Speech #680082774

But William Clifford. Jr.. descended from a long line of American patriots. Is dead as the result of our unsound and ineffective immigration policy. No more his welcome footfall Is heard In the doorway of the Clifford home. Hushed Is the music of his merry laughter In the American home place now so sad and sorrowful. There a griefstricken American father and a heartbroken American mother "long for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still." As they looked upon the quiet face and lifeless form of their dear dead boy and followed his youthful body to its untimely grave. what must have been their thoughts? I wonder if in the pain and darkness of that awful hour they ever thought that Members of Congress. the President. and our Immigration officers. those trusted with the care and conduct of their Government. through carelessness and indifference to the duty and necessity of protecting the American peopde from an Influx of criminal foreigners. were responsible for the death of their boy? What are the facts? The young criminal from a foreign country. he who sneaked up behind this American boy in an American city and without a moments warning. murdered him. came into our country under an immigration law passed by Congress and approved by the President or some unfaithful and corrupt immigration officer in violation of the law accepted a bribe and permitted him to come in. and in so doing lie admitted Into the sacred precincts of our dearest inheritances a moral degenerate and a dangerous enemy. The passport thus bartered to this young European criminal was not paid for alone in money. It cost an American boy his life. struck down and destroyed one of the indispensable forces in the national defense and left in the heart of an American father and mother an aching void that the world can never ill. Are we ready to set ourselves to the task of doing with this immigration question just what we believe is best for our country? Are we ready to take the step necessary to protect ourselves and our children from the dangers that come with fanatics and criminals from foreign countries? The life of young Clifford. this 13yearold American boy. has been sacrificed upon the altar of a sickening and dangerous immigration policy. Foreign countries are anxious to get rid of the criminals over there. Corporate greed is bringing cheap labor here to destroy the livelihood of the American Vaboring man. Steamship companies are making money hauling them to our shores and immigration officials here are growing rich barterIng to criminals and murderers the birthright of the American boy. And what have we witnessed in the last few days in the largest city in the land? The blood of an American boy running red on the street. a dead body borne away. crfpe on the door of an American home and a newmade graveall to gratify the fiendish impulse and criminal instincts of undesirable and dangerous foreigners that our immigration laws in part and some of our dishonest and corrupt immigration officers in particular have permitted to come Into our country. Are we going to tolerate conditions growing out of Improper immigration laws or the improper enforcement of the laws. that make it unsafe or even disagreeable or unpleasant for nativeborn Americans to walk the streets of the towns and cities in which they live? Are American fathers and mothers to be annoyed. frightened. and thrown Into panic by criminal foreigners who somehow come into our country and announce their purpose to make money by kidnaping the children of American parents and holding them for ransom? Are we to continue to admit people into our household of sovereign States who are the deadly enemies of our American form of Government?