Speech #690137978

When the people poke on that question at the polls two years ago the verdict was overwhelmingly in favor of the continuance of the established system. and the La Follette doctrine of a legislative veto over decisions of the judiciary was buried as a political issue. By the same token there can be no possible question where the electorate would stand upon a proposition that Congress surrender any of its constitutional prerogatives to the executive branch of the Government. Practically speaking. how can it be seriously maintained that in the matter of immigration quotas. in the selection of our. future American citizens. the judgment of these executive department heads (all of the same political faith. and I dare say doctrine) is better or safer than the combined wisdom andi experience of 435 Representatives and 96 Senators of the people I of the United States? What facts. bearing on national origins or on the whole question of immigration. can these three departI ment heads discover that would not be open by the same. processes of fact finding to the duly constituted committees of* the House and Senate. availing themselves of all known or. obtainable data and the testimony of socalled immigration: census experts. for what that testimony might be worth. if anything. Who or what bifndfolded the Sixtyeighth Congress and led. it along this dangerous road of selfsurrender? Is it possible that the anglomaniacs id Jew batters. the: Hessians of the Carnegie fund. and all the other enemies of the "new immigration" favored the 1924 national origins. .plan. with its allpowerful commission of only three administration members. because they had reason to believe they could force their narrow. prejudiced. unAmerican views on three. men but could not hope toprevail In the end on the Members of both Houses of Congress? Had these Nordics good reason. to hope to sell their perniciois propaganda in a star -chamber of three. Where the light might never enter. but were dubious of their power to enforce their obnoxious propagau(la in the! open chambers of Congress. where in open debate the truth might find staunch champions among Members of proven and .umdouhted Americanism. descended from some of those very. stocks against which these Nordic fanatics would discriminate? The truth is this national origins feature of the act was forced through with undue haste. in a mad scramble to establish some sort of a permanent immigration quota policy. The proposition was gulped down and illy digested. The -obnoxious clause In the act was inserted in the Senate as an amendment! after the Johnson immigration bill had passed the House. At that time. It will be recalled. the Japanese exclusion question! was the allabsorbing concern of Congress. In the midst of the consideration of the vital matter of the exclusion of the Japanese and of the various other provisions of the Johnson bill. the Senate national origins amendment was hastily adopted. In conference. and passed practically unnoticed " save by those who were taking its fate to heart." Another fundamental objection to the fixing of the immigration quotas by national origins is that such a basis Is indefinite.I uncertain. and theoretical and permits the adoption of arbi. trary. biased methods of calculation. In June. 1924. Mr. Steuart. Director of the Bureau of the Census. declared- : there are no figures In existence which show completely the various national origins of the population of the United States. Commissioner General of Immigration. Ion. Harry E. Hull. in his annual report for 1925 recommended to Congress that iti amend the immigration act of 1924 by the repeal of the national I origins clause. statingThe bureau [Bureau of Immigration] feels that the present method of ascertaining the quotas is far more satisfactory than the proposed. determination by national origins. that It has the advantages of sim-