Speech #460087164

Cox] will be perfectly willing to allow all necessary amendments to be made. The city and the State of New York have been attacked here tonight. One man. who I believe says that fifteen or twenty years ago he saw some fifteen hundred immigrants come to Port Huron. has talked here tonight about Castle Garden and the purchaseof islands and the building of palaces from the headmoney taken from the emigrants who have landed on our shores. Sir. the State of New York from time immemorial has had landed at its great eatrepdt. the great seaport of the country. seveneighths of all the immigrants who have arrived in this country. and New York State and Now York City have provided the means for forwarding those immigrants all over the country. and the West and the South and the East as well have been enriched by this tide of immigration that has flowed from New York to all parts of the country. We come here tonight asking a very small thing of Congress. Gentlemen should recollect that they are not here for the making of laws alone. but they are hero at the same time to do justice. Certainly New York City is not called upon to provide for and feed every immigrant who lands on our shores. and the bulk of whom do not remain within the borders of the city for more than twentyfour hours. I think the statistics will show that where four thousand and five thousand immigrants land daily at Castle Garden seveneighths of them. within twentyfour hours go to other parts of the country by means of the railroads leading from that city. Now. in all fairness. in all squareness and honesty. we ask whether it is right that New York should undertake to land all these immigrants and provide for them. even if but for twentyfour hours. and then send them all over the land to benefit the farms. and the mines. and every other interest in the country ? That is the one broad basisof this bill. In other words. as the State of New York cannot control foreign intercourse and foreign commerce. we must come to the Congress of the United States and ask it to make a law that shall be equitable and just.