Speech #670177498

The immigration act of May 19. 1921. will expire June .30. 1922. Unless some legislation is supplied in its place. 1.200.000 to 1.500.000 unfortunate. and in the main undesirable. immigrants wil. during the next fiscal year. probably pour in upon our own millions of unemployed and other millions of unAmericanized aliens. most of whom are congested in our centers of industrial and city population. The compelling necessity that this be prevented and a conviction that the Republican Congress will fail to enact anything but this inadequate makeshift drives me. as one of the minority members of the committee. to support the resolution. But the legislative situation which forces me to do so is highly unsatisfactory. The act of May 19. 1921. has reduced immigration from a probable 1.200.000 or 1.500.000 in one year to probably less than 300.000. But that net was a makeshift enacted after two years of unproductive consideration and talk. The country has been dissatisfied with it. the Congress which enacted it have felt compelled to denounce it. and because of its alleged unworkability to modify it and authorize the nonenforcement of parts of it.