Chairman. I rise for the purpose of supporting the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York . I had prepared and it was my purpose to offer an amendment in the line of that before us now. making an exception in favor of immigrants who unfortunately. are the victims of political and religious persecutions. and who. to avoid the dangers and outrages that threaten them. seek habitation in our land. where they can best work out their destinies and be freed from the evils of racial and religious intolerance. The amendment I desired to offer goes a little further than the amendment now under consideration. for it contemplates to relieve the political and religious refugee from the operation of the socalled " educational clause" in the bill. Mr. Chairman. there are excellent reasons why the amendment should pass. The recent massacres in darkest Russia following closely upon others of a like barbaric character. in which unoffending men. women. and children were slaughtered and thousands more subjected to brutal outrages. make it fitting that at this time we should exempt from certain provisions of this immigration bill the poor. unfortunate. oppressed refugee who. to escape the horrors of bitter race hatred and fanatical persecution. seeks America as his home and our shores as his asylum against tyranny and oppression. In the country from whence comes the refugee whose only offense is loyalty to consciencewhose only crime is fidelity to religious faiththe victim becomes the subject of the greed and rapacity of his persecutors. He is robbed of his means. if he have any. and despoiled of his possessions. whether great or small. There is nothing he has. whether life or wife or child. that is safe or sacred in the eyes of the bigot or fanatic.
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immigrants immigration refugee