Speech #820244839

Greece. Hungary. and Yugoslavia and Poland. As has been so well said in the other body with regard to the different waves of immigration: Differences do not mean inferiority. I believe that at times America is enriched by the fact that there are differences. Think of the contributions which the southern and eastern Europeans have made in the field of art and music. The Senator whom I am quoting went on to state: At each stage in American history the recent comer has been looked down upon by those who were already here * * * The tragedy is that sometimes those who came here and were oppressed when they were new Immigrants. once they established themselves. looked down upon the recent immigrant. All Americans should study the implications of these remarks. All proponents of decent. humane immigration legislation had hoped that new legislation would attempt to eliminate. at least in part. the injustices of the National Origins Act. They had hoped that any new longterm legislation would provide for the pooling of the unused quotas under the National Origins Act. which are largely those of Great Britain and Ireland. The National Origins Act set the British quota at 65.721. but in no year have the British used more than D. third of this number. The Irish quota was set at 17.853. but from 10.000 to 12.000 of this quota has not been used each year. One proposal included in the LehmanHumphrey bill would pool the unused quotas of from sixty to seventy thousand among the countries with very low quotas.