-
https://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/files/original/7d55c0a01b6ba833a8617f64982f9511.pdf
b08994cac994d3ab3db3ec600a166c0b
PDF Text
Text
FOIA Number:
2006-0469-F (2)
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting
Series/Staff Member:
Michael Waldman
Subseries:
14537
OA/ID Number:
FolderlD:
Folder Title:
Immigration Briefing Book [1]
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
S
92
4
7
3
�PORTLAND STATE BRIEFING BOOK
INDEX
Book Reports
• •' • • 1. The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration,
edited by James Smith and Barry Edmonston.
A. Speeches of President Clinton
•
1. Anniversary of Integration: Central High School, September 25, 1997
2. Race Initiative: UC San Diego Commencement, June 14, 1997
B. Speeches of Past Presidents
' ' ' 1. Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation of Thanksgiving, October 20, 1864
2. Woodrow Wilson, "Too Proud to Fight," May 10, 1915
3. Theodore Roosevelt, "Americanism," October 12, 1915
4. Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic," April 23, 1910
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Remarks to the Daughters of the American Revolution, April
21, 1938
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Address on Hemisphere Defense, October 12, 1940
7. John F. Kennedy, "The Immigrant Contribution," A Nation of Immigrants
8. Lyndon Johnson, Immigration Bill Signing, October 3, 1965
9. Richard Nixon, Remarks at Albuquerque, November 4, 1972
:
C. Articles on Immigration
1. William Booth, "One Nation, Indivisible: Is it History?" Washington Post, February
22, 1998.
2. David Kennedy, "Can We still Afford to Be a Nation of Immigrants," Atlantic
Monthly, November 1996.
3. George Borjas, "The New Economics of Immigration," Atlantic Monthly, November
1996.
4. Peter Salins, "Toward a New Immigration Policy," Commentary, January 1997.
5. Bill McKibben, "Immigrants Aren't the Problem, We Are," New York Times, March 9,
1998.
6. Dick Kirschten, "Green Grows the Immigration Debate," National Journal, March 7,
1998.
7. John Cushman, "Sierra Club Rejects Move to Oppose Immigration," New York Times,
April 26, 1998.
8. John Miller, "The Natural izers," Journal of American Citizenship Policy Review, July August 1996.
9. Omar Minaya, "The International National Pastime," New York Times, March 31,
1998.
10. Alejandro Portes, "Global Villagers; The Rise of Transnational Communities,"
American Prospect, March - April 1996.
11. Peter Brimelow, "Time to Rethink Immigration?" National Review, June 22, 1992.
�12. Julian Simon, George Borjas, Ben Wattenberg, Dan Stein, and Robert Bartley
respond to Brimelow's article in, "Why Control the Borders?" National Review,
February 1, 1993.
13. Elton Gallegly, "Why Not Restrict Citizenship?" LA Times, August 17, 1993.
14. George Kennan, "Immigration," Around the Cragged Hill, pp. 151-156.
15. Doris Meissner, Remarks at American Jewish Committee Naturalization Ceremony,
May 13, 1998.
16. William Branigin, "Immigrants Question Idea of Assimilation," Washington Post,
May 25, 1998.
17. John Miller, "Becoming An American," May 26, 1998.
D. Recent News Clips
1. Synopsis for week of April 6. 1998
a) David Westphal, "Immigrant Population Highest Since 1930s," Washington
Times, April 10, 1998. Statistics
b) Michael Fletcher, "In Rapidly Changing L.A., a Sense of Future Conflicts,"
Washington Post, April 7, 1998. Race Relations
c) Pam King, "Opinions on How to Best Teach English to Immigrants Differ,"
Knight Ridder Newspapers, April 6, 1998. Bilingual Education
d) Deroy Murdock, "Bye bye Bilingualism," opinion piece in Washington Times,
April 8, 1998. Bilingual Education
e) Linda Chavez, "Dual Citizenship Dilemma," opinion piece in Washington
Times, April 9, 1998. Mexican Dual Citizenship
f) Walter Shapiro, "Immigration Agency Reform Requires Influx of Leadership,"
opinion piece in USA Today, April 8, 1998. INS
g) Editorial, "Granting Asylum," Washington Post, April 8, 1998. Asylum
h) Walter Shapiro, "Human Faces Enforce Harsh Immigration Law," opinion
piece in USA Today, April 10, 1998. INS
i) Mirta Ojito, "A Long Wait at the American Doorstep," New York Times, April
7,1998. Citizenship Backlog
j) Howard Kurtz, "Feature Article is Bad News for Illegal Immigrants,"
Washington Post, April 6, 1998. Incident
k) Katherine Shaver, "INS Detains 11 in Silver Spring," Washington Post April 7,
1998. Incident
1) AP Wire, "License to Lie," Washington Times, April 8, 1998. Incident
m) Daniela Deane, "Visas for Salvadorans 'Outrage' Women's Kin," USA Today,
April 8, 1998. Incident
2. Synopsis for week of April 13. 1998
a) Sam Howe Verhovek, "Torn Between Nations, Mexican-Americans Can Have
Both," New York Times April 14, 1998. Mexican Dual Citizenship
b) Thomas Friedman, "Help Wanted," opinion piece in New York Times, April 14,
1998. High-Tech Jobs
�c) Eric Schmitt, "Abuses are Cited in Trade of Money for U.S. Residence" New
York Times, April 13, 1998. INS
d) Louis Sahagun, "The West Battles Over Bilingual Education," LA Times, April
17, 1998. Bilingual Education
e) Photo, "The Sweet Taste of Citizenship," USA Today, April 14, 1998.
Incident
3. Synopsis for week of April 20. 1998
a) Mirta Ojito, "A Record Backlog to Get Citizenship Stymies 2 Million," New
York Times, April 20, 1998. Citizenship Backlog
b) Barry Newman, "Sham System: Foreigners Seeking U.S. Work Visa Often
Land in Hell Instead," Wall Street Journal, April 23, 1998. Citizenship
Backlog
c) Jeri Clausing, "Use of Work Visas by Technology Companies is Under Fire,"
New York Times, April 20, 1998. High-Tech Jobs
d) William Branigin, "House Republican Wants Immigration Policy to Favor the
Educated," Washington Post, April 22, 1998. High-Tech Jobs
e) Haya El Nasser, "Study Links Immigrants, Public School 'White Flight'," USA
Today, April 20, 1998. Education
f ) Linda Greenhouse, "Split Court Casts Doubt on a Citizenship Law," New York
Times, April 23, 1998. Incident
g) William Branigin, "Green for Legal Immigrants, Not Forgers," Washington
Post, April 22, 1998. INS
h) Bonnie Hayes, "INS Unveils High-Tech Green Card," LA Times, April 22,
1998. INS
I) Sean Scully, "High-Tech 'Green Card' Debuts," Washington Times, April 22,
1998. INS
j) Pamela Constable, "Honduran Immigrants Wage Hunger Strike," Washington
Post, April 24, 1998. Asylum
k) Mireya Navarro, "Group Forced Illegal Aliens Into Prostitution, U.S. Says,"
New York Times, April 24, 1998. Incident
1) George Lardner, Jr., "16 Charged with Forcing Mexicans into Prostitution,"
Washington Post, April 24, 1998. Incident
m) Jerry Seper, "INS Official Indicted on Cocaine Charges," Washington Times,
April 23, 1998. Incident
E. Portland State University
1. Pamphlet Review
2. Capstone Courses
3. Distinguished Alumni
F. Historical Documents
1. Mayflower Compact
2. INS Citizenship Application and Fact Sheet
�3. " I Am an American Day"
a) President Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Greeting to New Citizens on " I Am an
American Day," May 16, 1940.
b) Judge Learned Hand, "The Spirit of Liberty," remarks at " I Am an American
Day" celebration in New York's Central Park on May 21, 1944.
c) Representative Hatton Sumners (TX), Remarks at I Am an American program
at Hollywood, May 19, 1940.
d) Radio Program Under Auspices of I Am an American Citizenship Foundation,
April 6, 1940.
G. Oregon History and Background
1. Famous First Facts
2. Historical Facts
3. "The History of Oregon," The Smithsonian Guide to Historical America
4. "The State of Oregon," The Encyclopedia of the States
�ADDENDUM TO IMMIGRATION BINDER
THE FOLLOWING WAS MADE ON
MAY 26,1998
B. Speeches of Past Presidents
2. Woodrow Wilson, "Too Proud to Fight," May 10, 1915
C. Articles on Immigration
16. William Branigin, "Immigrants Question Idea of Assimilation," Washington Post,
May 25, 1998.
17. John Miller, "Becoming An America," May 26, 1998.
F. Historical Documents
3. " I Am an American Day"
a) President Franklin D. Roosevelt, A Greeting to New Citizens on " I Am an
American Day" May 16, 1940.
b) Judge Learned Hand, "The Spirit of Liberty," remarks at " I Am an American
Day" celebration in New "York's Central Park on May 21, 1944.
c) Representative Hatton Sumners (TX), Remarks at I Am an American program
at Hollywood, May 19, 1940.
d) Radio Program Under Auspices of I Am an American Citizenship Foundation,
April 6, 1940.
G. Oregon History and Background
1. Famous First Facts
2. Historical Facts
3. "The History of Oregon," The Smithsonian Guide to Historical America
4. "The State of Oregon," The Encyclopedia of the States
�ADDENDUM TO IMMIGRATION BINDER
THE FOLLOWING WAS ADDED ON
MAY 20, 1998
B. Speeches of Past Presidents
1. Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation of Thanksgiving, October 20, 1864
C. Articles on Immigration
2. David Kennedy, "Can We still Afford to Be a Nation of Immigrants," Atlantic
Monthly, November 1996.
3. George Borjas, "The New Economics of Immigration," Atlantic Monthly, November
1996.
4. Peter Salins, "Toward a New Immigration Policy," Commentary, January 1997.
15. Doris Meissner, Remarks at American Jewish Committee Naturalization Ceremony,
May 13, 1998.
E. Portland State University
1. Pamphlet Review
2. Capstone Courses
3. Distinguished Alumni
F. Historical Documents
1. Mayflower Compact
2. INS Citizenship Application and Fact Sheet
�ADDENDUM TO IMMIGRATION BINDER
THE FOLLOWING WAS ADDED ON
MAY 12, 1998
Book Reports
1. The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration,
edited by James Smith and Barry Edmonston.
B. Speeches of Past Presidents
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Remarks to the Daughters of the American Revolution, April
21, 1938
C. Articles on Immigration
3. Dick Kirschten, "Green Grows the Immigration Debate," National Journal, March 7,
1998.
4. John Cushman, "Sierra Club Rejects Move to Oppose Immigration," New York Times,
April 26, 1998.
5. John Miller, "The Naturalizers," Journal of American Citizenship Policy Review, July August 1996.
�Facts on Immigration compiled from
The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration
(edited by James Smith and Barry Edmonston)
Demographic Impact (3-4)
IF NET IMMIGRATION CONTINUES AT ITS CURRENT LEVELS, THEN IN 2050:
•
; There will be 387 million people in the U.S. This is an increase of 124 million, of which
immigration accounts for 80 million, or two-thirds.
•
The Asian population will increase from 9 to 34 million (growing from three to eight
percent of the population).
•
The Hispanic population will increase from 27 million to 95 million (growing from nine
to 25 percent of the population).
•
There will be 53.7 million people enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade, an
increase of 17 million.
Fiscal Impact (9)
The average burden for each native household for the difference between what
immigrant-headed households receive in services and pay in taxes is between $166 and $226.
The study suggests three reasons why immigrants receive more in government services than they
contribute in taxes.
•
Immigrant-headed households include more school-age children on average.
•
Immigrant-headed households have lower incomes and own less property, and therefore
pay less in taxes.
•
Since these households are poorer than native households on average, they receive more
state and locally funded income transfers.
Note: the study may overstate the fiscal burden of immigrants because it includes the cost of
immigrant children, but excludes them once they reach working ages and become contributors.
Societal Impact
The longer immigrant groups stay in the U.S., the more successful and more
integrated they become. "Assimilation is a generational process" (365).
Assimilation and Education: "Immigrants who arrive as adults are sometimes slow to
learn English, and many older immigrants continue to have close attachments to the countries of
�origin long after their arrival. In contrast, the second generation, including immigrants who
arrive as children or adolescents, typically become 'American' in language, behavior, and
outlook" (365). Note that several studies have found that "second generation children who
maintain a strong attachment to their immigrant identity do better in school" (374-5). Over
time and generations in the U.S., reading achievement tests go up, but the number of hours spent
on homework goes down, as do average grades, suggests one study in San Diego (375-6).
Language: Nearly 60 percent of recent immigrants reported that they spoke English well
or very well (376). And only 3 percent of immigrants who arrived many years ago report
speaking English not well or not at all (377). "Virtually all second- and third-generation
descendants have good English skills" (378).
Location: Although native-born residents may consider ethnic neighborhoods a sign that
immigrants do not adapt, empirical research suggests that the seemingly balkanized situation of
ethnic areas will not last long. "As the ability of immigrants and their children to afford
better housing grows, they seem to choose neighborhoods with more amenities over areas
with more neighbors with similar ethnicity" (366). Research suggests the opposite is true
for blacks, who continue to dwell in segregated neighborhoods despite socioeconomic gains.
According to a study by G. Borjas, Chinese, Filipino, Hispanic, Polish, Irish and Italian
immigrant groups ~ non-Mexican immigrants ~ live in diverse neighborhoods. "With the
notable exception of Mexican immigrants, the geographic concentration of most immigrant
groups is not great, especially compared with geographic segregation among black Americans.
The available evidence also indicates that geographic segregation weakens as later
generations succeed the immigrant generation" (368).
Socioeconomic status: "Between the two world wars, the children of immigrants from
Southern, Eastern, and Central Europe made significant socioeconomic gains, particularly in
educational and occupational attainment. And by the 1960s, there were only modest differences
in socioeconomic status and in intergenerational mobility among whites, whatever their national
origins. The upward movement of Asian immigrants and their descendants was slower but, by
the 1960s, Asian Americans were at least at parity with whites in terms of education and
occupational status, although an income gap remained. Generationally, the major
disadvantaged groups in American society are not immigrants and their children; they are
African Americans, American Indians, and Puerto Ricans" (365-6).
The children of recent immigrants "may face socioeconomic decline relative to their
parents, if members of the second generation encounter few chances for upward mobility and
refuse to accept the low-level and poorly paid jobs that their immigrant parents held" (373).
Intermarriage: "In 1990 census data, more than half (56 percent) of whites have spouses
whose ethnic backgrounds do not overlap with their own at all. . . . Only one fifth have spouses
with identical backgrounds" (369-370). Moreover, rates of intermarriage for all groups have
been growing since 1960 (370). Increased intermarriage may blur ethnic distinctions and
facilitate assimilation. "Our ideas of what constitutes a race or a racial difference are likely to be
very different in a few decades, just as they are now very different from what they were at the
beginning of the twentieth century"»(371-2). Blacks were referred to as "smoked Irish" in the
�mid-nineteenth century (369). And the "core American culture has absorbed a number of
groups who were defined as racially different in the past, and it may do so again in the future '
(372).
,
IMMIGRANTS and CRIME (386-9)
Many associate high immigration levels with high crime rates. In 1859, largely due to
popular prejudices, 55 percent of the persons arrested for crimes in New York City were
Irish-born. It is true that we are currently experiencing record levels of immigration; and the
number of people in the correctional population has increased from 2.5 million in 1980 to over
5.5 million in 1995. But there are plenty of reasons to indicate that this association is
coincidental not causal. The overall population has gotten younger; sentencing policies changed;
crime rates are actually down. An influx of recent immigrants into a community has no
association with local crime rates, concluded one 1996 study.
Noncitizens are much more likely to be in prison for drug offenses, especially possession,
reports one study of inmates in 1991. Citizens have higher crime rates for most other offenses,
including property and violent offenses.
SUCCESSFUL IMMIGRANTS (385-6)
The number of foreign-bom people who succeed in their field, at least well enough to win
honors or perform professionally, signifies that foreign-bom participation in many pursuits is
creating a lasting impression on our society.
•
As of July 1996, 21 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences were
foreign-born; and fourteen percent of the members of the National Academy of
Engineering were foreign-bom.
•
Twenty-four percent of Kennedy Center honors recipients were foreign-bom. Such
winners include Claudette Colbert from France, and Gary Grant and Bob Hope, both from
England.
•
Immigrant participation in professional sports varies greatly from sport to sport. Only
three percent of the players in the 1996 NFL were foreign-bom. But in the 1995-6 season
of the NHL, 81 percent of the players were foreign-bom. All 24 of Tampa Bay's players
were foreign-born. In the NBA only nine percent of players were foreign-bom. Fourteen
percent of major league baseball players were foreign-bom.
Omar Minaya, assistant GM of the Mets, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times
entitled "The International National Pastime." The essay began, "If you go to a Mets game this
season you might see a Japanese pitcher (Masato Yoshii) wind up and deliver the ball to a
Dominican catcher (Albert Castillo). An African-American might hit that pitch to a Venezualan
third baseman (Edgardo Alfonzo), who will throw the ball to a Puerto Rican second baseman
(Carlos Baerga), who will relay it to a white first baseman from Washington State (John Olerud)
to complete a perfect double play.".
�•
Japanese Americans have the highest income of any ethnic group in the U.S. (369).
NATURALIZATION PROCEDURES HERE and ABROAD (379-381)
Naturalization fees range from nothing in France to the U.S. fee of $95 to a high of
$56,000 for the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.
Country
Application Cost in U.S. Dollars
Australia
67
Canada
200 (Children pay only 100)
United States
95
France
0
Germany
75 percent of monthly income; maximum is
3,000.
Netherlands
300
Sweden
100
Switzerland
56,000 is the highest cost; the cost is high
and varies by the applicant's income and
among Swiss cantons.
