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Henry, Alice, 1857-1943

"The Trade Union Woman"


While the tendency of the organized labor movement, both in the United
States and in Canada, is towards restriction, whether exercised
directly through immigration laws, or indirectly through laws against
the importation of contract labor, there exist wide differences of
opinion among trade unionists, and in the younger groups are many who
recognize that there are limits beyond which no legislation can
affect the issue, and that even more important than the conditions of
admission to this new world is the treatment which the worker receives
after he passes the entrance gate. If it is necessary in the interests
of those already in this country to guard the portals carefully, it is
equally necessary for the welfare of all, that the community through
their legislators, both state and national, should accept the
responsibility of preventing the ruthless exploitation of immigrants
in the interest of private profit. Exploited and injured themselves,
these become the unconscious instruments of hardly less ruthless
exploitation and injury to their fellows in the competitive struggle
for a bare subsistence.


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