Speech #850096799

We can only guess the number that came up to 1820. since no records were kept. but we know that between 1820 and 1956 about 41 million people have come in. from many parts of the world. The story of colonial migration is engraved in every Americans heart. and needs no retelling. But the tremendous impact of immigration after 1820 upon our development as a nation has been too often slighted by most historians. To quote a very recent and excellent book. They All Chose America. by Albert Q. Maisel: Through all our history. the Influx of immigrants has exerted a tremendous effect upon both the direction and the rate of our material and cultural development * * * yet [in a typical highschool text] references to Thomas Paine. Albert Gallatin. Samuel Slater. Andrew Carnegie. Samuel Gompers. and Robert Wagner Ignore the fact that each of these outstanding Americans was an Immigrant. The principal point to remember. if we think of immigration as a form of economic aid. is that most of these 41 million people came to the United States as adults. The economic significance of this seemingly dry fact is grasped when we realize that the period of childhood and youth Is a period of nonproductivity. Society feeds. clothes. houses. and educates the individual child. economically speaking. as an investment which will be repaid by his contribution to society as an adult. When the country that nurtures the child through the long unprofitable years loses him in adulthood to another country. we must recognize. even if we cannot reckon the transaction in dollars and cents. that a large financial advantage has accrued to the receiving country. The semiskilled and unskilled laborers who constituted a large part of this immigration during the 19th century provided the sheer manpower necessary to make our westward expansion possible. to build the railroads. to develop the western farmlands. to man mushrooming industries now beginning to reach to world markets. In more recent times. the contributions made by immigrant people encompass the whole realm of modern science. including the atomic field. by men and women who received their education in the best schools of other countries. and who brought their genius fullfledged and trained. Time does not permit a detailed description of the many contributions made by millions of immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Nor is It possible to deal with the great impact of the exchange of technical information. I have. however. a digest of some of the contributions of the various nationalities to the United States which I should like to have inserted in the RECORD as an extension of remarks if there is no objection.