Speech #620269143

I desire not to yield just at present. I may later on. The cry against the immigrant has made itself heard in nearly every period of the existence of the Republic. In 1819 the managers of the Society for the Promotion of Patriotism in the city of New York made their second annual report. I quote a few sentences from that document: An almost innumerable population beyond the ecean is out of ern ployment. * * * This country is %the resort of vast numbers of DiECEmTIBER 17. these needy and wretched beings. * * * They are frequently found destitute in our streets. they seek einploytnent at our doors. they are found in our almshoouses and ill our hospitals: they are found at the bar of or criminal tribunals. in our bridewell. our penitentiary. and our State prison. and we lament to say that they are too often led 1.y want. by vice. and by habit to form a phalanx of plunder and depredations. rendering our city more liable to increase of crimes and our houses of correction more crowded with convicts and felons. That language did not refer to the immigrants from eastern and southeastern Europe. against vhom the present bill is said to be aimed. That language referred to the immigrants from Ireland. from Gerniatty. from France. from Scandinavia. from those countries that sent that class of immigrants whom the gentlemen who are in favor of this bill say was a splendid immigration. I agree that it was t splendid immigration. but the quotation that I have just read might have been written today against the inmnigration that is sought to be prevented under the ternis of this bill. The language used today against the immigrants froni eastern and southeastern Europe is not stronger in its terms of condelniat ion. Later oil the outcry against the Irish and the Germans grew louder. The churches of the Irish were desecrated.