Speech #660272663

I muisit also vote to prevent European labor from coming here. [Almlause.] To do one and not do the other is not consistent. WI:i.ie I respect the argument on the other side of this issue. yet lhe big thing here is what was mentioned by the gentleman from Texas -the antigovernment movement that has been coming to our country. brought by men who know not of our institutions. who have no sympathy with our institutions--and it is with that that we must deal. We can not do less than put up the bars against a further influx of this undesirable group from Europe. and when we do that then we will make more effective the deportation act and it will assist us in getting rid of those already here. I want to emphasize in my last remarks that. after all. the big thing in America is not business. The big thing is the maintenance of the fundamental institutions of America. Our present statutes are sufficient to guard against dangerous elements were they effectively enforced. which they are not. Our deportation statutes are sufficient to rid our country of alien enemies were they effectively enforced. which they are not. Antigovernment agitators who have reached our shores since the war ended have been arrested for incendiary speeches in public places. Our laws are drafted to permit a desirable immigrant but to exclude the undesirable. I hesitate to vote for total exclusion. even for a limited time. I readily admit the value of a kind of immigration. and would willingly invite it were it possible to avoid the danger of importation of unAmericanism. Whatever be the value of immigration. we can not allow further admission of elements antagonistic to American ideals. principles. and institutions. Rather ttan destroy the social and political integrity of our country and its institutions by the surreptitious seeping through of the poisonous nostrums of Old World antigovernment dogmas. I am ready to vote complete exclusion of all immigration for at least such time as is necessary to deal with these elements already within our midst. Unless we can make sure that a more rigid enforcement of the present laws is respected by all officers. both on foreign as well as our own shores. we have no choice except to put up the bars against all immigration for a time.