Speech #670100109

The advantages of aU smaller House appear so much more clearly to the Representatives of the 38 States than they do to the Representatives of the 8 States that I know it will be a hard task. indeed. to convince them. If I am to undertake that task it must be by an appeal not to cut down the proportionate representation of communities which are almost entirely American. Those 8 States have a population of 15.010.194. of which 893.781 are foreign born. Those 38 States have a population of 86.088.941. of which 12.781.658 are foreign born. In other words. the 8 States named which would lose representation by a membership of 435 in the next House have a foreignborn population of 5.9 per cent. while the 38 States which would lose no seats on this basis have a foreignborn population of 14.8 per cent. or about two and a half times as many foreign born in proportion to their total population. I do not wish to be understood as making or implying the slightest criticism of the Americanism of the great majority of our foreignborn citizens. and I see gentlemen rising to their feet to suggest that many of these foreign born have become good citizens of the United States. Granted most cheerfully. but the proportion of those who have become citizens is no greater in those States which have the larger total number of foreign born than in those States which have the smaller nuiher. In fact. I believe the statistics. when they are all available with the completion of the current census. will show that the proportion is less. because. in the first place. these eight States have attracted a larger percentage of agricultural immigrants. who have anchored themselves to the soil. reared their families. and become identified with the communities in which they live. while in the large cities of the East the immigrants have been largely laborers. without the same personal interest in the country and in the soil of tie country which would make them desire naturalization. In the second place. the very presence of larger numbers of their own kind tends to separate the immigrant to a greater degree from the people who are already here. to make him less dependent upon them. and to increase his association with and dependence upon the people of his owia foreign speech and habit. However. it is needless to speculate upon the subject now. because we have a guide in the report in its tables of citizenship of aliens in different States. The tables do not perhaps furnish a perfect comparison. because the total number of unnaturalized aliens is not given. but only the number of unnaturalized nmale white aliens over the age of 2]. years.