Speech #840063193

I include the following article by E. F. Tompkins: IMMIGRATION PoLIcYA HIsToRIc NECESSITY (By E. F. Tompkins) This campaign to "liberalize" the immigration laws is a dangerous anachronism. It is an attempt to apply obsolete nineteenthcentury ideas to inescapable twentiethcentury conditions. America had a historic task in the nineteenth century. That task was to populate 1.4 billion acres of virgin land. to found 40.000 local communities. to improve 6 million farms. to establish 200.000 factories. and to lay 200.000 miles of railroads. The task was accomplished within the century. partly by means of immigration. The Federal census shows that Immigration ranged upward from 8.385 persons in 1820. the first statistical year. to a peak of 788.993 in 1882. After 1882. with the Nation virtually physically completed. the trend was downward. In 1890. the arival figure had fallen to 455.302. and it remained far below the apex of 1882 until 1903.