Speech #530032636

I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality. And I presume that your fellowcitizens will not forget the patriotic part they took in the accomplishment of their revolution and the establishment of their government. or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed. What a glorious sentiment by a glorious man. but what a bitter contrast to the narrowminded spirit of illiberality of today that inspires laws which make it the duty of United States officials to defend against (i. e.. if possible. to defeat) the petition of the sturdy emigrant. who. after years of residence and good behavior. seeks American citizenship in order that he may cease to be an alien in his new home. and may be permitted to take. upon himself the duties and responsibilities of a citizen. A like spirit of liberality and the desire to. pay tribute to the foreignborn element for their valor and bravery is evinced by George Parke Custis.Washingtons adopted son. who embalmed his sentiments upon this subject in a poem inscribed " to the friends. of civil and religious liberty." which gentlemen will find publisqhed in the National Ixtelligencer of October 14. 1828. Passing from old history to the present. we find that in our long. struggle for national unity. as in the war for independence. the part taken by the naturalized citizen was great. and sheds a luster around those whose valor. whose devotion and patriotism upheld and strengthened the nation in the hour of her greatest need. It is impossible to go into details. but if you pass in muster the roll of honor of those who paid with their lives for the privileges of American citizenship. if you find where the strife was thickest. where death reaped its greatest harvest. you will find that the foreignborn citizen was there in greatest numbers. If you review the names of those to.whom the nation owes a debt of gratitude in return for their sacrifices of life and blood. if you recall those to whom we have erected monuments in every nook and corner of this great Union you will find unnumbered thousands among these whose cradles stood on foreign shores and over whose bodies alien mothers wept their bitter tears.