Speech #680115502

Mr. President. I was just starting to describe the only important matters of difference between the conference bill andthe immigration bill as it passed the Senate. The House has yielded to practically everything of importance that was in dispute between the two Houses. with the exception of the nonquota class of immigrants. and as to that item they have yielded almost all that was in dispute. The only nonquota immigrants permitted by the conference bill beyond those who were permitted by the Senate bill are the wives and the children under 38 of American citizens resident here. That is to say. under the Senate bill the wife of an American citizen resident here would be given a preference within the quota. but would be charged against the quota nevertheless. while under the conference bill a wife under those circumstances would be admitted outside the quota. The question is important only because of the recent enactment of what is known as the Cable Act. which provides that marriage does not automatically operate to transfer the wifes citizenship to that of the husband. Before the Cable Act these same wives under the same circumstances would have been permitted to enter the United States of their own right as American citizens. but under the Cable Act they do not by their marriage acquire American citizenship. What we lbave done here has been to admit them as nonquota immigrants. They are not charged against the quota. but we have stricken out the House provisions as to parents and as to husbands and as to skilled labor. and practically all of the House nonquota immigrants who would have come in in great numbers in addition to the quota. The only other point on which we yielded in that regard was as to professors coming to accredited colleges and ministers of recognized religious denominations. and the number of those who will come in any one year is so small that in our judgment it is negligible. The next important change lay in the Asiatic exclusion clause. Under the Senate bill. the Asiatic exclusion clause would have taken effect immediately upon enactment. Under the conference bill as it now stands--it went through several phases. but in the shape in which it now standsthe exclusion act will take effect on July 1 of this year. The reason why that seems to us wiser than the Senate bill is that there is. a small number of Japanese now on the ocean. and it did not seem fair to clap the law on while they were in transit. When the quota law of 1921 was passed nobody thought about the people who were on the ocean. and the act was made to take effect immediately on its adoption. and Congress within a few weeks afterwards had to pass a joint resolution extending the time in substance so as to admit all of those people who were on the ocean at the time the act of 1921 was signed. We do not want to make that mistake here. and so we have made the exclusion clause take effect July 1.