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The Melting Pot, a play by Israel Zangwill |
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Appendix E. The Alien In The Melting Pot |
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_ Mr. Frederick J. Haskin has recently published in the _Chicago Daily News_ the following graphic summary of what immigrants have done and do for the United States: I am the immigrant. Since the dawn of creation my restless feet have beaten new paths across the earth. My uneasy bark has tossed on all seas. My wanderlust was born of the craving for more liberty and a better wage for the sweat of my face. I looked towards the United States with eyes kindled by the fire of ambition and heart quickened with new-born hope. I approached its gates with great expectation. I entered in with fine hopes. I have shouldered my burden as the American man of all work. I contribute eighty-five per cent. of all the labour in the slaughtering and meat-packing industries. I do seven-tenths of the bituminous coal mining. I do seventy-eight per cent. of all the work in the woollen mills. I contribute nine-tenths of all the labour in the cotton mills. I make nine-twentieths of all the clothing. I manufacture more than half the shoes. I build four-fifths of all the furniture. I make half of the collars, cuffs, and shirts. I turn out four-fifths of all the leather. I make half the gloves. I refine nearly nineteen-twentieths of the sugar. I make half of the tobacco and cigars. And yet, I am the great American problem. When I pour out my blood on your altar of labour, and lay down my life as a sacrifice to your god of toil, men make no more comment than at the fall of a sparrow. But my brawn is woven into the warp and woof of the fabric of your national being. My children shall be your children and your land shall be my land because my sweat and my blood will cement the foundations of the America of To-Morrow. If I can be fused into the body politic, the Melting-Pot will have stood the supreme test. _ |
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