Speech #640196268

The measure of the rational. healthy development of a country is not the extent of Its investment of capital. its outputs of products. or its exports and imports. unless there is a corresponding economic opportunity afforded to the citizen dependent upon employment for his material. mental. and moral development. 4. The development of business may be brought about by means which lower the standard of living of the wage earners. A slow expansion. of industry which would permit the adaptation and assimilation of the incoming labor supply is preferable to a very rapid industrial expansion which results in the immigration of laborers of low standards and efficiency. who imperil the American standard of wages and conditions of employment. The commission agrees that: 1. To protect tile United States more. effectively against the immigration of criminal and certain other debarred classes(a) Aliens convicted of serious crimes within a period of five years after admission should be deported in accordance with the provisions of House bill 20980. Sixtyfirst Congress. second session. (b) Under the provisions of section 39 of the immigration act of February 20. 1907. the President should appoint commissioners to make arrangements with sucn countries as have adequate police records to supply emigrants with copies of such records. and that thereafter im-. migrants from such countries should be admitted to the United States only upon the production of proper certificates. showing the absence of convictions for excludable crimes. I will not read everything that the commission said. because it is too long. but I think that answers the Senatbrs inquiry as to the economic questions involved. Now. coming to the question why the educational test was suggested. Iwas saying. when the Senator interrupted me. that we ought not to increase the head tax to an undue amount. because these immigrants who come here are all pooruninistakably poor. all of themand when a man comes here with a wife and. five children and the head tax is placed upon each one of them. it has a debarring influence and one which discour ages the man of family and encourages the single man to come. It is bad policy to adopt any amendment that will prevent the married man from bringing his wife and children with him. So when we had looked this matter all over we became perfectly satisfied that among all the methods suggested the educational test as a purel* restrictive measure. one that would decrease the flow of this class of immigration. was themost practicable one of all. and we reached that conclusion in this way: We took the nations from which this immigration comes so largely. the eastern and southern nations of Europe. and ascertainedl what the literacy percentage was among the people of those nations. We saw at once that if we adopted the educational test. it would substantially decrease the volume of that stream 30 per cent. which was just about what we wanted to accomplish. On the other hand. the educational test would in no way affect England or Scotland or Ireland or the Scandinavian countries or Germany or France. The degree of illiteracy in those countries is negligible. while. on the other hand. in southern Italy 54 per cent of the immigration class are unable to read or write. In northern Italy. under the same Government but under entirely different conditions. less than 10 per cent are illiterate. It is aL commercial. manufacturing. trading section of Italy. while the other is not. Then as you go through the Balkan States and north to Russia the different degrees of illiteracy are such that the average of all is probably about 30 per cent. So we adopted the reading test simply as a practical method of reducing the stream of that particular immigration that was crowding to our cities and living under the conditions I have described and seeking work in these large and rapidly growing industries.