Speech #670273494

I have had numerous letters from the president of the America n Federation of Labor. Mr. Gompers. indorsing certain of my work here. particularly with reference. to the present restriction of immigration. I am proud of those letters. The American Federation of Labor pointed out many years ago. the great flaw which hindered the progress of. the United States was the permitting of great hordes of nonassimilahe aliens to come pouring into the. United States to take the jobs and keep down the wages of IAnericans. That organization. led the fight and. I am glad it. did. and I am proud to stand on this floor and say. that we now have a law which checks and holds. up and restricts immigratioi. That ogunization has. a right to criticize the new naturalization code. In due tine its legislative delegates will come before the Committee on Immigration with their criticisms in detail and their suggestions for improvement. But regardless. of the Federations present criticism. I note that many others who oppose any. registration of allens in the United Statesnotably the foreignlanguage presshave some reason for opposing it other than those reasons that they put forth. I notice that the foreignlanguage press leads in the opposition. In my opinion.. the objection of the foreignlanguage press to the registration features is largely a smokescreen objection. their real objection being to that phase of the naturalization bill requiring those aliens coming here in the future to come with certain certificates. Your committee has discovered that in an immigration law we can not very well. under the present treaties.. provide for this examination overseas that the whole American public calls for. We can not go into another country and set up a United States establishment for.the examination of people desiring to come here. unless we first obtain the consent of that government. but in a naturalization act we can provide that those who come here. whom we hope and believe will some day come into Amnerican citizenship. shall come here with such credentials as we may designate by law. Many aliens desire to come without credentials. and therein lies the basic objection of some people against the whole new naturalization code. ILL addition.. I note. that son)e organizations which object to the registration of aliens by the people of the United States themselves do a pretty neat job of alien registration and fee collecting.