President Johnson vouchsafed to me prior to my coming here to Geneva his desire to have the bill passed. The power and the potency and the prestige of the President and his office are all behind this new proposed legislation. The bill I am speaking about is more than just an amendment to the immigration law which has remained on our statute book since 1952. That law perpetuated the principle of national origins. an antiquated immigration system proven beyond peradventure of a doubt to be unworkable. and was devised in 1921more than 40 years ago. in an atmosphere of fear bordering on hysteriaa direct result of the unsettled domestic and foreign conditions following World War I. In one of the very first speeches that I ever made in Congress was a speech inveighing and condemning the national origins theory which was embedded in that old law and was embedded in the new law. Now conditions have drastically changed. the climate can be made favorable for decided change. namely the liberalization of our immigration fabric. The fundamental feature of my bill is the elimination from our laws of the fallacious belief that the place of birth or the racial origin of a human being determines the quality or the level of a mans intellect. or his moral character or his suitability for assimilation into our Nation and our society. In searching for a brief and comprehensive description of the underlying principle of my bill I use these words: "We do not intend to ask any immigrant Where were you born? We intend to ask him only Who are you and what can you do for the country in which you. have chosen to live?" There shall no longer be any preference as to race. And as to preferentials as to race and to those who say that my blood is better than your blood. to them I say: Take your blood to the marketplace and see what it will buy you.
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