Speech #660272660

His last observation is a sound protective tariff argument and it is an additional proof that even Texas is coming around all right. I think there are two outstanding facts in this character of legislation. One is to deal with the undesirable alien. and the other is to deal with the Americanization of the American. If the Americanization of the American is to be app:ied to the naturalized citizen who is no longer an alien. well and good. and if it is to be applied to the American who has never been naturalized but native born. it is also good. However. this leigslation before us now does not deal with that question of Americanization. It does deal with the question of undesirable aliens -ho are coming in increasing numbers. if we are to credit reports from various sources. The man who is already here. or the woman who is here. that falls under the category of an undesirable alien. whether he be an alien enemy or not. can only be dealt with either by the Americanization process or by the process of deportation. The first is mainly educative. while the latter is statutory. I mean to say that if it is a question of Americanization it is hardly a question of legislation. but if it is deportation it is a matter of legislation. We have attempted in the past Congress to deal with the latter. that particular phaseto get rid of the undesirable alien. I want to emphasize what the gentleman from Texas has said. The law of deportation is not being sympathetically enforced. Anybody who was in the room of the Committee on Rules when the hearings on deportation took place. especially when the Assistant Secretary of Labor appeared. as weli as when the Attorney General appeared on this very question. must have been convinced that we were in a very unfortunate situation by having a man charged with the enforcement of this law with positively no sympathy whatever with such legislation. whose chief concern seems to be to find a way to avoid its requirements. That is the most charitable thing you can say. I see no chance whatqver of getting rid of tle undesirable alien now within our midst. notwithstanding ample and specific law that is now upon the statute books. with the present attitude of the Assistant Secretary of Labor. It seems to me since there has been no step taken by the executive department. notwvithstanding the urgency of committees of Congress. to make more effective the enforcement of law. and there is no hope beyond waiting until some one else is placed in the position of Assistant Secretary of Labor to enforce the law. which will not be short of three months. This legislation has nothing whatever to do with that problem. This legislation is to prevent further complications of that condition. This Congress. whether it is helpless on deportation or not. and it appears that it is in a sense helpless. can prevent further complications by preventing an increase of these unlesirables. and this group. my friends. is bound to be mixed in with the vast mass of foreigners pressing our shores. We have it from the report of the Surgeon General. who has been in Europe and whb has made some reports from there as to the stirring of all the Old World to get out of Europe. We have It from the report of the special agents who have been in Europe to study this problem. and. gentlemen of this House ou both sidesfor both sides of the middle aisle are as much in sympathy with effective work here as anyone else--we must not overlook the persistent. universal unrest in Europe that is found in every Government of the Old World. for this immigration is not limited to any particular section. it is all over Europe. They want to get from under the burden of the wartorn conditions of their countries. We have it from those agents in Europe reporting to us. we have it from the New York Industrial Association through its report that excludable aliens are being admitted in such large numbers that within a few years the penal institutions and asylums for defectives in New York State will be overrun.