Speech #540118208

It says that the Senate recedes from its amendments and agrees to the House bill. and then it proceeds to strike out of the House bill every sentence after the enacting clause. and adds a variety of matter not in either bill. I am opposed to the conference report. because. unlike the House bill. it undertakes to deal with the family as if it were not a unit. admitting a man without admitting hisilliterate wife. I believe that no immigrant to the United States is desirable ivho is placed in the attitude of deserting his family. and I regard it as vastly more important for an immigrant to enjoy the society of his wife than of his grandfather. as this bill humanely enables him to do. I do not. however. desire to approach the question upon mere sentiment. Our friefids who are in favor of the bill have dismissed all considerations that might lead us to regard the anxiety of a man to bring into the country to which he has immigrated the loved ones who surrounded him in his native land. And yet these very gentlemen who have dismissed with satire that sentiment. have graciously admitted into the bill a provision in favor of Cuban refugees. It will bring. and undoubtedlywas intended to bring. a thrill of satisfaction and joy to the insurgent camps of Cuba to find that after two years of debate the American Republic has nobly conceded to the Cuban patriots the right to enter the United States without a civilservice examination. I believe that we are. in all political parties. prone to exaggerate the dangers of immigration. Already we have heard in this debate all the misfortunes of American labor attributed to the immigration of laboring people into the United States. For one I do not believe that the honest labor of a man in any avenue of human employment diminishes the opportunities of life. If it is true that -every laboring man added to the population of the United States crowds and jostles everybody else. then the prospect of civilization is melancholy indeed. if there is no more.room in the world. if. the United States is cursed and notblessed by increasing population. if the census of 1890 is a token of disaster and not a monument of progress. then we should adopt the gloomy view once. indulged by Professor Huxley and hope that some friendly comet might smite the earth and end once for all the tragedy of social life. Gentlemen. this can. not be a sane and profitable outlook on human affairs. * The addition of an intelligent workingman to the productive resources of the United States. instead of taking away from any mans chances in the world. broadens and enlarges all the opportunities of modern society. Therefore I feel that we are likely to overstate the dangers of immigration. It is one of the peculiar glories of the American Republic that in the last forty years we have taken millions of people out of the poverty of the Old World and given them an American prospect in life. My friend from Indiana says that we ought to exclude the anarchist. the pauper. the criminal.