Speech #680076475

Come to our schools in New York and you will see hundreds of thousands of little blackheaded sons of Romans poring over their a. b. cs In the grade schools. in the high schools preparing themselves for the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship. Is it fair. is it manly. Is it accurate to paint an instance here and there out of a population running into millions of a crime committed and hold that such a case Is typical of the immigration of an entire race? The Croatians. hard Working. honest. industrious. you will find in the mines all over the country. and what better example of assimilation than that of the Croatian and the Italianwhy. on the other side a Croatian and an Italian can not get along. they have been instigated and primed to hate each other by the cunning and trickery of European politics. They come here. work side by side. live In the same neighborhood. their children go to the same schools. no hatred. no hard feeling. living In perfect harmony. friendship. and love. their children Intermarry. Why? Because they have immediately become entirely and absolutely assimilated. They are Americans in thought. spirit. and in attitude. and yet you come here and say that this newer immigration can not be assimilated. Gentlemen. you will have to find some. other justification for this law. I do not hesitate to say why I am against it. I am against it because It Is unscientific. because it does not fit with the economic condition of tie country.- because it is the result of niarrolvmindedness and bigotry. and because it is Inspired. prompted. and urged by influences who dare not come out In the open. by the Influences who have no Intelligent Information of conditions. but who have a fixed obsession on AngloSaxon superiority. who have an obsession as to religious dominance. and who believe that it is proper to take vengeance upon these humble. harmless. helpless Immigrants. In the course of the wvork allocated by themselves to themselves. and in so doing believe they are rendering service to their country. 1 feel sorry for them. As was stated by the very gentiemen who arc sponsoring this bill in a boastful spirit. the districts they represent have no immigration problem. to use their own phrage. If these people could only see. (-.nld only hear. could only know. they would understand. If they could observe in an unbiased manner the Immigrant in his labors. in his work. their children in their studies. their development and progress. their devotion to the country. all of this prejudice and fear would disappear and how much happier we would be in this country if we could abolish forever religious differences. racial hatreds. and concentrate all our efforts and reconsecrate ourselves as one people. regardless of race or origin to service and united loyalty to our country. While the Jewish Immigration is not charged to any country because it comes from various parts of Europe. I think it can be approximately located. We have no statistics of religions as far as I can ascertain. and prior to 1920 statistics account for country of .origin only. That would leave us entirely to the immigration records which sometimes classify immigrants as Hebrew "nationality." From my own experience at Ellis Island. I find that this classification is incorrect owing to many Jewish immigrants being classified as Austrian. Hungarian. Russian. or Polish. The Census Bureau in the 1920 census compiled statistics in accordance to "mother tongue ot the foreign white stock" and from that it will be seen that 1.091.820 were classified as " Yiddish and Hebrew mother tongue." with a total of 2.043.613. Of these 1.091.820 were foreign born. classified principally as follows: R ussia .......... ........----------------------------- - 791.181 Russ ia .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . 9 . 279 Austria ---------------- ---- ------------ ---- 9.7 Rumania ----------------------------... ... . .------- 37. 287 Hlun gary ---------------------------------------------1. England --------------------------------------------9. 45 Germany ----------------.. . ..------------------------ - . 100 Canada -- - - - - --..................................... 2. 687 The remainder being scattered among foreign countries. principally. I believe. Jewish immigrants from the abovenamed countries who emigrated first to another country. Several explanations have been offered why the 1890 census is now taken and why the 1910 census was taken In the original quota law. The truth of it. gentlemen. is that the 1910 census was taken because at the time the original act was approved on May 19. 1921. It was the last United States census and the only census that should have been taken. You will find that the 1920 census was transmitted by the Director of the Census to the Department of Commerce on November 21. 1921. the census containing the number of foreign born in this country. The census of 1910 was not arbitrarily taken. as some might have been led to believe. When the original act was enacted it was the last census.