For example. when I spoke in Norwich 2 weeks ago at the annual Connecticut State Convention of the Sons of Italy. the presiding officer. Mr. Joseph Mazzola. explained the deep interest in the McCarran immigration bill by the observation that more than 99 percent of those present at the banquet were persons one or both of whose parents had been born in Italy and who if not firstgeneration citizens are thus secondgeneration citizens of this country. As I have previously pointed out. this proposed legislation is particularly offensive to the millions of loyal Americansand I take them only as an exampleof Italian ancestry. because it maintains the insulting and discriminatory theory which the distinguished Senator from New York has just described. the theory which was behind the quota system estblished in the law of 1924. when the Italian quota was fixed at about 6.000. As a contrast. in 1914. before the First World War. 296.000 Italians entered this country. There was a deliberate reduction in 1924 of 98 percent. The 1924 law fastened into our immigration laws. from that day to this. the vicious and odious fallacy that the peoples of southern and eastern Europe are somehow inferior to their neighbors in other areas of Europe. President Truman himself. in his fine and penetrating veto message. recognized this doctrine as false and unworthy. To use his own words. the President said that it was incredible to him that in 1952 we should again be enacting into law such a slur on the patriotism. the capacity. and the decency of a large number of our citizenry.
Keywords matched
quota system immigration