50 NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 
Senator Nye. Not at all. 
The Cratrman. Then, I suggest you pass to another subject, be- 
cause the matter of constitutionalitv. unless Senator Reed desires it 
particularly—— 
Senator Reep. No. I myself have never heard a lawyer even ques- 
tion the constitutionality of any of these bases of calculating the 
quota. 
The CuArMAN . If in these hearings anybody shall attack it here- 
after, we will give you ample opportunity to respond. 
Mr. Trevor. Thank you. I would like to curtail my remarks as 
far as possible. 
The CramrmaN. Let us eliminate that portion then. 
Mr. Trevor. Yes; I will eliminate all further reference to that. 
Now, as to the question of accuracy of the statistics: All the organ- 
izations which I represent are so perfectly convinced of the absolute 
impartiality and integrity of Doctor Hill and his associates that we 
never for a moment questioned that a perfectly fair apportionment 
of the population has been made. 
The question of accuracy, of course, is relative. Absolute accuracy 
in any census has never been attained. It probably was more nearly 
attained in the earlier census than it has ever been attained in the 
more recent census. Therefore, I would like to speak briefly and say 
that our understanding of the purposes of Congress in passing the 
act of 1924 was to maintain an approximation of the status quo of 
our population as it was in 1920. 
Now, that was very specifically stated in the House reports. I will 
not burden you with repeating what is already a matter of public 
record, but the public at large who have been talking against the na- 
tional origins provisions are not aware that that was the attitude un- 
questionably of the Congress and the committees before this act of 
1924 was passed. 
It hag already been set forth, and Doctor Hill has testified before 
this committee, that the 1890 census base in no way represents a 
cross section of the population. That is perfectly obvious. We 
would be talking German to-day or some other languages if that did 
represent it; and I would like to say in that connection that when 
the United States Government drafted the youth of the country into 
the war it never would have considered for a moment the idea of 
taking an arbitrary census bage as the basis for the draft; it took all 
the people, and it is on that basis that we are arguing here to-day. 
And we believe that those figures worked out by the board of experts 
are substantially accurate. 
In that connection it has been repeatedly asserted, as I have 
already alluded to in my testimony, the fact that the 1890 census 
ficures were absolutely based on a known and established body of 
statistics, and it is said that the divergencies between the preliminary 
report of the committee of experts, and their final report is sufficient 
to discredit the final report. 
It is not generally known that there are much greater divergencies 
in the principal quotas concerned, and I believe in every quota 
there is greater or less divergence, between the figures which were 
submitted to Congress as representative of what 2 per cent of the 
1890 foreign-born would be, and those which were subsequently pro-