Speech #690176168

He would not think there was anything wrong in that. and perhaps there are individual cases where no harm would come. but this is a new scheme. it seems to me. that is being worked out I think it has been deliberately planned to have these people come here and apply for citizenship and take out their first papers. linger for a little while. and then go back and bring others here. There are more ways of killing a proposition than by just fighting it In the open and beating It to death. If they can bring in.35.000 through one pretense or another. the time will soon be here when another gap will be made in the immigration law. and then still another. until the imnigration law of the United States will be as loose and lax as it was 20 years ago. when a million and a quarter foreigners were coming here year after year. I have said once before on this floor. but I wish to repeat. that James Ryder Randall. the grand old bard who wrote Maryland. my Maryland. said: The fear that I have for my country is that the day will come when you can draw a line straight through the United States and have the native stock get on one side and those who have been here but a little while and their offspring on the other. and they will outnumber the real American stock in the United States. Mr. President. I repeat. this is a big question that we are talking about here today. The able and eloquent Senator from New York -and there is no abler Senator in this body. he is clever and eloquent and strong and makes a powerful appeal to our sympathy in the presentation of this particular easebut we had better guard very carefully the immigration law which we have and see to It that it is not shot full of holes and that its teeth lire not all extracted. They are not going to try to pull them all at once. they are going to take them out one at a time. just one for this pretense and another for another. and so on. until in two or three years time. unless we are on guard. it will be found that 500.000 or a million and more immigrants will be coming to this country. just as they did in the old days. We have some mighty good citizens who have come here from across the seas. I admit that.