Speech #680081375

Within it lies in great measure the answer to whether America shall remain America. with all that word means of promise and fulfillment. or whether it shall become something else. Nor is it incumbent on us to argue with other nations whether that something else is as good as our conception of what America should be. The assumption that we must argue this point with anyone is one of the strongest reasons developed in this debate for a further restriction of our immigration until we have absorbed into the opportunities of our citizenship not only the bodily presence but the innermost thinking of those who have come among us. "As a man thinketh in his heart. so is he." and he has not become an American. regardless of his citizenship. as long as he views American problems in his inner LXV395 thinking. first and instinctively. from the angle of his foreign birth or parentage. That is after all the real testthe inner thinking rather than the outer protestations. For generations we Americans have been so accustomed to regarding our country as the asylum of the worlds unfortunates that It is hard for us to recognize that this theory. like all others. must be applied with reason. otherwise it will defeat even Its own purpose by destroying the real America. which is not alone a mere matter of geography but an even greater matter of ideals of citizenship. ideas. and principles of government and standards of human living.