Speech #890139702

But in 1878 the number dropped back to 150.000. In 1882 came a continuance of the Irish famine. together with the rise of militarism in Germany. These events accounted for the largest number of Immigrants. and in that year 800.000 came to this country. In 1898. when we were still in the tail end of the depression of 1893. which was probably the fifth or sixth major economic dislocation in this country. there came. even then. 200.000 immigrants. But a peak was reached in 1905. for in that year 1.250.000 people came from foreign shores. When the depression struck after black Friday in 1929and. as I recall. October 19 of that year was on a Friday. so it was not unlike the black Friday of 1873people abroad knew full well the difficulties that we were experiencing. and our immigration fell to about 40.000. The number has shuttled from that time on. generally in the area of 250.000 a year. So we became immigration conscious. and Congress began to take note. In 1924. we heard the very first effort to develop the socalled national origins concept. In that yearand that was during the Coolidge administrationthe socalled origins concept was offered on two different occasions in the House of Representatives and was defeated on both occasions. It remained for the Senate to take the initiative and to write that idea into an immigration act in that year. At first. It was felt that by using a factor of 2 percent based on the number of any given nationality in this country. as determined in the 1890 census. that would be a broad formula to determine the number that should come in from abroad.