Speech #720097655

Admittedly. registration of aliens will not cure all our ills. but it will aid materially in improving employment conditions in this country. Our first duty is to Americans. and American workmen we must protect. For 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence there was no restriction of immigration to the United States. In 1820. the first year of any record. only 8.385 aliens came here. By 1882 the number had increased to 388.992. In that year Congress passed an act excluding undesirable aliens. Thereby our selective and restrictive immigration policy was first instituted. In 1917 Congress increased the classes of inadmissible aliens. by that act the physically. the mentally. and the morally unfit were barred from coming to our shores. In 1921 all Europe. war torn and depressed. seemed to wish to come to the United States and compete with the workmen of this country. American consuls. through the State Department. reported this situation to the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. America then for the first time limited by number those who could be admitted from Europe. The European quota was set at 352.000 per year. The public. however. continued to demand further restriction for the protection of the workingman. and the House of Representatives. by a vote of 323 to 71. passed the present Johnson quota law of 1924. reducing the number of admissible Europeans to 153.821 per year. It is commonly believed that immigration problems no longer exist in the United States. It is true that last year. for the first time since the Civil War. the net fiscal gain in population by lawful immigration was but 35.000. During the month of February. 1932. under the administrations policy of enforcing the " likely to become a public charge" provision of the immigration law. only 6 per cent of the quota was issued. 94 per cent being unissued. The number of lawful admissions has gradually been reduced since 1921. but the number of aliens coming to this country in the same period of time has greatly increased. The more legal restrictions imposed. so much the greater becomes the pressure to enter this country.