Speech #760229256

He has suddenly become very much exercised lest the Congress of the United States might pass an unconstitutional act. It is significant that the gentleman from New York has the distinction of being the only Member of this House who has consistently opposed all of the Presidents nationaldefense program. The fact is that this House has been very charitable in permitting him to read into the RECORD a long. belabored address supposedly prepared by this exCommunist leader. whose only excuse for not taking out naturalization papers in the 19 years that he has been an unwelcome guest from his native Australia is that he feels that the courts are all bad and prejudiced against him and would not give him a square deal. Frankly. my own feeling is. from a study of his record. that if he had received a square deal that Bridges would have been deported by this Government years ago. That this body is willing to hear that long statement of defense of Bridges which begs the question and attempts to inject prejudices and side issues into the discussion is a compliment to our democratic form of government. I have repeatedly said that in my judgment we have been entirely too tolerant with the alien enemies within our midst. That is especially true of this particular undesirable alien. Another distinguished gentleman from New York [Mr. DICKSTEINI talked with a tearful voice about the Constitution of the United States. He. too. has suddenly become deeply concerned about the Constitution. He read into the record a case decided by the court in an effort to prove his contention that this Congress has no legal right under the Constitution to deport an undesirable alien. You will recall I asked the gentleman how he reached the conclusion that Congress is forbidden under the Constitution to deport an alien while at the same time he himself has introduced more bills than any other Member of Congress to import aliens into the United States and to keep them here after they have been imported. I have noticed that a number of our learned legal lights of this body. most of whom freely admit that they are great constitutional lawyers. when a bill is presented here in which the public is particularly interested that does not suit them and they can find no other excuse for opposing it. some of them will rush to the Well of this House. get their voices down in their boots. and declare over and over that they are not against the purposes of the bill but their great legal training prevents them from giving their full support to a measure because they are so fearful that the Supreme Court of the United States might declare such legislation unconstitutional.