United Kingdom
250
Citizenship policies are typically based on descent from a citizen and birthplace. The
U.S., Australia, and Canada place primary weight on birthplace, while France and Belgium place
greater weight on descent from a citizen. The U.S., Australia, and Canada grant citizenship to all
children bom within their respective borders. If the child is foreign-bom, then Australia and
Canada grant citizenship at birth if either parent is a citizen. The U.S. follows this practice,
although different regulations apply if only the father is a citizen (see "Split Court Casts Doubt
on a Citizenship Law," by Linda Greenhouse; New York Times, 4/23/98). German, Swedish, and
Swiss law grant citizenship at birth to children whose mothers have citizenship, regardless of
birthplace. Belgium requires both parents be citizens if the child is not born in Belgium. If the
child is born in Belgium, then one of the parents must also have been bom there for the child to
claim citizenship.
�MAJOR U.S. LEGISLATION ON IMMIGRATION
Chinese Exclusion
Act, 1882
Restricted immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years.
Prohibited Chinese naturalization.
Provided deportation procedures for illegal Chinese in the U.S.
Immigration Act of
1891
Provided the first comprehensive immigration laws for the U.S.
Established the Bureau of Immigration within the Treasury Dept.
Directed the Immigration Bureau to deport unlawful aliens.
Immigration Act of
1924
Imposed the first numerical limit on immigration.
Began a national-origin quota system, which greatly restricted
immigration from countries outside Northern and Western Europe.
Immigration and
Nationality Act of
1952
Continued national-origin quotas.
Set a quota for aliens with skills needed in the U.S.
Immigration and
Nationality Act
Amendments of 1965
Repealed the national-origin quotas.
Initiated a 7-category visa system for family unification and skills.
Set a quota for Western Hemisphere immigration for the first time
and set a country limit of 20,000 immigrants for the Eastern
Hemisphere.
Immigration and
Nationality Act
Amendments of 1976
Extended the 20,000 country limit for the Western Hemisphere.
Refugee Act of 1980
Established the first systematic procedures for refugee admission.
Removed refugees from the preference system for visa categories.
Began a program for refugee resettlement.
Immigration Reform
and Control Act of
1986
Started employer sanctions for knowingly hiring illegal aliens.
Created a program for legalizing illegal aliens already residing in the
U.S.
Increased border enforcement.
Immigration Act of
1990
Increased legal immigration ceilings.
Tripled the numerical limits for employment-based immigration.
Created a diversity admissions category.
Illegal Immigration
Act of 1996
Introduced a pilot telephone verification program for employer to
authenticate the legal immigration status of potential workers.
Expanded restrictions on access of legal immigrants to welfare
benefits.
Increased border enforcement.
From The New Americans: Economic. Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration, pp. 24-5.
�POTUS
sPeecHes
�REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
INTERGRATION OF CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL
SEPTEMBER 25,1997
Governor and Mrs. Huckabee; Mayor and Mrs. Daley; my good friend, Daisy Bates, and
the families of Wiley Branton and Justice Thurgood Marshall. To the co-chairs of this event, Mr.
Howard, and all the faculty and staff here at Central High; to Fatima and her fellow students - to
all my fellow Americans:
Forty years ago, a single image first seared the heart and stirred the conscience of our
nation, so powerfiil most of us who saw it then recall it still: A 15-year-old girl wearing a crisp
black and white dress, carrying only a notebook, surrounded by large crowds of boys and girls,
men and women, soldiers and police officers, her head held high, her eyes fixed straight ahead.
And she is utterly alone.
On September 4th, 1957, Elizabeth Eckford walked to this door for her first day of
school, utterly alone. She was turned away by people who were afraid of change, instructed by
ignorance, hating what they simply could not understand. And America saw her, haunted and
taunted for the simple color of her skin, and in the image we caught a very disturbing glimpse of
ourselves.
We saw not one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, but two
Americas, divided and unequal. What happened here changed the course of our country forever.
Like Independence Hall where we first embraced the idea that God created us all equal—like
Gettysburg, where Americans fought and died over whether we would remain one nation,
moving closer to the true meaning of equality- like them. Little Rock is historic ground. For,
surely it was here at Central High that we took another giant step closer to the idea of America.
Elizabeth Eckford, along with her eight schoolmates, were turned away on September
4th, but the Little Rock Nine did not turn back. Forty years ago today, they climbed these steps,
passed through this door, and moved our nation. And for that, we must all thank them.
Today, we come to honor those who made it possible - their parents first. As Eleanor
Roosevelt said of them, "To give your child for a cause is even harder than to give yourself." To
honor my friend, Daisy Bates and Wiley Branton and Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP, and all
who guided these children; to honor President Eisenhower, Attorney General Brownell, and the
men of the 101st Airborne who enforced the Constitution; to honor every student, every teacher,
every minister, every Little Rock resident, black or white, who offered a word of kindness, a
glance of respect, or a hand of friendship; to honor those who gave us the opportunity to be part
of this day of celebration and rededication.
�But most of all we come to honor the Little Rock Nine. Most of us who just watched
these events unfold can never understand fully the sacrifice they made. Imagine, all of you, what
it would be like to come to school and be shoved against lockers, tripped down stairways,
taunted day after day by your classmates, to go through school with no hope of going to a school
play or being on a basketball team or learning in simple peace.
I want all these children here to look at these people. They persevered. They endured.
And they prevailed. But it was at great cost to themselves.
As Melba Pattilo Beals said years later in her wonderful memoir, Warriors Don't Cry,
"My friends and I paid for the integration of Little Rock Central High with our innocence."
Folks, in 1957,1 was 11 years old, living 50 miles away in Hot Springs, when the eyes of
the world were fixed here. Like almost all Southerners then, I never attended school with a
person of another race until I went to college. But as a young boy in my grandfather's small
grocery store, I learned lessons that nobody bothered to teach me in my segregated school. My
grandfather had a 6th grade education from a tiny rural school. He never made a bit of money.
But in that store, in the way he treated his customers and encouraged me to play with their
children, I learned America's most profound lessons: We really are all equal. We really do have
the right to live in dignity. We really do have the right to be treated with respect. We do have
the right to be heard.
I never knew how he and my grandmother came to those convictions, but I'll never forget
how they lived them. Ironically, my grandfather died in 1957. He never lived to see America
come around to his way of thinking. But I know he's smiling down today not on his grandson,
but on the Little Rock Nine, who gave up their innocence so all good people could have a chance
to live their dreams.
But let me tell you something else that was true about that time. Before Little Rock, for
me and other white children, the struggles of black people, whether we were sympathetic or
hostile to them, were mostly background music in our normal, self-absorbed lives. We were all,
like you, more concerned about ourfriendsand our lives, day in and day out. But then we saw
what was happening in our own back yard, and we all had to deal with it. Where did we stand?
What did we believe? How did we want to live? It was Little Rock that made racial equality a
driving obsession in my life.
Years later, time and chance made Ernie Green my friend. Good fortune brought me to
the Governor's Office, where I did all I could to heal the wounds, solve the problems, open the
doors so we could become the people we say we want to be. Ten years ago, the Little Rock Nine
came back to the Governor's Mansion when I was there. I wanted them to see that the power of
the office that once had blocked their way now welcomed them. But like so many Americans, I
can never fully repay my debt to these nine people. For, with their innocence, they purchased
more freedom for me, and for all white people. People like Hazel Bryan Massery, the angry
taunter of Elizabeth Eckford, who stood with her in front of this school this week as a reconciled
friend. And with the gift of their innocence, they taught us that all too often what ought to be can
�never be for free.
Forty years later, what have we learned?
Well, forty years later, we know that we all benefit ~ all of us -- when we learn together,
work together, and come together. That is, after all, what it means to be an American.
Forty years later, we know, not withstanding some cynics, that all our children can learn,
and this school proves it.
Forty years later, we know when the constitutional rights of our citizens are threatened,
the national government must guarantee them. Talk is fine, but when they are threatened, you
need strong laws faithfully enforced and upheld by independent courts.
Forty years later, we know there are still more doors to be opened, doors to be opened
wider, doors we have to keep from being shut again.
Forty years later, we know freedom and equality cannot be realized without responsibility
for self, family, and the duties of citizenship, or without a commitment to building a community
of shared destiny and a genuine sense of belonging.
Forty years later, we know the question of race is more complex and more important than
ever — embracing no longer just blacks and whites or blacks and whites and Hispanics and
Native Americans, but now people from all parts of the Earth coming here to redeem the promise
of America.
Forty years later, frankly, we know we're bound to come back where we started. After all
the weary years and silent tears, after all the stony roads and bitter rods, the question of race is in
the end still an affair of the heart.
But if these are our lessons, what do we have to do? First, we must all reconcile. Then
we must all face the facts of today. And finally we must act.
Reconciliation is important not only for those who practice bigotry, but for those whose
resentment of it lingers, for both are prisons from which our spirits must escape. If Nelson
Mandela, who paid for thefreedomof his people with 27 of the best years of his life, could invite
his jailers to his inauguration and ask even the victims of violence to forgive their oppressors,
then each of us can seek and give forgiveness.
And what are the facts? It is a fact, my fellow Americans, that there are still too many
places where opportunity for education and work are not equal, where disintegration of family
and neighborhood make it more difficult. But it is also a fact that schools and neighborhoods
and lives can be turned around if, but only if, we are prepared to do what it takes.
�It is a fact that there are still too many places where our children die or give up before
they bloom, where they are trapped in a web of crime and violence and drugs. We know this too
can be changed, but only if we are prepared to do what it takes.
Today children of every race walk through the same door, but then they often walk down
different halls. Not only in this school but across America, they sit in different classrooms.
They eat at different tables. They even sit in different parts of the bleachers at the football game.
Far too many communities are all white, all black, all Latino, all Asian. Indeed, too many
Americans of all races have actually begun to give up on the idea of integration and the search
for common ground.
For the first time since the 1950s, our schools in America are resegregating. The rollback
of affirmative action is slamming shut the doors of higher education on a new generation, while
those who oppose it have not yet put forward any other alternative.
In so many ways, we still hold ourselves back. We retreat into the comfortable enclaves
of ethnic isolation. We just don't deal with people who are different from us. Segregation is no
longer the law, but too often, separation is still the rule.
And we cannot forget one stubborn fact that has not yet been said as clearly as it should.
There is still discrimination in America. There are still people who can't get over it, who can't let
it go, who can't go through the day unless they have somebody else to look down on. And it
manifests itself in our streets and in our neighborhoods and in the workplace and in the schools.
It is wrong. We have to keep working on it ~ not just with our voices, but with our laws. And
we have to engage each other in it.
Of course, we should celebrate our diversity. The marvelous blend of cultures and beliefs
and races has always enriched America, and it is our meal ticket to the 21st century. But we also
have to remember with the painful lessons of the civil wars and the ethnic cleansing around the
world, that any nation that indulges itself in destructive separatism will not be able to meet and
master these challenges of the 21st century.
We have to decide ~ all you young people have to decide ~ will we stand as a shining
example or a stunning rebuke to the world of tomorrow? For the alternative to integration is not
isolation or a new separate but equal, it is disintegration.
Only the American ideal is strong enough to hold us together. We believe, whether our
ancestors came here in slave ships or on the Mayflower; whether they came through the portals
of Ellis Island or on a plane to San Francisco, whether they have been here for thousands of
years; we believe that all individuals possess the spark of possibilit, bom with an equal right to
strive and work and rise as far as they can go, and bom with an equal responsibility to act in a
way that obeys the law, reflects our values and passes them on to their children.
We are white and black, Asian and Hispanic, Christian and Jew and Muslim, Italian- and
Vietnamese- and Polish- Americans and goodness knows how many more today. But above all,
�we are still Americans. Martin Luther King said, "We are woven into a seamless garment of
destiny. We must be one America."
The Little Rock Nine taught us that we cannot have one America for free. Not 40 years
ago, not today. We have to act. All of us have to act. Each of us has to do something.
All of us, especially our young people, must seek out people who are different from
themselves and speak freely and frankly to discover they share the same dreams.
All of us should embrace the vision of a colorblind society, but recognize the fact that we
are not there yet and we cannot slam shut the doors of educational and economic opportunity.
All of us should embrace ethnic pride and we should revere religious conviction, but we
must reject separation and isolation.
All of us should value and practice personal responsibility for ourselves and our families.
And all Americans, especially our young people, should give something back to their
community through citizen service.
All Americans of all races must insist on both equal opportunity and excellence in
education. That is even more important today than it was for these nine people; and look how far
they took themselves with their education. The true battleground in education today is whether
we honestly believe that every child can learn, and whether we have the courage to set high
academic standards we expect all our children to meet. We must not replace the tyranny of
segregation with the tragedy of low expectations. I will not rob a single American child of his or
her future. It is wrong.
My fellow Americans, we must be concerned not so much with the sins of our parents as
with the success of our children - how they will live, and live together, in years to come. If
those nine children could walk up those steps 40 years ago, all alone; if their parents could send
them into the storm armed only with school books and the righteousness of their cause, then
surely, together we can build one America ~ an America that makes sure no future generation of
our children will have to pay for our mistakes with the loss of their innocence.
At this schoolhouse door today, let us rejoice in the long way we have come these 40
years. Let us resolve to stand on the shoulders of the Little Rock Nine and press on with
confidence in the hard and noble work ahead. Let us lift every voice and sing, till earth and
heaven ring, "One America today. One America tomorrow. One America forever."
God bless the Little Rock Nine, and God bless the United States of America. Thank you.
�THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(San Diego, California)
For Immediate Release
June 14, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO COMMENCEMENT
Rimac Field
University of California at San Diego
San Diego, California
10:47 A.M. (L)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the
first thing I would like to say is that Coleen spoke so well - (laughter) ~ and she said everything
I meant to say ~ (laughter) that I could do us all a great favor by simply associating myself with
her remarks and sitting down. (Applause.)
I would also like to thank Dr. Anagnostopoulos for reminding us of the infamous
capacity of faculty members to be contrary with one another. (Laughter.) Until he said it, I
hadn't realized that probably 90 percent of the Congress once were on university faculties.
(Laughter.)
Let me say to Chancellor Dynes and President Atkinson, to the distinguished regents and
faculty members, to the students and their families and friends who are here today, I'm honored
to be joined by a number of people who reflect the kind of America that Coleen Sabatini called
for: Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Dan Akaka from Hawaii; your Congressman, Bob
Filner; Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus;
Congresswoman Patsy Mink; Congressman Jim Clybum; Congressman John Lewis, a great hero
of the civil rights movement; Congresswoman Juanita Millender- McDonald; Congressman
Carlos Romero-Barcelo from Puerto Rico; your Lieutenant Governor Gray Davis; the Secretary
of Transportation Rodney Slater; of Labor, Alexis Herman; of Veterans Affairs, Jesse Brown; of
Education, Dick Riley; our distinguished Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson; our
distinguished Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Aida Alvarez, the first
American of Puerto Rican descent ever to be in a Presidential Cabinet.
I would like to ask them all to stand along with the members of the White House staff
who are here, including Thurgood Marshall Jr. whose father has a college named for him at this
�great university. Would you please stand? (Applause.)
And I can't help but noting that there's another person here that deserves some special
recognition ~ the University of California at San Diego Class of 1977 - a Filipino-American
woman that became the youngest Captain of the Navy and my personal physician, Dr. Connie
Mariano. Where is she? (Applause.)
I want to thank you for offering our nation a shining example of excellence rooted in the
many backgrounds that make up this great land. You have blazed new paths in science and
technology, explored the new horizons of the Pacific Rim and Latin America. This is a great
university for the 21st century.
Today we celebrate your achievements at a truly golden moment for America. The Cold
War is over and freedom is now ascendant around the globe, with more than half of the people in
this old world living under governments of their own choosing for the very first time.
Our economy is the healthiest in a generation and the strongest in the world. Our
culture, our science, our technology promise unimagined advances and exciting new careers.
Our social problems, from crime to poverty, are finally bending to our efforts.
Of course, there are still challenges for you out there. Beyond our borders, we must
battle terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking, the spread of weapons of mass destruction,
the prospect of new diseases and environmental disaster.
Here at home, we must ensure that every child has the chance you have had to develop
your God-given capacities. We cannot wait for them to get in trouble to notice them.
We must continue to fight the scourge of gangs and crime and drugs. We must prepare
for the retirement of the baby boom generation so that we can reduce that child poverty rate that
Coleen talked about. We must harness the forces of science and technology for the public good,
the entire American public.
But I believe the greatest challenge we face, among all those that Coleen talked about, is
also our greatest opportunity. Of all the questions of discrimination and prejudice that still exist
in our society, the most perplexing one is the oldest, and in some ways today, the newest: the
problem of race. Can we fulfill the promise of America by embracing all our citizens of all
races, not just at a university where people have the benefit of enlightened teachers and the time
to think and grow and get to know each other within the daily life of every American community.
In short, can we become one America in the 21st century?
I know, and I've said before, that money cannot buy this goal, power cannot compel it,
technology cannot create it. This is something that can come only from the human spirit - the
spirit we saw when the choir of many races sang as a gospel choir.
�Today, the state of Hawaii, which has a Senator and a Congresswoman present here, has
no majority racial or ethnic group. It is a wonderful place of exuberance and friendship and
patriotism. Within the next three years, here in California no single race or ethnic group will
make up a majority of the state's population. Already, five of our largest school districts draw
students from over 100 different racial and ethnic groups. At this campus, 12 Nobel
prize winners have taught or studied from nine different countries. A half-century from now,
when your own grandchildren are in college, there will be no majority race in America.
Now, we know what we will look like, but what will we be like? Can we be one
America respecting, even celebrating, our differences, but embracing even more what we have in
common? Can we define what it means to be an American, not just in terms of the hyphen
showing our ethnic origins but in terms of our primary allegiance to the values America stands
for and values we really live by. Our hearts long to answer yes, but our history reminds us that
it will be hard. The ideals that bind us together are as old as our nation, but so are the forces that
pull us apart. Our founders sought to form a more perfect union; the humility and hope of that
phrase is the story of America and it is our mission today.
Consider this: We were bom with a Declaration of Independence which asserted that we
were all created equal and a Constitution that enshrined slavery. We fought a bloody civil war to
abolish slavery and preserve the union, but we remained a house divided and unequal by law for
another century. We advanced across the continent in the name of freedom, yet in so doing we
pushed Native Americans off their land, often crushing their culture and their livelihood. Our
Statue of Liberty welcomes poor, tired, huddled masses of immigrants to our borders, but each
new wave has felt the sting of discrimination.
