Speech #710018800

Nations may be destroyed In one of two waysfrom within or from without. We are too strong to be attackled from without. even if there were those who would like to attack us. Our danger lies within. and it is to prevent it from becoming serious and actually threatening our institutions that Congress wisely has said. first. that immigration shall be restricted. and second. that it shall be restricted in such a manner as to preserve our present racial balance while we attempt to assimilate the alien elements now "il our midst. That is what the national origins law does. and all it does. It apportions to each European nation a share of our annual immigration equal to its proportionate representation in our total population. It says to the Germans. "Your predecessors and their descendants account for 17 per cent: of our entire white population. Therefore you shall have 17 per cent of our Immigration." To the inhabitants of England. Scotland. Wales. and Northern Ireland it says. "You shall have 42 per cent of our immigration. because 42 per cent of our own people are of the same stock." Similarly with the Irish Free State. which will have 12 per cent of our annual immigration. and the Scandinavian countries and Russia and Poland and Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and Italy and all the countries of southeastern Europeeach will be represented In te exact proportion of its representation In our present population. as ascertained by scientists and experts working under the direction of the Council of Learned Societies and by authority of Congress. We do not say. " This racial stock is better than that." We do not pass judgment ol the relative merits of national groups. We simply say. "This is our present situation . this is what we have now. Let us hold what we have and give everybody equal representation in our future immigration until we see where we come out." . We have learned by experience that tile process of Americanization Is not completed when the immigrant learns our language. nor even when he completes his citizenship. It takes a new viewpoint. a new loyalty. a new faith in the country to which our friends from across the Atlantic come to better their condition. Unless their change of residence results likewise in a change of allegiance. to the extent that they learn to think and act as Americans and not as Europeans domiciled in this country. they are not Americans at all.