National Origins of American Population Cannot be Traced (By our Washington Correspondent)
A plea for the repeal of the “national origins” clause in the immigration restriction law, was made by Senator Shipstead of Minnesota. Mr. Shipstead declared there is not sufficient data upon which to base “national origins” quotas and therefore legislative authority is delegated to members of the executive branch of the government.
Senator Shipstead argued:
The controversy over the “national origins” clause of the Immigration Act has been misrepresented so as to be made to appear a controversy over increasing or decreasing numerically the number of immigrants that can come to this country. This misrepresentation is very unfortunate because it gives a false statement of fact.
The repeal of the “national origins” ## has nothing to do with the question of the number of people that shall be permitted to come here each year. The effort to repeal the “national origins” ## has been characterized as an stock upon the immigration law of 1924.
It is nothing of the kind. It is, in fact, as effort to prevent the law from becoming ##.
My reason for asking for the elimination of the “national origin” method to determine the quota of each country is that I find that we have not sufficient official or other data upon which to deter? the quota of each country upon this basis and that it would lead to discrimination between, different nationalities, which is just what Congress diligently endeavored to avoid in passing the Immigration Act of 1924.
I night say also that the reason I voted against the immigration law, when it one back from the House and from the conference is because I began to have an inkling of where this would lead us. I have given considerable study to the batter since, and I have come to the concision that there is no basis upon which this can be reckoned to determine what is the “national origin” of the various ##.
therefore the yardstick by which we treasure under this provision is not based on anything about which we have exact ##.
The purpose of the “national origin” plan is to divide all immigrants exactly in accordance with the “national origin” of our population. If this could be done, it might be an ideal plan.
Paragraphs (b) and (c) of Section 11 of the Immigration Act of 1924 reads as follows:
“(b) The annual quota of any nationality for the fiscal year beginning July 1,1927, and for each year thereafter, shall be a number which wears the same ration to 1,500,000 as the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920 having that national origin (ascertained as hereinafter provided in this. section) bears to the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920, but the minimum quota of any nationality shall be 100.
“(c) For the purpose of subdivision (b), national origin shall be ascertained by determining as nearly as may be, in respect of each geographical area which under section 12 is to be treated as a separate country (except the geographical areas specified in subdivision (c) of section 4), the number of inhabitants in continental United States in 1920 whose origin by birth or ancestry is attributable to such geographical area.
“Such determination shall not be made by tracing the ancestors or descendants of particular individuals, but shall be based upon statistics of immigration and emigration, together with rates of increase of population as shown by successive decennial United States censuses, and such other data as may be found to be reliable.”
It will be seen from the above that the most important element in this determination is “statistics of immigration and emigration.” The next important element is “rates of increase of population as shown in successive decennial United States censuses.”
As reliable statistics of immigration and emigration are not in existence, the whole plan fails and leaves the determination to mere guesswork or conjecture. Dr. Edward McSweeney, former Assistant Commissioner of Immigration, has made a statement on that. He said:
“In 1819 a law was passed making it necessary for the captains of all incoming ships, bringing passengers to the United States, to file a manifest of the passengers but except to give the number of the passengers to the Government was never other than perfunctory and almost never used. These accumulated manifests were burned in the Ellis Island fire of 1896.
“The first real attempt to gather immigration statistics was made, after the Immigration Bureau was established in the early nineties.”
So that brings us down to 1896. Considerable emphasis has been laid on the fact that a census was taken in the year 1790 and that this census can be used as a basis for determining the “national origin” of the inhabitants of the United States in that year; but this census is of no value for that purpose, because only names and ages were given in this census and no information can be secured as to nationality or “national origin.”
In 1906 Congress passed a law providing that the Director of the Census be authorized and directed to publish in permanent form, by counties and minor subdivisions, the names of the families returned at the first census of the United States in 1790.
Speaking of the difficulties in this work. William S. Rositer, then chief clerk of the Census Bureau, stated in Outlook for December 29, 1906, page 1071, with reference to the correspondence between the Secretary of State and the marshals in the different districts who had charge of the census:
“The break in official records is one of the marks of the teeth of the British lion. These papers and many others have been destroyed during the occupation of Washington in the War of 1812.”
Several eminent scholars have written extensive articles for the magazines showing the futility of trying to arrive at the “national origin” of the white inhabitants of the United States, among which are mentioned Dr. Edward F. McSweeney, former assistant immigration commissioner at New York, and Dr. Roy L. Garis, professor of economics in Vanderbilt University.
We have the official evidence of every committee, commissioner, and person who has had an opportunity to study the “national origins” clause of the Immigration Act unanimously stating that the method is so unreliable and unworkable that it is inadvisable to use this method for the determination of our national quotas. The Government of the United States can not afford to use such flimsy material as a foundation for its very important immigration policy, Senator Shipstead concluded.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
