President Hoover, in his message read today before both houses of Congress, expressed approval of immigration restriction, but indicated his dissatisfaction with the percentage basis of the quota system and recommended that Congress devise a new system based on the fitness of the immagrants as to physique, character, training and “our need of service.” The President suggested some system of priorities within the quotas, which at the same time might clear up some of the hardships manifest in the present system.
The full text of the portion of the President’s message dealing with immigration follows:
“Restriction of immigration has from every aspect proved to be a sound national policy. Our pressing problem is to formulate a method by which the limited number of immigrants whom we do welcome shall be adapted to our national setting and our national needs.
“I have been opposed to the quotas now in force and I have hoped that we could find some practical method to secure what I believe should be our real national objective; that is, fitness of the immigrant as to physique, character, training and our need of service. Perhaps some system of priorities within the quotas could produce these results and at the sometime enable some hardships in the present system to be cleared up. I recommend that the Congress should give the subject further study, in which the executive departments will gladly cooperate with the hope of discovering such a method as will more fully secure our national necessities.”
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.
