Speech #810076293

Over a long and varied career that has been largely centered on the west side of Chicago and in the western suburbs of that city. I have come to know. and as a result to love and admire. the solid. courageous. independent citizens of Czech and Slovak ancestry who make up so large a portion of the population in that area and in the district I have the honor to represent. It is my considered opinion. and in this I am not alone. that no single racial strain in the record of immigration has made more lasting contributions to our countrys welfare. or has provided a more substantial type of citizen. than has the great Czechoslovak group. Farm and city alike have benefited by their presence. These sturdy people. with their long history of unceasing struggle for freedom and their ageold tradition of respect for the law and for the basic rights of private property that are the underlying support of all law. have well been called "the Yankees of Europe." Together with the British. Scandinavian. and Germanic immigrants who have helped make our Nation great. the Czechs and the Slovaks bring to their new country a predisposition to accept its rules and its customs. and to blend their own high culture completely and solidly with the culture of the American people they have joined. Let me review the existing situation briefly in relation to the proposed amendments we now have before us. Under the terms of the original Displaced Persons Act. a cutoff date of December 1945 was set as the basis for considering the right of displaced persons to be admitted into the United States.