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