Speech #710316566

They would not take one single job away from anybody. This is just another attempt to close the doors to make you believe that there are thousands of immigrants coming in here. when the truth of it is there are only 150.000 who can come in under the nationalorigins scheme. and Great Britain and the Nordic races. including Germany. get almost 112.000. thereby continuing to separate families as they have been separated since 1924. As already pointed out. wives and minor children who are not breadwinners are involved. whose maintenance must be and is provided for by the husband and father resident in the United States. Far from aggravating the employment situation in the United States. their presence here would keep hundreds of millions of dollars within our country to be spent here instead of being sent abroad for their maintenance there. Trade Information Bulletin No. 698. issued by the United States Department of Commerce for the year 1929. gives what it calls a conservative estimate of the amount of money sent that year by residents of the United States to their relatives abroad. namely. $247.000.000. exclusive of currency sent by mail. Figures kept by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society as to remittances by residents of the United States to near relatives abroad through its bureau during 1929. compared with the first 11 months of 1930. show that despite the hard times the amount did not greatly fall off in 1930. it having been more than 79 per cent of the preceding years totals. and figures from other sources indicate a still higher percentage than this for 1930. The total of $247.000.000 for all races and creeds. reported by the Department of Commerce for 1929. reduced to the same 79 per cent for 1930 amounts to over $195.000.000. It is thus obvious that far from injuring our economic condition. just and humane laws authorizing reunion of families would keep enormous sums here to be spent in our own country. Nay. more. the narrow and oppressive provision barring reunion of families. and corsequently involving transmission of such enormous sums to relatives abroad for their maintenance there for years past. is itself a serious contributing cause to our present economic troubles. In fact. Jane Addams. who has no superior in familiarity with conditions among the foreign born. in her newly published work. The Second Twenty Years at Hull House. suggests that our quota law immigration policy is responsible for much of our present disturbed economic condition in barring so many immigrants from our shores. She says (p. 278): The economists. it seems to me. have never sufficicntly stressed the fact that the great number of immigrants formerly arriving represented an enormous mass of consumers who needed food. clothing. and shelter on a constantly rising standard of living. We are told that in this country of ours every person. on the average. eats about 5 bushels of grain a year. How far is our annual plethora of foodstuffs due to the fact that we were long accustomed to having to have markets come to us. so that we are slow to learn how to overcome the difficulty in disposing of our products in foreign markets.