Speech #660273199

Chairman. the arguments in favor of this bill and the charges that are being made were made over 100 years ago. The restrictionists of those days classed the people coming to this country then as undesirable and favored their exclusion. The same arguments were made as to the tendency of the immigrants to congest in the cities. and it was maintained that the effect of immigration was to reduce wages and lower the standard of living. The report of the Immigration Commission quotes the following from Niles Register of 1817: The immigrant should press into the interior. In the present state of the times we seem too thick on the maritime frontier already. Consider that statement carefully. gentlemen. for you must remember that it was made when the immigration did not reach 5.000 a year. Again. in the second annual report of the managers of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York City. 1819. we find the following: As to the emigrants from foreign countries. the managers are compelled to speak of them in the language of astonishment and apprehension. Through this inlet pauperism threatens us with the most overwhelming consequences. In the year following this report only 8.385 immigrants came to this country. and yet we find these men speaking of this immigration in language of " astonishment and apprehension." It would seem. as years went by. that no difficulty had been experienced in the assimilation of these immigrants that had been the cause of such great apprehension. and therefore they were immediately classed as " desirables." whereas those seeking admission a few years later were still regarded as a menace. In a paper entitled " Imminent dangers to the institutions of the United States of America through foreign immigration." and so forth. published in 1835. the author compares the immigration of earlier years with that of his day. and says: Then we were few. feeble. and scattered. Now we are numerous. strong. and concentrated. Then our accessions of immigration were real accessions of strength from the ranks of the learned and of the good. from enlightened mechanic and artisan and Intelligent husbandman. Now immigration is the accession of weakness. from the ignorant victims of the priestridden slaves of Ireland and Germany or the outcast tenants of the poorhouses and prisons of Europe. Remember these are the sentiments expressed in the year 1835. when there were less than 50.000 people admitted. * At a meeting of the delegates of the Native American National Convention. held in Philadelphia on July 4. 1845. an address was delivered in which occurred the following statement: It is an incontrovertible truth that the civil institutions of the U~nited States of America have been seriously affected. and that they now stand in imminent peril from the rapid and enormous increase in the body of residents of foreign birth imbued with foreign feelings and of an ignorant and immoral character. The almshouses of Europe are emptied upon our coast. and this by our own invitation. not casually or to a trivial extent. but systematically and upon a constantly increasing scale. In 1845. the year this address was delivered. some 114.000 immigrants came to make this country their future home. All of the quotations I have used refer to a class of immnigrants which today even the most rabid restrictionists refer to as "desirable." The birth of the Republic and the inception of the agitation for the exclusion of immigrants were coeval. The demand has been insistent. unreasonable. and unsubsiding. Born of prejudice. this desire to shut out foreigners grew up with eyes closed to the light. blindly ignoring all knowledge that would demonstrate the folly of its reasoning. In the earlidt (lays its advocates stubbornly refused to read with unprejudiced eyes a single page of the countrys history upon which was chronicled a patriotic deed or which recited an achievement of any character that was the contribution of the class marked for their disfavor. Impelled by motives that were completely out of harmony with the fundamental principles of the: Republic. this element never gave thought nor consideration to the economic effect of exclusion or restriction of immigration. but persisted with a zeal that bordered upon the fanatical in its attempts to foist upon the country views that were narrowand ill advised. Statesmen of every decade of our national life have been confronted with this question. but to their everlasting credit those clothed with power and exercising influence in shaping legislation have turned deaf ears to the prayers and threats of the exclusionists and continued the liberal policy adopted by their forefathers. Mr. Chairman. some of the supporters of this bill have maintained that our country is becoming too thickly populated. that we already have within our borders nearly all the people we can accommodate. and that for this reason it is imperative that immigration be restricted. This statement. like so many others emanating from the opponents of immigration. is misleading. The fact is that in 1910. according to the Bureau of the Census. the density of population of the United States. or. in other words. the average number of people per square mile throughout the United States. was olly 30.9. Contrast this average density with that of some of the individual States. such as Illinois. with a density of 100.6.