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 Dr. Herbert Friedenwald, Washington, D.C.

Collection:: Economics Books

NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 57 man, of a family of distinction in the military and political life of the State of Hanover. Naturally they are North Germans or Teutons, or as is now the fashion to term them Nordics—though I never use that awful name, as I abandoned calling people names I don’t understand ever since, when a youth in England, I called an Englishman a “ bloody some- thing or other—1I escaped with my life. } I have in my possession a photograph of a painting, of one of my mother’s ancestors who was an officer in the Hanoverian Army. This young man of the name of Ahlborn, my great-grandfather, became enamored of a beautiful young Jewess of the name of Solomons, whose portrait I also own, and succumbed to such an extent that he became a convert to Judaism in order that he might marry this fascinating young Jewess, Their son, my grandfather, left Hanover and settled first in Liver- pool, and then in Manchester, England. My mother was born in Manchester. When she was an infant she was taken to Dublin, Ire- land, where she received her education, and in Dublin, on St. Pat- rick’s Day of about 1850 was born her only brother, Arthur Ahlborn. When she was still a minor, she and her brother and sister were brought to this country by her father and mother, who settled in St. Louis, where my father met and married her. I was born in Balti- more of this ancestry; religiously and racially Jewish on my father’s side, of people accidentally born in Germany; on my mother’s side I am the son of a woman born in England, raised in Treland, married in the United States to a natural-born American citizen, but, inas- much as my mother is of the ancestry just related to you, I appeal to you, Mr. Chairman, to inform me, after I have concluded my brief remarks (because I am unable to determine this for myself), what my national origin is. And 1f you find this ready of solution, I beg to ask you to deter- mine for her the national origin of my first cousin (now resident of Baltimore) who bears the name of Ahlborn, the only living child of my mother’s brother, born in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day, of mixed Jewish and Teutonic origin, so far as I am able to resolve this complicated situation, which to my mind is, after all, of very minor significance in the determination of one’s fitness for citizenship. I am not so much disturbed as some others might be about the determination of my national origin, because I am a natural-born citizen, as is my wife, and I am under the aegis of the Constitution of the United States. But there are millions of just as good citizens and prospective citizens as myself in this country, as to whose racial origin there are just as great complications involved as in my own case, and it is for their protection that I urge you not to burden our next President (who will have problems sufficient brought to his attention) with this problem which in my humble opinion is one wholly incapable of solution on any basis that has so far been suggested. Moreover, as I have referred to my Hanoverian ancestors, none of whom were among the mercenaries who fought against us in the Revolutionary War, I beg leave to read from a volume of the Journals of the Continental Congress, printed while that Congress was in session. I own-the only complete set of the original Journals

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