Speech #710026502

Let me first tell just what the nationalorigins idea is. I have been asked by some Senators to describe it. In substance it is this: We take the entire population of the United States. native born. foreign born. American citizens. and unnaturalized aliens. every human being living in continental United States. according to the census of 1920. with the single exception of those whose ancestors came here in involuntary servitude. We take the white population according to the latest available census. I might say. parenthetically. that our negro citizens accept that gladly. they have no desire that they should be counted in or that there should be any qaota given to the regions from which their ancestors came. There has been no dispute about that. Taking the whole white population according to the latest census. not discriminating against aliens. not discriminating against foreign born. but treating all alike. we give it to the quota board as their task to discover the national origins--not the racial origins. but the national originsof the entire white population. and in the law we tell them that. of course. they must not do the absurd thing of undertaking to run back the genealogy of the 105.000.000. or whatever the number may be. of white inhabitants. That is manifestly impossible. Instead of that. we say they shall start with all of the historical and statistical data available and bring it down from the past to the present. and in that way do as they have already done. determine definitely the composition of our present Nation. I say "as they have already done." They made a study of a century of population growth back In 1910. and it was published as an official document by the Census Bureau. As a result of that study in cold blood. before any immigration issue had arisen. they divided the population then in the United States according to its national origins at that time. The study which they devoted to that problem then was relatively small compared to the study they have devoted to it since that time. They did not then go abroad and dig up all the emigration statistics from foreign countries. and they did not run down all of the county histories which are extant in the United States. they did not then go to the directories in the old towns and do all of the research work which they have done since. but they had gone far enough to show that it was not an absurd thing that we are asking them to do. So we gave them their task. and when they approached it they found that the problem divided itself into four parts. I think it might interest the Senate to describe what they were. They took the census of 1920. and found right off that there was one element of population which had been born abroad and which had emigrated to this country. and it was a very considerable number of millions of people. The birthplaces of those people were stated in terms of postwar geography. They knew the exact location of the farms from which they came. they knew whether they were in Poland or Russia or Germany.