Chairman. I desire to express my opposition to this bill which would put the Chinese on a quota basis. If the present immigration law that excludes the Chinese on the basis of color is regarded by the Chinese as classing them as an inferior race and if the Japanese are really using that fact as propaganda against the white race in order to win the Chinese to their side. I should be willing to strike that condition out of the present law. I believe that every Member of the House would be perfectly willing also to make that change. This could easily be done without reference to a quota for the Chinese and it would not make a basic change in our immigration laws. But when we undertake to establish a quota we are proposing a basic change which is the real point that is the greatest cause of differences of opinion among the Members of the House on the question of repealing the Chinese exclusion law. The point most emphasized in the hearings before our committee was that the Chinese regarded thdir exclusion on account of color as being a stigma and that same point has been made in the debate on the floor of this House today. Those who have contended for the repeal of the Chinese exclusion law primarily for that particular reason show themselves to be quite inconsistent. in my opinion. when they go on to another unrelated point and ask for a basic change in the law by insisting on a quota. The immigration laws should not be changed to admit an increase of immigrants from any other part of the world during this war. For emotions and not logic and war hysteria would be the real cause of such a change. If the immigration laws should be changed at all now. it should be to further restrict all present quotas and not to increase them. A quota of 105 Chinese per year is provided for in this bill. Those who claim that Japanese propaganda to the Chinese would be overcome by establishing such a small quota are woefully mistaken.
Keywords matched
immigration immigrants Chinese exclusion