Mr. President. I have been involved. as a member of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization since February. with the processes which have led to the presentation to the Senate of the pending bill. I believe I can truthfully say that the bill in its present form is a result of the legislative process working in its finest fashion. The bill represents the combined efforts of many men who entertain divergent views upon many aspects of the legislation. and it represents a compromise of those divergent positions of interested members of the subcommittee on various features of the bill. In its present form. it is a bill which I can support with good grace. I do not know whether I could have said that in February. because I frankly concede that I believe in the national origins quota system of the McCarranWalter Act. and had I been permitted to have my way in the framing of the bill. I should have retained the national origins quota system of that act. I wish to say a few words as to the reason why I believedand still believethat the national origins quota system of the McCarranWalter Act presents a desirable formula for the admission of immigrants for permanent residence and ultimate citizenship in the United States. I disagree with the view that the national origins quota system devised by those two great American legislators. Senator Pat McCarran and Representative Francis Walter. is discriminatory either in purpose or in effect. To be sure. the national origins quota system prescribed by the act which bears the names of those two eminent Americans gave larger quotas to certain of the countries of western and northern Europe than to countries elsewhere in the Eastern Hemisphere. It did so for what I conceive to have been a very good reason. that is. because the people who originally came to the United States from those countries and their descendants constituted the major portion of the population. and thus had made the greatest contributions to the culture and development of America. In making that statement.
Identified stereotypes
People from Western and Northern Europe made the greatest contributions to the culture and development of America.