Speech #890138273

This was the purpose of the numerical limitations imposed under the national origins formula. and such numerical limitation based on an invariable formula is not unjust discrimination. Those provisions which denied quotas to persons because of race have been removed from our law. and to charge that the present formula is based on a policy of deliberate discrimination is just not based on fact. Our immigration policy as embodied in our quota law recognizes that people are different and that nations are different and that all have made a contribution to the growth and development of this country. but because of their very differences their contribution has varied. The fact that we recognize that different peoples made different contributions to the great American amalgamation does not mean that we are saying that one is superior to the other. We are saying that we believe that our legal. political and social systems derived from a population composed of persons of those great differences. and that we further believe that the preservation of this new American culture and the fundamental institutions of this Nation can most likely be preserved and strengthened by the preservation of the relative proportions of those different people in our society. Again. this does not mean that we say that one group is superior or another group is inferior. but simply that various groups of people are different. The Immigration and Nationality Act does not set forth any theory of racial or ethnic superiority. nor is there valid ground for saying there is an implication of racial or ethnic inferiority. though some persons for purely selfserving purposes seek to drawsuch an inference. Mr. President. I believe that it would be interesting to read a commentary on the national origins quota system which appeared in an editorial in the New York Times on March 1. 1924. when Congress was considering legislation which it ultimately enacted as the 1924 Quota Act embodying national origins quotas: In formulating a permanent policy two considerations are of prime importance. The first is that the country has a right to say who shall and who shall not come in. It is not for any foreign country to determine our immigration policy. The second is that the basis for restriction must be chosen with a view not to the interest of any group or groups in this country. whether racial or religious. but rather with a view to the countrys best interests as a whole. The great test is assimilability.