Speech #540082061

We see that the AngloSaxon races are able to read and write. and that this bill will practically not apply to them. We know that they are the people out of whose loins this nation sprang. that our institutions will be adapted to them. and that they will be supports to uphold it. On the other hand. we see that the immigration from the Mediterranean ports and from those nations which. however excellent their characteristics may be. have yet peculiarities very different from ours. is in the main illiterate. and that this bill will especially apply to them. Mr. Speaker. as bad. as adverse as these facts are which I have been citing. an examination of statistics as to recent immigration will show that the degree of illiteracy is even greater among those races than it has been heretofore. In the first three and onehalf months of the present year. according to statistics furnished by the Superintendent of Immigration. there arrived in the city of New York more than 19.000 Italians. One year ago there were 11.869 Italians who landed between the 1st of January and the 30th of April. This year. from the 1st of January to the 17th of April. there were 19.946 Italians who landed. Basing the computation upon those who had already embarked. and the probable number that would arrive by the 30th of April of this year. the total number for the four months of this year would be 27.000. as against less than 12.000 during the corresponding months of last year. Now. let us see how these people are on the question of illiteracy. and how they would be affected by the bill which I have introduced. Three thousand one hundred and seventyfour of these immigrants were examined. The test was actually applied to them. They were not taken. a few from this ship and a few from that. but they were all of the immigrants upon four steamers that sailed from Genoa and Naples during the month of April last. Of these 3.174 immigrants there were 2.147 who were absolutely illiterate. That is 67.6 per cent. or more than twothirds of this immigration which. as compared with last year. has more than doubled. were illiterate. and would have been kept out under the pending bill. And of those who came we find this significant fact. that 28.7 per cent had been in the United States before. showing that they do not come here to become citizens and cast their lot with us. but that they come here like birds of passage. in great flocks. to pick up whatever they may be able to get and bear it back with them again across the sea. Mr. Spehker. this is not the worst of this class of immigration. We have gentlemen saying to us that we need people in this country. that we have vast areas of unoccupied territory in - Texas and other States. and that we want those territories to be filled up with new settlers. But the great difficulty is that this particular class of immigrants do not go to Texas. do not go to our unoccupied territory. but they settle down in our large cities. in our congested districts. They add to the labor problems that are vexing them. and most of them go into the dangerous slums of our Eastern cities. The destination of these particular 3.174 immigrants of which I have been speaking to you was taken. One hundred and fifty of them were going to Boston. To other parts of Massachusetts there were 34. to the rest of New England there were 180.