14 NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 
EXAMINATION OF IMMIGRANTS ABROAD 
Before concluding this report, it is necessary to deal briefly with two other 
problems which have not been solved, or, at least, in the case of the first to be 
discussed, only partially covered by administrative action. The members of 
the chamber of commerce are probably aware that through the initiative of the 
Secretary of Labor, great advances have been made in thé examination of 
immigrants abroad, which represents the accomplishment in part of an aspira- 
tion embodied in reports adopted by the chamber of commerce in years past. 
The full benefit of this system, however, is apparently not to be obtained with- 
out legislative direction, that the applicants for admission be not merely 
examined abroad, but that the best material be selected within each national 
quota and the priority rule be abolished, Tt is further suggested that the 
selective principle within each national quota be extended to permit the Secre- 
tary of Labor, in the case of heads of families, to secure preference in the 
assignment of future visas for members of acceptable immigrant families, 
IMMIGRANTS FROM MEXICO AND SOUTH AMERICA 
The second matter, completely unsolved, relates to the influx of a hetero- 
geneous mass of immigrants from Mexico, the West Indies, and South America, 
Great numbers of these people have spread as far Northeast as Cleveland, 
Detroit, and Pittsburgh. No one familiar with sanitary conditions in many of 
the countries south of the Ric Grande can fail to recognize the fact that this 
class of immigrant constitutes a perpetual menace to the health of the com- 
munity. . It is wholly illogical to limit the European entrants and admit these 
people outside the quota. The executive committee is well aware of the eco- 
nomic arguments which have been, and will be, advanced, by certain elements 
in our population, who seek to profit by peon labor in the field or in the shop, 
but the committee is confident from the previous action of this chamber that all 
its members recognize that national welfare transcends any temporary incon- 
venience or selfish consideration. The United States is not a mere geographical 
expression for an area devoted to intensive economic exploitation, but a nation 
of people in the aggregate inspired by high ideals of service to mankind at home 
or abroad. It is for the preservation of these ideals and our institutions and 
government, handed on to us in trust by our forbears, the founders of the 
Republic, that the executive committee urges the adoption of the following 
preamble and resolutions : 
PREAMBLE AND RESOLUTIONS 
Whereas the members of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New 
York are advised that alien groups are seeking by political pressure upon indi- 
vidual representatives of the people to influence the action of Congress, in 
behalf of special interests of their own, or of the Nation from which they have 
sprung ; and 
Whereas the members of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New 
York believe these activities tend to the perpetuation of race solidarity and 
political feuds or jealousies, wholly foreign to our national interests; and 
Whereas the American people have throughout the history of the Nation 
accepted immigrants on a basis of equality, one with another and with them- 
selves, it is expedient that the old and the new stocks be treated on a basis of 
this same equality in the apportionment of whatever immigration quotas may 
be considered assimilable in the future; and 
Whereas it is illogical and inequitable to apply the quota system to the 
countries of Europe whence the hulk of our population has heen derived and 
leave wide open our gates to immigrants from the independent countries of 
North and South America and the Islands of the West Indies: Therefore he it 
Resolved, That the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York indorses 
the immigration act of 1924 and urges that the immigration quotas be revised 
in accordance with the final report of the committee of Government experts, 
and put into effect July 1, 1928; and be it further 
Resolved, That it is also the sense of the Chamber of Commerce of the State 
of New York that the quota system embodied in the immigration act of 1924 
be extended by supplementary legislation to the independent countries of North 
and South America and the islands of the West Indies; and be it further