Speech #710031524

It must be remembered that the friends of the nationalorigins plan have sought no change or delay. All the agitation has come frosm those who do not want to give up their advantage gained under the 1890 census and accept their quotas under a fair. scientific basis established by a committee of the greatest census experts of the country after working five or six years on the survey. The following table showing immigration Into this country. by decades. will show how unfair it would have been to have accepted any particular census as a basis: Immigration. by decades Country 18201830 18711880 18811890 18911900 19011910 19111920 Germany ------------ 7.729 718. 182 1.452.970 505. 152 341.498 143. 954 Great Britain -------- 37.489 548.043 807.357 i271. 538 525.950 341. 408 Italy -----------------439 55. 759 307. 309 651.893 2.045.877 1. 109 524 Sweden ---------------------- 115.922 391. 776 226.266 249. 534 95. 074 Norway ---------------94 95. 323 176. 586 95. 015 190. 505 66 395 Ireland ------------- 4.338 436.871 655.482 3S8.416 339.065 146.181 It will be noted that in the decade ending with 1830 the great bulk of immigration was from Great Britain and Ireland. At that time Ireland was not divided. A great Irish student of immigration. Reverend Shaughnessy. claims that the early Irish imnligration was largely from North Ireland. If this is true. then the Irish quota of 54.338 should be divided so that about onehalf or twothirds of it should be added to the quota of Great Britain. If the quotas had been based oin this decade. it would have bee nmanifestly unfair to Gernany. for Great Britain would have had probably 80 per cent of the total while Sweden would have had no quota at all. Likewise it will be noted that the crest of the German immigration was reached in the decade ending with 1890. Before that date the figures for Germany are much smaller and after that date they are much smaller. The samsle is true of Ireland and Sweden. It will be noted that the English immigration has been more constant. It must also be remembered that practically all the immigration before 1820 was English and Irishpractically no German immigration and no Scandinavian. It will also be noted that there was scarcely any Italian Immigration before 1830. There was none in the Revolutionary period. but from 1900 to 1920 the Italian Immigration exceeded all other countries. As heretofore stated. no single census is fair. No census for foreign born is fair. The 1890 system counts only the foreign born. The descendants of those who fought with Washington or who signed the Declaration of Independence are not counted. but the foreigners who have just landed or been bootlegged into the country are counted. The nationalorigins plan seeks to count everybody from the Revolutionary period down to now. As stated before this is not done by tracing the ancestors of each individual living now. The law specifically provides how the computation is to be made. The law says: Such determination shall not be made by tracing the ancestors or descendants of particular individuals. but shall be based upon statistics of immigration and emigration. together with rates of increase of population as shown by successive decennial United States censuses. and such other data as may be found to be reliable. Those opposing the nationalorigins plan have claimed that President Hoover. when Secretary of Comnierce. had made an adverse report on the nationalorigins plan. The last paragraph of a report made by Mr.