Speech #690245476

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. the war on our immigration policy has come to an issue in this House. One of the many organizations engaged in the fight against these laws recently wrote to a socialservice worker the following. which I will ask the Clerk to read: We are trying to locate every case in the United States wherein ai allen has a wife. husband. son. daughter. father. mother. or other relative stranded overseas. Thus we can overwhelm Congress with humaninterest stories in such tremendous volume. giving such exact details that we will break Its will to hold the immigration restriction act. These stories. with the probability of great masses of foreign voters back of their sentiments. will help us to destroy this unjust. discriminating. unrighteous law. The chairman of your Immigration Committee is leading a retreat and asking you to follow him. I am urging you to stand your ground. By passing this act. you are voting for an annual quota of something more than 164.000 immigrants. By voting against It. you are voting for an annual quota of slightly above 153.000. To vote for it is to vote for more European immigration next year. The act of 1924 provided for an annual quota immigration of 164.000 plus until this year. with a clause reducing the quota to about 153.000 this year. You are suspending the clause making the reduction. When you vote for it. you are voting for 11.000 to 12.000 more immigrants than would be admissible next year if you did not pass the act. .But while a vote for the continuance of a larger quota against the presefit provisions of the law reducing the quota by some 11.000 or 12.000 per year is a distinct retreat. you are asked to hpair the act of 1924 in a much more serious and dangerous particular. The 1924 act as it passed this House had the vice of giving nearly onethird of all the quota to Germany. As that act was amended in the Senate and finally passed the House. that and other weak spots were to be corrected by the nationalorigins provision which you now propose to suspend before it goes into effect. The gentleman from Colorado was for several years our associate on the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. No member of that committee had a better comprehension of Americas immigration problems and the influences bearing upon it than he. On the 16th day of Decemher. 1925. now considerably more than a year ago. that gentleman said: Mr. Speaker. an organization composed of American citizens of German birth or descent. known as the Steuben Society of America. is waging a vigorous campaign for the amendment of the immigration act of 1924. A quota of 2 per cent based on the census of 1890 had certain infirmities which made thoughtful students of the problem afraid of some of its results and apprehensive as to its permanence. and as to what action might follow unless it could be replaced in that act by provisions. to take effect two or three years later. which would be more logical. more accurately expressive of the general policy of the 1924 act. and therefore less liable to attack and repeal. The fundamental purpose of the act of 1924 and the nationalorigins provision was to preserve the blood -of the United States in. its present proportions.