Speech #740241084

The first bill was the bill on which we have a report and it provided that actors or artists could come over to this country if they were of distinguished merit and ability. This is stricken from the bill and makes the bill far worse. If you are going to apply this quota system involved In this bill to actors and artists. why not apply it to bricklayers and machinists and other laborers? This is the first time in the history of all immigration statutes that you seek to apply a sort of tariff or quota to artists. What is the evil that this bill seeks to repeal? There is no invasion to the American stage by foreign actors. When I testified before the Immigration Committee on February 5 I stated that there were 31 plays running in New York. Of these. there are only seven in which one or more British or Canadian actors or actresses were employed. They were Call It a Day.