Speech #680081371

Population was scattered and neighbor- meats in the West. causing the same results as caused by the liness and friendliness and cooperation was the price of their Negro in the South. This law. if passed. will be the first law existence. They bought at the same village store. they repaired preventing Japanese to immigrate. although our naturalization at the same blacksmith shop. they assembled at the same meet- laws prevent them from becoming citizens under the "free ing house. they wore the same character of clothes. the. were white persons" clause. so that as the law now stands we do engaged in the same toil. the interest of each was the interest not permit them to assume the responsibilities of citizenship. yet of the other. the necessities of primitive rural life drew them permit them as aliens to enjoy our resources. together. They assimilated into one great people. They were This law prevents anyone ineligible to citizenship to become the outstanding specimens of their time and the leaders of their an immigrant. Can any good reason be given why. if they are race. They and their offspring through this natural selection to be excluded from citizenship. they should be permitted to exof the fittest became the molders of the greatest nation that ploit our bounty? It was wise to exclude them from citizenship history records. They were all free men of one class. lovers of and is now wise to exclude them from immigration. We had a God. country. and home. They gave to the world the Declara- "gentlemens agreement" with them which they have not kept. tion of Independence. the Constitution of the United States. It is a curious fact that the Department of Labor. having charge the statutes of religious liberty. and for the first time in all of immigration. "is not in possession of the gentlemens agreehistory provided for the education of the poor. meat and never has been supplied with same." as stated in a You may go to Athens in the age of Pericles when the master letter from the Labor Department of February 15. 1924. Thia hand of Phydias was seen in the newly constructed Parthenon socalled gentlemens agreement consists of correspondence :and the beauty of that language shone in the essays of between Japan and our Department of State. which has not been Euripides. You may go to Rome. that silken queen on the made public. and access to which can not be had without perTiber. when the eloquence of Cicero and the poetry of Virgil mission of Japan. as explained in a letter of the Secretary of were heard. or to Spain in the time of Charles V. when his State. coffers were bulging with the gold of Mexico and Peru and the This much is certain. however. as Indicated by instructions sails of his merchantmen whitened every sea. or to Paris in to immigration officials at the ports of entry: Under the agreethe time of Louis XIV. "Le Grand Monarque." when the ment the United States bound itself to admit any Japanese who statesmen of the day were considering matters of etiquette presents himself bearing Japans passport. unless he be afflicted at court. or to England during the reign of good Queen Bess. with contagious disease. that i-.. to say. the congressional prewhen the philosophy of Bacon was startling the nations and rogative of regulating immigration from Japan has been surthe verse of every poet paled before the matchless Bard of rendered to the Japanese Government. That condition. coupled Avon. and on these brightest pages of the worlds history you with the fact that the terms of the agreement are secret. would find no schools for the education of the poor. justify immediate cancellation of the agreement. With such advantages to offer. with such a welcome held out.