National origins provision of immigration law

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1796380105

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-196168

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: National origins provision of immigration law

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: Gov. Pr. Off.

Year of publication:: 1929

Scope:: III, 171 S

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Edward R. lewis, chairman executive committee, Immigration Restriction Legislation, Chicago, Ill.

Collection:: Economics Books

NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 105 second consideration. And I want to call your attention to the fact that in Harrisburg this session a bill has been presented by a senator, no doubt by request, that provides that the public business or official business of the State be published in every foreign paper that has been in existence three years, in spite of the fact that we are spending millions of dollars for education every year, and we tolerate that; but I assure you that that bill will never get by first base even, be- cause some of us are on the job in Pennsylvania. I want to call your attention to the fact—and I said the same in Cleveland before our national convention—that there are poli- ticians who are in the districts where the foreign groups live and are listening to the demands of those groups and organized by them, letting in agents of the foreign government who are insisting that the customs and ideas be changed. I am in favor and the Patriotic Citizens Civic League, which I have the honor to be president of, is for maintaining the customs and ideas that our forefathers established in this country and which have made this country. Now, if we can not get into effect this national origins bill at this time, then the solution is to close the ports of im- migration for a period of five years, and an experiment in the interest of unemployment. 1 want to say to you that I fought for that in pur national convention last summer, and in to talking to labor groups and many representatives and contractors, they told me that there are so many labor-saving devices about to go on the market that they are fearful it is going to do away with the employment of many men. By way of illustration, a machine is in operation in Pittsburgh which is operated by 3 men which takes the place of 40. You know what happened in the census bureau where 25 people do the work of a thousand. In the streets of Philadelphia they are paving a square in 24 hours, where it took a week before, and so we go on down the line. Mr. Joseph Steel, president of the Steel Con- struction Co., one of our prominent contractors, said that in the building trade it has got to be met. It is the same way all over the sountry. The labor groups in the United States have gone on record that the ports of immigration ought to be closed in the interest of employment. In Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and other districts they can not work the year around, and that surplus labor could he transported where seasonal labor is needed; and I am of the opin- ion that it would stop the objection and it would be a fair and square deal not only to Americans but to every man who comes from some other shore, and they could not object to the doors of immigration being closed on all ports, and I sincerely hope there are Members of the House and the Senate who will bring in such a bill this session. [f we do not get it through this session, then President-elect Hoover will include that in his call: that that be considered as a thing that concerns the welfare of the American people. I want to say to you along that line it is a vital question, and it will solve the problem. As an illustration, we see in Philadelphia, and we see it in other large cities being allowed to go into the hands of foreign born, while the American stock, the stock that made America, live out in the suburbs, leaving the influence not only of taxes but the influence that delegation in the legislative halls of State and Nation to mold

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