Opposition to the Operation of National Origins Plan Spreads

Senator Shipstead, Farmer-Labor representative of Minnesota, made public a statement which he has filed with the Senate Committee on Immigration in which he questions the accuracy of the sources of the information upon which the estimated immigration quotas to be admitted under the National Origins provision of the immigration law are based.

The Senator asserts that the Committee by its action upon previous occasions “has discarded the report of the Commission appointed by law and if the National Origins Clause is to be put into effect and used as a basis for our immigration policy it can only be done by amending the Immigration Act of 1924.”

“Until 1890, we find there was no complete classification made of the national origins of he parents of the American population by the Census Bureau,” Senator Shipstead declared. “This is an admission of Dr. Hill in the hearings conducted by your Committee. It seems to me, therefore that the record as well as the law rules out the ‘rate of increase as shown by successive decennial United States Censuses.’

“There remains then ‘such other data as may be found to be reliable.’ What that data is and how reliable it may be is for the Committee to determine. In passing upon the reliability of whatever remaining data there may be, I am sure it is not necessary to warn the Committee against going astray on testimony presented by people whose mental complex seems biased by international and racial prejudices and inhibitions always latent to some extent in the human breast.

“The law does not provide that the Committee shall consult the opinions and prejudices of our various racial or national groups. The law specifically provides that the Commission of Cabinet officers shall search the records for facts. The law does not provide the Commission shall search emotions for prejudices. It is plain that the same provisions of law apply to the Committee. The Congress of the United States legislates under the provisions of the Constitution. It is not within the province of Congress to legislate for or against any person or group representing any nationality composing its citizenship. We legislate as Americans. The Constitution does not distinguish between racial groups.

“I think on reading the report of the Committee on experts that they have arbitrarily divided the American population into two classes. The native American stock and the immigrant stock. The native American stock is held by the Committee of experts to be composed of those whose ancestors were here before 1790, and that part of our population whose ancestors came (Continued on Page 4)

here after 1790 are designated as immigrants and the children of immigrants. This arbitrary classification is the foundation of the report of the Committee. I would like to know how this Committee of ‘experts’ discovered that the population of the United States prior to 1790 were not immigrants or children of immigrants.

“That is a new theory that I nominate to stand on a par with Dr. Einstein’s Fourth and Fifth Dimensions, interesting for speculative purposes but surely not to be relied on to form the foundation of an American immigration policy. I know of no provision of law nor do I desire any such that may prohibit those whose ancestors were here before 1790 from purchasing for themselves championship belts for the purpose of designating to the world that they are the only simon pure’ Americans. But for purposes of legislation we can not distinguish or give any preferred status to any particular group.

“The law specifically confers the duties of finding the facts upon a Commission of three Cabinet officers. This Commission has made its report. It is evident that the report of the Cabinet officers based upon the work of their ‘experts’ satisfies the Committee that the data is not of such a character that it was sufficient to comply with the provisions of section C of the Immigration Act. I, therefore, assume that the present hearings have been extended by the Committee to other sources in the hope that it may find such other data as may be found to be reliable.’ How scientific and how reliable such testimony may have been as presented to the Committee by the various witnesses appearing before it is for the Committee to determine. Sources enumerated in the law have been searched and found wanting.

“It is therefore plain that the Committee has discarded the report of the Commission appointed by law and if the National Origins Clause is to be put into effect and used as a basis for our immigration policy it can only be done by amending the Immigration Act of 1924. If that is the intention of the Committee I assume its recommendations will be based upon information obtained in public hearings, and will be political in character since the scientific and statistical data to which we are limited under the law is not found to be reliable,” the Senator concluded.

The immigration law has many inequalities and many rough edges, declared Benjamin Day, Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island, in his address before the School of Politics of the Women’s National Republican Club on “Immigration on the American Continent.”

“The National Origins bill,” Mr. Day said, “which is now before Congress, is as complicated as Professor Einstein’s latest formula, and I hope that it will be eliminated entirely from our legislative records. It is not only impracticable, but unworkable.”

“In any consideration of immigration legislation,” Mr. Day continued, “it seems to me we should consider and recognize two basic principles, that of selective immigration as found in the law of 1882, and of numerical limitation as in the law of 1921. I believe any contemplated change which would seriously interfere with either of these two principles would receive scant attention at the hands of Congress and would not reflect the determined thought of all Americans on the subject of immigration.”