Speech #780122474

President. I surely believe that the measure is sufficiently broad to meet the objection of discrimination. because under its terms we would tell the Chinese that we treat China in exactly the same way we treat every other country. We do discriminate in our immigration legislation. but we do it in a fair way. We lay down first of all the principle that a certain racial and ethnical compatability exists in the American Nation. and we want to keep it that way. Therefore one nationality does not have an equal chance with another nationality in coming into the United States. Immigration is highly graded. One might think that because of the fact that there are 400.000.000 Chinese. more Chinese should be allowed to come into the country than nationals of other countries. but less are allowed to come in. because immigration rests upon the basis of the stock of the American people. But we do say to China. "We do not exclude your nationals. We treat them in the same way we do those of any other country. The Exclusion Act is repealed." We do not admit the same number of Germans. for example. as English. We do discriminate between various peoples under our immigration legislation. and that would be continued. but we discriminate on the basis of our own ideas. of what we want our national stock to be. instead of on the basis of being against the admission of a given person.