Speech #660272716

Number having less than $10. 198. Number having less than $20. 425. Or a total of 1.138 who had less than $20. or more than half of the total number of steerage passengers on that vessel. Incidentally let me call your attention to the fact that our prsent immigration laws do not require any specific amount to be in possession of the incomer. He is supposed to have enough so that he will not become a public charge. In Canada he -has to have $50 on his person when he gets there. and I have read in the newspapers that by an order in council in Canada that amount has just been increased to $250. Now. one of the beneficial results from a temporary suspension of immigration will be that it will avoid the misguiding and mistreatment of new arrivals. Commissioner Wallis. at Ellis Island. tells me that the other day they had 34 taxicab drivers under surveillance for supposed imposition upon newly arrived immigrants. and they cited one case where. a man being advised that the fare to a certain place in town would be 40 cents. he produced three $10 gold pieces and asked if that would be enough. Incidentally. I want to pause here to pay to Commissioner Wallis a very small part of the tribute of gratitude which he has abundantly earned both from the American people and from those who we hope may later become Americans. If they qualify themselves for that privilege. their first hours at Ellis Island will have given them a little insight into the combined justice and humanity which we want the world to -think is a part of our Republic. By contrast to one of his predecessors who spent most of hiis time in writing books about " uplifting" and in helping those of the immigrants who were unfriendly to our system. Mr. Wallis does the actual uplifting and is primarily interested in the immigrants who are likely to become the same kind of 100 per cent American that he is himself. le believes. as I do. that many of them can become that kind of American. even without the generations of American ancestry which he himself has behind him. Ie knows. as we all do. that some of them will never become American and will strive to destroy all that the word means to us. Last December the chairman of this committee and other members of the committee went down New York Harbor to see safely on board the Buford 249 people who were deported to Europe under the provision of our law. Among those was a very bright boy by the name of Bukhanob. He was 17 years old. and for two years he had been a teacher of anarchy among the foreignborn children in New York. We hope that by this temporary suspension of immigration we will avoid the possibility of the children and young people coming fresh from Europe. with their minds open to any impression that they may receive here. especially from their own countrymen. falling into the hands of boy or men teachers like Bnkhanob. We want to start to build our fence on the other side to keep out such teachers of destruction. A few years ago we had an industrial war in my own State.