Westbrook Pegler: Immigration Should Be More Closely Regulated Doctor Santiago M. Peralta, the own native law that guilt is perdirector of migration of the Argen- sonal and individual and that the tine republic, recently announced accused must have a 1 fair trial. that Argentina would welcome immigrants in accordance with her necessities. I submit that this The solicitation to Europe inproposition is wise and should be scribed in bronze on Statue of our own guide. Liberty to "give 1 me the wretched In the case of the Argentine, refuse of your teeming shores" is a farmers are preferred. I do not poetic expression which Americans know what the "necessities" are may disavow in patriotism, dignity which should guide the United and legitimate self-interest. If the States in a selection of immigrants subject be approved without emoas to their crafts, but, whatever tion, it must be admitted that they may be, we have a right to "wretched refuse," even though the adopt our own discriminations for phrase be ironic, suggests the inour own national benefit. clusion of persons who are undesirable as immigrants by any fair consideration of our nation's rights. To those who will raise the most There is no merit in the assumption abusive protest against this proposal I would interrupt to point out that this has been our practice in selecting refugees from Europe ever since Hitler began to rise. This was stated officially to the foreign relations committee of the House of Representatives in secret session on November 26, 1943, by Breckenridge Long, who had command of a special division of the State department dealing with the refugee problem. Long said an advisory committee arbitrarily decided that certain individuals were "worthy to be saved in the cause of humanity -intellectuals - that is, authors, painters, orators, statesmen, political leaders and publishers of newspapers; men who, because of their race, religion, political beliefs and opposition to the Nazi regime would be killed." I challenge Long's calm assumption that the "cause of humanity" was better served thus than it would have been served by the rescue of farmers, mechanics, or miners, who instead were left behind to die because this committee had decided that "intellectuals" were more precious. I have closely observed "intellectuals" in New York, Washington and Hollywood for a quarter of a century and state with authority that they are no more valuable to "humanity" than other persons. I contend, also, that we had no special need of such specialists. If Long had said that we selected individuals whose personal acquaintance, military and political information or scientific knowledge gave reasonable promise that they would be uncommonly helpful to us, as a nation, in the impending war, he would have made it difficult to c criticize his admission. But he didn't say that and, in saying what he did y say, he prepared a good ground for anyone who now argues that we have absorbed enough of such "intellectuals" and should consult our own "necessities" in the selection of further immigrants. It is necessary to point out that the selection of immigrants from Europe is now and for some years past has been made on the basis of religion and racial or mass guilt. We are imitating Adolf Hitler, in reverse, when Germans, "suspected" of sympathizing with the Nazi regime, are arbitrarily rejected by our consuls when they apply for quota visas. Few "Aryan" Germans can escape such "suspicion" but all so-called "non-Aryans" obviously are above suspicion. The result is that we honor Hitler's own infamous doctrine and abandon our that the United States owes asylum to all those who are wretched merely because they are wretched, or to anyone else. Immigration is a privilege, not a right. The privilege should be regulated in the practical interests of the nation and the people who comprise it. Any regard for the wretchedness of the applicant should be understood to be a generous favor from the people of the United States, to be extended or denied, at will, by those people. The disclosures in the Garsson case recently provoked new inquirles into a system of frauds, attended by bribery, in the immigration service after the first war. In the recent and current sivuation, the possibilities and temptations are greater than they ever were before. And, inasmuch as the government itself has warped, evaded and frankly violated the immigration laws and connived at schemes which mocked the law, common sense must suspect that bribery and discrimination are the rule today. It is a grievous but durable fallacy that immigrants come to the United States because they love "democracy" and liberty. They come here for various ignoble motives and advantages. Judge John C. Knox, the senior judge of the United States' district court, a distinguished liberal appointee of Woodrow Wilson, wrote: "I am afraid that a very substantial portion of all applicants apply for citizenship for narrowly selfish or sordid reasons. Thousands of aliens, resident here for years and thoughtless of citizenship while earnings were good, have become 'good Americans' merely in order to get on relief." * * * President Wilson, surely no nazi, write that the immigrant the last century obliged American| statesmen to accommodate affairs ta a day of new alien forces which dominated all they did. "If men looked for an issue, here was one: the preservation of the country's institutions in the face such inroads, the maintenance of a safe ascendancy in affairs for those born to the politics and manners of America," he wrote. The quick retort contempt for the native and in equally intemperate praise of the immigrant selects some spectacular native criminal for comparison with some distinguished immigrant. That is no more fair nor convincing, however, than to select such an immigrant as Charlie Chaplin and compare him to the most illustrial native of our time. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 20. 22. 23. 24. 26. 29 30 30 29 38 43 52 jr., Wore song