Speech #710025253

Chairman. ladies and gentlemen of the committee. I do not blame the gentleman from Alabama for introducing this amendment. because I know he has been fed up on misinformation that has been given to the Nation by many socalled professional restrictionists without paying any attention to whether it is justified by the facts or not. I feel that if it were possible to have such information as the gentleman from Alabama seeks I would be delighted to obtain it so that we could clearly demonstrate and prove that the charges that there are from 2.000.000 to 5.000.000 of these undesirable aliens are untrue. Up to 1920 there was no quota basis and people could come in here under the immigration law legally. and there were very few who came illegally. Since 1920 and up to 1924 there were very few charges made that people came in here illegally. but since 1924 I concede that there were a great many seamen who deserted their ships and are still in the United States illegally. but I venture to say that if a real. honest census were taken we would find we have not more than a couple hundred thousand men in the United States who are not here in accordance with the laws of our land. and these are mostly seamen that reship. They are here for a few months and then they reship to other ports.