Intimations that a drive is already under way to bring about early Congressional action for an absolute stoppage of immigration into the United States are made by Representative Albert Johnson, of Washington, chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and sponsor of the restriction act of 1924, in a statement which appears in “Eugenics,” published here. “The country wants more and more restriction,” Mr. Johnson says. “Both Senate and House will give substantial authority to a long time suspension bill.”
Mr. Johnson appears as one of several contributors to a symposium in the magazine on the national origin provision. Dr Lucian Sowe, of Harvard, who died Friday; Prof. Robert Dec. Ward, also of Harvard, and Madison Grant, author and trustee of the American Museum of Natural History, are other contributors. Mr. Grant is the only one to foresee with Mr. Johnson absolute suspension of immigration.
“No one acquainted with the fundamental truth of genetics as applied to humanity in eugenics can oppose the principle of immigration restrictions,” Mr. Johnson says in opening his statement. “No one wants to see his country made the dumping ground for the weak and unfit of other peoples. I am now of the opinion that we are rapidly approaching the time when a suspension of immigration will be demanded. Exemption will be made only for the closest relatives. Should the national origins provision be put into effect the situation will be made more acute, and more groups in the United States will call for relatives.
“For instance, in Norway there are now standing in line waiting for visas 3,000 wives and children of alien husbands who have entered the United States since 1924 under Norway’s annual quotas. Proposals to restrict immigration from Mexico, South America and Canada cannot be made on the same basis. To restrict from Mexico on 2 per cent of the 1924 Mexican population in the United States will not fit in with the national origins plan. We need no labor except domestic servants, and we cannot hope to help the future of the United States with the arrival of a continuous line of servants of all degrees. The country wants more and more restrictions.”
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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.
