Should The U.S. Admit 240,000 Immigrants? - That was the big question in 1953
(Sen. Leverett Saltonstall - big believer in immigration - and a Republican, no less)
In 1953 the big question was to allow 240,000 immigrants, many of whom were from Iron Curtain countries, passage to the U.S. The McCarran Walter Act was already the established law that allowed over 100,000 immigrants to settle in the U.S. The new bill would increase that amount to over 340,000 and the resistance came, from all people Rep. Francis E. Walter, who co-authored the original bill. Walter felt it would open the floodgates for "undesirables and communists" and put a burden on an already overflowing work force.
The American Forum program of July 12, 1953 staged a debate between Rep. Walter and Sen. Leverett Saltonstall.
Sen. Leverett Saltonstall: “If we here in the United States haven’t put into our people who have come over from other countries either in the first generation or the second generation the feeling that we’ve got something here for them in the cause of freedom and in cause of advancement for themselves, then we’ve failed in our effort if we let these people who come in convince them that everything in this country is wrong. If that’s so they wouldn’t want to come in anyway it seems to me.”
Certainly a far cry from the current debate on Immigration, at least there's no Red Scare. But it's interesting to note that the argument over immigration is an old one and will probably continue for generations.
Just a slight difference between legal immigration and illegal , the numbers here are not even remotely comparable either ... not to mention 1953 and 2010 , circumstances are just a tad different don't you think ? The fifties were the boom years , back then the American dream was real and possible .
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all."
I think Gordon understands that.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
on PBS News Hour from both sides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wlO3jXd2CM
You haven't gone back far enough. In 1933, Jews could still leave Eastern Europe. The State Department never issued the number of visas allowed amid complaints that those foreigners didn't understand the American culture and would somehow destroy our way of live. In 1938, there was a bill in the Senate to allow 20,000 children, CHILDREN, all of whom had guarantees that they would not become a public charge. The bill never came up for a vote. What xenophobes don't understand is that immigrants don't change America, America changes immigrants.
Joe5348
240,000 is just under the number of illegals arrested attempting to cross the border from Mexico into Arizona. Of course, the total number of illegals who actually got past the border patrol is about twice that.
...how far back this goes, xenophobia has an even longer, and sorrier, history.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was probably the low point.
But as if to demonstrate our schadenfreude on this subject, from about the time Lady Liberty and her empty, self-deluding inscription was erected, calls to "seal the borders" have been going on.
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