Speech #630424082

Mr. Speaker. the argument juit made by the gentleman who preceded me convinces me that he is on the wrong tack. It Is not the Illiterate immigrant who is a menace to this country. according to his aigument. but it is the educated foreigner who comes to these shores. I. for one. would gladly vote for this bill or any other bill to keep that kind of immigrants out. I have as little use. as he has. for those foreigners who come here to preach the doctrines of anarchy and destruction of property. They are a menace to our institutions. But they are the products of their education. some of them.*no doubt. hold university degrees. My objection to this bill is the socalled literacy test. The literacy test will keep out a class of men who have had no opportunity to become educated in their own countries and who want to come to this land of opportunity in order to better their condition in life. No question is raised as to their character. their manhood. their physical ability to perform that hard manual labor which the educated man will not perform. But this question of emigration Into the United States is not a new one. In every stage of the countrys history we have read and heard of the efforts to keep out foreign elements. Thomas Jefferson in his first annual message to Congress made this statement: And shall we refuse to the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? I have not always been able to agree with the President of the United States in his policies. but in his veto message to this House on this bill he hit the nail squarely on the head when he said. in effect. that the literacy test tends to deprive a man who had fot had opportunities in his own land from getting the benefit of the opportunities that this country would afford. Away back in 1797. In the Fourth or Fifth Congress. the question of immigration and naturalization was up. and I was greatly pleased a few moments ago to hear the gentleman from Massachusetts express the liberal views he did on this floor on this question. for this is what a Massachusetts Representative said on the subject of immigration back in 1797. I read from McMasters History of the People of the United States. volume 2. page 332: The door for Immigrants was open too wide. It would be wise to close it a little. Too many foreigners came to the States.