In World War II, Japanese Americans fought valiantly for freedom in Europe, taking
great casualties, while at home their families were herded into internment camps. The famed
Tuskegee Airmen lost none of the bombers they guarded during the war, but their African
American heritage cost them a lot of rights when they came back home in peace.
Though minorities have more opportunities than ever today, we still see evidence of
bigotry ~ from the desecration of houses of worship, whether they be churches, synagogues or
mosques, to demeaning talk in corporate suites. There is still much work to be done by you,
members of the class of 1997. But those who say we cannot transform the problem of prejudice
into the promise of unity forget how far we have come, and I cannot believe they have ever seen
a crowd like you. (Applause.)
When I look at you, it is almost impossible for me even to remember my own life. I
grew up in the high drama of the Cold War, in the patriotic South. Black and white southerners
alike wore our nation's uniform in defense of freedom against communism. They fought and
died together, from Korea to Vietnam. But back home, I went to segregated schools, swam in
segregated public pools, sat in all-white sections at the movies, and traveled through small towns
�in my state that still marked restrooms and water fountains "white" and "colored."
By the grace of God I had a grandfather with just a grade school education but the heart
of a true American, who taught me that it was wrong. And by the grace of God, there were brave
African Americans like Congressman John Lewis, who risked their lives time and time again to
make it right. And there were white Americans like Congressman Bob Filner, a freedom rider on
the bus with John Lewis, in the long, noble struggle for civil rights, who knew that it was a
struggle to free white people, too.
To be sure, there is old, unfinished business between black and white Americans, but the
classic American dilemma has now become many dilemmas of race and ethnicity. We see it in
the tension between black and Hispanic customers and their Korean or Arab grocers; in a
resurgent anti-Semitism even on some college campuses; in a hostility toward new immigrants
from Asia to the Middle East to the former communist countries to Latin America and the
Caribbean -even those whose hard work and strong families have brought them success in the
American Way.
We see a disturbing tendency to wrongly attribute to entire groups, including the white
majority, the objectionable conduct of a few members. If a black American commits a crime,
condemn the act ~ but remember that most African Americans are hard-working, law-abiding
citizens. If a Latino gang member deals drugs, condemn the act - but remember the vast
majority of Hispanics are responsible citizens who also deplore the scourge of drugs in our
life. If white teenagers beat a young African American boy almost to death just because of his
race, for God's sakes condemn the act — but remember the overwhelming majority of white
people will find it just as hateful. If an Asian merchant discriminates against her customers of
another minority group, call her on it ~ but remember, too, that many, many Asians have borne
the burden of prejudice and do not want anyone else to feel it.
Remember too, in spite of the persistence of prejudice, we are more integrated than ever.
More of us share neighborhoods and work and school and social activities, religious life, even
love and marriage across racial lines than ever before. More of us enjoy each other's company
and distinctive cultures than ever before. And more than ever, we understand the benefits of our
racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity in a global society, where networks of commerce and
communications draw us closer and bring rich rewards to those who truly understand life beyond
their nation's borders.
With just a twentieth of the world's population, but a fifth of the world's income, we in
America simply have to sell to the other 95 percent of the world's consumers just to maintain our
standard of living. Because we are drawn from every culture on earth, we are uniquely
positioned to do it. Beyond commerce, the diverse backgrounds and talents of our citizens can
help America to light the globe, showing nations deeply divided by race, religion and tribe that
there is a better way.
�Finally, as you have shown us today, our diversity will enrich our lives in non-material
ways ~ deepening our understanding of human nature and human differences, making our
communities more exciting, more enjoyable, more meaningful. That is why I have come here
today to ask the American people to join me in a great national effort to perfect the promise of
America for this new time as we seek to build our more perfect union.
Now, when there is more cause for hope than fear, when we are not driven to it by some
emergency or social cataclysm, now is the time we should learn together, talk together and act
together to build one America. (Applause.)
Let me say that I know that for many white Americans, this conversation may seem to
exclude them or threaten them. That must not be so. I believe white Americans have just as
much to gain as anybody else from being a part of this endeavor ~ much to gain from an
America where we finally take responsibility for all our children so that they, at last, can be
judged as Martin Luther King hoped, "Not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their
character." (Applause.)
What is it that we must do? For four and a half years now, I have worked to prepare
America for the 21 st century with a strategy of opportunity for all, responsibility from all, and an
American community of all our citizens. To succeed in each of these areas, we must deal with
the realities and the perceptions affecting all racial groups in America.
First, we must continue to expand opportunity. Full participation in our strong and
growing economy is the best antidote to envy, despair and racism. We must press forward to
move millions more from poverty and welfare to work; to bring the spark of enterprise to inner
cities; to redouble our efforts to reach those rural communities prosperity has passed by. And
most important of all, we simply must give our young people the finest education in the world.
There are no children who, because of their ethnic or racial background, who cannot
meet the highest academic standards if we set them and measure our students against them, if we
give them well-trained teachers and well-equipped classrooms, and if we continue to support
reasoned reforms to achieve excellence, like the charter school movement. (Applause.)
At a time when college education means stability, a good job, a passport to the middle
class, we must open the doors of college to all Americans and we must make at least two years of
college as universal at the dawn of the next century as a high school diploma is today.
In our efforts to extend economic and educational opportunity to all our citizens, we
must consider the role of affirmative action. I know affirmative action has not been perfect in
America - that's why two years ago we began an effort to fix the things that are wrong with it ~
but when used in the right way, it has worked. (Applause.)
It has given us a whole generation of professionals infieldsthat used to be exclusive
5
�clubs ~ where people like me got the benefit of 100 percent affirmative action. There are now
more women-owned businesses than ever before. There are more African American, Latino and
Asian American lawyers and judges, scientists and engineers, accountants and executives than
ever before.
But the best example of successful affirmative action is our military. Our armed forces
are diverse from top to bottom ~ perhaps the most integrated institution in our society and
certainly the most integrated military in the world. And, more important, no one questions that
they are the best in the world. So much for the argument that excellence and diversity do not go
hand in hand. (Applause.)
There are those who argue that scores on standardized tests should be the sole measure of
qualification for admissions to colleges and universities. But many would not apply the same
standard to the children of alumni or those with athletic ability. (Applause.)
I believe a student body that reflects the excellence and the diversity of the people we
will live and work with has independent educational value. Look around this crowd today.
Don't you think you have learned a lot more than you would have if everybody sitting around
you looked just like you? I think you have. (Applause.)
And beyond the educational value to you, it has a public interest because you will learn
to live and work in the world you will live in better. When young people sit side by side with
people of many different backgrounds, they do learn something that they can take out into the
world. And they will be more effective citizens.
Many affirmative action students excel. They work hard, they achieve, they go out and
serve the communities that need them for their expertise and role model. If you close the door on
them, we will weaken our greatest universities and it will be more difficult to build the society
we need in the 21st century. (Applause.)
Let me say, I know that the people of California voted to repeal affirmative action
without any ill motive. The vast majority of them simply did it with a conviction that
discrimination and isolation are no longer barriers to achievement. But consider the results.
Minority enrollments in law school and other graduate programs are plummeting for the first
time in decades. Assuming the same will likely happen in undergraduate education. We must
not resegregate higher education or leave it to the private universities to do the public's work.
(Applause.)
At the very time when we need to do a better job of living and learning together, we
should not stop trying to equalize economic opportunity. To those who oppose affirmative
action, I ask you to come up with an alternative. I would embrace it if I could find a better way.
And to those of us who still support it, I say we should continue to stand for it, we should reach
out to those who disagree or are uncertain and talk about the practical impact of these issues, and
�we should never be thought unwilling to work with those who disagree with us to find new ways
to lift people up and bring people together. (Applause.)
Beyond opportunity, we must demand responsibility from every American. Our strength
as a society depends upon both — upon people taking responsibility for themselves and their
families, teaching their children good values, working hard and obeying the law, and giving back
to those around us. The new economy offers fewer guarantees, more risks, and more rewards. It
calls upon all of us to take even greater responsibility for our education than ever before.
In the current economic boom, only one racial or ethnic group in America has actually
experienced a decline in income -- Hispanic Americans. One big reason is that Hispanic high
school drop-out rates are well above ~ indeed, far above ~ those of whites and blacks. Some of
the drop-outs actually reflect a strong commitment to work. We admire the legendary
willingness to take the hard job at long hours for low pay. In the old economy, that was a
responsible thing to do. But in the new economy, where education is the key, responsibility
means staying in school. (Applause.)
No responsibility is more fundamental than obeying the law. It is not racist to insist that
every American do so. The fight against crime and drugs is a fight for the freedom of all our
people, including those ~ perhaps especially those — minorities living in our poorest
neighborhoods. But respect for the law must run both ways. The shocking difference in
perceptions of the fairness of our criminal justice system grows out of the real experiences that
too many minorities have had with law enforcement officers. Part of the answer is to have all
our citizens respect the law, but the basic rule must be that the law must respect all our citizens.
(Applause.)
And that applies, too, to the enforcement of our civil rights laws. For example, the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission has a huge backlog of cases with discrimination claims
—though we have reduced it by 25 percent over the last four years. We can do not much better
without more resources. It is imperative that Congress - especially those members who say
they're for civil rights but against affirmative action ~ at least give us the money necessary to
enforce the law of the land and do it soon. (Applause.)
Our third imperative is perhaps the most difficult of all. We must build one American
community based on respect for one another and our shared values. We must begin with a
candid conversation on the state of race relations today and the implications of Americans of so
many different races living and working together as we approach a new century. We must be
honest with each other. We have talked at each other and about each other for a long time. It's
high time we all began talking with each other.
Over the coming year I want to lead the American people in a great and unprecedented
conversation about race. In community efforts from Lima, Ohio, to Billings, Montana, in
remarkable experiments in cross-racial communications like the uniquely named ERACISM, I
�have seen what Americans can do if they let down their guards and reach out their hands.
I have asked one of America's greatest scholars, Dr. John Hope Franklin, to chair an
advisory panel of seven distinguished Americans to help me in this endeavor. He will be joined
by former Governors Thomas Kean of New Jersey and William Winter of Mississippi, both great
champions of civil rights; by Linda Chavez-Thompson, the Executive Vice President of the
AFL-CIO; by Reverend Suzan Johnson Cook, a minister from the Bronx and former White
House Fellow; by Angela Oh, an attorney and Los Angeles community leader; and Robert
Thompson, the CEO of Nissan U.S.A. - distinguished leaders, leaders in their community.
I want this panel to help educate Americans about the facts surrounding issues of race, to
promote a dialogue in every community of the land to confront and work through these issues, to
recruit and encourage leadership at all levels to help breach racial divides, and to find, develop
and recommend how to implement concrete solutions to our problems -- solutions that will
involve all of us in government, business, communities, and as individual citizens.
I will make periodic reports to the American people about ourfindingsand what actions
we all have to take to move America forward. This board will seek out and listen to Americans
from all races and all walks of life. They are performing a great citizen service, but in the cause
of building one America all citizens must serve.
As I said at the President's Summit on Service in Philadelphia, in our new era such acts
of service are basic acts of citizenship. Government must play its role, but much of the work
must be done by the American people as citizen service. The very effort will strengthen us and
bring us closer together.
In short, I want America to capture the feel and the spirit that you have given to all of us
today. I'd like to ask the board to stand and be recognized. I want you to look at them, and I
want you to feel free to talk to them over the next year or so. Dr. Franklin and members of the
board. (Applause.)
Honest dialogue will not be easy at first. We'll all have to get past defensiveness and
fear and political correctness and other barriers to honesty. Emotions may be rubbed raw, but we
must begin.
What do I really hope we will achieve as a country? If we do nothing more than talk, it
will be interesting but it won't be enough. If we do nothing more than propose disconnected acts
of policy, it would be helpful, but it won't be enough.
But if ten years from now people can look back and see that this year of honest dialogue
and concerted action helped to lift the heavy burden of race from our children's future, we will
have given a precious gift to America.
�I ask you all to remember just for a moment, as we have come through the difficult trial
on the Oklahoma City bombing, remember that terrible day when we saw and wept for
Americans and forgot for a moment that there were a lot of them from different races than we
are.
Remember the many faces and races of the Americans who did not sleep and put their
lives at risk to engage in the rescue, the helping and the healing. Remember how you have seen
things like that in the natural disasters here in California. That is the face of the real America.
That is the face I have seen over and over again. That is the America, somehow, some way we
have to make real in daily American life. (Applause.)
Members of the graduating class, you will have a greater opportunity to live your dreams
than any generation in our history, if we can make of our many different strands, one America a nation at peace with itself bound together by shared values and aspirations and opportunities
and real respect for our differences.
I am a Scotch-Irish Southern Baptist, and I'm proud of it. But my life has been
immeasurably enriched by the power of the Torah, the beauty of the Koran, the piercing wisdom
of the religions of East and South Asia ~ all embraced by my fellow Americans. I have felt
indescribable joy and peace in black and Pentecostal churches. I have come to love the intensity
and selflessness of my Hispanic fellow Americans toward la familia. As a Southerner, I grew
up on country music and county fairs and I still like them. (Laughter.) But I have also reveled in
the festivals and the food, the music and the art and the culture of Native Americans and
Americans from every region in the world.
In each land I have visited as your President, I have felt more at home because some of
their people have found a home in America. For two centuries, wave upon wave of immigrants
have come to our shores to build a new life drawn by the promise of freedom and a fair chance.
Whatever else they found, even bigotry and violence, most of them never gave up on America.
Even African American, the first of whom we brought here in chains, never gave up on America.
It is up to you to prove that their abiding faith was well-placed. Living in islands of
isolation — some splendid and some sordid ~ is not the American way. Basing our self-esteem
on the ability to look down on others is not the American way. Being satisfied if we have what
we want and heedless of others who don't even have what they need and deserve is not the
American way. We have torn down the barriers in our laws. Now we must break down the
barriers in our lives, our minds and our hearts.
More than 30 years ago, at the high tide of the civil rights movement, the Kemer
Commission said we were becoming two Americas, one white, one black, separate and unequal.
Today, we face a different choice: will we become not two, but many Americas, separate,
unequal and isolated? Or will we draw strength from all our people and our ancient faith in the
quality of human dignity, to become the world's first truly multi-racial democracy. That is the
�unfinished work of our time, to lift the burden of race and redeem the promise of America.
Class of 1997,1 grew up in the shadows of a divided America, but I have seen glimpses
of one America. You have shown me one today. That is the America you must make. It begins
with your dreams, so dream large, live your dreams, challenge your parents and teach your
children well.
God bless you and good luck.
END
11:23 A.M. (L)
10
�P/fer
tern's '
�Proclamation of Thanksgiving
BY THE PR_ESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A PROCLAMATION.
It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our nationaJ lite
another vear. defending us w ith his guardian care against unfriendJ\ designs from abroad, and vouchsafing to us m His
mercv manv and signal victories o\'er the enemv, who is of
our own household It has also pleased our Hcavcnlv Father
to favor as w ell our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in
their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population
bv emancipation and bv immigration, while he has opened to
us new sources of wealth, and has crowned the labor of our
working men in every department of industry with abundant
rew ards. Moreover. He has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war into which we
have been brought bv our adherence as a nation to the cause
of Freedom and Humanity, and to afford to us reasonable
hopes of an ultimate and happv deli\ erance from all our dangers and afflictions.
Now. therefore. I , Abraham Lincoln, President of the
United States, do. hercbv, appoint and set apart the last
Thursday in November next as a day, which I desire to be
observed bv all my fellow -citizens wherever they may then be
as a dav of Thanksgiving and Praise to Almighty God the
beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Univ erse. And I do farther reconunend to mv fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that
occasion thev do reverently humble themselves in the dust
and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and
supplications to the Great Disposer of events for a rerum of
the inestimable blessings of Peace, Union and Harmonv
throughout the land, which it has pleased him to assign as a
dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout
all generations.
In testimony whereof. I have hereunto set my hand and
caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the citv of Washington this twentieth dav of
October, in the v ear of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and sLxrv four, and, of the Independence of the United States
the eighn--ninth.
By the President:
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
W I L L I A M H SEWARD Secretary of State.
�"TOO
PROUD TO F I G H T "
ADDRESS TO SEVERAL THOUSAND FOREIGN-BORN CITIZENS, A F T E R NATURALIZATION CEREMONIES,
PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1915. FROM THE WHITE
HOUSE FILES.
T T warms my heart that you should give me such a
reception; but it is not of myself that I wish to
think to-night, but of those who have just become citizens of the United States.
This is the only country in the world which experiences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other countries depend upon the multiplication of their own native
people. This country is constantly drinking strength
out of new sources by the voluntary association with
it of great bodies of strong men and forward-looking
women out of other lands. And so by the gift of the
free will of independent people it is being constantly
renewed from generation to generation by the same
process by which it was originally created. I t is as if
humanity had determined to see to it that this great
Nation, founded for the benefit of humanity, should
not lack for the allegiance of the people of the world.
You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the
United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance
to no one, unless it be God—certainly not of allegiance
to those who temporarily represent this great Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great
ideal, to a great body of principles, to a great hope of
the human race. You have said, "We are going to
America not only to earn a living, not only to seek the
things which it was more difficult to obtain where we
were born, but to help forward the great enterprises
of the human spirit—to let men know that everywhere
in the world there are men who will cross strange
318
PWflf
�THE
NEW DEMOCRACY
oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien
to them if they can but satisfy their quest for what
their spirits crave; knowing that whatever the speech
there is but one longing and utterance of the human
heart, and that is for liberty and justice.'! And while
you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other countries behind you—bringing what is best of their spirit, but not looking over
your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you
intended to leave behind in them. I certainly would
not be one even to suggest that a man cease to love the
home of his birth and the nation of his origin—these
things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of
our hearts—but it is one thing to love the place where
you were born and it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you go. You cannot dedicate
yourself to America unless you become in every respect
and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot become thorough Americans i f you
think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not
yet become an American, and the man who goes among
you to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to
live under the Stars and Stripes.
