Speech #710018800

It means that each of us has exactly the same representation in the quota. It does not assume that one of us Is better than another. It means that each years immigration will be in miniature a counterpart of the whole population of our country. In other words America has decided that it will not permit its racial composition to be changed by immigration. We are strong enough to prevent our land from being conquered in war time. our duty now is to prevent its being invaded and dominated by peacetime immigration. I I have tried to describe what the national origins system Is. now let me say a word about the controversy which rnges around It. Obviously under the temporary method of apportioning the quotas according to the foreign born only. some nations were bound to get more than their share. according to the particular census that we were using. The nationals which get more than their fair share are. of course. reluctant to see that advantage disappear. and it is from the people of these Uroups thlt the whole of this agitation against national origins has sprung. For example. we know that 17 per cent of our population is of German origin. That Is the figure that they themselves have claimed and that is the figure arrived at by the experts of the quota board. In fairness. Germany should then have 17 per cent of each years immigration. but inasmuch as she now has 31 per cent under the temporary foreignborn method. the German group throughout the United States and the German steamship companies have stirred up a oremcndous pressure upon Congress and the President to continue the present system. All of us. I think. recognize that the immigration we get from Germany is of excellent quality. and I am sure that we do not want to discriminate against them. but surely there can be no justification for continuing in their favor a system which gives such disproportionate results and is justly subject to the charge of unfairness by other nations. There is no time tonight to go into detail as to the character of the opposition to the law. the motives which prompt it. and the methods employed to defeat the nationalorigins clause. It can be demonstrated. however. that the opposition is due almost entirely to alien viewpoints. alien influences. and alien sympathies. masquerading in various guises and able to exert an enormous political pressure If it were nut for political expediency and the assumed necessity of catering to hyphenate groups In our present .population. there would be no thought now of repealing the law.