Speech #670415674

Mr. Speaker. since long before I came to Congress I have regarded the immigration problem as one of the most perplexing and important questions confronting the country. There are few matters that deserve the attention of this House more than the enactment of a permanent. constructive restriction law. I am bitterly disappointed that this Congress is to close without the performance of platform pledges and the satisfaction of public expectations. as well as the specific promises given time and again during the past two years by those In charge of immigration bills and by leaders of the party in power controlling the legislative program of Congress that a permanent. constructive. restrictive measure would be enacted into law. I followed the hearings conducted two years ago by both the House and Senate Committees on Immigration with hopeful anticipation of the needed legislation. I believed the assurance repeatedly made. for instance. by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Immigration. such as that found on page 6 of the 713page volume of hearings published by that committee two years ago. to the effect that a "permanent" " constructive" law would be proposed and passed "after a thorough investigation of the whole matter in view of world conditions." I have no particular fault to find with the House committee for it has been industriously active. and after months of hearings both in Washington and throughout the country. reported to this House several weeks ago. as an amendment to or substitute for Senate bill 4092. a comprehensive measure that would go far toward meeting the serious Immigration situation confronting the country and toward satisfying immigration officials and expert students of the problem. There have been assurances on the part of those high In authority that the House committee bill would be put through the House and either concurred in by the Senate or sent to conference. but the days have gradually slipped by without action. and here in the last 24 hours of this Congress we find the splendid measure so glowingly eulogized by the House committee report (No. 1621). fortyodd pages in length. abandoned. and that a new bill. House Joint Resolution 494. not even considered or reported by the House committee. is proposed today to be thrust upon us. under suspension of rules. and therefore not open to amendment. but to be voted up or down. just as some one Member introduced It. There seems to be a disposition to legislate in this field for foreigners and to let America and Americans "shift for themselves." I can not permit such an attitude to go unnoticed and uncriticized. The meritorious restriction bill that has been on the House Calendar since February 15. and which this House would pass as decisively as any other bill that has been voted on. would. as the House committee declares in its 43page report recommending it to pass. "prevent the arrival of unfortunates at our gates." permit the legitimate "near relatives of persons here to come." thus preventing the separation of families. " minimize hardships" that exist under the existing "temporary emergency quota law." enacted two years ago. provide a practical plan of regitering aliens as urged ty the President am. favored by the people of this country. cure the "wide open doorway" defet existing at present by which loathsome. contagiously and dangerously diseased. and other objectionable aliens get into the counry as seamen by the thousands. and exclude from the country aliens ineligible to citizenship. I believe our first duty to be to our own. I am for America first. I do not approve the Senate bill that came to us proposing to repeal existing restrictions and admit thousands upon thousands of one particular race of refugees. the expense of bringing here each one of whom would cost far more money than it would take to feed and clothe 10 over there almost indefinitely. I can not join those who would further import poverty for the sake of further exercising and overloading our benevolence. I have read the statements and arguments of certain generous. charitable churchmen who want us to open our gates to the poverty stricken. homeless victims of the various wars and massacres now going on and likely to go on for years in southeastern Europe and western Asia. but the more practical and sensible solution is to do what the bill reported to this House on February 15 proposed. namely. admit merely those very near relatives of foreign born here who are naturalized or who intend to become citizens and who are able and willing to care for those destitute near relatives. and then through organized charities like the Red Cross and the Near East Relief take care of the rest of the millions of starving and naked somewhere over there. We have our almshouse. our asylums and even our jails bulging with foreigners already. As I understand the charts now on display In this House that were prepared by the House Committee on Immigration. after a two years intensive study of State public institutions. foreignstock inmates of those institutions. In spite of our Immigration laws excluding all such dependents. delinquents. and defectives. cost some States as much as 30 per cent of all taxes collected. It is a matter of history that various foreign countries for decades shipped their public charges. their degenerates. to this country and simply unloaded their objectionable public charges and defectives upon us. We exclude defective seeds. defective cattle and horses. and even will not permit shrubbery and other Inanimate life to be imported. Can it be that this and future generations of Americans are less important? America is worthy of the best and none but those clean of limb. clear of eye. and free from taint and disease! Only those at most should be allowed to come. and very few of those until we can Americanize and civilize the great mass of foreign born and children of foreign born now among us. Only yesterday the Secretary of Labor. Hon. James J. Davis. an immigrant himself. called public attention to the fact that there are in this country nearly 15.000.000 foreign born. half of whom have not even taken out naturalization papers. The melting pot is full to overflowing and its contents should be refined before more are added. The heart of every generous person goes out to the refugees. but his heart must also go out. if he is a real American. to Americans--our kith and kinas well as to our institutions. to our standards. to our ideals. and to this civilization of ours which has made us great. prosperous. and free. The American llama has its load of foreignism and alienism. foreign poverty and pauperism and other isms and asms. and until we can set our house in order very few more aliens should be admitted. regardless of how many go back to their native land. The war awoke the public to the situation as never before. and opinion seems to me stronger today than ever before in favor of rigid. restrictive immigration laws. No more patriotic group of men could be associated together than the boys who fought the countrys fight in France. The American Legion demands that the doors be absolutely closed for a period of years. and those boys demand Is entitled to go a long. long way in determining the action of Congress and the attitude of the President on this important public question. in which only the racial. the employing. and the transportation groups have a selfish mercenary interest. I am aware of the demand of some manufacturing and employing and laborimporting interests that alien labor be imported to man their industries. fill their ships. and stock their labor pens. but this very month the United States Department of Labor reports there are over 250.000 idle miners and over a million and a half unemployed workingmen. Cable dispatches state there are millions of unemployed in Great Britain. Norway. Sweden. and other north European countries. and yet those countries are not sending here their full 3 per cent quotas. The Secretary of Labor. in his annual report for 1922. states that even with existing restriction laws the United States Is still the greatest immigrantreceiving nation on earth. With this in view can it be true that we have to import foreigners to mine our coal. harvest our cotton and grain. till our fields. run our trains. dig our ditches. and man our industries? I do not belleva it. The real issue. it seems to me. is well put by thlt great American national weekly. the Saturday Evening Post. in its timely issue of February 24. 1923. only last week. in a leading editorial entitled "Do we want coolie labor?" as follows: Early in the year the representatives of various interests appeared before the Coutittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the House of Representatives and cried a loud cry in favor of letting in more immigrants. They stated with singular unanimity of thought and language that there was a scarcity of labor in America. and that the Scarcity could he met only by more immigrants. They further stated that the existing immigration law is not giving to the United States the number of immigrants to which the country is legally entitled. and for this reason: America is entitled to 40.000 Italians. for example. by the terms of the immigration law: 40.000 Italians therefore entered America last year. But in the same period 53.000 Italians left America and went back to Italy. Consequently America has received no net immigration at all from Italyhas received. In fact. 13.000 less than none of them. Therefore she should have been permitted to receive not only her 40.000 legal immigrants but also 53.000 more to replace the 53.000 that went back to Italy. These are the things that different Interests say. but theirs Is a purely superficial view. If there was a careful analysis of conditions. we should find that there is really no labor shortage in this country. and that in order to get the labor that these men want they would have to pay a little more money for it than they like to pay.