Speech #680081370

Mr. Speal:er. I believe that one of the most Important questions that confronts the American people today is the question of immigration. The number and class of aliens that have come to the United States in the last 20 years Is appalling. According to tie census of 1020 we have a total white population of 94.820.915. Of this number 58.421.957 are of nativeborn parentage. 15.694.539 are of foreignborn parentage. both parents born in a foreign country. 6.991.665. one parent born in a foreign land. 13.712.754 are foreign born. The result is that in 1920 we had 36.298.958 people in the United States who. directly or by parentage. were linked with a foreign nation. The census of 1920 shows the following classification of our total population : Foreignborn white ----------------------------------13. 712. 754 Foreign parentage ------------------------------------15.694. 539 Mixed parentage. one parent born abroad -------------- 6. 991. 665 Indians. Chinese. Japanese. etc ------------------------- 426. 574 Total foreign extraction or riiixed parentage ---- 36.825.532 Negroes-------------------------------------------- 10. 463.131 Total foreign extraction and negroes ------------47. 288. 663 Native white parentage -------------------------------58. 421.957 Total population ------------------------------ 105.710. 620 Shortly before the World War we had reached a point where immigrants were coming to our shores at the rate of almost a million a year. Such a number could not be absorbed. The war stopped this influx of aliens. but at the signing of the armi.stice millions of people of wartorn Europe were found clamoring for admission into the United States. the refuge of the oppressed. This position of America in the eyes of the people of the world is fine in sentiment. but Americans must protect America and American institutions for Americans. History teaches us that tile downfall of the centers of civilization of the past has been not by armed invasion but b . the bringing in of alien people as laborers or slaves. If unrestricted immigration is permitted as before 1917. the history of America in years to come would be the destruction of our American institutions by the alien immigrant of the class and kind that have come to the United States in the 10 years prior to the World War. During this period the great majority of the immigrants were from southern and eastern Europe. a people who adhere to their own customs and continue to live and think as they did in their native land. a majority having no ambition to become American citizens. their only ambitions being to come to America and to receive the benefits and protection of our Government and to give nothing in return. Tile reverse of this was true in 1890 and prior thereto. During that period a majority of the immigration to America was from the north and west of Europe. such as the Scandinavian countries. Germany. Holland.