M y urgent advice to you would be, not only always
to think first of America, but always, also, to think
first of humanity. You do not love humanity i f you
seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can be welded together only by love, by sympathy,
by justice, not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for
the man who seeks to make personal capital out of the
passions of his fellowmen. He has lost the touch and
ideal of America, for America was created to unite
mankind by those passions which l i f t and not by the
passions which separate and debase. We came to
America, either ourselves or in the persons of our
ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them
�320
THE
N E W DEMOCRACY
see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid
of the things that divide and to make sure of the things
that unite. It was but an historical accident no doubt
that this great country was called the "United States";
yet I am very thankful that it has that word "United"
in its title, and the man who seeks to divide man from
man, group from group, interest from interest in this
great Union is striking at its very heart.
It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking of those of you who have just sworn allegiance to
this great Government, that you were drawn across the
ocean by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief,
by some vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a better kind of life. No doubt you have been
disappointed in some of us. Some of us are very disappointing. No doubt you have found that justice in
the United States goes only with a pure heart and a
right purpose as it does everywhere else in the world.
No doubt what you found here did not seem touched
for you, after all, with the complete beauty of the ideal
which you had conceived beforehand. But remember
this: I f we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you
brought some of it with you. A man does not go out
to seek the thing that is not in him. A man does not
hope for the thing that he does not believe in, and if
some of us have forgotten what America believed in,
you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal
of the belief. That is the reason that I , for one, make
you welcome. I f I have in any degree forgotten what
America was intended for, I will thank God if you will
remind me. I was born in America. You dreamed
dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you
brought the dreams with you. No man that does not
see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake
any high enterprise. Just because you brought dreams
with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such
as you brought. You are enriching us if you came
expecting us to be better than we are.
'.•••-••"Wf:^.'.-.-
�T H E NEW DEMOCRACY
321
See, my friends, what that means. I t means that
Americans must have a consciousness different from the
consciousness of every other nation in the world. I
am not saying this with even the slightest'"thought of
criticism of other nations. You know how it h with
a family. A family gets centered on itself if it is not
careful and is less interested in the neighbors than it
is in its own members. So a nation that is not constantly renewed out of new sources is apt to have the
narrowness and prejudice of a family; whereas, America must have this consciousness, that on all sides it
touches elbows and touches hearts with all the nations
of mankind. The example of America must be a special example. The example of America must be the
example not merely of peace because it will not fight,
but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating
influence of the world and strife is not. There is such
a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is
such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not
need to convince others by force that it is right.
You have come into this great Nation voluntarily
seeking something that we have to give, and all that
we have to give is this: We cannot exempt you from
work. No man is exempt from work anywhere in the
world. We cannot exempt you from the strife and the
heartbreaking burden of the struggle of the day—that
is common to mankind everywhere; we cannot exempt
you from the loads that you must carry. We can only
make them light by the spirit in which they are carried.
That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty,
it is the spirit of justice.
When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and the
committee that accompanied him to come up from
Washington to meet this great company of newly
admitted citizens, I could not decline the invitation. I
ought not to be away from Washington, and yet I feel
that it has renewed my spirit as an American to be
here. In Washington men tell you so many things every
�322
THE NEW DEMOCRACY
day that arc not so, and I like to come and stand in
the presence of a great body of my fellow-citizens,
whether they have been my fellow-citizens a long time
or a short time, and drink, as it were, out of the common fountains with them and go back feeling what you
have so generously given me—the sense of your support and of the living vitality in your hearts of the
great ideals which have made America the hope of the
world.
�0)
AMERICANISM
s
j,
XII
:
AMERICANISM
F
^OUR centuries aiul a quarter have gone by since Columbus by discovering America opened the greatest era in
world history. Four centuries have passed since the
Spaniards began that colonization on the mainlaiul which has
resulted in the growth of the nations of Latin America. Three
centuries have passed since, witli the settlements on the coasts
of Virginia and Massachusetts, the real history of what is
now the United States began. All this wc ultimately owe to
the action of an Italian seaman iti the service of a Spanish
king and a Spanish queen. It is eminently fitting that one of
the largest and most influential social organizations of this
great Republic—a Republic in which the tongue is English,
and the blood derived from many sources—should, in its name,
commemorate the great Italian. It is eminently fitting to make
an address on Americanism before this society.
Wc of the United States need above all things to remember
that, while wc arc by blood and culture kin to each of the
nations of Europe, we arc also separate from each of them.
We are a new and distinct nationality. Wc arc developing
our own distinctive culture and civilization, and the worth of
this civilization will largely depend upon our determination
to keep it distinctively our own. Our sons and daughters
should be educated here and not abroad. We should freely
take from every other nation whatever wc can make of use, but
we should adopt and develop to our own peculiar needs what
wc thus take, and never he content merely to copy.
' Address delivered before the Knights of Columbus, Carnegie Hall,
New York, Oct. 12, 191 J.
388
389
Our nation was founded to perpetuate democratic principles.
.These principles are that each man is to be treated on his worth
as a man without regard to the land from which his forefathers came and without regard to the creed which he professes. I f the United States proves false to these principles of
civil and religious liberty, it will have inflicted the greatest blow
011 the system of free popular government that has ever been
indicted. Here we have had a virgin continent on which to try
the experiment of making out of divers race stocks a new nation
and of treating all the citizens of that nation in such a fashion
as to preserve them equality of opportunity in industrial, civil,
and political life. Our duty is to secure each man against any
injustice by his fellows.
One of the most important things to scenic for him is the
right to hold and to express the religious views that best meet
his own soul needs. Any political movement directed against
any body of our fellow citizens because of their religious creed
is a grave offense against American principles and American
institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose
a man because of the creed he professes. This applies to Jew
and Gentile, to Catholic and Protestant, and to the man who
would be regarded as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed against certain men because of their
religious belief, and intended to prevent men of that creed
from holding office, have never accomplished anything but
harm. This was true in the days of the "Know-Nothing" and
Native-American parties in the middle of the last century; and
it is just as true today. Such a movement directly contravenes
the spirit of the Constitution itself. Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this
Republic that there should never 1 e any union of Church and
>
State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a
given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant
is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Constitution
explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by popular
�390 FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART
vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for or
against a man because of his cceed is to impose upon him a
religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Constitution.
Moreover, it is well to remember that these movements never
achieve the end they nominally have in view. They do nothing
whatsoever except to increase among the men of the various
churches the spirit of sectarian intolerance which is base and
unlovely in any civilization but which is utterly revolting among
a free people that profess the principles we profess. No such
movement can ever permanently succeed here. All that it docs
is for a decade or so greatly to increase the spirit of theological
animosity, both among the people to whom it appeals and
among the people whom it assails. Furthermore, it has in the
past invariably resulted, in so far as it was successful at all,
in putting unworthy men into oflice; for tlierc is nothing that
a man of loose principles and of evil practices in public life
so desires as the chance to distract attention from his own
shortcomings and misdeeds by exciting and mflaming theological and sectarian prejudice.
We must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy
to support a man for public office because he belongs to a given
creed or to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed. I t
is just as evil as to draw the line between class and class, between occupation and occupation in political life. No man
who tries to draw either line is a good American. True Americanism (Temands that we judge each man on his conduct, that
we so judge him in private life and that wc so judge him in
public life. The line of cleavage drawn on principle and conduct in public affairs is never in any healthy community identical with the line of cleavage between creed and creed or between class and class. On the contrary, where the community
life is healthy, these lines of cleavage almost always run nearly
at right angles to one another, It is eminently necessary to all
of us that we should have able and honest public officials in
the nation, in the city, in the State. I f wc make a serious and
AMERICANISM
391
resolute effort to get such officials of the right kind, men who
shall not only be honest but shall be able and shall take the
right view of public questions, we will find as a matter of fact
that the men wc thus choose will be drawn from the professors
of every creed and from among men who do not adhere to
any creed.
For thirty-five years I have been more or less actively engaged in public life, in the performance of my political duties,
now in a public position, now in a private position. I have
fought with all the fervor I possessed for the various causes
in which with all my heart I believed; and in every fight I
thus made I have had with me and against me Catholics,
Protestants, and Jews. There have been times when I have
had to make the fight for or against some man of each creed
on grounds of plain public morality, unconnected with questions of public policy. There were other times when I have
made such a fight for or against a given man, not on grounds
of public morality, for he may have been morally a good man,
but on account of his attitude on questions of public policy, of
governmental principle. In both cases, I have always found
myself fighting beside, and fighting against, men of every
creed. Tlic otic sure way to have secured the defeat of every
good principle worth fighting for would have l)ccn to have
permitted the fight to IK; changed into one along sectarian lines
and inspired by the spirit of sectarian bitterness, cither for the
purpose of putting into public life or of keeping out of public
life the believers in any given creed. Such conduct represents
an assault upon Americanism. The man guilty of it is not a
good American,
I hold that in this country there must be complete severance
of Church and State; that public moneys shall not be used for
the purpose of advancing any particular creed; and therefore
that the public schools shall be non-sectarian and QO public
moneys appropriated for sectarian schools. As a necessary
corollary to this, not only the pupils but the members of the
leaching force and the school officials of all kinds must be <
�392 KJiAR GOD AND T A K E YOUR OWN PART
treated exactly on a par, no matter what their creed; and there
must be no more discrimination against Jew or Catholic or
Protestant than discrimination in favor of Jew, Catholic, or
Protestant. Whoever makes such discrimination is an enemy
of the public schools.
What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There
is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When
I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized
Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever
known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad.
But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This
is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen
as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French
before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit
and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United
States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds
any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal
to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is
just as good an American as any one else.
The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to
ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a
nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans,
Irish - Americans, English - Americans, French - Americans,
Scandinavian-Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other
citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else arc hyphenated Americans;
and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The
man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows
by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land,
plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body
politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the
land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it
will be for every good American, There is no such thing as a
m
tn
i
at
a.
<
i
U)
AMERICANISM
393
hyphenated American who is a good American. The only
man who is a good American is the man who is an American
and nothing else.
I appeal to history. Among the generals of Washington in
the Revolutionary War were Greene, Putimn, and Lee, who
were of English descent; Wayne and Sullivan, who were of
Irish descent; Marion, who was of French descent; Schuyler,
who was of Dutch descent; and Muhlenberg and Herkimer,
who were of German descent. But they were all of them
Americans and nothing else, just as mucli as Washington.
Carroll of Carrollton was a Catholic; Hancock a Protestant;
Jefferson was a heterodox from the standpoint of any orthodox creed; but these and all the oilier signers of the Declaration of Independence stood on an equality of duty and right
and liberty, as Americans and nothing cise.
So it was in the Civil War. Fariagut's father was born
in Spain and Sheridan's father in Ireland; Sherman and
Thomas were of English and Custer of German descent; and
Grant came of a long line of American ancestors whose
original lu>me had been Scotland. But the admiral was not a
Spanish-American; and the generals were not Scotch-Americans or Irish-Americans or English-Americans or GermanAmericans. They were all Americans and nothing else. This
was just as true of Lee and of Stonewall Jackson and of
Beauregard.
When in 1909 our battle fleet returned from its voyage
around the world, Admirals Waimvright and Schroedcr represented the best traditions and the most cflkient action in our
navy; one was of old American blood and of English descent;
the other was the son of German immigrants. But one was not
a native-American and the other a German-American. Each
was an American pure and simple. Each bore allegiance only
to the flag of the United Slates. Each would have been incapable of considering the interests of Germany or of England or of any other country except the United States.
To take charge of the most important work under my Ad-
�394 FEAR GOD AND T A K E YOUR OWN PART
ministration, the hniJding' of the Panama Canal, I chose General Goethals. Both of his parents were horn in Holland. But
he was just plain United States, He wasn't a Dutch-American; if he had been I wouldn't have appointed him. So it was
with such men, among those who served under me, as Admiral
Osterhaus and General Barry. The father of one was born in
Germany, the father of the other in Ireland. But they were
both Americans, pure and simple, andfirst-ratefighting men in
addition.
In my Cabinet at the time there were men of English and
French, German, Irish, and Dutch blood, men born on this
side and men born in Germany and Scotland; but they were all
Americans and nothing else; and every one of them was incapable of thinking of himself or of his fellow countrymen,
excepting in terms of American citizenship. If any one of
them had anything in the nature of a dual or divided allegiance
in his soul, he never would have been appointed to serve under
me, and he would have been instantly removed when the discovery was made. There wasn't one of them wlio was capable
of desiring that the policy of the United States should he
shaped with reference to the interests of any foreign country
or with consideration for anything, outside of the general welfare of humanity, save the honor and interest of the United
States, and each was incapable of making any discrimination
whatsoever among the citizens of the country he served, of our
common country, save discrimination based on conduct and on
conduct alone.
For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an
Irish-American, or an English-American is to be a traitor to
American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who
terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote
are engaged in treason to the American Republic.
Now this is a declaration of principles. How are wc in
practical fashion to secure the making of these principles part
of the very fibre of our national life? First and foremost let
vis all resolve that in this country hereafter wc shall place far
AMERICANISM
395
less emphasis upon the question of right and much greater
emphasis upon the matter of duty. A republic can't succeed
and won't succeed in the tremendous international stress of
the modern world unless its citizens possess that form of highmitided patriotism which consists in putting devotion to duty
before the question of individual rights. This must be done
in our family relations or the family will go to pieces; and no
better tract for family life in this country can be imagined than
the little story called "Mother," written by an American
woman, Kathleen Norris, who happens to be a member of
your own church.
What is true of the family, the foundation-stone of our
national life, is not less true of the entire superstructure. I
am, as you know, a most ardent believer in national preparedness against war as a means of securing that honorable and
self-respecting peace which is the only peace desired by all
high-spirited people. But it is an absolute impossibility to
secure such preparedness in full and proper form if it is an
isolated feature of our policy. The lamentable fate of Belgium has shown that no justice in legislation or success in
business will be of the slightest avail if the nation has not
prepared in advance the strength to protect its rights. But itis equally true that there cannot be this preparation in advance
for military strength unless there is a solid basis of civil and
social life behind it. There must be social, economic, and
military preparedness all alike, all harmoniously developed;
and above all there must be spiritual and mental preparedness.
There must be not merely preparedness in things material;
there must be preparedness in soul and mind. To prepare a
great army and navy without preparing a proper national
spirit would avail nothing. And if there is not only a proper
national spirit but proper national intelligence, we shall realize
that even from the standpoint of the army and navy some civil
preparedness is indispensable. For example, a pfim for national defense which does not include the most far-reaching use
and co-operation of our railroads must prove largely futile.
1
1
�396 FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART
These railroads are organized in (imc of peace. But we must
have the most carefully thought-out organization from the
national and centralized standpoint in order to use them in
time of war. This means first that those in charge of them
from the highest to the lowest must understand their duty in
time of war, must be permeated with the spirit of genuine
patriotism; and second, that tltcy and we shall understand that
efficiency is as essential as patriotism; one is useless without the
other.
Again: every citizen should be trained sedidously by every
activity at our command to realize his duty to the nation. In
France at this moment the working men who are not at the
front are spending all their energies with the single thought
of helping tlicir brethren at the front by what tlicy do in the
munition plants, on the railroads, in the factories. It is a
shocking, a lamentable thing that many of the trade-unions
of England have taken a directly opposite view. It is doubtless true that many of their employers have made excessive
profits out of war conditions; and the government should have
drastically controlled and minimized such profit-making. Such
wealthy men should be dealt with in radical fashion; but their
misconduct doesn't excuse the misconduct of those labor men
who arc trying to make gains at the cost of their brethren
who fight in the trenches. The thing for us Americans to
realize is that wc must do our best to prevent similar conditions from growing up here. Business men, professional
men, and wage-workers alike must understand that there should
be no question of their enjoying any rights whatsoever unless
in the fullest way they recognize and live up to the duties that
go with those rights. This is just as true of the corporation
as of the trade-union, and if either corporation or trade-union
fails heartily to acknowledge this truth, then its activities are
necessarily antisocial and detrimental to the welfare of the body
politic as a whole. In war-time, when the welfare of the nation is at stake, it should be accepted as axiomatic that the
employer is to make no profit out of the war save that which is
AMERICANISM
397
necessary to the efficient running of the business and to the
living expenses of himself and family, and that the wageworker is to treat his wage from exactly the same standpoint
and is to sec to it that the labor organization to which he
belongs is, in all its activities, subordinated to the service of
the nation.
Now there must be some application of this spirit in times
of peace or we cannot suddenly develop it in time of war. The
strike situation in the United States at this time is a scandal
to the country as a whole and discreditable alike to employer
and employee. Any employer who (ails to recognize that
human rights come first and that the friendly relationship between himself and those working for him should be one ol
partnership and comradeship in mutual help no less than selfhelp is recreant to his duty as an American citizen and it is to
his interest, having in view the enormous destruction of life
in the present war, to conserve, and to train to higher efficiency
alike for his benefit and for its, the labor supply. In return
any employee who acts along the lines publicly advocated by
the men who profess to speak for the 1. W. W. is not merely
an open enemy of business but of this entire country and is
out of place in our government.
You, Knights of Columbus, arc particularly fitted to play a
great part in the movement for national solidarity, without
which there can be no real efficiency in either peace or war.
During the last year and a quarter it has been brought home
to us in startling fashion that many of the elements of our
nation are not yet properly fused. It ought to be a literally
appalling fad that members of two of the foreign embassies in
this country have been discovered to be implicated in inciting
their fellow countrymen, whether naturalized American citizens or not, to the destruction of property and the crippling of
American industries that arc operating in accordance with internal law and international agreement. The mangn activity
of one of these embassies, the Austrian, has been brought
home directly to the ambassador in such shape that his recall
�398 FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART
C
D
S
O
D
0)
1
a
a.
<t
1
«
has been forced. The activities of the other, the German, have
been set forth in detail by the publication in the press of its
letters in such fashion as to make it perfectly clear that they
were of the same general character. Of course, the two embassies were merely carrying out the instructions of their home
governments.
Nor is it only the Germans and Austrians who take the
view that as a matter of right they can treat their countrymen
resident in America, even if naturalized citizens of the United
States, as their allies and subjects to be used in keeping alive
separate national groups profoundly anti-American in sentiment if the contest comes between American interests and those
of foreign lands in question. It has recently been announced
that the Russian Government is to rent a house in New York
as a national centre to be Russian in faith and patriotism, to
foster the Russian language and keep alive the national feeling in immigrants who come hither. All of this is utterly antagonistic to proper American sentiment, whether perpetrated
in the name of Germany, of Austria, of Russia, of England,
or France, or any other country.
