Speech #550051114

The effect of that extension was admirably shown by the Senator from Indiana the other day. I do not intend to go over that ground. He has shown that the general effect of the educational test will be to exclude the greatest number of undesirable immigrants and the smallest number of desirable immigrants. He has shown that the illiterate immigration congests in the slums of the great Eastern cities. that it does not go out into the sparsely settled lands of the West and South. He has shown fully. and it is also shown in the report of the committee. that the foreign born who find their way in such large numbers into the asylums and workhouses and other charitable and penal institutions of the country are chiefly of the illiterate class. All these points have been covered. and we find from the replies of the governors of every State in the Union that none of them desire this sort of immigration in their States. Now. Mr. President. just a word as to the opposition to this bill. The opposition which has been seen in the newspapers in the last ten days has been stimulated by the same force which stimulated the opposition last year. The German steamship companies. which alone are affected by the exclusion of illiterates. have raised this movement against the bill. not that the Germans are excluded. for no German practically is affected by the bill. because a small fraction of 1 per cent only of the German immigration is unable to read and write. but with their Mediterranean ships. as well as those that go to Hamburg and Bremen. this company brings to the country. and is practically the only company that does so bring. the illiterate immigration. They have stimulated this movement all over the country. -They have founded a league carried on by the deputy commissioner of immigration under the last Administration. who had not been at the time of his appointment seven years a citizen of the United States. and who now calls himself a German and not an American in the letter I am about to read. He has put out a letter. a call to Germans. not to Americans. to join this league and fightthe bill. In it he says: Our immigration laws are fully stringent enough to exclude all undesirable elements. but the nativistic authors of such entirely superfluous new laws pretend that their only object is to protect the American laboring man against foreign competition. This is. however. only a poor excuse for their real scheme. dictate by that hatred of the foreigner. whom they would like to exclude altogether. Their motto is "America for the Americans." and with immigration reduced to a minimum if. in particular. the now comparatively feeble stream of German immigraion is completely cut off. then they will succeed in oppressing Germansin this country. and ruin the German element p olitically and industrially. To thegreat satisfaction and delight of the EnglishAmerican press. many a German newspaper. whose competition is a thorn in their flesh. will be forced to the wall. No German church building will then be erected any more or conserved. no German school could exist. and the German language will disappear from the public schools.