Speech #670195602

Our penal laws work hardships on criminals and innocent members of their families. often extending through a lifetime. Our draft laws. which call individual citizens from the safe and peaceful walks of life to the conflict. suffering. and death. inseparable from military. service. work hardships on the men and on their loved ones at home. The gentlemen say that we can not deal with immigrants as with sacks of flour. Law rarely deals with sacks of flour. It usually deals with men and women and visits its consequences. its painful punishments. upon men and women. When the Government of the United States refuses to enforce its law because somebody suffers as a consequence. those who administer it should have repeated in their ears tle old. old saw: No mal eer felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law. But it is pretendedand it is no more than it pretensethat the 3 per cent act of 1921 is especially bad. so bad that it should not be enforced uniformly. il that it works hardships. In that respect it is not different fromn other immigration laws. all of which have worked hardships in hundreds of thousands of cases. But these gentlemen seem to think that because this law was passed by the Sixtyseventh Congress and approved by the present administration that it slould be subj2cted to all kinds of contemlptuous treatment. It is the child of the present Congress and administration. and lnay be suflering from " inherited constitutional psychopathic inferiority." but since it is the law it should have the respect at least of the Congress that enacted it and the administration wich approved it and is charged with its enforcement. But is it peculiar in producing cases of hardship? The law as it stood for 20 years. beginning in 1901. worked hardships in that it divided families. turned back many people who wanted to come in. who suffered and even died because they were deported. They were the most unfortunate of people. too. For instance. during that time. 295 poor idiots were turned back into the wretchedness of Europe. 445 imbeciles went back in their weakness. 299 feebleininded were turned back. 2.128 insane were rejected or deported. Who is more unfortunate than an insane man? Unfortunate epileptics numbering 369 were rejected or deported. 15.513 persons. who were suffering from constitutional. mental. or nervous inferiority and other things of kindred nature. were rejected or deported after having been admitted. Persons to the number of 37.719 suffering from loathsome diseases. sick and diseased as they were. were turned back into the sources of their infection. doubtless to die there. Orphans. or children under 16 years of age. unaccompanied by parents. numbering 5.560. were turned back or deported from the United States to the wretchedness of the Old World without a guardian. Can you imagine anything more unfortunate? People numbering 154.156. who were so poor. so helpless. so friendless. so incompetent. that even in the abundant opportunity of America. they were liable to become a public charge. were sent back to Europe. where life is so much harder and where. doubtless. tens of thousands of them begged in wretchedness for a while and then died and were buried in potters fields. The figures from which these totals are nmade will be found on pages 117 and 118 of 1921 report of Commissioner General of Immigration. But the laws under which these people were excluded and deported were passed under the administrations of McKinley and Cleveland andt Roosevelt and Wilson. and therefore were taken seriously and were understood as having been made to be enforced. I object to the favoritism practiced in the admission of these people. The Commissioner General of Immigration testified before your comnlittee: The reason is that the law is an uncertain quantity. It Is recognized as such because it hasthey have brought people over who were in excess of the quota and they have been admitted. and they have brought others in excess of tle quota alild they have been sent hack. and others have been admitted temporarily or something like that. (See p. 218. hearings. Dec.- 19.) Is the National Government to openly practice favoritisl in the administration of its law? To adilit that it is doing so is to admit that it has been debauched. I warn you and the country that an effort has been made. with a regrettable degree of success. to demoralize and debauch the Immigration Service andl break down the immigration laws. I shall here attempt to expose tlat effort and show tile measlire of success which it has met. 1. I read you a telegram placed in the hearings by the chairman of the committee: YOUNGSTOWN.