We should meet this situation by on the one hand seeing
that these immigrants get all their rights as American citizens,
and on the other hand insisting that they live up to their duties
as American citizens. Any discrimination against aliens is
a wrong, for it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage
and to cause him to feel bitterness and resentment during the
very years when he should be preparing himself for American
citizenship. If an immigrant is not fit to become a citizen, he
should not be allowed to come here. I f he is fit, he should be
given all the rights to cam his own livelihood, and to belter
himself, that any man can have. Take such a matter as the
illiteracy test; I entirely agree with those who feel that many
very excellent possible citizens would be barred improperly by
an illiteracy test. But why do you not admit aliens under a
bond to learn to read and write English within a certain time?
It Avould then be a duty to see that they were given ample
AMERICANISM
399
opportunity to learn to read and write and that they were deported if they failed to take advantage of the opportunity. No
man can be a good citizen if he is not at least in process of
learning lo speak the language of his fellow citizens. And an
alien who remains here without learning to speak English for
more than a certain number of years should at the end of that
time be treated as having refused to lake the preliminary steps
necessary to complete Americanization and should be deported.
But there should be no denial or limitation of the alien's
opportunity to work, to own property, and to lake advantage of
civic op])ortunities. Special legislation should deal with the
aliens who do not come here to be made citizens. But the
alien who comes here intending to become a citizen should be
helped in every way to advance himself, should be removed
from every possible disadvantage, and in return should be
required, under penalty of being sent back to the country from
which he came, to prove tlutt he is in good faith fitting himself
to be an American citizen. Wc should set a high standard,
and insist on men reaching it; but if they do reach it we should
treat them as on a full equality with ourselves.
Therefore, wc should devote ourselves as a preparative to
preparedness, alike in peace and war, to secure the three elemental things: one, a common language, the English language;
two, the increase in our social loyalty—citizenship absolutely
undivided, a citizenship which acknowledges no flag except of
the United States and which emphatically repudiates all duality
of national loyalty; and third, an intelligent and resolute effort
for the removal of industrial and social unrest, an effort which
shall aim equally to secure every man his rights and to make
every man understand that unless he in good faith performs
his duties he is not entitled to any rights at all.
The American people should itself do these things for the
immigrants. I f we leave the imnugrant to be helped by representatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a
press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in
the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the im-
�400 FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART
migrants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from
the rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for
ourselves hitter trouble in the future.
I am certain that the only permanently safe attitude for
this country as regards national preparedness for self-defense
is along the lines of obligatory universal service on the Swiss
model. Switzerland is the most democratic of nations. Its
army is the most democratic army in the world. There isn't
a touch of militarism or aggressiveness about Switzerland. It
has been found as a matter of actual practical experience in
Switzerland that the universal military training has made a
very marked increase in social cflicicncy and in the ability of
the man thus trained to do well for himself in industry. The
man who has received the training is a better citizen, is more
self-respecting, more orderly, better able to hold his own, and
more willing to respect the rights of others, and at the same
time he is a more valuable and better-paid man in his business.
We need that the navy and the army should be greatly increased and that their cflicicncy as units and in the aggregate
should be increased to an even greater degree than their numbers. An adequate regular reserve should be established.
Economy should be insisted on, and first of all in the abolition
of useless army posts and navy-yards. The National Guard
should be supervised and controlled by the Federal War Department. Training-camps such as at Plattsburg should he
provided on a nation-wide basis and the government should
pay tlic expenses. Foreign-born as well as native-born citizens shotdd be brought together in those camps; and each man
at the camp should take the oath of allegiance as unreservedly
and unqualifiedly as the men of tlie Regular Army and Navy
now take it. Not only should battleships, battle-cruisers, submarines, aircraft, ample coast and field-artillery be provided
and a greater ammunition-supply system, but there should be
a utilization of those engaged in such professions as the ownership and management of motor-cars, aviation, and the profession of engineering. Map-making and road improvement
AMERICANISM
401
should be attended to, and, as I liavc already said, the railroads brought into intimate touch with the War Deiiartment.
Moreover, the government should deal with conservation of all
necessary war-supplies such as mine products, potash, oil lands,
and the like. Furthermore, all munition plants should be carefully surveyed with special reference to their geographic distribution. Provision should be made for munition and supply
factories west of the Allcghcnies. Finally, remember that
the men must be sedulously trained in peace to use this material
or we shall merely prepare our ships, guns, and products as
gifts to the enemy. All of these things should be done in any
event. But let us never forget that the most important of all
things is to introduce universal military service.
Let me repeat that this preparedness agajnst war must be
based upon efliciency and justice in the handling of ourselves
in time of peace. I f belligerent governments, while we are not
hostile to them but merely neutral, strive nevertheless to make
of this nation many nations, each hostile to the others and
none of them loyal to the central government, then it may Irt
accepted as certain that they would do far worse to us in time
of war. I f Germany and Austria encourage strikes and sar
botagc in our munition plants while we are neutral it may be
accepted as axiomatic that they would do far worse to us if we
were hostile. It is our duty from the standpoint of self-defense to secure the complete Americanization of our people;
to make of the many peoples of this country a united nation,
one in speech and feeling, and all, so far as possible, sharers
in the best that each has brought to our shores.
The foreign-born population of this country must be an
Americanized population—no other kind can fight the battles
of America cither in war or peace. It must talk the language
of its native-bom fellow citizens, it must possess American
citizenship and American ideals—and therefore wejiativc-born
citizens must ourselves practise a high and fine idealism, and
shun as wc would the plague the sordid materialism which
treats pecuniary profit and gross bodily comfort as the only
�402 FEAR GOD AND T A K E YOUR OWN PART
evidences of success. It must stand firm by its oatli of allegiance in word and deed and must show that in very fact it
has renounced allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign
government. It must be maintained on an American standard
of living so as to prevent labor disturbances in important plants
and at critical times. None of these objects can be secured
as long as we have immigrant colonics, ghettos, and immigrant
sections, and above all they cannot be assured so long as we
consider the immigrant only as an industrial asset. The immigrant must not be allowed to drift or to be put at the mercy
of the exploiter. Our object is not to imitate one of the older
racial types, but to maintain a new American type and then
to secure loyalty to this type. We cannot secure such loyalty
unless wc make this a country where men shall feel that they
have justice and also where they shall feel that they are required to perform the duties imposed upon them. The policy
of "Let alone" which we have hitherto pursued is thoroughly
vicious from two standpoints. By this policy we have permitted the immigrants, and too often the native-born laborers
as well, to suffer injustice. Moreover, by this policy we have
failed to impress upon the immigrant and upon the nativeborn as well that they are expected to do justice as well as to
receive justice, that they are expected to lie heartily and actively
and singlc-mindedly loyal to the flag no less than to benefit by
living under it.
We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands
of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain
social outcasts anil menaces any more than fifty years ago wc
could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset
and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big
industrial plant and herd men and women about it without
care for their welfare. Wc cannot afford to permit squalid
overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. Wc cannot afford
the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which
mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals
AMERICANISM
403
to the industrial machinery. Wc cannot afford to leave American mines, munition plants, and general resources in the hands
of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made
hostile to America by machinations such as have recently been
provided in the case of the above-named foreign embassies in
Washington. Wc cannot afford to run the risk of having in
time of war men working on our railways or working in our
munition plants who would in the name of duty to their own
foreign countries bring destruction to us. Recent events have
shown us that incitements to sabotage and strikes are in the
view of at least two of the great foreign jiowcrs of Europe
within their definition of neutral practices. What would be
done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us
in the name of neutrality ?
Justice Dowling in his speech has described the excellent
fourth degree of your order, of how in it you dwell upon duties
rather than rights, upon tlic great duties of patriotism and of
national spirit. It is afinething to have a society that holds up
such a standard of duty. I ask you to make a special effort to
deal with Americanization, the fusing into one nation, a nation
necessarily different from all other nations, of all who come
to our shores. Pay heed to the three principal essentials: (1)
The need of a common language, English, with a minimum
amount of illiteracy; (2) the need of a common civil standard,
similar ideals, beliefs, and customs symbolized by the oath of
allegiance to America; and (3) the need of a high standard of
living, of reasonable equality of opportunity, and of social
and industrial justice. In every great crisis in our history, in
the Revolution and in the Civil War, and in the lesser crises,
like the Spanish War, all factions and races have been forgotten
in the common spirit of Americanism. Protestant and Catholic,-men of English or of French, of Irish or of German, descent have joined with a single-minded purpose to secure for
the country what only can be achieved by the resultant union
of all patriotic citizens, You of this organization have done a
great service by your insistence that citizens should pay heed
�0)
404 FEAR GOD AND TAKE YOUR OWN PART
1
w
o .
2!
(D
n i
0)
first of all to their duties. Hitherto undue prominence has been
given to the question of rights. Your organization is a splendid engine for giving to the stranger within our gates a high
conception of American citizenship. Strive for unity. We
suffer at present from a lack of leadership in these matters.
Even in the matter of national defense there is such a labyrinth of committees and counsels and advisers that there is
a tendency on the part of the average citizen to become confused and do nuthing. I ask you to help strike the note that
shall unite our people. As a people wc must be united. I f
we are not united wc shall slip into the gulf of measureless
disaster. We must be strong in purpose for our own defense
and bent on scevriug justice within our borders. If as a nation wc are split into warring camps, if wc teach our citizens
not to look upon one another as brothers but as enemies divided by the hatred of creed for creed or of those of one race
against those of another race, surely wc shall fail and our great
democratic experiment on this continent will go down in crushing overthrow. I ask you here to-night and those like you to
take a foremost part in the movement—a young men's movement—for a greater and better America in the future.
All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no
matter in what way wc may severally worship our Creator,
must stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the
elimination of race and religious prejudice. Wc must stand
for a reign of equal justice to both big and small. We must
insist on the maintenance of the American standard of 'iving.
We must stand for an adequate national control which shall
secure a better training of our young men in time of peace,
both for the work of peace and for the work of war. Wc
must direct every national resource, material and spiritual, to
the task not of shirking difficulties, but of training our people
to overcome difficulties. Our aim must be, not to make life
easy and soft, not to soften soul and body, but to fit us in
virile fashion to do a great work for all mankind. This great
work can only be done by a mighty democracy, with those
«
•
U
C
D
Z
o
H
X
o
D
O
I
X
o
u
u.
(D
C
D
0)
I
Oi
<
I
ID
AMERICANISM
405
qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of mind, which will
both make it refuse to do injustice to any other nation, and
also enable it to hold its own against aggression by any other
nation. In our relations with the outside world, wc must
abhor wrong-doing, and disdain to commit it, and wc must no
less disdain the baseness of spirit which tamely submits to
wrong-doing. Finally, and most important of all, we must
strive for the establishment within our own borders of that
stern and lofty standard of personal and public morality which
shall guarantee to each man his rights, and which shall insist
in return upon the full performance by each man of his duties
both to his neighbor and to the great nation whose flag must
symbolize in the future as it has symbolized in the past the
highest hopes of all mankind.
�IS
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
XXI .
I
:
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
S
I:
TRANGE and impressive associations rise in the mind of
a man from the New World who speaks before this
august body in this ancient institution of learning. Defore his eyes pass the shadows of mighty kings and war-Jike
nobles, of great masters of law and theology; through the shining dust of the dead centuries he sees crowded figures that
tell of the power and learning and splendor of times gone
by; and he sees also the innumerable host of humble students
to whom clerkship meant emancipation, to whom it was wellnigh the only outlet from the dark thraldom of the Middle
Ages.
This was the most famous university of mcdixval Europe
at a time when no one dreamed that there was a New World
to discover. Its services to the cause of human knowledge
already stretched far back into the remote past at the time
when my forefathers, three centuries ago, were among the
sparse bands of traders, ploughmen, wood-choppers, and fisherfolk who, in hard struggle with the iron unfriendliness of the
Indian-haunted land, were laying the foundations of what
has no'v become the giant republic of the West. To conquer
a continent, to tame the shaggy roughness of wild nature,
means grim warfare; and the generations engaged in it cannot
keep, still less add to, the stores of garnered wisdom which
once were theirs, and which are still in the hands of their
brethren who dwell in the old land. To conquer the wilderness
means to wrest victory from the same hostile forces with
which mankind slrugglcd in the immemorial infancy of our
'Address delivered at the Sorboime, Pam, April 23, 1910.
506
(D
0)
i
a
a.
<
i
U)
N
507
race. The primfeval conditions must be met by primaeval qualities which arc incompatible with the retention of much that
has been painfully acquired by humanity as through the ages
it has striven upward toward civilization. In conditions so
primitive there can be but a primitive culture. At first only
the rudest schools can be established, for no others would meet
the needs of the hard-driven, sinewy folk who thrust forward
the frontier in the teeth of savage man and savage nature;
and many years elapse before any of these schools can develop
into seats of higher learning and broader culture.
The pioneer clays pass; the stump-dotted clearings expand
into vast stretches of fertile farm land; tl>c stockaded clusters
of log cabins change into towns; the hunters of game, the
fellers of trees, the rude frontier traders and tillers of the soil,
the men who wander all their lives long through the wilderness
as the heralds and harbingers of an oncoming civilization, themselves vanish before the civilization for which they have prepared the way. The children of their successors and supplanters, and then their children and children's children, change
and develop with extraordinary rapidity. The conditions accentuate vices and virtues, energy and ruthlessness, all the good
qualities and all the defects of an intense individualism, selfreliant, self-centred, far more conscious of its rights than of
its duties, and blind to its own shortcomings. To the hard materialism of the frontier days succeeds the hard materialism
of an industrialism even more intense and absorbing than that
of the older nations; although these themselves have likewise
already entered on the age of a complex and predominantly
industrial civilization.
As the country grows, its people, who have won success in
so many lines, turn back to try to recover the possessions of
the mind and the spirit, which perforce their fathers threw
aside in order better to wage the first rough battles for the
continent their children inherit. The leaders of thought and
of action grope their way forward to a new life, realizing,
sometimes dimly, sometimes clear-sightedly, that the life of
�:
! I'
i
508
THE STRENUOUS L I EE
material gain, whether for a nation or an individual, is of
value only as a foundation, only as tlierc is added to it the
uplift that comes from devotion to loftier ideals. The new
life thus sought can in part be developed afresh from what
is roundabout in the New World; but it can be developed in
full only by freely drawing upon the treasure-houses of the
Old World, upon the treasures stored in the ancient abodes
of wisdom and learning, such as this where I speak to-day. It
is a mistake for any nation merely to copy another; but it is
an even greater mistake, it is a proof of weakness in any nation,
not to be anxious to learn from another, and willing and able
to adapt that learning to the new national conditions and
make it fruitful and productive therein. It is for us of the
New World to sit at the feet of the Gamaliel of the Old; then,
if wc have the right stuff in us, wc can show that Paul in his
turn can become a teacher as well as a scholar.
To-day I shall speak to you on the subject of individual
citizenship, the one subject of vital importance to you, my
hearers, and to me and my countrymen, because you and we
are citizens of great democratic republics. A democratic repttblic such as each of ours—an effort to realize in its full
sense government by, of, and for the people—represents the
most gigantic of all possible social experiments, the one fraught
with greatest possibilities alike for good and for evil. The
success of republics like yours and like ours means the glory,
and our failure the despair, of mankind; and for you and for
us the question of the quality of the individual citizen is supreme. Under other forms of government, under the rule of
one man or of a very few men, the quality of the rulers is
all-important. If, tinder such governments, the quality of the
rulers is high enough, then the nation may for generations lead
a brilliant career, and add substantially to the sum of world
achievement, no matter how low the quality of the average
citizen; because (he average citizen is an almost negligible
quantity in working out the final results of that type of national greatness.
CITIZENSHIP I N A REPUBLIC
0
59
But with you and with us the case is different. With you
here, and with us in my own home, in the long run. success
or failure will be conditioned upon the way in which the average man, the average woman, does his or iier duty, first in the
ordinary, evcry-day affairs of life, and next in those great
occasional crises which call for the heroic virtues. The average
citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed.
The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main
source; and the main source of national |>o\ver and national
greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation.
Therefore it behooves us to do our best to sec that the standard
of the average citizen is kept high; and the average cannot be
kept high vitdess the standard of the leaders is very much
higher,
It is well if a large proportion of the leaders in any republic,
in any democracy, are, as a matter of course, drawn from the
classes represented in this audience to-day; but only provided
that those classes possess the gilts of sympathy with plain people and of devotion to great ideals. You and those like you
have received special advantages; you have all of you had
the opportunity for mental training; many of you have had
leisure; most of you have had a chance for the enjoyment
of life far greater than comes to the majority of your fellows. To you and your kind much has been given, and from
you much should be expected. Yet there are certain failings
against which it is especially incumbent that both men of
trained and cultivated intellect, and men of inherited wealth
and position, should especially guard themselves, because to
these failings tliey arc especially liable; and if yielded to, their
—your—chances of useful service are at an end.
Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware
of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to
others as the cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and
beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The
poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There
are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism;
�T H E STRENUOUS L I F E
5io
there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the
way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt.
There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of
respect, thati he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an
attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and
lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which,
even if it fails, comes second to achievement. A cynical habit
of thought and sjieech, a readiness to criticise work which the
critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness
which will not accept contact with life's realities—alt these
arc marks, not, as the possessor would fain think, of superiority, but of weakness. They mark the men unfit to bear their
part manfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the
affectation of contempt for the achievements of others, to
hide from others and from themselves their own weakness.
The role is easy; there is none easier, save only the role of
the man who sneers alike at both criticism and performance.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who
is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and
sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes
short again and again, because there is no effort without error
and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who
spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in
the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the
worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that
his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who
know neither victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into a fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a
workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the
men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their
fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride or
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of
the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that
they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life
were not what they actually arc. The man who docs nothing
cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he
be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the
being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.
Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so
well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured,
and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is warworn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many
errors and the valiant end, over whose memory we love to
linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for
the vile guns would have been a soldier."
