Speech #820211122

But the people I have been talking with are not hiding or running from their shadows when the dispensers of hate and fear pull out the scare words. Throughout America the pressing question is: How do we move forward? Americans are not afraid. for example. of being overrun by immigrants from. say. Lithuania. if we pool unused immigration quotas. Americans are in no mood to chisel out the words from the base of the Statue of Liberty. Traditional American hospitality toward new faces and new ideas is a precious part of our way of life. It has kept us in the forefront of progress for nearly two centuries. Throughout this period there have been frightened souls who wanted to repeal those particular centuries and choke off all progress. and always these frightened souls have wanted to cut down immigration and deport Americans of foreign birth. Thirty years ago these benevolent but frightened men and women were especially worried about immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Seventy years ago they were worried about immigration from China. A hundred years ago the same fears were expressed about the immigration of the unscreened ancestors of some of my most distinguished colleagues who came from Ireland and Germany. When that fear took form in the antiimmigrant KnowNothing movement. Abraham Lincoln wrote on August 24. 1855: As a nation we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." When the KnowNothings get control. it will read "all men are created equal. except Negroes and foreigners. and Catholics." When it comes to this. I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving libertyto Russia. for instance. where depotism can be taken pure. and without the base alloy of hyrocrisy. That is a quotation from a letter to Joshua Speed. Today all these old fears and hatreds have been tied together in a single package and labeled an "Omnibus Immigration Bill." I do not know of any bill before Congress today which would do more to undermine American unity at a time when our unity. standing above all divisions of ancestry. creed. and occupation. is the basis of our safety and our hope for the future. I do not know of any bill which would do more to inspire bigotry. Two months ago. on March 13. 1952.