Speech #620138141

Before the Senator from New York sits down. I call his attention to the fact that he did not read anything as to the percentage of illiteracy among the German people who come here. I have not the percentage at hand. but it has been a fact from the very beginning of the German immigration that a vast majority of them were of the class who could read and write. And that is especially true. notably of 1848. when the great German immigration occurred. when it first began in stupendous proportions. They constituted tho most intelligent part of the German people. the most highly educated in political and in social science. and from them came the class of people to whom the Senator from New Jersey has referred. There has never been a time in our history when the German people did not possess a higher percentage of literacy than the American people did. taking the American people as a whole.