Speech #780106837

If the Chinese are going to. be fooled by that kind of a gesture. if they are going to be swayed in their sentiment of friendship toward us by that kind of an idle device. then. indeed. the Chinese are no longer- the proud. sensitive. and intelligent race I have always believed them to be. I think too much of the Chinese people with whom I grew up not to resent the unhappy implications which this loosely drawn and illconsidered legislation gives rise to. The repeal of the provisions of the Exclusion Act. which has been on our statute books for a half century. and. though on our statute books for all of those years. has not Interfered with the friendship of the Chinese for the Americans or the Americans for the Chinese. will not and cannot result in that which its wellintentioned proponents assure us is bound to follow. Why change the act for such a silly. inconsequential. ridiculous reason as the one which has been advanced? Seventysix immigrants a year out of a population of 375.000.00 Chinese nationals. the very mention of these disproportionate figures is to add insult to injury. And the proponents of this idle gesture assure us it will promote friendship. All I can say is that when the cry of "it will help win the war" is raised. It does not take much to stampede this. which was once known as the worlds greatest deliberative body. Even to the most obtuse. a quota of seventysix is as much an exclusion act as is the Exclusion Act itself. Even though it is but an idle gesture insofar as the Chinese are concerned. its enactment is bound to have most unfortunate repercussions down. in Manila. It is going to. in all probability. cost us a lot of friends down thatway. in the Philippine Islands. where every friend saved is an enemy we will not have to fight. Are there any among us that have forgotten that the Philippine Independence Act provides that from the date of its enactment to the date on which they assume their full independence. but 50 Filipinos shall be permitted to enter this country. and that all of these by the very act itself have been declared ineligible for American citizenship? Have we forgotten that that same Independence Act provides that after independence matures and the Philippine Commonwealth becomes an Independent nation. all Filipinos shall be deemed ineligible for American citizenship. and that no Filipino shall be permitted to enter the United States for permanent residence. The race of the little brown men of Manila will. after the Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed. be the only race on earth that will remain under the stigma of ineligibility to American citizenship. But the walls of this ancient Chamber continue to rock witli eardinning assertions that this 50yearold Chinese coolie Exclusion Act has become a dangerous Japanese propaganda weapon. My God. Mr. Chairman. what kind of a propaganda weapon are we placing in the hands of the Japanese by the repeal of this Chinese Exclusion Act? Already I can hear them chanting over the radio that the United States holds them. the Filipinos. in such contempt that we have by our laws declared theirs to be the only race so inferior and so degraded as to be unfit to enter the United States. even on the quota basis. You can bring in a silly. foolish bill calling for repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Actan idle gesture. at bestand accomplish nothing with it insofar as the Chinese are concerned. But that repealer can become--this as certainly as night follows the daya source of tremendous danger to the future relationships of the United States and the Filipino people. So when you think of this friendly gesture as but a passing expression of good will. let me impress upon you that that gesture may work our undoing in a section of the world where we need friends more than we have ever needed them before.