Speech #680082580

Read the names upon the crosses in the American military cemeteries in France. Go there. you who are saying that certain races are undesirable. and read. the names upon the graves of the poor lads who had neither father nor mother nor any other loved one to request that their bodies be interred in Arlington Cemetery. Read the names of these dead. read the names of those over whom the poppies now- grow. practically all of them foreign bornPoles. Italians. Greeks. and Slavsscarcely an AngloSaxon name among Americas brave dead now sleeping in France. Stop. I urge you. before you announce not only to Americans who are descendants of all the races of Europe but to the peoples of the world that certain races are ineligible to enjoy American. citizenship. "Keep America American." Yes. but do not keep out of America through discriminatory immigration laws any lover of liberty. whatever his. accident of birth may be. if. he is willIng to live in America. accept its ideals. and die. if necessary. for the preservation of American institutions. More time and thought to making Americans of the aliens who migrated here instead of leaving them unprotected to be victims. of merciless greed and avarice should be our immediate problem. More- thought to the development of their spiritual instincts rather than the exhaustion of their physical force will best promote Americanism. Immigration would be less of a problem if a fair part of those who come could be directed to tie cultivation of the soil. There is plenty of undeveloped land waiting for the immigrant settler. and there are enough immsigrants coming in under the present quota who would be glad to go to this land If rightly directed. Let me divert for a moment to state what I have seen in New England in the last 15 years: The old Yankee families are steadily abandoning their farms. and In their places the Finn. the Swede. the Pole. and the Italian. cultivating the fields and preserving the meager agriculture that is possible in New England. Senators from the South. let us speak plainly. You know what is taking place in the labor market. You know of the present migration from the South to the North. Do you not realize that the North will have your colored people instead of immigrants working in its industries and the South will have a scarcity of labor to serve it in the important work of developing its agriculture? An American farm radiates and develops the spirit of America. An immigrant colony perpetuates the foreign spirit. Put immigrants of almost any race in an American farming community. with its churches and schools. and there will be no immigration or Americanization problem so far as they are concerned. Huddle them in mining camps or factory colonies and you will always have an assimilation problem. Mr. President. the aftermath of war may still require reasonable restriction. to which I would subscribe. but you certainly can not justify doing anything in placing a restriction upon immigration that will result in setting race against race. Pause. sirs. before you discriminate by legislation in favor of one or the other of our alien groups against all the rest. Do we really desire and seriously contemplate making an announcement of inferiority to the fellow countrymen of alien friends of America. like Kossuth. who. standing in Faneuil Hall and turning to the American flag. shouted. "A flag without a stain. a country without a crime! " There is sarcely one who has come from southern and eastern Europe whose patriotic emotions are less fervid or whose tribute to America would not be equally inspiring. Not language nor clothes nor wealth nor education nor naturalization papers constitutes Americanism. Americanism is of the soul. If the spirit. the willingness to serve and to sacrifice even life for the preservation of our traditions. our selfgovernment. our liberty. is American. laught else is of consequence.