Speech #630136098

Denmark. Holland. and France. all countries of good educational opportunities. have also placed their impress upon the citizenship of this country and upon my home State. Yet these five countries together in 1913 contributed only 34.562. or less than the Turks. whereas Italy. with its 265.542. gave us 8 immigrants for every arrival from the combined 5 northern countries last named. Practically equalling all arrivals from Germany. Norway. Sweden. England. and Ireland combined. southern Italy sent 1.471.659 immigrants to us within the decade 18991910. Of these Italians only 46 per cent could read or write. over threefourths of a million of illiterates from Italy alone. By contrast. only one Scandinavian arrival out of 240. or 0.4 per cent. could not read or write. a better average than is possessed by any State. We also learn from the oflicial reports that only 19.938 immilgrants. or less than 2 per cent of those asking for admission in 1913 could legally be refused on the ground that they were criminals. insane. degenerates. or other objectionable characters prohibited from entering by present law. yet the New York insane hospitals report for 1913 states that 41.9 per cent. or nearly onehalf. of all such inmates were alien . It is doubtful if this bill will materially reduce immigration to this country. because unconscionable steamship companies. represented by unscrupulous agents abroad. will continue to hold out deceptive inducements and will continue to dump thousands and hundreds of thousands of helpless. misinformed. and deluded mortals onto our shores. A word of warning against such immigration is sounded by the decrease of 25 per cent in our proportionate rural population within the last 30 years. materially reducing its proportionate agricultural production. while only 2 per cent of the enormous annual increase in our population through immigration ultimately reach the farm or become food producers. The remaining 98 per cent is thrown directly into competition with hundreds of thousands of men in factories. trades. and other walks of life. men who are now idle and whose numbers out of work in one single industry had passed the million mark on January 1. 1914. Mr.