
I especially liked his point about work "natives" wont do:
We have of late had a very curious demonstration of the entire fallacy of the popular mode of reasoning on this subject, due to the arrival of a still lower laboring class. Within a few years Harper's Weekly had an article in which the editor, after admitting that the Italians who have recently come in such vast numbers to our shores do not constitute a desirable element of the population, either socially or politically, yet claimed that it was a highly providential arrangement, since the Irish, who formerly did all the work of the country in the way of ditching and trenching, were now standing aside. We have only to meet the argument thus in its second generation, so to speak, to see the complete fallacy of such reasoning. Does the Italian come because the Irishman refuses to work in ditches and trenches, in gangs; or has the Irishman taken this position because the Italian has come? The latter is undoubtedly the truth; and if the administrators of Baron Hirsch's estate send to us two millions of Russian Jews, we shall soon find the Italians standing on their dignity, and deeming themselves too good to work on streets and sewers and railroads. But meanwhile, what of the republic? what of the American standard of living? what of the American rate of wages?
It is more appropo than ever no that the pro-illegal immigration sector has embraced the idea that we need some permanant slave class to clean toilets and mow our lawns because we simply "wont do" it. The truth is the wage of the toilet cleaner and gardener goes down daily when 1 million illegals cross the border monthly and are all offering to clean toilets and mow lawns or do any other manual labor job that requires no linguistic interaction.
Basically, you undercut all the legal gardeners and janitors in America who used to be able to make a decent living. Now they are brought to the poverty line by the illegals and must find some other moonlighting work to make ends meet. Another triumph for multiculturalism! Companies, always eager to save a buck - and now are forced to compete with other companies exploiting illegals - add to the problem opening their doors to illegals so they can be exploited. This knocks out all sorts of other blue collar jobs: chefs, cleaners, clerks, warehouse workers, assembly line workers, etcetera.
Then the left complains about the wealth gap! Why are the poor getting poorer? Huh? My goodness folks, figure it out! A MILLION NEW folks EVERY month STEALING THE LOWER PAYING JOBS and LOWERING WAGES ACROSS THE WHOLE LOWER SPECTRUM OF THE WORK BOARD.
Its amazing not every less educated American isn't well below the poverty line.
Look at the schools Robert! 40% of the kids all over the country qualify for low priced or free meals! These are the victims of your multiculturalism "feel-good" crusade. These are the one's whose parents wages have been shipped to Mexico and whose food the illegal hordes are eating.
Sure from the safety of an elitist ivory tower it's not real. America can just adopt the whole world and it will be like Disneyland with everyone singing "It's a small world after all!"
Sing your multicultural-illegal alien fantasy song to the 40% of American kids whose only meal of the day is served in a school cafeteria. Tell them their parents can't earn enough because they are selflessly contributing their former wages to needy Mexicans illegaly entering our country.
Then...prepare to run like heck outta there.
;-)