Speech #680071019

JOHNsON unblushingly in the drafting of the Senate bill. that there are many fine ideas in his bill that have been adopted in our bill by the process of copying from him. and I want to give him all the credit that is his due. but I want to call attention as I go along to the items of difference between his bill and ours. and give briefly the reasons why we think ours is better. and this matter of visC certificates is one of them. Mr. JoHNsoNs bill would provide for quota certificates to be issued in addition to the vis6 of the passport. and I think that it has in it elements of trouble in a diplomatic way with foreign governments. but there can not he any sound objection to our giving this kind of a vis6 to the immigrant who presents his passport. This vis6 certificate will have a double effect. First. it will insure the immigrants admission under the quota law. as I have explained. Next. it will make sure. as far as we are able to do it. that the immigrant is not within one of the prohibited classes who would be debarred on reaching this country. So we give him plain notice oi the face of his application as to just what classes of aliens are debarred from entering the United States. and we ask him to say whether he is or is not within each of those classes. We feel that more than ninetenths of the rejections which have taken place fit our ports will be avoided by this system of examination in connection with the issuance of the vis6 certificates. We know that the excessquota cases will disappear. of course. It is obvious also that the illiteracy cases will never reach our ports. because the steamships will not take them without a vis6 certificate. and they can not get a vis6 certificate without writing out their application. so that those who can not write will never get started. In the same way those who would become a public charge do not get here. because the consul asks them as one of the very first questions when they come for the certificate whether they have the amount of money that the immigration law requires them to have. and whether their ability to work is In any way impaired. as by amputations or disease. So we think that out of the 20.000 debarmentsif I amy coin that wordthat have taken place in the last fiscal year at least 18.000 of them would never have occurred if we had had this system in effect last year. Another matter that the Senate must pass on in the establishment of this law is the proper apportionment of the quotas among the various nations. I believe that the American people are as nearly agreed on restricting imnmigration as they are on any other single issue that is now being discussed. and if we are agreed that immigration must be restricted. then obviously it becomes of critical Importance that we decide what method of restriction we are to use. I have pointed to the chart of the foreign born of 1910 to indlcate the basis on which the present quota law is established. It gives northwestern Europe 48 per cent. southeastern Europe 39 per cent. and the balance is divided with small quotas to the Atlantic islands and the various countries in Africa to which quotas are given. Of course there is no quota given for this group of our foreign bornthat is. the North and South Americanbecause under the present law there is no quota applicable to the nations In this hemisphere. It seems to me thatthe method we adopted in our law of 1921 of basing the quotas on the foreign born who were here in 1910 has this element of unfairness of it: That it disregards entirely those of us who are most interested in keeping American stock up to the highest standardthat is. the people who were born here. Surely it is fair to say that we who are native citizens of America are at least as much interested in Americas welfare as are our recent arrivals. Yet our present quota law disregards us entirely in making up the quotas. I wonder if I make that clear. because it seenis to me it is the fundamental idea which it is necessary to have in judging this whole quota dispute. The present quotas are made up on the basis of the foreignhorn residents of tile United States. and they disregard entirely the 80 per cent of us who were born in this country. Nobody considers the American born in determining what the quota shall be. and that is where the trouble comes. If you take the figures of our foreign born in 1910. you find that one in every seven was either a Russian or a Pole. and therefore. of course. the result is that oneseventh of our whole Immigration quota goes to Russia and Poland. But that is obviously unfair to the American born. because oneseventh of our whole population is not Russian or Polish. You see that the discrimination comes not in the proposed changes in the quota law but the discrimination was made when the original quota law of 1921 disregarded all the American born in fixing the amounts of the quotas. What we want to do is to correct that discrimination and make a quota law that is nondiscriminatory. We do not want to discriminate against some nation. but we want to end the discrimination that now obtains.