Speech #820209438

Such liberalizing proposals have been rejected by the Senator from Nevada and Representative WALTER and their Judiciary Committees. Mr. President. the same formula that was used in 1924. to cut down and hold down Italian immigration is embodied in the law now before us. Although the McCarranWalter bill is advertised as a modernization of our Immigration laws. it refuses to use the 1950 census as a basis for quotas. as urged by the National Catholic Welfare Conference and many other organizations. It perpetuates the 1920 quota system. set up in days when the Ku Klux Klan was an important factor in American politics. The Judiciary Committees have stood pat in spite of the fact that such men as Henry Andreini. president of the American Chamber of Commerce for Trade With Italy. told the committees that that formula was "based on an unAmerican philosophy"-hearings on S. 716. page 761. Amerigo DAgostino. of the Columbian Civil Club of New Jersey and the National Unico Clubs of America. declared more bluntlyhearings on S. 716. page 334that the quota law has "developed a doctrine of racialism. similar to that which has brought havoc and disaster in the Old World." This view was echoed by Representative RODINO who statedhearings on S. 716. page 729that "the distribution of quotas under the Immigration Act of 1924 is a shocking display of a discredited theory of racism." In addition to maintaining the present quota system. the McCarranWalter bill contains all kinds of new provisions which would serve to cut down Italian immigration and other immigration still further. Up to now. for example. professors could come to the United States as nonquota immigrants. Under the proposed new law. a professor of Italian literature will lose his nonquota statussection 101 (a) 26 (f). He can get a preference only if he can prove that his services are urgently needed for the welfare of the United Statessection 203 (a). If he does get a preference. he is then charged to the Italian quota and thus will displace some other prospective Italian immigrant. Furthermore. as Mr. Daniel Santoro. of the Italian Historical Society of Staten Islaiid. pointed out at the congressional hearings. this change in the law would cause unfortunate delays in fulfilling academic appointments to institutions of learning in the United States..