Speech #540118197

This is what he said. Mr. Speaker: "He that refuses to provide for his own household is worse than an infidel and hath denied the faith." I vote for this bill to restrict immigration because I believe selfpreservation is the first law of nature. and because I believe that a mans first duty is to his own family. his second duty is to the community. the town. the city. the state. or the nation in which he lives. It is a beautiful theory. announced by the eloquent gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. BucK]. that all the world is a band of brothers. If their civilization. their nodes of living. and their wants and necessities were the same and were up to the American standard. there might be no call for this legislation. but unfortunately they are not. A Chinaman can live on a little rice a day. and dress in paper. an Italian laborer. as I have seen with my own eyes. can make a satisfactory meal out of half a loaf of dry bread. without meat. without butter. without education for his children. without the most common necessities of an American workman. and while this condition of things lasts the cry is loud and long and imperative for radical legislation for the restriction of immigration. No. Mr. Speaker. I am opposed to shaking up the 60.000.000 of my countrymen with the 450.000.000 Mongolians in the Chinese Empire. or with the millions of degraded people of southern Europe. and striking an average. Mr. Speaker. it is high time to call a halt in this immigration business. it is a serious question. deserving the attention of the patriot. the philanthropist. and the statesman as to how far our country. can go in incorporating into its body politic these dangerous and hostile elements that are now being emptied on these shores. Mr. Speaker. much has been said against this conference report because it is alleged that it will separate a husband from his wife. the gentleman from Missouri drew a pathetic picture. which nearly brought tears to the House. of a man and his wife who had arrived at New York and one was taken and the other left. Mr. Spbaker. this is perfect nonsense. the man and wife would not be separated unless they wanted to be. they would know before they started whether they could be admitted or not. Aye. more than that. neither one of them who was not eligible would be allowed to start at all. because the steamship companies would have to carry back. at their own charges. immigrants who were not admissible. and you may be very sure that they would have tests at the port of embarkation. and no man or woman would be brought here who was not entitled to admission under this bill. if it shall become a law. so that argument goes for nothing. Mr. Speaker. there are some things in this conference report that I do not likethat Cuban jingo provision on the end of it. I would like to eliminate that. but I can not. and to vote to send this bill back to conference. in my judgment. is to vote to send the bill to its death. If exception was to be made of any nationality or people on the score of their present dire distress and persecution. we might well have excepted the Armenians of Turkey. whose cruel oppression by the Sultans Governmentis known of all men. and whose cry of distress appears to be unheard at present by mortal ear and heard only by the pitying ear of Heaven. Any conference agreement is necessarily a compromise. and the virtues of this bill as it stands are many and its faults are few. and I oertainly hope and believe the House will agree to this conference report. -So far as the immigrants qualification to read some language is concerned. i. e.. "the language of his native country or of the country of his residence." the objection raised to this section by the gentleman from Missouri is a mere bugaboo and goes.for nothing. Every man in this House knows that the Commissioner of Immigration would give a liberal construction to this provision. and that any man or woman of the prescribed ages who could read and write the Constitution in any language would be eligible to admission to the country under the provisions of this bill. I am sure. Mr. Speaker. that the House will not be misled as to the motives of some of the gentlemen on this floor who are opposing this conference report. They are really opposed to any and all legislation on the subject of restriction of immigration. We are drawing near the close of the session. the time is short. to refuse to accept the conference report is to defeat the bill. Mr.