Speech #600006402

I have no doubt of that. But in reference to the class of men who come into this country now. I know there is a fear permeating the country that we are getting a lot of undesirable immigrants here. In my personal experience. witnessing the incoming of these immigrants upon so many occasions. I want. if possible. to allay the fears of this House by saying to you that 95 per cent of the men. women. and children whom I have seen landing and on Ellis Island I should welcome with open arms. They are going to make a desirable class of citizens. according to my careful observation. In the city of New York we have scores of schools. each of them accommodating three to four thousand children. of whom 90 to 100 per cent are either foreign born or of foreignborn parents. I am glad and able to testify personally to this. because for years I was connected with the public schools of New York. I wish to say that those children are taken in hand by our splendid corps of teachers. the best in the country. and magnificent citizens made of them. I am a firm believer that our great system of public education is going to take care of the children of all immigrants. desirable or otherwise. I deny that there is any considerable percentage of the undesirables admitted into the country. The inmigrants are the class of people who do our manual labor. as has been so ably and eloquently expressed by my learned colleague from New York . My own district. with its 450.000 people. is not yet fully developed. and we are obliged to havein fact. must havethese people to do the real labor. the work of digging trenches. the foundations for houses and sewers. regulating and -grading our splendid street syst(nall that class of manual labor. and I want to say to this House that but for the immigrants that came into the port of New York the last ten years we should not have progressed as we have done. Take the Borough of the Bronx. the northern borough and the most progressive of the five of the great city of New York. with a population in 1900 of 200.500. and today with a population of 400.000. Much of this developmeit has been brought about by the men who have come in at Ellis Island with the aid of a public citizenship.