France has taught many lessons to other nations: surely one
of the most important is the lesson her whole history teaches,
that a high artistic and literary development is compatible
with notable leadership in arms and statecraft. The brilliant
gallantry of the French soldier has for many centuries been
proverbial; and during these same centuries at every court
in Europe the "freemasons of fashion" have treated the French
tongue as their common speech; while every artist and man
of letters, and every man of science able to appreciate thai
marvellous instrument of precision, French prose, has turned
toward France for aid and inspiration. How long the leadership in arms and letters has lasted is curiously illustrated by
the fact that the earliest masterpiece in a modern tongue
is the splendid French epic which tells of Roland's doom and
the vengeance of Charlemagne when the lords of the Prankish
host were stricken at Roncesvalles.
Let those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive to
attain, a high standard of cultivation and scholarship. Yet let
us remember that these stand second to certain other things.
There is need of a sound body, and even more need of a sound
�512
A;
T H E STRENUOUS L I F E
mind. But above mind and above body stands character—
the sum of those qualities which we mean when wc speak of
a man's force and courage, of his good faith and sense of
honor. I believe in exercise for the body, always provided
that we keep in mind that physical development is a means
and not an end. I believe, of course, in giving to all the people
a good education. But the education must contain much besides book-learning in order to be really good. We must ever
remembef that no keenness and subtleness of intellect, no polish,
no cleverness, in any way make up for the lack of the great
solid qualities. Self-restraint, self-mastery, common sense,
the power of accepting individual responsibility and yet of
acting in conjunction with others, courage and resolution—
these arc the qualities which mark a masterful people. Without
them no people can control itself, or save itself from being
controlled from the outside. I speak to a brilliant assemblage;
I speak in a great university which represents the flower of
the highest intellectual development; I pay all homage to
intellect, and to elaborate and specialized training of the intellect; and yet I know I shall have the assent of all of you
. present when I add that more important still are the commonplace, cvery-day qualities and virtues.
Such ordinary, every-day qualities include the will and the
power to work, to fight at need, and to have plenty of healthy
children. The need that the average man shall work is so
obvious as hardly to warrant insistence. There arc a few people in every country so born that they can lead lives of leisure.
These fill a uscftd function if they make it evident that leisure
does not mean idleness; for some of the most valuable work
needed by civilization is essentially non-remunerative in its
character, and of course the people who do this work should
in large part be drawn from those to whom remuneration
is an object of indiflference. But the average man must
earn his own livelihood. He should be trained to do so, and
he should be trained to feel that he occupies a contemptible
position if he does not do so; that he is not an object of envy
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
5»3
if he is idle, at whichever end of the social scale he stands,
but an object of contempt, an object of derision.
In the next place, the good man should be both a strong
and a brave man; that is, he should be able tofight,he should
be able to serve his country as a soldier, if the need arises.
There arc well-meaning philosophers who declaim against the
unrighteousness of war. .^They arc right only if they lay all
their emphasis upon the unrighteousness. War is a dreadful
thing, and unjust war is a crime against humanity. But it
is such a crime because it is unjust, not because it is war.
The choice must ever be in favor of righteousness, and this
whether the alternative be peace or whether the alternative be
war. The question must not be merely, Is there to be peace
or war? The question must be, Is the right to prevail? Are
the great laws of righteousness once more to be fulfilled? And
the answer from a strong and virile [>eoplc must be "Yes,"
whatever the cost. Every honorable effort should always be
made to avoid war, just as every honorable effort should always be made by the individual in private life to keep out of
a brawl, to keep out of trouble; but no self-respecting individual, no self-respecting nation, can or ought to submit to
wrong.
Finally, even more important than ability to work, even more
important than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that
the chief of blessings for any nation is that it shall leave its
seed to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings iti
Biblical times; and it is the crown of blessings now. The
greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest
of all condemnations should be that visited upon wilful sterility.
The first essential in any civilization is that the man and the
woman shall be father and mother of healthy children, so that
the race shall increase and not decrease. If this is not so, if
through no fatdt of the society there is failure to increase, it
is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to deliberate and
wilful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of
those crimes of case and self-indulgence, of shrinking from
�I
,• t
i
i.
i;
:!
D li
I
11
!
° i!
i
THE STRENUOUS LIFE
5i4
pain and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature punishes
more heavily than any other. H we of the great republics, if
we, the free people who claim to have emancipated ourselves
from the thraldom of wrong and error, bring down on our
heads the curse that comes upon the wilfully barren, then it
will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements,
to boast of all that we have done. No refinement of life, no
delicacy of taste, no material progress, no sordid heaping up of
riches, no sensuous development of art and literature, can in
any way compensate for the loss of the great fundamental
virtues; and of these great fundamental virtues the greatest
is the race's power to perpetuate the race.
Character must show itself in the man's performance both
of the duly he owes himself and of the duty lie owes the
state. The man's foremost duty is owed to himself and his
family; and he can do this duty only by earning money, by
providing what is essential to material well-being; it is only
after this has been done that he can hope to build a higher
superstructure on the solid material foundation; it is only after
this has been done that he can help in movements for the general well-being. He must pull his own weight first, and only
after this can his surplus strength be of use to the general
public. It is not good to excite that bitter laughter which
expresses contempt; and contempt is what wc feel for the
being whose .enthusiasm to benefit mankind is such that he is
a burden to those nearest him ; who wishes to do great things
for humanity in the abstract, but who cannot keep his wife in
comfort or educate his children.
Nevertheless, while laying all stress ou this point, while not
merely acknowledging but insisting upon the fact that there
must be a basis of material well-being for the individual as
for the nation, let us with equal emphasis insist that this material well-being represents nothing but the foundation, and
that the foundation, though indispensable, is worthless unless
upon it is raised the superstructure of a higher life. That is
why I decline to recognize the mere multimillionaire, the man
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
515
of mere wealth, as an asset of value to any country; and especially as not an asset to my own country. If he has earned
or uses his wealth in a way that makes him of real benefit, of
real use—and such is often the case—why, then he does become
an asset of worth. But it is the way in which it has been
earned or used, and not the mere fact of wealth, that enlillcs
him to the credit. There is need in business, as in most other
forms of human activity, of the great guiding intelligences.
Their places cannot be supplied by any number of lesser intelligences. It is a good thing that they should have ample
recognition, ample reward. But wc must not transfer our
admiration to the reward instead of to the deed rewarded; and
if what should be the reward exists without the service having
been rendered, then admiration will come only from those who
arc mean of soul. The truth is that, after a certain measure
of tangible material success or reward has been achieved, the
question of increasing it becomes of constantly less importance
compared to other things that can be done in life, It is a bad
thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of
success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by
the deification of material well-being in and for itself. The
man who, for any cause for which he is himself accountable,
has failed to support himself and those for whom he is responsible, ought to feel that he has fallen lamentably short
in his prime duty. But the man who, having far surpassed the
limit of providing for the wants, both of body and mind, of
himself and of those depending upon him, then piles up a great
fortune, for the acquisition or retention of which he returns
no corresponding benefit to the nation as a whole, should himself be made to feel that, so far from being a desirable, he
is an unworthy, citizen of the community; that he is to be
neither admired nor envied; that his right-thinking fellow countrymen put him low in the scale of citizenship, and leave him
to be consoled by the admiration of those whose level of purpose
is even lower than his own.
My position as regards the moneyed interests can be put
�THE STRENUOUS LIFE
II,
in a few words. Iti every civilized society property rights
must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great
majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly
appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights
must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and
rot man to property.
In fact, it is essential to good citizenship clearly to understand that there are certain qualities which wc in a democracy
are prone to admire in and of themselves, which ought by
rights to be judged admirable or the reverse solely from the
standpoint of the use made of them. Foremost among these
I should include two very distinct gifts—the gift of moneymaking and the gift of oratory. Money-making, the money
touch, I have spoken of above. It is a quality which in a
moderate degree is essential. It may be useful when developed
to a very great degree, but only if accompanied and controlled
by other qualities; and without such control the possessor tends
to develop into one of the least attractive types produced by
a modern industrial democracy. So it is with the orator. It
is highly desirable that a leader of opinion in a democracy
should be able to stale his views clearly and convincingly.
But all that the oratory can do of value to the community
is to enable the man thus to explain himself; if it enables the
orator to persuade his hearers to put false values on things, it
merely makes him a power for mischief. Some excellent public
servants have not the gift at all, and must rely upon their
deeds to speak for them; and unless the oratory does represent
genuine conviction based on good common sense and able to be
translated into efficient performance, then the better the oratory the greater the damage to the public it deceives. Indeed,
it is a sign of marked political weakness in any commonwealth
if the people tend to be carried away by mere oratory, if they
tend to value words in and for themselves, as divorced from
the deeds for which they arc supposed to stand. The phrasemaker, the phrase-monger, the ready talker, however great
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
517
his power, whose speech docs not make for courage, sobriety,
and right understanding, is simply a noxious clement in the
body politic, and it speaks ill for the public if he has influence
over them. To admire the gift of oratory without regard
to the moral quality behind the gift is to do wrong to the
republic.
Of course all that I say of the orator applies with even
greater force to the orator's latter-day and more influential
brother, the journalist. The power of the journalist is great,
but he is entitled neither to respect nor admiration because
of that power unless it is used aright. He can do, and he
often does, great good. He can do, and he often does, infinite
1 mischief. All journalists, all writers, for the very reason that
they appreciate the vast possibilities of their profession, should
bear testimony against those who deeply discredit it. Offenses
against taste and morals, which are bad enough in a private
citizen, are infinitely worse if made into instruments for debauching the community through a newspaper. Mendacity,
slander, sensationalism, inanity, vapid triviality, all are potent
factors for the debauchery of the public mind and conscience.
The excuse advanced for vicious writing, that the public demands it and that the demand must be supplied, can no more
be admitted than if it were advanced by the purveyors of food
who sell poisonous adulterations.
In short, the good citizen in a republic must realize that
he ought to possess two sets of qualities, and that neither
avails without the other. He must have those qualities which
make for cflicicncy; and he must also have those qualities which
direct the efficiency into channels for the public good. He is
useless if he is inefficient. There is nothing to be done with
that type of citizen of whom all that can be said is that he is
harmless. Virtue which is dependent upon a sluggish circulation is not impressive. There is little place in active life
for the timid good man. The man who is saved by weakness
from robust wickedness is likewise rendered immune from
the robustcr virtues. The good citizen in a republic must
�1
o
: ^
ID
n
in
tn
T
Q
!
!
Z
o
H
I
U
O
I
s
o
LU
IS)
C
D
0)
I
ot
a.
<t
i 'l
UJ
THE STRENUOUS LIFE
Si8
first- o( all be able to bold his own. He is no good citizen
utdcss he has the ability which will make him work hard
and which at need will make him fight hard. The good citizen
is not a good citizen unless he is an eflicicnt citizen.
But if a man's efficiency is not guided and regulated by a
moral sense, then the more efficient he is the worse he is, the
more dangerous to the body politic. Courage, intellect, all the
masterful qualities, serve but to make a man more evil if
they ar& used merely for that man's own advancement, with
brutal indifference to the rights of others. It speaks ill for
the community if the community worships these qualities and
treats their possessors as heroes regardless of whether the qualities are used rightly or wrongly. It makes no difference as
to the precise way in which this sinister efficiency is shown.
It makes no difference whether such a man's force and ability
betray themselves in the career of money-maker or politician,
soldier or orator, journalist or popular leader. I f the man
works for evil, then the more successful he is the more he
should be despised and condemned by all upright and farseeing men, To judge a man merely by success is an abhorrent wrong; and if the people at large habitually so judge
men, if they grow to condone wickedness because the wicked
man triumphs, they show their inability to understand that
in the last analysis free institutions rest upon the character
of citizenship, and that by such admiration of evil they prove
themselves unfit for liberty.
The homely virtues of the household, the ordinary workaday
virtues which Make the woman a good housewife and housemother, which make the man a hard worker, a good husband
and father, a good soldier at need, stand at the bottom of
character. But of course many others must be added thereto
if a state is to be not only free but great. Good citizenship
is not good citizenship if exhibited only in the home. There
remain the duties of the individual in relation to the Stale,
and these duties arc none loo easy under the conditions which
exist where the effort is made to carry on free government
CITIZENSHIP I N A REPUBLIC
5*9
in a complex industrial civilization. Perhaps the most important thing the ordinary citizen, and, above all, the leader
of ordinary citizens, has to remember in political life is that
he must not be a sheer doctrinaire. The closet philosopher,
the refined and cultured individual who from his library tells
how men ought to be governed under ideal conditions, is of
no use in actual governmental work; and the one-sided fanatic,
and still more the mob-leader, and the insincere man who
to achieve power promises what by no possibility can be
performed, are not merely useless but noxious.
The citizen must have high ideals, and yet he must be able
to achieve them in practical fashion. No permanent good
comes from aspirations so lofty that they have grown fantastic and have become impossible and indeed undesirable to
realize. The impracticable visionary is far less often the guide
and precursor than he is the embittered foe of the real reformer, of the man who, with stumblings and shortcomings,
yet does in some shape, in practical fashion, give effect to the
hopes and desires of those who strive for better things. Woe
to the empty phrase-maker, to the empty idealist, who, instead
of making ready the ground for the man of action, turns
against him when he appears and hampers him as he does the
work I Moreover, the preacher of ideals must remember how
sorry and contemptible is the figure which he will cut, how
great the damage that he will do, if he does not himself, in his
own life, strive measurably to realize the ideals that he preaches
for others. Let him remember also that the worth of the ideal
must be largely determined by the success with which it can
in practice be realized. We should abhor the so-called "practical" men whose practicality assumes the shape of that peculiar baseness which finds its expression in disbelief in morality and decency, in disregard of high standards of living and
conduct. Such a creature is the worst enemy of the body
politic. But only less desirable as a citizen is his nominal
opponent and real ally, the man of fantastic vision who makes
the impossible better forever the enemy of the possible good.
�T H E STRENUOUS L I F E
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an
extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism. Individual initiative, so far from being discouraged,
should be stimulated; and yet wc should remember that, as
society develops and grows more complex, A e continually
v
find that things which once it was desirable to leave to individual initiative can, under the changed conditions, be performed with better results by common effort. It is quite
imposlible, and equally undesirable, to draw in theory a hardand-fast line which shall always divide the two sets of cases.
This every one who is not cursed with the pride of the closet
philosopher will see, if he will only take the trouble to think
about some of our commonest phenomena. For instance, when
people live on isolated farms or in little hamlets, each house
can be left to attend to its own drainage and water-supply;
but the mere multiplication of families in a given area produces
new problems which, because they differ in size, arc found to
differ not only in degree but in kind from the old; and the
questions of drainage and water-supply have to be considered
from the common standpoint. It is not a matter for abstract
dogmatizing to decide when this point is reached; it is a matter
to be tested by practical experiment. Much of the discussion
about socialism and individualism is entirely pointless, because
of failure to agree on terminology. It is not good to be the
slave of names, I am a strong individualist by personal habit,
inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common
sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens
acting together, can do a number of things better than if
they were left to individual action, The individualism which
finds its expression in the abuse of physical force is checked
very early in the growth of civilization, and we of to-day
should in our turn strive to shackle or destroy that individualism which triumphs by greed and cunning, which exploits the
weak by craft instead of ruling them by brutality. We ought
to go with any man in the effort to bring about justice and
the equality of opportunity, to turn the tool-user more and
more into the tool-owner, to shift burdens so that they can
be more equitably borne. The deadening effect on any race
of the adoption of a logical and extreme socialistic system
could not be overstated; it would spell sheer destruction: it
would produce grosser wrong and outrage, fouler immorality,
than any existing system, But this does not mean that we
may not with great advantage adopt certain of the principles
professed by some given set of men who happen to call themselves Socialists; to be afraid to do so would be to make a
mark of weakness on our part.
But we should not take part in acting a lie any more than
in telling a lie, We should not say that men are equal where
they arc not equal, nor proceed upon the assumption that there
is an equality where it does not exist; but wc should strive
to bring about a measurable equality, at least to the extent of
preventing the inequality which is due »o force or fraud. Abraham Lincoln, a man of the plain people, blood of their blood
and bone of their bone, who all his life toiled and wrought
and suffered for them, and at the end died for them, who
always strove to represent them, who would never tell an
untruth to or for them, spoke of the doctrine of equality
with his usual mixture of idealism and sound common sense.
He said (I omit what was of merely local significance):
"I think the authors of the Declaration of Independence
intended to include all men, but that they did not mean to
declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to
say all men were equal in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness in what they did consider all men created equal—equal in
certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. This they said, and this they meant.
They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were
then actually enjoying that equality, or yet that they were
about to confer it immediately upon them. They meant to
set up a standard maxim for free society which should be
familiar to all—constantly looked to, constantly labored for,
520
521
�IN
\
D
.0
T
n
J)
T
D
C
J
0
3
n
L,
J)
D
1
Qi
'3.
•t
1
U
1
01
522
TI-IK STRENUOUS LIFE
and, even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its
influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to
all people, everywhere."
Wc are bound in honor to refuse to listen to those men
who would make us desist from the effort to do away with
the inequality which means injustice; the inequality of right,
of opportunity, of privilege. We arc bound in honor to strive
to bring ever nearer the day when, as far as is humanly possible,
wc shall be able to realize the ideal that each man shall have
an equal opportunity to show the stuff that is in him by the
way in which he renders service. There should, so far as possible, be equality of opportunity to render service; but just
so long as there is inequality of service there should and must
be inequality of reward. Wc may be sorry for the general, the
painter, the artist, the worker in any profession or of any
kind, whose misfortune rather than whose fault it is that he
does his work ill. But the reward must go to the man who
does his work well; for any other course is to create a new
kind of privilege, the privilege of folly and weakness; and
s[>ecial privilege is injustice, whatever form it takes.
To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable, ought to have the reward given to those who arc farsighted, capable, and upright, is to say what is not true and
cannot be true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of
the evil of levelling down. I f a man stumbles, it is a good
thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us needs a helping
hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is a waste of
time to try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for every
one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to
those who shirk their work and to those who do it.
Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and
not be misled into following any proposal for achieving the
millennium, for recreating the golden age, until wc have subjected it to hardbeaded examination. On the other hand, it
is foolish to reject a proposal merely because it is advanced
CITIZENSHIP I N A REPUBLIC
523
by visionaries. If a given scheme is proposed, look at it on
its merits, and, in considering it, disregard formulas. It does
not matter in the least who proposes it, or why. If it seems
good, try it. I f it proves good, accept it; otherwise reject it.
There arc plenty of men calling themselves Socialists with
whom, up to a certain point, it is quite possible to work. If
the next step is one which both wc and they wish to take,
why of course take it, without any regard to the fact that
our views as to the tenth step may differ. But, on the other
hand, keep clearly in mind tfvat, though it has been worth while
to take one step, this does not in the least mean that it may
not be highly disadvantageous to take the next. It is just
as foolish to refuse all progress because people demanding it
desire at some points to go to absurd extremes, as it would
be to go to these absurd extremes simply because some of the
measures advocated by the extremists were wise.
The good citizen will demand liberty for himself, and as a
matter of pride he will see to it that others receive the liberty
which he thus claims as his own. Probably the best test of
true love of liberty in any country is the way in which minorities arc treated in that country. Not only should there be
complete liberty in matters of religion and opinion, btit complete liberty for each man to lead his life as he desires, provided only that in so doing he docs not wrong his neighbor.
Persecution is bad because it is persecution, and without reference to which side happens at the moment to be the persecutor and which the persecuted. Class hatred is bad in just
the same way, and without any regard to the individual who,
at a given time, substitutes loyalty to a class for loyalty to
the nation, or substitutes hatred of men because they happen
to come in a certain social category, for judgment awarded
them according to their conduct. Remember always that the
same measure of condemnation should be extended to the arrogance which would look down upon or crush any man because
he is poor and to the envy and hatred which would destroy a
man because he is wealthy. The overbearing brutality of the
�524
ili
u
T H E STRENUOUS L I F E
man of wealth or power, and the envious and hateful malice
directed against wealth or power, are really at root merely different manifestations of the same quality, merely the two sides
of the same shield. The man who, if born to wealth and
power, exploits and ruins his less fortunate brethren is at heart
the same as the greedy and violent demagogue who excites
those who have not property to plunder those who have. The
gravest wrong upon his country is inflicted by that man, whatever his station, who seeks to make his countrymen divide
primarily on the line that separates class from class, occupation from occupation, men of more wealth from men of less
wealth, instead of remembering that the only safe standard
is that which judges each man on his worth as a man, whether
he be rich or poor, without regard to his profession or to his.
station in life. Such is the only true democratic test, the
only test that can with propriety be applied in a republic.
There have been many republics in the past, both in what we
call antiquity and in what we call the Middle Ages. They fell,
and the prime factor in their fall was the fact that the parties
tended to divide along the line that separates wealth from
poverty. It made no difference which side was successful; it
made no difference whether the republic fell under the rule
of an oligarchy or the rule of a mob. In either case, when
once loyalty to a class had been substituted for loyalty to the
republic, the end of the republic was at hand. There is no
greater need to-day than the need to keep ever in mind the
fact that the cleavage between right and wrong, between good
citizenship and hci citizenship, runs at right angles to, and
not parallel with, the lines of cleavage between class and class,
between occupation and occupation. Ruin looks us in the face
if we judge a man by his position instead of judging him
by his conduct in that jwsition.
In a republic, to be successful we must learn to combine intensity of conviction with a broad tolerance of difference of
conviction. Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and
•J
CITIZENSHIP IN A REPUBLIC
525
intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room
for healthy growth. Bitter internecine hatreds, based on such
differences, are signs, not of earnestness of belief, but of that
fanaticism which, whether religious or antireligious,- democratic or antidemocratic, is itself but a manifestation of the
gloomy bigotry which has been the chief factor in the downfall of so many, many nations.
Of one man in especial, beyond any one else, the citizens
of a republic should beware, and that is of the man who
appeals to them to support him on the ground that he is
hostile to other citizens of the republic, that he will secure
for those who Hlcct him, in one shape or another, profit at
the expense of other citizens of the republic. It makes no difference whether he appeals to class hatred or class interest, to
religious or antireligious prejudice. The man who makes such
an appeal should always be presumed to make it for the sake
of furthering his own interest. The very last thing that an
intelligent and self-respecting member of a democratic community should do is to reward any public man because that
(mblic man says he will get the private citizen something to
which this private citizen is not entitled, or will gratify some
emotion or animosity which this private citizen ought not to
possess. Let me illustrate this by one anecdote from my own
experience. A number of years ago I was engaged in cattleranching on the great plains of the western United States.
There were no fences. The cattle wandered free, the ownership of each being determined by the brand; the calves were
branded with the brand of the cows they followed. If on
the round-up an animal was passed by, the following year it
would appear as an unbranded yearling, and was then called
a maverick. By the custom of the country these mavericks
were branded with the brand of the man on whose range they
were found. One day I was riding the range with a newly
lured cowboy, and we came upon a maverick. Wc roped and
threw it; then we built a little fire, took out a cinch-ring,
heated it at the fire; and the cowboy started to put on the
�S
526
u
(J
<t
a.
ID
D
0)
Z
o
H
I
(J
O'
I
s
o
U,
s
s
C
D
ro
i
a.
<t
i •
N I
THE
STRENUOUS L I F E
bran<l, I said to him, " I t is So-and-so's brand," naming the
man on whose range we happened to be. He answered: "That's
all right, boss; I know my business." In another moment
1 said to h i m : "Hold on, you arc putting on my brand t" To
which he answered: "That's all right; I always put on the
boss's brand." I answered: "Oh, very well. Now you go
straight back to the ranch and get what is owing to you; I don't
need you any longer." He jumped up and said: "Why, what's
the matter? I was putting on your brand." And I answered:
"Yes, my friend, and i f you will steal f o r me you will steal
from me."
Now, the same principle which applies in private life applies
also in public life. I f a public man tries to get your vote by
saying that he will do something wrong in your interest, you
can be absolutely certain that if ever it becomes worth his
while he will do something wrong against your interest.
So much for the citizenship of the individual in his relations
to his family, to his neighbor, to the State. There remain
duties of citizenship which the Stale, the aggregation of all the
individuals, owes in connection with other States, with other
nations. Let me say at once that I am no advocate of a foolish
cosmopolitanism. I believe that a man must be a good patriot
before he can be, and as the only possible way of being, a good
citizen of the world. Experience teaches us that the average
man who protests that his international feeling swamps his
national feeling, that he does not care for his country because
he cares so much for mankind, in actual practice proves himself
the foe of mankind; that the man who says that he does not
tare to be a citizen of any one country, because he is a citizen of
the world, is in very fact usually an exceedingly undesirable citizen of whatever corner of the world he happens at the moment
to be in. In the dim future all moral needs and moral standards may change; but at present, i f a man can view his own
country and all others countries from the same level with tepid
indifference, it is wise to distrust him, just as it is wise to distrust the man who can take the same dispassionate view of his
C I T I Z E N S H I P I N A REPUBLIC
527
wife and his mother. However broad mid deep a man's sympathics however intense his activities, he need have no fear that
they wdl be cramped by love of his native land.
Now, this does not mean in the least that a man should not
wish to do good outside of his native land. On the contrary
just as I think that the man who loves his family is more apt
to be a good neighbor than the man who does not, so I think
that the most useful member of the family of nations is normally a strongly patriotic nation. So far from patriotism
being inconsistent with a proper regard for the rights of other
nations, I hold that the true patriot, who is as jealous of the
national honor as a gentleman is of his own honor, will be
careful to see that the nation neither inflicts nor suffers wrong
just as a gentleman scorns equally to wrong others or to suffer
others to wrong him. I do not for one moment admit that
political morality is different from private morality, that a
promise made on the stump differs from a promise made in
private life. I do not for one moment admit that a man should
act deceitfully as a public servant in his dealings with other
nations, any more than that he should act deceit fully in his
dealings as a private citizen with other private citizens. I
do not for one moment admit that a nation should treal other
nations in a different spirit from that in which an honorable
man would treat other men.
In practically applying this principle to the two sets of cases
there is, of course, a great practical difference to be taken into
account. We speak of international law; but international law
is something wholly different from private or mimicipal law,
and the capital difference is that there is a sanction for the one
and no sanction for the other; that there is an outside force
which compels individuals to obey the one, while there is no
such outside force to compel obedience as regards the other
International law will, I believe, as the generations pass, grow
stronger and stronger until in some way or other there develops
the power to make it respected. But as yet it is only in the
first formative period. As yet, as a rule, each nation is of
�Pi
a-
n
'0
-J
Z
X
J
O
n
o
THE STRENUOUS LIFE
52H
necessity obliged to judge for itself in matters of vital importance between it aiul its neighbors, and actions must of
necessity, where this is the case, be different from what they
arc where, as among private citizens, there is an outside force
whose action is all-powerful and must be invoked in any crisis
of importance. It is the duty of wise statesmen, gifted with
power of looking ahead, to try to encourage and build up every
movement which wilt substitute or tend to substitute some other
agency for force in the settlement of international disputes.
It is the duty of every honest statesman to try to guide the
nation so that it shall not wrong any other nation. But as
yet the great civilized peoples, if they are to be true to themselves and to the cause of humanity and civilization, must keep
ever in mind that in the last resort they must possess both the
will and the power lo resent wrong-doing from others. The
men who sanely believe in a lofty morality preach righteousness; but they do not preach weakness, whether among private
citizens or among nations. Wc believe that our ideals should
be high, but not so high as to make it impossible measurably to
realize them. We sincerely and earnestly believe in peace; but
if peace and justice conflict, we scorn the man who would not
stand for justice though the whole world came in arms against
him.
And now, my hosts, a word in parting. You and I belong
to the only two republics among the great powers of the world.
The ancient friendship between France and the United States
has been, ou the whole, a sincere and disinterested friendship.
A calamity to yon would be a sorrow to us. But it would be
more than lhal. In the seething turmoil of the history of humanity certain nations stand out as possessing a peculiar power
or charm, some special gift of beauty or wisdom or strength,
which puts them among the immortals, which makes them
rank forever with the leaders of mankind. France is one of
these nations. For her to sink would be a loss to all the world.
There are certain lessons of brilliance and of generous gallantry that she can teach better than any of her sister nations.
CrnZENSHIP I N A REPUBLIC
529
When the French peasantry sang of Malbrook, it was to tell
how the soul of this warrior-foe took flight , nvard through
the laurels he had won. Nearly seven centuries ago, Froissart, writing of a time of dire disaster, said that the realm of
France was never so stricken that there were not left men who
would valiantly fight for it. You have had a great past I
believe that you will have a great future. Long tnav you carry
yourselves proudly as citizens of a nation which bears a leading pi'.rt in I he teaching and uplifting of mankind.
n
�5j. Remarks to D.A.R.
«*
fi
We know today —it was in the papers —that in 1918, before the war ended, the Germans were building a Zeppelin
with the perfectly definite objective of sending her out in
the spring of 1919 by way of the Great Circle Route, over
Iceland, Greenland and down to New York, to drop a cargo
of bombs on New York City. We have known that from the
documents we picked up afterwards.
Q. How can we ever defend a territory going down from
Maine, through the Virgin Islands, and all the territory
embraced by the Monroe Doctrine and around toward the
Philippine Islands and coming back to the United States?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, of course if you have one enemy, we are
all right. But suppose you have two enemies in two different
places, then you have to be a bit shifty on your feet. You
have to lick one of them first and then bring them around
and then lick the other. That is about the only chance.
DR. VAN SCHAICK: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
(See note to Item 51, 1937 volume, for a discussion of the embargo
upon arms shipments to Spain.)
i
53 (["All of Us, and You and I Especially, Are
Descended from Immigrants and Revolutionists." Extemporaneous Remarks Before the
Daughters of the American Revolution.
Washington, D.C. April 21, 1938
4 i
Daughters of the American Revolution:
I'
I COULDN'T let a fifth year go by without coming to see you.
I must ask you to take me just as I am, in a business suit [explodingflashlightbulb] —and I see you are still in favor of
national defense —take me as I am, with no prepared remarks.
You know, as a matter of fact, I would have been here to one
258
�53. Remarks to D.A.R.
belin
in
ver
rgo
the
om
ory
the
are
ent
ou
rgo
re
m.
:xof
ks.
ne
of your conventions in prior years —one or more —but it is not
the time that it takes to come before you and speak for half an
hour, it is the preparation for that half-hour. And I suppose that
for every half-hour speech that I make before a convention or
over the radio, I put in ten hours preparing it.
So I have to ask you to bear with me, to let me just come here
without preparation to tell you how glad I am to avail myself
of this opportunity, to tell you how proud I am, as a Revolutionary descendant, to greet you.
I thought of preaching on a text, but I shall not. I shall only
give you the text and I shall not preach on it. I think I can
afford to give you the text because it so happens, through no
fault of my own, that I am descended from a number of people
who came over in the Mayflower. More than that, every one of
my ancestors on both sides —and when you go back four generations or five generations it means thirty-two or sixty-four of
them —every single one of them, without exception, was in this
land in 1776. And there was only one Tory among them.
The text is this: Remember, remember always that all of us,
and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and
revolutionists.
I am particularly glad to know that today you are making this
fine appeal to the youth of America. T o these rising generations,
to our sons and grandsons and great-grandsons, we cannot overestimate the importance of what we are doing in this year, in
our own generation, to keep alive the spirit of American democracy. The spirit of opportunity is the kind of spirit that has led
us as a nation —not as a small group but as a nation —to meet
the very great problems of the past.
We look for a younger generation that is going to be more
American than we are. We are doing the best that we can and yet
we can do better than that, we can do more than that, by inculcating in the boys and girls of this country today some of the
underlying fundamentals, the reasons that brought our immigrant ancestors to this country, the reasons that impelled our
Revolutionary ancestors to throw off a fascist yoke.
259
3
Mi "
�54. Press Conference with Society of Newspaper Editors
*i
We have a great many things to do. Among other things in
this world is the need of being very, very certain, no matter
what happens, that the sovereignty of the United States will
never be impaired.
There have been former occasions, conventions of the Daughters of the American Revolution, when voices were raised,
needed to be raised, for better national defense. This year, you
are raising those same voices and I am glad of it. But I am glad
also that the Government of the United States can assure you
today that it is taking definite, practical steps for the defense
of the Nation. . . .
54 ([A Special Press Conference with the Members of the American Society of Newspaper
Editors. Washington, D.C. April 21, 1938
{Text of remarks addressed to D.A.R. — An editorial on vindictive
criticism — Racial intolerance —The solid South and intelligent Democracy—C.I.O.-A.F. of L. dispute — Undistributed profits tax —
Moral principle in taxation — One-sidedness in newspaper stories —
Responsibilities of the press —Neutrality law and the Spanish and
Sino-Japanese conflicts—National Labor Relations Board.)
I can hardly realize that another year has gone
by since we had a gathering in this room. I think this is a
little larger one. My impression of last year is that I asked
questions and you fellows got into the most awful row among
yourselves. (Laughter)
I am not going to ask any questions but I am going to tell
you what I said to the D.A.R. today. (Laughter) I am going
to preach the same sermon to you that I preached to them.
It is a perfectly good text. I said that I probably had a more
American ancestry than nine out of ten of the D.A.R. I
had various ancestors who came over in the Mayflower and
similar ships —one that carried the cargo of furniture —
THE PRESIDENT:
$r
260
�54. Press Conference with Society of Newspaper Editors
54-
and furthermore that I did not have a single ancestor who
came to this country after the Revolutionary War; they were
all here before the Revolution. And, out of the whole thirtytwo or sixty-four of them, whichever it was, there was only
one Tory. (Laughter) Well, they began to wonder if they
ought to applaud that or not. And, I said, now I will come
down to the text. I t is just as good for you people as it was
for the D.A.R. I am putting you in the same category.
(Laughter) I said, Here is the text: Keep in the front of your
heads all of the time, dear ladies, first, that you are the
descendants of immigrants. And they did not know whether
to applaud that or not. Secondly, that you are the descendants of revolutionists. They did not know whether to applaud that or not. So there is the text and I won't expound
on it any further.
Now shoot. (Laughter) [There was no response from the
audience.
Perhaps if nobody wants to shoot, I will read an editorial
to you. (Laughter) Probably none of you has read it. It is
from a magazine called "Editor and Publisher." And it is
based on something that Bill White said. Where is Bill?
Q. He is here. (Laughter)
THE PRESIDENT: I t is entitled "Our Business Clinic." It says:
"For a clear-headed diagnosis of current business troubles, we commend among the many appearing in this issue that of William Allen
White, the Sage of Emporia. The famous editor of the Gazette, who
said a few weeks ago that he had seen yesterday and today and was
not afraid of tomorrow, cuts with keen words through the hysteria
which has bedevilled the land for ten years.
"Mr. White is correct when he says —
I won't forgive him for this —the connotation of it —
F
5
"—that Roosevelt, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler—"
Now, Bill! (Laughter) . . . Anyway, these four famous gentlemen, including Roosevelt,
261
�108. Address on Hemisphere Defense
make strong our conviction that in spite of setbacks that
Process
will go on toward fulfillment.
108 t["The American Republics Are Determined to Work in Unity for Peace Just As We
Work in Unity to Defend Ourselves From Attack." Address on Hemisphere Defense, Dayton,
Ohio. October 12, 1940
My friends of the Americas:
T is no mere coincidence that this radio broadcast to the
entire Western Hemisphere — North America, Central
America and South America —should take place on the
anniversary of Christopher Columbus's discovery of the
New World. No day could be more appropriate than this
day on which we celebrate the exploits of the bold discoverer.
Today, all of us Americans of North and Central and South
America, join with our fellow citizens of Italian descent to do
honor to the name of Columbus.
Many and numerous have been the groups of Italians who
have come in welcome waves of immigration to this hemisphere.
They have been an essential element in the civilization and
make-up of all the twenty-one Republics. During these centuries Italian names have been high i n the list of statesmen in
the United States and in the other Republics —and in addition,
those who have helped to create the scientific, commercial, professional, and artistic life of the New World are well known
to us.
