Speech #700113587

Mr. Speaker. during the present session of this Congress and during former Congresses. being a member of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization and. therefore. charged with the duty of giving special attention to the subjects with which that committee deals. and because of the immediate and very great importance of these problems. I have given them much study and have spoken several times during this session on several phases of this great subject. during which I have emphasized the restriction of Mexican immigration. I hate been urging the restriction of immigration since I entered Congress in 1919. and had much to do with writing and passing the act of 1921. placing a quota limitation of 3 per cent. based on the census of 1910. which cut European immigration to less than onehalf its former volume. Knowing that that act was temporary and that it admitted entirely too many immigrants from Europe and all the world. I continued my efforts and had pending a bill reducing immigration to 2 per cent of the natives of each country from which we receive immigrants in the United States. according to the census of 1890. Provisions contained in that bill became the backbone of the immigration act of 1924. It had been pending two or three years before Chairman JOiNSON or the comnittee proposed a bill containing these provisions. but when the bill was reported it was named for the chairman of the committee. which is customary. Itwill be seen that I contributed in good measure to the writing and passage of the act of 1921. first heavily reducing Old World immnigration. and the act of 1924 further reducing that immigration and stopping Japanese immigration. My bill. from which the fundamental features of the act of 1924 were taken. provided for the application of the quota restrictions of the immigration law to Mexico. but I was unable to get it included then. although. of course.. I supported that act and helped to pass it because it did place heavy restrictions on European immigration. virtually stopped Asiatic immigration. and put new checks on Mexican immigration which. if enforced. would keep out the greater part of that immigration now. On more than one occasion I spoke at considerable length before the House committee then considering my bill for the restriction of Mexican immigration. An address on time same subject was delivered by me on January 19. 1928. at Continental Memorial Hall. in the city of Washington. before an audience composed of representatives of patriotic societies from all over the country. then holding a conference at the National Capital to promote the enactment of laws restricting immigration.. All the speeches and statements made by me on these several occqsions were actually delivered. none of them being at the time merely written remarks. All were printed As I am required to pay the expense of reprinting such speeches and statements. the cost of printing in a separate pamphlet all that I have said on this subject would be prohibitive. Moreover. they would be too tuolniinous to be generally read. I therefore present for printing parts of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD and the reports of committee hearings embodying a small part of the matter presented by me in these speeches and statements. and the record of committee hearings made during the present session of Congress. dealing with immigrntion problems and my own connection therewith. follows the general outline of my address to the immigration conference held in Washington on January 19. 1928. as printed in the CoNoESSIONAL RECORD: Mr. Chairman. ladies. and gentlemen. I forecast that during the present session of Congress immigration discussion and legislation will probably center around four important questions: (1) Shall our deportation laws be strengthened. extended. and better enforced? (2) Shall the endless chain of relationship existing between imnigrants and their kindred abroad be permitted to start dragging out of Europe thousands of those whom the laws now exclude? (3) Shall we retain in the law the nationalorigins provisions. written into the act of 1924. making it more accurately and adequately serve the Nations purpose to keep itself American. or shall they be suspended or repealed at the dictation of certain hyphenated minorities of our population ? (4) Shall the quota provisions of the immigration law be made applicable to Mexico. South America. and adjacent islands? To this last question I shall devote my brief remarks. The people of the United States have so definitely determined that immigration shall be rigidly held in check that many who would oppose this settled policy dare not openly attack it. The opposition declares itself in sympathy with the policy and then seeks to break down essential parts of the law and opposes any consistent completion of it making it serve the Nations purpose to maintain its distinguishing character and institutions. Declaring that they do not believe that paupers and serfs and peons. the ignorant. the diseased. and the criminal of the world should pour by tens and hundreds of thousands into the United States as the decades pass. they nevertheless oppose the stopping of that very class from coming out of Mexico and the West Indies into the country at the rate of 75.000. more or less. per year. Every reason which prompts restriction applies to Mexican peon immigration. Every reason which calls for the exclusion of the most wretched. ignorant. dirty. diseased. and degraded people of Europe or Asia demands that the illiterate. unclean. peonized masses moving this way from Mexico be stopped at the border. Few will seriously propose the repeal of the immigration laws during the present Congress. but the efforts of those who understand and support the spirit and purpose of these laws to complete them and make them more effective by the application of their quota provisions to Mexico and the West Indies. will be insidiously and strenuously opposed. After I had made this last statement. and while the coinmittee was considering my bill H. R. 6465 during the present session. more than 100 of the strongest railroad systems of the United States. representing many thousands of miles of railroad covering every part of the country. appeared in opposition to the bill. Beetsugar manufacturing companies. mining companies. landdevelopment promoters. and many kindred concerns came before the committee to oppose the bill. These classes of importers and employers of labor have opposed every proposition to restrict immigration throughout the countrys history. In 1913 they urged that the enactment of the literacy test then proposed and now a part of the law would ruin them and the country. I quote from evidence taken on the hearing: