Speech #890139724

For those who worry about our image overseas and in the eyes of foreigners. I will have more to say about that in a few minutes. To return to the historical development of immigration in the United States. in the 32 years between 1850 and 1882. more than 200.000 Chinese immigrated to the United States. which almost approximated the same number of immigrants from all over the world who came to these shores in the first 70 years of our Colonial existence. The famine in the Canton region of China is said to be responsible for the huge Chinese immigration in the latter half of the 19th century. Who knows what future famine may occur in northern Brazil. in India or in Asia. which may cause similar mass migration to this country if the national origins system is abandoned. We have become a Nation highly industrialized. highly urbanized. with a rural population dwindling swiftly with each passing year. With our vast amount of land in this country our coastal areas are being swamped with population increases. I do not have the figures available. but I believe it is almost a certainty that most of the immigrants who have come to this country in the last 20 or 30 years have settled in the large urban areas of the Nation. particularly the east and west coasts. I am reminded of Thomas Jeffersons partiality for an agrarian system. when he wrote to James Madison in 1787. He said: This reliance cannot deceive us as long as we remain virtuous. and I think we shall be so as long as agriculture is our principal object. which will be the case while there remain vacant lands in any part of America. When we get piled upon one another in large cities as In Europe. we shall become corrupt as in Europe. and go to eating one another as they do there. Who can look at our great cities today and say unequivocally that Jefferson was wrong? Make no mistake about the immigrants who come to this country. They are not going to go down on the farm. the farm does not need them. They are going to install themselves in the Harlems. the Watts. the South Bostons and other overcrowded areas. plagued by poverty. ignorance and disease. The attempt to diffuse and assimilate the Hungarian refugees of 1956 failed miserably. By and large they returned to the big cities. In 1891. Congress passed the second general immigration law and provided for the medical inspection of all newly arrived immigrants. It barred paupers. polygamists and those suffering from contagious diseases. That law also provided for the deportation of all aliens illegally admitted to the United States. and further created the Office of Superintendent of Immigration. Between 1893 and 1907. Congress passed several laws to further tighten the restrictions on the admission of the insane. professional beggars. anarchists and other undesirables. It was also during this time that Congress empowered the President to enter into international agreements regulating immigration. and this led to the socalled gentlemens agreement which Theodore Roosevelt made with Japan. In 1917 Congress codified all previous provisions which applied to the exclusion of aliens and included in this list of ineligibles. persons who were illiterate. psychopathic. chronic alcoholics. vagrants. and persons entering for immoral purposes. The law also prevented immigration of persons coming. from the geographical area known as the Asiatic barred zone. In 1921 Congress enacted the first quota law and it limited the number of any nationality entering the United States to 3 percent of foreignborn persons of that nationality who lived in the United States in 1910. Under this law. approximately 350.000 aliens were permitted to enter the country each year. In 1924. Congress enacted the first permanent quota law and -provided for the national origins system which. however. did not become effective until July 1929. From 1924 to 1929. the quota was set at 2 percent of the foreignborn residents in the United States in 1890. This reduced the yearly quota to about 164.667 persons.