Speech #630132303

Mr. Chairman. I agree fully with the remarks of my colleague from Massachusetts that this bill must stand or fall on the literacy test. although that test is but a very small portion of the entire text of the bill. The bill is some 60 pages long. and the literacy test consumes about onesixtieth of that space. yet it is the great factor which must determine every man in this House whether he will vote for or against. If the literacy provision were not included. I suppose there would be no great contest over passage of the bill. I for one can say unreservedly that everything in it. so far as I know. except the literacy test. calls for our support. and would be an improveinent so far as it is a change from the present law. But we must rest our case. whether opponents or advocates of the bill. upon that literacy test. because there is the nub of the whole question. and there is the real crux of the issue which has been tearing this country for wellnigh a quarter of a century. I should agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts rather than with the gentlenman from Minnesota that a very large percentage of the type of immigration which has recently been coming into the United States should be kept out by legislation. But I can not agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts that that admission carries with it the conclusion that we must vote for this literacy test or for any bill which contains the literacy test. The two things are entirely unrelated. and I say that in all deference to time great learning of the gentleman from Massachusetts on this subject. and to the great study which he has given to this bill for so many years. It is. I repeat. clear. clear beyond argument. that the two questions are entirely and totally independent. and that a man may believe in the principle of restriction of immigration and at the same time totally disagree with the principle of restriction along the lines of a literacy test. I believe that we should protect the American wage earrner. not only directly through t protective tariff. but indirectly by limiting the number of men who may come to the United States and here make the things which the protective tariff is intended to exclude. But let us strive. if we can. to rest that limitation upon some logical ground and not upon a basis which is purely arbitraryfactitious. if you pleaseand therefore wholly indefensible in principle. The best immigrant. of course we should all agree. is that man who most closely approximates the highest type of manhood. physically. mentally. and morally. and of course we all agree also that a very large proportion of the men who are coming to the shores of the United States every year are not nearly as close to that perfect type as we wish. It therefore seems to me that every man on this floor and in the country who is a real patriot and who really desires to see the continued wellbeing of the Nation must agree that a Justly applied policy of restriction is inevitable. The only question is in what direction that policy shall be applied. Now. the literacy test does of course restrict. and to that. extent it is desirable. But does it have any connection whatever with the physical or the mental or the moral wellbeing of those who come to this country? I have in my halnd a very recent bulletin issued by the Bureau of Education entitled "Education of the Immigrant" . as a sort of preface to the billletin there is a letter of transmittal signed by the Commuissioner of Education of the United States. Dr. Claxton. and addressed to the Secretary of the Interior. in which lie uses these very significant wordsand. by the way. many of you perhatps noticed the same words or a paraphrase of them. in yesterdays Washington and New York newspapers. He says: That these peopleReferring to immigrantsare interested in the elementary education of their children. or at least obedient to the schoolattendance laws. is shown by the fact that the least illiterate element of our population is the nativeborn children of foreignborn parents. The illiteracy among the children of nativeborn parents is three times as great as that among the nativeborn children of foreignborn parents. Here is the experience of an expert. and a recognized expert. in the subject with which he is dealing. Uninfluenced by the spirit of turmoil and contention which surrounds us here. he views the question from the standpoint of education and from tile standpoint of the younger generation. which is growing up to be the citizenship of our country. He points out. by indirection. at least. that there is no connection between the literacy or illiteracy of the immigrants coming to this country today and the literacy or illiteracy of the next generation of descendants of the same immigrants. Here is t most effective refutation of the wisdom of the literacy test. That test has little or no bearing upon the good citizenship of the incoming immigrant. or of his children. It is purely an exclusion measure. based on a total lack of logic. It is founded upon the same sort of reasoning that might be adduced if we should enact that all blueeyed or browneyed men and women should be excluded.