NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 41
hold to no national allegiance, thereby constituting a danger in all organized
society; or, they too often come imbued with a determination to perpetuate
the ties of racial solidarity and give, at the best, but a divided allegiance to
the United States. Evidences of the activity of racial blocs attempting to
influence congressional aetion for their special benefit have been brought to the
attention of the executive committee. Accordingly, this special meeting of
the chamber has been called to lay before the members the following essential
features of the situation, and to secure a reaffirmation, in a formal and impres-
sive manner, of principles which already have been adopted by this body or
which are logically supplemental to its previous action.
When the Seventieth Congress assembles it is the expressed intention of
some of its Members who represent districts in which alien influence pre-
dominates, to secure the repeal of one of the fundamental provisions of the
immigration act of 1924. The particular section under attack is the national
origins provision. This provides, in substances, that the annual quota of any
nationality for each fiscal year shall be a number which bears the same ratio
to 150,000 (the total number of aliens to be admitted annually) as the number
of inhabitants of that national origin in continental United States in 1920
bears to the total population of continental United States in 1920. The para-
graphs of the acts of 1924, which embody this provision and describe the
methods by which it is to be put into effect, are subsections (b), (e), (dy,
and (e) of section 11, commonly known ag the national origins provision.
The wording of this section and the statements of its proponents in 1924,
demonstrate beyond peradventure of doubt, that it was the infention of
Congress to maintain the racial status quo in the United States as of 1920.
However, in order that the essence of the controversy which has arisen over
this matter in the past three years may he understood, it is necessary to refer
briefly to some of the circumstances which led to the adoption of this method
for the apportionment of immigration quotas.
Prior to the adoption of the first quota act, it became very evident that a
lefinite check by legislation must be put upon immigration into the United
States. Without such action, this country was in danger of being submerged
oy a kind of immigration of a type essentially different in culture and political
experience from the elements which evolve the political institutions under
which this country has prospered for 150 years. The discussion at that time
centered upon a consideration of the characteristics of what are known as the
“old” and “new” streams of immigration. But whatever the relative merits,
intellectually or culturally, of these groups may be, the essential fact, apparent
to everyone, wag that the old immigration from northwestern Europe was
being gradually eliminated. This was because the people originating in that
area could not compete with the low scale of living to which the newer immi-
grants were accustomed by environment and the standards of their fore-
fathers.
Experience demonstrated that the first quota system adopted fa led in two
respects : First, it proved to be an inadequate check on the influx of 1:eople
seeking to land upon our shores’; and, secondly, it failed to divide the immi-
gration in accordance with the relative proportion of the two streams of our
population as a whole, Both of these condifions led to the adoption of the
census of foreign born in 1890 as a rough and ready just division of the
quotas between the two great streams of immigration. It was, nevertheless,
recognized that within each group this arbitrary: method inevitably resulted
in discrimination. For example, there is an obvious inconsistency in a German
quota amounting to 51.227 and the assignment of a quota of only 34,007 to
Great Britain and North Ireland, when the veriest schoolboy is aware that
the contribution of the English, the Welsh, the Scotch, and the S-otch-Irigh
constituted the great hulk of the foundation stock of the American people?
That is to. say, Germany obtained 81 per cent of the total quotas and 32 per
cent of the actual adm’ssions uuder the quota of the last fiscal year, although
It is deducible from the calculations of the committee of Government experts
! The quotas aggregated 357,803 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1924, but the total
net increase of population through immigration ‘as a result of exemptions was 662,557,
or only 672 less than the average net increase of poonlation in the five years preceding
the Great War,
2In fact, owing to the necessity of apportioning the quotas among the Secoteh, Welsh,
North Irish, and certain dependencies overseas falling within the British quota, the actual
number of immigrants admitted from England in the fiscal vear ending June 30, 1926,
was only 10,5949, or roughly, one-fifth of the German quota. (Annual report of the
Commissioner General of Immigration for 1926. Tuble 2. 1 34)
