Speech #820244780

I do feel that I am not discussilg the Chief Exectuives specific objections to the legislative measure now before us. I feel that I am discussing certain thoughts propounded by the Presidents ghost writers who have neglected to do one thingto read the bill. More than half of the veto message deals with the question of whether or not the United States needs more immigrants. The answer to the Presidents ghost writers is in the affirmative. They say that we need more immigrants to enter our country because our population has grown since 1924 when the quota system was established. In other words. the authors of this message believe that the more population a country has the more people it is able to absorb. This is a brand new argument and shall run counter to the internationally accepted theory. according to which und2rpopulated and not overpopulated countries offer resettlement opportunities for new immigrants. Without stretching too much the Presidential ghost writers argument. Italy. India. and Japan. and not Brazil. Canada. and Australia would be best suited to accept more immigrants. This extravagant theory. coming to us right after the Presidents Commission found that we were running out of raw materials. provides for a rather strange illustration of the working of the mind of some of the Presidential advisers. As far as I am concerned. I have noticed among the American people very little support for this brand new theory of overpopulating overpopulatad countries. and I do not know of any widespread desire of enlarging our immigration quotas over and above their present size and over and above the considerable number of additional immigrants that we have received and are still receiving. under special emergency - enactments of the postwar years. In any event. the Presidents ghost writers demographic dissertations have nothing to do with the legislation before us. As I pointed out earlier this year on several occasions. this bill is not another displaced persons bill. It is designed to be a permanent statute. codifying and revising the hodgepodge of our immigration and nationality laws. Should the American people decide that they want to admit more immigrants. their representatives in Congress would act according to their wishes. but not in connection with this particular legislation. Similarly. should the American people desire to change the timetested principle of national origins. from which I believe it would be very dangerous to depart. they would so signify to us and we might then act accordingly. I have not heard any such demands except those coming from isolated groups motivated by political and professional considerations. The message before us points to many good and desirable provisions of the bill. Among them it lists the removal of racial barriers to immigration and naturalization. the removal of discriminations between sexes. and other improvements of the existing law. If the Presidents veto is sustained. none of these improvements will be written into the law. The old people of Japanese ancestry. 85.000 of them. whose sons covered themselves with glory on the battlefield of the last war. fighting and dying for the United States. these old people will not become citizens of the United States. and they will continue to face difficulties even in holding to their property in the several States. This. despite the fact that every one of them is legally In the United States and cannot. be deported. If the Presidents veto is sustained. several thousands of Chinese children of American citizens would remain stranded in Hong Kong under the constant threat of being captured by Chinese Communists and brought up to be our enemies. If the Presidents veto is sustained. several thousands of Americans of Italian ancestry who voted in Italian elections in order to help us defeat the Communists will not see their citizenship restored.