Speech #660274059

Chairman and gentlemen of the House. I do not intend to cover tile ground that some of the others have covered. but I want to call attention to this effect of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois. The amendment would allow any and all immigrants from European countries. without limit. and makes no provisions for keeping them on the farms. li order to afford any appreciable relief to farming conditions in this country it would be necessary to have thousands or hundreds of thousands of laborers. and it would be as impossible to keep those people on the farm as anything that you might conceive. If you permitted hundreds of thousands of people to come into this country under tue guise of laboring on the farms. you would be forced to increase the number of Government officials a hundred thousand in order to keep watch on those people and keep them on the farms. because our experience with immigration has taught us that there are men who make it their business to get people into this country who have no funds with which to meet conditions that they find when they arrive here. and. of course. they drift right into the cities. The moment you turn a lot of people loose on the farms you would have them leaving the farm and going to the city at once. and you might just as well strike out the enacting clause of this law as to pass this amendment. This amendment would simply operate as a subterfuge to get unrestricted immigration. I see no. reason for making any exception of this character. for. as my colleague so well pointed out. if you made the exception and put them on the farms. and even though you could keep them there. you would simply enable temporarily a few men to go on the farms. and you would soon have a worse condition than ever. There are some people who want the price of farm products gauged down to the basis of cheap labor. and that is what those who are opposing this bill want. I am in favor of a law which will keep out the flood tide of bolshevists. anarchists. and bomb throwers. who are anxious to spread their poisonous doctrines throughout this country. If a bill is not passed. millions of immigrants will sweep over this land and our institutions as well as form of government will be in danger. Much has been said on this floor about making farm life attractive. _Now. to my way of thinking. the way to relieve the condition on the farms of this country is not by trying to make farm life more attractive. as some people say. by giving them some of the modern conveniences. but the way to relieve the condition on the farm is to make faim life profitable. to furnish the farmer a market. credits. a chance to dispose of his products. and then the "conveniences will come in the ordinary course of events. The thing I want to call your attention to before I sit down is this. that I can see no reason for cutting the period of the operation of this law from two years to 14 months. as is provided by the amendment of the gentleman from Illinois.