Speech #640183506

The men who will assemble here next December will be the men who are assembled here now. No matter who is elected in November. this same Congress will sit here. the same membership will sit here that is here now. The real friend of the immigration bill knows that the thing which is necessary to secure the sucess of the bill is a vote on a day certain. It is wholly unimportant whether that vote shall be taken on the I st day of December or on the 1st day of August. He knows that the opposition to the immigration bill is active and is determined that it can delay a vote at this session. if it sees fit to do so. and that it can absolutely keep off a vote until this Congress shall have adjourned. With that situation staring him in the face. and wit:- the statement made to him. that the Democratic conference agreed that the Democratic majority would submit to the Republican side of the Chamber a proposition for a unanimousconsent agreement to vote on the immigration bill at any day they saw JuLy -29. fit to name in the montl- of December. and that if that were not acceded to. the Democrats would make the immigration bill the unfinished busin. ss and would keep It the unfinished business until a vote was had upon the merits of the bill. how can any man complain that that is not reasonably speedy action. and more certain action than the other course would be. because it gives you a vote: it will give it to you on a day certain in December. if you gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber will agree upon thai day certain. and you know that in all human probabilitytle moment you get the bill to a vote it will pass. Moreover Sou all know there is no danger of an influx of European imm gration before December. You know perfectly well that lmm gration from Europe has practically ceased and that it will iot be resumed until the war is over and perhaps not then for years. That being the case. I -ppeal to the Senators who are in favor of childlabor legislation. who want to pass that beneficent legislation. not to do the hazardous and dangerous thing of tying to that bill a measie which is likely to provoke a veto and which will concentrate the enemies of both bills in a vote to sustain that veto. loreoverand I say this by way of conclusionI tell no stories out of school and I break no confidences when I say that it is well understooc that. whatever strength there is back of the motion to add the immigration bill to the childlabor bill upon our side of the Ch imber. comes. without a single exception. from men who are opposed to the childlabor bill for one reason or another. I chillenge none of their motives. I challenge no mans motive )r good faith who is opposed to the childlabor bill. but it Will be a burning and crying shame if the childlabor bill is defeated or hazarded by adding to it another measure of a different kind. particularly when it is wholly unnecessary to add it in order to pass either it or the childlabor bill. when both measures could be passed singly.