Speech #680055852

Mr. Speaker. it would be idle to pretend that there is behind the socalled Johnson bill for the restriction of immigration any motive other than the desire to discriminate against certain peoples coming from eastern and southern Europe and to give preference to certain other people coming from western and northern Europe. The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the House has failed to heed the eloquent and earnest appeals of the able and wellinformed opponents of the measure. and has chosen to place itself upon record as supporting the unfounded claim of the restrictionists that the peoples from northern and western Europe are better. finer. and more acceptable to the United States than those of eastern and southern Europe. Although the restrictionists are unable to deny that the peoples from southern and eastern Europe have contributed vastly to the prosperity and progress of the United States. they nevertheless indulge in the ageold and repeatedly refuted claim that the peoples from eastern vind southern Europe tend to lower our standard of living. The restrictionists charge the peoples from eastern and southern Europe with every conceivable evil. They not only depress the American standard of living. but they fill our institutions for the insane and the criminals. they clog our industrial centers. they undermine our ideals. and breeti so rapidly that soon there will be no trace left of the American Nation. It is the fear of this last calamity that has prevailed upon the members of the committee to adopt the 1890 census as a quota basis for future immigration instead of the 1910 census. They hope thereby to equalize the number of rapidly breeding peoples of southern and eastern Europe with the slowly breeding people of northern and western Europe. By permitting more peoples from northern and western Europe to come here we will have an evenly balanced foreign population. and happiness will reign supreme. In short. we must have more "Nordics." more peoples with blue eyes. blond hair. and long statures. The following table shows how the committee. by the adoption of the 1890 census. hopes to increase the number of Nordics and decrease the number of peoples from eastern and southern Europe to be admitted. It will be seen that the socalled Nordics are to be permitted an annual immigration quota of 112.987 out of a total of 169.083. leaving only 56.096 for the combined quotas of the other 39 peoples. Estimated immigration quotas based on OCnu8 Reports of 1890. 1900. 1910. and 1920.