Tom
Doug Henwood wrote:
> rc-am quoted:
>
> >The only chance for survival was a fascist economy, he wrote. "We should
> >control our national household in such a way that our people will not
> >perish, when this group of people without a fatherland starts flooding
> >us with imports. We don't want our factories to close down because
> >Eastern coolies work for a few dimes a day." Hylkema called for
> >resistance against "the trade and bank world, which still speaks of the
> >principle of the open door. But the farmers feel that if things go on
> >like this, the end is near."
>
> Dana Frank writes in her excellent new book Buy American: The Untold
> Story of Economic Nationalism (Beacon Press) [Hearst is William
> Randolph Hearst, who pushed a big Buy American! campaign during the
> Depression, and I believe that B.C. Forbes is Steve's grandfather]:
>
> Samuel Gompers of the cigarmakers' union, who emerged in the 1880s as
> president of the new American Federation of Labor, liked
> protectionism, too. But he didn't think it went far enough. "If it
> performed what its advocates claim for it, the protection of labor,
> it is of the greatest importance and should be adopted," he argued in
> a report to his union on the founding convention of the Federation of
> Organization Trades and Labor Unions, the AFL's predecessor, in 1881.
> " But ... while the industries are protected by preventing the
> importation of foreign manufactured articles, it does not prevent the
> importation of the cheapest and most servile labor" [emphasis in
> original]. Gompers equated foreign products with foreign workers,
> especially Asian ones, and wanted to keep out both. In his very next
> line he reported approvingly: "Resolutions were adopted declaring the
> presence of and competition of Chinese with free white labor as
> extremely dangerous and demanding the passage of laws entirely
> prohibiting their importation." Gompers, with his depiction of
> foreign workers as "imports" to be banned and his racial demarcations
> between working people, will also reappear in our story, all too
> soon."
>
> [...]
>
> The great irony was that most of these immigrant-bashers were
> themselves immigrants. Samuel Gompers was born in London of
> Dutch-Jewish parents; John Jarrett was born in Wales; and the leaders
> of the anti-Chinese packs in San Francisco were Irish immigrants,
> proving themselves to be "good" Americans by turning around and
> attacking other immigrants. "American" workers and "immigrant"
> workers were in reality one and the same. By the 1880s and 1890s most
> working people in the United States had been born outside the United
> States or else their parents had. Herbert Gutman and Ira Berlin
> estimate that in four out of five American cities, "at least 75
> percent of wage earners were either immigrants, the children of
> immigrants, or blacks."" As Ida Tarbell pointed out in the case of
> Rhode island, the "American" workers who were allegedly to benefit
> from the tariff were themselves as often as not "foreigners."
>
> [...]
>
> Repeatedly, in his 1932 and 1933 Buy American editorials, Hearst
> equated immigration to the United States with "foreign goods" that
> might enter as imports.
>
> <block quote>
> We have as much RIGHT to REGULATE IMPORTS as we have to REGULATE IMMIGRATION,
>
> We have as much RIGHT TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN IMPORTS, DANGEROUS to our
> AMERICAN STANDARDS AND IDEALS, as we have the right to EXCLUDE
> certain IMMIGRATION which is a MENACE TO OUR AMERICAN STANDARDS AND
> IDEALS.
> </block quote>
>
> The product of "foreign labor," Hearst argued, was the same "menace"
> whether it was produced overseas or in the United States by an
> immigrant. "The product of [the foreign workman], if we buy it, is
> just as ruinous a competitor with our workman, and as successful a
> rival for his job, as if we had permitted the alien in person to pass
> our immigration barriers. Both the "home market," and the "sacred"
> soil of the country, therefore, "MUST BE PROTECTED FROM INVASION, AND
> BOTH ALIKE MUST BE DEFENDED FROM WITHIN" (emphasis in original) .
> Hearst equated the two through "news" stories as well as editorials.
> "BAN ON ALIEN ACTORS SOUGHT," read a typical story: "Inspired by the
> Hearst 'Buy American' drive," it reported, "members of the Lambs Club
> today renewed their efforts to have the Alien Actors bill
> [restricting noncitizen actors] enacted into law."
>
> Almost always Hearst's "aliens" were Japanese. In a December 29,
> 1932, editorial, for example, he argued that the depreciation of the
> yen had "enabled the Japanese producer TO ANNEX THE AMERICAN MARKET.
> News reports in his papers repeatedly disparaged Japanese imports or
> celebrated their cessation. "'Buy American' Blocks Order for Jap
> Bulbs" read one such story about a firm in Baltimore that, in
> response to Hearst's campaign, had quickly canceled its order for a
> million light bulbs from Japan. These stories were full of racist
> attacks on allegedly conniving Asians who supposedly preferred "low
> Asiatic living standards" and, Hearst charged, perpetually conspired
> to invade the United States. "We exclude Asiatics from our country
> for one reason, among others, that they tend to lower the American
> standards of living. But we do not exclude the products of these same
> Asiatics," B. C. Forbes, listed as a "noted financial authority,"
> argued over a Hearst-owned radio station in New York on January 2,
> 1933.
>
> Hearst's coverage slid over into almost caricatured sensationalism,
> especially when it came to seafood. One story, entitled "Japanese
> Oysters for the U.S.," warned: "American oystermen are alarmed at
> what seems to them an invasion on their territory by Japanese
> concerns which are importing and transplanting millions of Oriental
> oysters in Pacific coast waters every year. "At least 150,000,000
> 'alien' oysters have been put in the waters of the West Coast to
> compete with the native product."" Another irresistible headline
> screamed, "SLIPPERY ALIEN FISH CLOSE UP OUR CANNERIES." "Little and
> big fish, abundant on both Americans [sic] coasts, are jumping in
> endless procession out of the ocean into foreign nets and cans headed
> down America's gullet.""
>
> AFL advocates, too, used the Buy American call to draw a line within
> the American working class against immigrants. Matthew Woll, in his
> endorsement of the campaign for the Hearst press, for example, argued
> that buying American would "provide employment for American
> citizens." The Florida State Federation of Labor, in its resolution,
> quoted earlier, argued that buying American would save jobs for
> "American-born workers "-moving beyond Woll to exclude not just
> noncitizens but naturalized U.S. citizens born abroad." A. W. Hoch,
> president of the California State Federation of Labor, was even
> firmer in his endorsement: "Organized labor worked for the adoption
> of strict immigration laws in order that American citizens might have
> employment."" As Woll put it bluntly: "Merely to keep foreign workers
> from our shores, and then to purchase goods made by workers in
> foreign lands is to defeat the very purpose of restrictive
> immigration legislation;" or, in the words of Congressman Cooper
> (ROhio) at the height of Hearst's campaign, a "'Buy American' policy
> followed naturally from the restrictive immigration policies of the
> country."