Speech #840233536

Mr. President. section 5 of the bill is an amendment to our basic immigration law. It is an amendment to the McCarranWalter Act. Four or five years ago the Senate enacted that bill into law. over the veto of the President of the United States. and I cannot see any use in our marching back down the hill and taking a step that will weaken the basic immigration law of the United States. Mr. President. our immigration and nationality laws prescribe an empirical formula to regulate the flow of aliens coming to this country for permanent residence from Europe. This empirical formula. free so far as possible from political pressures. is designed to regulate the flow of aliens from each of the European countries in a fair proportion to the number of persons in the United States from such country. May I pause to comment here. Mr. President. that this principle. known as the national origins formula. is designed not only to assure maximum assimilation of the quota immigrants whom we receive for permanent residence. but more important. it is designed to preserve and protect our American traditions. our American institutions. our American way of life. which. in the final analysis. are but reflections of the ideologies of the people who are Americans. This principle is so important. that I should like to read an excerpt from the report of the congressional committee which accompanied the law establishing the national origins formula: Since it is the axiom of political science that government not imposed by external force is the visible expression of the ideals. standards. and social viewpoint of the people over which it rules. it is obvious that a change in the character or composition of the population must inevitably result in the evolution of a form of government consonant with the base upon which it rests. If. therefore. the principles of individual liberty. guarded by a constitutional government created on this continent nearly a century and a half ago. is to endure. the basic strain of our population must be maintained and our economic standards preserved. The proposed substitute strikes three significant blows at the National Origins Quota System. In the first place. Mr.