Speech #640217994

Now. there is a question that Is involved here. I had not intended to discuss it. because it is not necessary to discuss it. Why should it be raised here like a ghost as a taboo upon dealing With the question of immigration upon the Pacific coast when it is- not necessarily involved in the amendment which I have offered? This amendment applies to the Atlantic coast. to the Pacific coast. to the Bahama Islands. to certain races In Africa. not to others. It extends the rule which limits naturalization to citizenship in the United States to immigration into the United States. and the effect of it Is a wholesome provision that our industrial life should not be crowded. that our people engaged In the ever intensifying struggle for existence should not be put to sharp competition by a horde of aliens who have not the essential elements which will enable them ultimately to become merged into the currents of American citizenship. If we can not make them citizens. has not the time come to prohibit their immigration and permanent residence in the United States? I am of the opinion that it has. I think we ought to be sufficiently free to dealwith our social and economic problemns to be able to say. and we ought to say. that all those who come to our shores to reside permanently and to make their homes here. to enter into our industrial life. should be such as ultimately may be accepted into full citizenship in our great national Republic. The House of Representatives have adopted that principle. as I said before. and it is a wholesome principle. So far as the merits of the question are concerned which lie underneath this discussion as to oriental immigration. I am not going to pass strictures upon the peculiar. and I might say fantastic. amendment that has been evolved perhaps by some clerk up in the State Department. drawing an arbitrary line on the map across Asia and saying that those who are born on one side shall be admitted and those born on the other side shall not be admitted. regardless of their race. or blood. or character. or religion. There never was anything more farcical attempted In legislation. and there never could be anything that would be more offensive to intelligent people in the foreign countries affected than that sort of arbitrary. unreasonable. inconsistent arrangement. to exclude one and to admit the other when there Is no difference whatever between them.