Speech #710178131

It provided. secondly. a quota for each South American country which represented substantially those who came from the South American countries into this country. Lastly. it provided for a quota in definite numbers from Mexico which reduced very materially the number that had been coming from Mexico into this country. All of us who have dealt with this subject in the past years realize that the endeavor of this legislation is to deal with Mexican immigration. not with South American immigration. which is negligible in quantity and which amounts to nothing at all. not. indeed. with Canadian immigration. which is satisfactory to many of those who have been discussing the question here. The bill that represented the consensus of opinion in the House in reality dealt with neither South American immigration nor with those who came from Canada. because it left the numbers coming in from South America and Canada substantially what they have been in the past and what it is expected they will be in the future. and it touched what we were pleased to call. in the discussion a week ago upon this floor. the sore spot in our immigration problemthat is. the immigration from Mexico. I recognize the logic of assuaging the feelings and soothing the perturbed spirit of any nation that may be affected by our immigration laws. but when we are doing nothing else by a bill than that which is being done today and which will be done tomorrow. the bill to those of us whose minds are somewhat direct is of little consequence in particulars of that kind. So the suggestion was made upon the floor and discussed that we might deal with the one thing that constituted a menace and a danger in our immigration problem. and that was the immigration front Mexico. and I assume that it is upon that theory that the Senator from Connecticut has presented his amendment. Offensive? Of course. All immigration laws are offensive to countries whose peoples come here far beyond the number we have fixed in our quota. That is a fact that we can not gainsay. It is something that we regret. but which. in the defnite national policy which has been adopted. we have preferred to accept rather than to continue unrestricted immigration to our Nation. Today. quotas from European countries are filled for years to come. People are practically standing inl line in the desire to come. and the argument is not forceful with me at all which says. "If people are so anxious to come here. why not let them come? Why keep them out by offensively passing an immigration law by which they are not permitted to come?" Here. today. in this bill is present one evil we are endeavoring to remedy. We do not do it in offensiveness to Mexico. That is not the idea in any aspect. We are not doing It for the purpose of saying to Mexico that it shall not be permitted to do something that every other nation on the face of the earth is permitted to do. We say that a certain kind of immigration that comes from a particular country. and that we know to be harmful to this country. should. if it be possible. be limited by the legislation that was conceived by the Senator from Georgia and that has been presented here for discussion on this floor.