Speech #610103421

I am not alone. Mr. Chairman. in the views I have expressed as to the dangers of foreign immigration. I desire to incorporate into these remarks the opinions of some of the distinguished men of the country who are familiar at first hand with and who have carefully studied the question. The present commissioner of immigration at New York City. Hon. William Williams. who handles 80 per cent of the present -influx. states in his recent annual report: The present laws do not reach a large body of Immigrants who are generally undesirable. because unintelligent. of low vitality. poor physique. able to perform only the cheapest kind of labor. desirous of settling almost exclusively in the cities. by their competition tending to reduce the standard of living of the American wageworker. and unfitted either mentally or morally for good citizenship. It would be quite Impossible to accurately state what proportion of last years Immigration should be classified as undesirable. I believe that at least 200.000 came here in 1903. for instance (631.885 entered through Ellis Island). who. although they may be able to earn a living. yet are not wanted and will be of no benefit to the country. and will. on the contrary. be a detriment. because their presence will tend to lower our standards. Their coming has been a benefit chiefly. if not only. to the transportation companies which brought them over. The late Gen. Francis A. Walker. president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. an author of international reputation and chief of two United States censuses. expressed his apprehension for the effect of this new foreign immigration upon our AngloSaxon civilization and democratic institutions in the following words: The immigrant of the former time came almost exclusively from western or northern Europe. We have now tapped great reservoirs of population then almost unknown to the passenger lists of our arriving vessels. Only a short time ago the immigrants from southern Italy. Hungary. Austria. and Russia together made up hardly more than 1 per cent of our immigration. Today the proportion has risen to something like 40 per cent. and threatens soon to become 50 to 60 per cent. or even more. The entrance into our political. social. and industrial life of such vast masses of peasantry. degraded below our utmost conceptions. is a matter which no intelligent patriot can look upon without the gravest apprehension and alarm. These people have no history behind them which is of a nature to give encouragement. They have none of the inherited instincts and tendencies which made it comparatively easy to deal with the immigration of the olden time. They are beaten men of beaten races. representing the worst failures in the struggle for existence. Centuries are against them as centuries were on the side of those who formerly came to us.