Speech #680115639

It contains. certain great provisions on which both bodies are agreed which are infinitely more irn. portant in the passage of the coming years than any single item could be. This legislation. if it shall be maintained. isgong to stretch forward into the centuries. it is going to change the current of infusion in the blood of the American population. It is going to make a change for the better in the quality of our immigration. a change far more important than any that has ever yet been made in the muchtraversed and muchconsidered question of immigration to the United States. I regret that our conferees thought it necessary. in view of the opposition of the House. to yield on the question of excluding the exemptions from the quota. but compared to the general importance of- the bill that is a small point. Mr. President. the difference. as it seems to me. between my attitude and that of my friend from Mississippi is that he could not at the end. re5ist bringing It into politics. I have always been proud of the fact and never more so than during the debate In this Congress. that immigratIon. which affects the quality of all the. people of tle United States in the- future. has never been a political. question in any sense. This bill was discussed. it was passed. It has come back here from the conference. and until this moment there has not been a traceof politics. in regard to it.