Speech #680069927

If you go back to 1890. you have 87 per cent from northern and western Europe and 13 per cent from southern and eastern Europe. Do you wonder that the 6.000.000 people from southern and eastern Europe claim that this is a gross discrimination against them? The effect of going back to the census of 1890 is just the same as if under the present quota law you admitted 1 per cent from southern and eastern Europe and 5 per cent from northern and western Europe. and that Is just what this class of socalled restrictionists are trying to bring about. That is one proposition which. so far as lies within my power. I have set my foot down against. not for the reason that there are people over in southern and eastern Europe who want to come here. oh. no. but for the reason that we have more than 6.000.000 of these people here whom we want to makegood American citizens. Ab. is this country going to adopt .the nonAmerican policy of classifying 6.000.000 of our foreign born as undesirables? Are we. for the first time in our history. going to raise. so far as Europe and the white race is concerned. this question of racial antagonism and racial prejudice. which has wreeked more than half of Europe? The 6.000.000 foreign born will become American citizens when they want to. Nationality and citizenship are founded upon affinity. Ab. but raise that question that they are undesirable and you sow the seeds of discontent and bitterness. not only among the 6.000.000 but among 1.8.000.000 if we include the children of these 6.000.000. for they feel this discrimination just as keenly.