The Americas have excelled in the adventure of many races
living together in harmony. I n the wake of the discoverers came
the first settlers, the first refugees from Europe. They came to
-plough new fields, build new homes, establish a new society
a new world. Later, they fought for liberty. Men and women of . 1
460
5:5-
�process
LUC
Central
m
108. Address on Hemisphere Defense
>
courage, of enterprise, of vision, they knew what they were
fighting for; they gained it —and thereby "gave hope to all the
world for all future time."
They formed, here in the Western Hemisphere, a new human
reservoir, and into it has poured the blood, the culture, the traditions of all the races and peoples of the earth. To the Americas
they came —the "masses yearning to be free" —"the multitudes
brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues," cherishing
common aspirations, not for economic betterment alone, but for
the personal freedoms and liberties which had been denied to
them in the Old World.
They came not to conquer one another but to live with one
another. They proudly carried with them their inheritance of
culture, but they cheerfully left behind them the burden of
prejudice and hate.
In this New World were transplanted the great cultures of
Spain and Portugal. In our own day the fact is that a great part
of the Spanish and Portuguese culture of the entire world now
comes from the Americas themselves.
It is natural that all American citizens from the many nations
of the Old World should kindly remember the lands where their
ancestors lived, and the great attributes of the old civilization in
those lands. But in every single one of the American Republics,
the first and final allegiance, the first and final loyalty of these
citizens, almost without exception, is to the Republic in which
they live and move and have their being.
For when our forefathers came to these shores, they came with
a determination to stay to become citizens of the New World.
As we established our independences, they wanted to become citizens of America —not an Anglo-Saxon American, nor an ItalianAmerican, nor a German-American, nor a Spanish-American,
nor a Portuguese-American — but just citizens of an independent
nation of America.
Here, we do not have any dual citizenship. Here, the descendants of the very same races who had always been forced to fear
461
j;
: . f •.
t:-f.
V>• - •
i
!
i
I
:;!.
lit
\0
WW
!
'
j1
i.Ul
�108. Address on Hemisphere Defense
or hate each other in lands across the ocean, have learned to live
in peace and in friendship.
No one group or race in the New World has any desire to
subjugate the others. No one nation in this hemisphere has
desire to dominate the others. In the Western Hemisphereany
no
nation is considered a second-class nation.
We know that attempts have been made — we know that they
will continue to be made, alas —to divide these groups within
a nation, and to divide these nations among themselves.
There are those in the Old World who persist in believincr
that here in this new hemisphere the Americas can be torn by
the hatreds and fears which have drenched the battle grounds
of Europe for so many centuries. Americans as individuals
American Republics as nations, remain on guard against those
who seek to break up our unity by preaching ancient race
hatreds, by working on old fears, or by holding out glittering
promises which they know to be false.
"Divide and conquer!" That has been the battle cry of the
totalitarian powers in their war against the democracies. It has
succeeded on the continent of Europe for the moment. On our
continents it will fail.
We are determined to use our energies and our resources to
counteract and repel the foreign plots and propaganda — the
whole technique of underground warfare originating in Europe
and now clearly directed against all the Republics on this side
of the ocean.
That propaganda repeats and repeats that democracy is a decadent form of Government. They tell us that our old democratic ideal, our old traditions of civil liberties, are things of
the past.
We reject that thought. We say that we are the future. We
say that the direction in which they would lead us is backward,
not forward—backward to the bondage of the Pharaohs, backward to the slavery of the Middle Ages.
The command of the democratic faith has been ever onward
and upward. Never have free men been satisfied with the mere
462
e
11
�108. Address on Hemisphere Defense ,
•arned to live
my desire to
'here has any
misphere no
ow that they
"oups within
'elves.
in believing
i be torn by
ttle grounds
individuals,
igainst those
indgit race
utj^^ring
e cry of the
acies. It has
ent. On our
resources to
iganda — the
? in Europe
on this side
acy is a deold demoe things of
future. We
; backward,
aohs, back/er onward
h the mere
^5
maintenance of any status quo, however comfortable or secure
it may have seemed at the moment.
We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction,
that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.
That fire of freedom was in the eyes of Washington, and
Bolivar, and San Martin, and Artigas, and Juarez, and Bernardo
O'Higgins, and all the brave, rugged, ragged men who followed
them in the wars of independence.
That fire burns now in the eyes of those who are fighting
for freedom in lands across the sea.
On this side of the ocean there is no desire, there will be no
effort, on the part of any one race, or people, or nation, to control any other. The only encirclement sought is the encircling
bond of good old-fashioned neighborly friendship. So bound
together, we are able to withstand any attack from the east or
from the west. Together we are able to ward off any infiltration
of alien political and economic ideas that would destroy our
freedom and our democracy.
When we speak of defending this Western Hemisphere, we
are speaking not only of the territory of North, Central and
South America and the immediately adjacent islands; we include the right to the peaceful use of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. That has been our traditional policy.
It is, for example, a fact that as far back as the year 1798 the
United States found that its peaceful trade and commerce with
other parts of the Americas were threatened by armed privateers
sent to the West Indies by nations then at war in Europe. Because of that threat to peace in this Hemisphere, the United
States Ships, Constellation, Constitution, United States, and
many others were fitted out; and they drove the armed vessels
of Europe out of the waters to the south of us, and made commerce between the Americas once more peaceable and possible.
We of the Americas still consider that this defense of these
oceans of the Western Hemisphere against acts of aggression is
the first factor in the defense and protection of our own terri-
! 1
;
i:
1'! >
463
i
!
�10S. Address on Hemisphere Defense
tonal integrity. We reaffirm that policy, lest there be any d
of our intention to maintain it.
1
r-
m
m
t
There are some in every single one of the twenty-one Amer'
can Republics who suggest that the course the Americas ^
following is slowly drawing one or all of us into war with some
nation, or nations, beyond the seas.
The clear facts have been stated over and over again Th'
country wants no war with any nation. This hemisphere wants
no war with any nation. The American Republics are deter
mined to work in unity for peace just as we work in unity to
defend ourselves from attack.
For many long years every ounce of energy I have had has
been devoted to keeping this nation and the other Republics
at peace with the rest of the world. That is what continues uppermost in my mind today —the objective for which I hope and
work and pray.
We arm to defend ourselves. The strongest reason for that is
that it is the strongest guarantee for peace.
The United States of America is mustering its men and resources, arming not only to defend itself, but, in cooperation
with the other American Republics, to help defend the whole
hemisphere.
We are building a total defense on land and sea and in the
air sufficient to repel total attack from any part of the world.
Forewarned by the deliberate attacks of the dictators upon free
peoples, the United States, for the first time in its history, has
undertaken the mustering of its men in peacetime. Unprecedented dangers have caused the United States to undertake the
building of a navy and an air force sufficient to defend all the
coasts of the Americas from any combination of hostile powers.
We have asked for, and we have received, the fullest cooperation and assistance from industry and labor. A l l of us are speeding the preparation of adequate defense.
And we are keeping the nations of this hemisphere fully advised of our defense preparations. We have welcomed the military missions from neighboring republics; and in turn our own
464
military and
tend to eno
plans.
We shall
This idea
cover this ha
ment of the
South and C
bor, the nei;
was always
which soug:
all friendsh
neighbors.
From the
ican Repub
fully settlec
closer and
their unity
There w
proposed t<
strength h:
neighbor p
gentinian <
political sy
whole drav
Througl
in territori
New Worl
the immed
and of the
were acqu
of the Un
tion of the
ican Repu
were pron
publics fo
�10S. Address on Hemisphere Defense
ly doubt
: Ameriicas are
th some
:n. This
e wants
e deterJnity to
had has
^publics
i upper>p^^id
• WKs
and re•eration
whole
in the
world,
on free
>ry has
npreceike the
all the
cowers.
Doperaspeed(
illy ade miliar own
*
military and naval experts have been welcomed by them. We intend to encourage this frank interchange of information and
plans.
We shall be all for one and one for all.
This idea of a defense strong enough and wide .enough to
cover this half of the world had its beginnings when the Government of the United States announced its policy with respect to
South and Central America. I t was the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who knew how to mind his own business, but
was always willing to lend a friendly hand to a friendly nation
which sought it, the neighbor who was willing to discuss in
all friendship the problems which will always arise between
neighbors.
From the day on which that policy was announced, the American Republics have consulted with each other; they have peacefully settled their old problems and disputes; they have grown
closer and closer to each other; until at last in 1938 at Lima,
their unity and friendship were sealed.
There was then adopted a declaration that the New World
proposed to maintain collectively the freedom upon which its
strength had been built. I t was the culmination of the good
neighbor policy, the proof of what was said by that famous Argentinian of Italian birth, Alberdi, "The Americas are a great
political system: the parts draw life from the whole; and the
whole draws life from its parts."
Through the acquisition in recent months of eight naval bases
in territories of the British Empire lying within the sphere of the
New World, from Newfoundland to Guiana, we have increased
the immediate effectiveness of the great navy which we now have
and of the greater navy we have under construction. These bases
were acquired by the United States; but not for the protection
of the United States alone. They were acquired for the protection of the whole Western Hemisphere. The unity of the American Republics was proven to the world, when these naval bases
were promptly opened by the United States to the other Republics for cooperative use. I n that act was typified the good
:' I i
;
:
r
• t• :
•I E
ii
465
i i
�108. Address on Hemisphere Defense
neighbor conception of hemispheric defense through coo
tion by and for all of us.
- ,
American radio stations will play their part in the new
which has been built so solidly between the American n
during the past eight years. They must be effective instrume
for the honest exchange and communication of ideas. They rav&x.
never be used, as stations in some other lands are used, to send
out on the self-same day one false story to one country, and
different false story to another.
The core of our defense is the faith we have in the institutions
we defend. The Americas will not be scared or threatened into
the ways the dictators want us to follow.
No combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will
halt us in the path we see ahead for ourselves and for democracy
No combination of dictator countries of Europe and Asia will
stop the help we are giving to almost the last free people now
fighting to hold them at bay.
Our course is clear. Our decision is made. We will continue
to pile up our defense and our armaments. We will continue to
help those who resist aggression, and who now hold the aggressors far from our shores. Let no American in any part of the
Americas question the possibility of danger from overseas. Why
should we accept assurances that we are immune? History records that not long ago those same assurances were given to the
people of Holland and Belgium and Norway.
It can no longer be disputed that forces of evil which are
bent on conquest of the world will destroy whomever and whenever they can destroy. We have learned the lessons of recent
years. We know now that if we seek to appease them by withholding aid from those who stand in their way, we only hasten
the day of their attack upon us.
The people of the United States, the people of all the Americas, reject the doctrine of appeasement. They recognize it for
what it is — a major weapon of the aggressor nations.
- I speak bluntly. I speak the love the American people have
for freedom and liberty and decency and humanity.
466
0 p e r a
0115
s
-5..-
%.
• i-.
�log. Mobilization for Human Needs
That is why we arm. Because, I repeat, this nation wants to
keep war away from these two continents. Because we, all of us,
t; are determined to do everything possible to maintain peace in
jf this hemisphere. Because great strength of arms is the practical
I* way of fulfilling our hopes for peace and for staying out of this
war or any other war. Because we are determined to muster all
our strength so that we may remain free.
The men and women of Britain have shown how free people
jjsi defend what they know to be right. Their heroic defense will be
recorded for all time. It will be perpetual proof that democracy,
when put to the test, can show the stuff of which it is made.
I well recall during my recent visit to three great capital cities
in South America, the vast throng which came to express by
1; their cheers their friendship for the United States. I remember
h especially that above all the cheers I heard one constant cry
again and again —one above all others: "Viva la democracial" —
"Long live democracy 1"
Those three stirring words cry out the abiding conviction of
people in all the democracies that freedom shall rule in the land.
As I salute the peoples of all the nations in the western world,
I echo that greeting from our good neighbors of the Americas:
"Viva la democracial"— "Long live democracy!"
NOTE: On this trip to Dayton,
Ohio, I also made short talks
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and
Akron, Ohio, on October 11, 1940,
which are not printed i n these
volumes.
109 ([Radio Address for the 1940 Mobilization
for Human Needs. October 13, 1940
Chairman Adams, Community Chest Workers, friends of Human
Needs:
for Human Needs this year is more than ever
an expression of our national community spirit. It is, as it always has been, a good cause, participated in by good Americans
467
T H E MOBILIZATION
�John F. Kennedy
A NATION OF
IMMIGRANTS
Revised and Enlarged
Introduction by ROBERT F. KENNEDY
Edition
Harper & Row, Publishers
New York and EvansUm
18 17
�62
A N A T I O N OF I M M I G R A N T S
prospered in this era of opportunity and expansion, for from
these humble beginnings have grown many of our large department stores and mercantile establishments.
The exodus from Germany after 1848 brought Jewish intellectuals, philosophers, educators, political leaders and social
reformers. These shared much the same experiences as the other
immigrants. "Like the Scandinavian Lutherans and the Irish
Catholics," says Oscar Handlin, "they appeared merely to maintain their distinctive heritage while sharing the rights and obligations of other Americans within a free society."
At the turn of the century the Jews fleeing persecution in
Russia came in such numbers that they could not be so readily
absorbed into the mainstream of life as the earlier comers. They
clustered in Jewish communities within the large cities, like New
York.
Like the Irish and the Italians before them, they had to work at
whatever they could find. Most found an outlet for their skills in
the needle trades, as garment workers, hatmakers and furriers.
Often they worked in sweatshops. In an effort to improve working conditions (which involved child labor and other forms of
exploitation), they joined with other immigrant workers to
form, in 1900, the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union.
In time, they developed the clothing industry as we know it today,
centered in New York but reaching into every small town and
rural area. The experience and tradition of these pioneers
produced many effective leaders in the labor movement, such as
Morris Hillquit, Sidney Hillman, Jacob Potofsky and David
Dubinsky.
Jewish immigrants have also made immense contributions to
thought: as scholars, as educators, as scientists, as judges and
lawyers, as journalists, as literary figures. Refugee scientists such
as Albert Einstein and Edward Teller brought great scientific
knowledge to this country.
Immigration from the Orient in the latter part of the nineteenth
century was confined chiefly to California and the West Coast.
Our behavior toward these groups of newcomers represented a
shameful episode in our relationships to those seeking the hospitality of our shores. They were often mobbed and stoned by
T H E POST-REVOLUTIONARY FORCES
63
native Americans. The Chinese suffered and were barred from
our shores as far back as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor many JapaneseAmericans were victimized by prejudice and unreasoning discrimination. They were arbitrarily shipped to relocation camps.
It took the extraordinary battlefield accomplishments of the
nisei, Americans of Japanese descent, fighting in the U.S. Army
in Europe, to help restore our perspective. While our attitude
toward these citizens has been greatly improved over the years,
many inequities in the law regarding Oriental immigration must
still be redressed.
Today many of our newcomers are from Mexico and Puerto
Rico. We sometimes forget that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens
by birth and therefore cannot be considered immigrants. Nonetheless, they often receive the same discriminatory treatment and
opprobrium that were faced by other waves of newcomers. The
same things are said today of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans that
were once said of Irish, Italians, Germans and Jews: 'Theyll
never adjust; they can't learn the language; they won't be
absorbed."
Perhaps our brightest hope for the future lies in the lessons of
the past. The people who have come to this country have made
America, in the words of one perceptive writer, "a heterogeneous
race but a homogeneous nation."
In sum, then, we can see that as each new wave of immigration
has reached America it has been faced with problems, not only
the problems that come with making new homes and learning
new jobs, but, more important, the problems of getting along
with people of different backgrounds and habits.
Each new group was met by the groups already in America,
and adjustment was often difficult and painful. The early English
settlers had to find ways to get along with the Indians; the Irish
/ who followed were met by these 'Tankees"; German immigrants
faced both Yankee and Irish; and so it has gone down to the latest
group of Hungarian refugees. Somehow, the difficult adjustments
are made and people get down to the tasks of earning a living,
raising a family, living with their new neighbors and, in the
process, building a nation.
�T H E I M M I G R A N T CXJNl RlHUTlON
65
the Swiss Albert Gallatin, who held the same office under Jefferson—established the financial policies of the young republic. A
German farmer wrote home from Missouri in 1834,
C H A P T E R
The Immigrant Contribution
Oscar Handlin has said, "Once I thought to
write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered
that the immigrants were American history." In the same sense,
we cannot really speak of a particular "immigrant contribution"
to America because all Americans have been immigrants or the
descendants of immigrants; even the Indians, as mentioned before, migrated to the American continent. We can only speak of
people whose; roots in America are older or newer. Yet each wave
of immigration left its own imprint on American society; each
made its distinctive "contribution'' to the building of the nation
and the evolution of American life. Indeed, if, as some of the
older immigrants like to do, we were to restrict the definition of
immigrants to the 42 million people who came to the United
States after the Declaration of Independence, we would have to
conclude that our history and our society would have been vastly
different if they all had stayed at home.
As we have seen, people migrated to the United States for a
variety of reasons. But nearly all shared two great hopes: the
hope for personal freedom and the hope for economic opportunity. In consequence, the impact of immigration has been
broadly to confirm the impulses in American life demanding more
political liberty and more economic growth.
So, of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence,
eighteen were of non-English stock and eight were first-generation immigrants. T w o immigrants—the West Indian Alexander
Hamilton, who was Washington's Secretary of the Treasury, and
64
If you wish to see our whole family living in . . . a country where
freedom of speech obtains, where no spies arc eavesdropping, where
no simpletons criticize your every word and seek to detect therein a
venom that might endanger the life of the state, the church and the
home, in short, if you wish to be really happv and independent, then
come here.
Every ethnic minority, in seeking its own freedom, helped
strengthen the fabric of liberty in American life.
Similarly, every aspect of the American economy has profited
from the contributions of immigrants. We all know, of course,
about the spectacular immigrant successes: the men who came
from foreign lands, sought their fortunes in the United States
and made striking contributions, industrial and scientific, not
only to their chosen country but to the entire world. In 1953 the
President's Commission on Immigration and Naturalization mentioned the following:
Industrialists: Andrew Carnegie (Scot), in the steel industry;
John Jacob Astor (German), in the f u r trade; Michael Cudahy
(Irish), of the meat-packing industry; the D u Ponts (French), of
the munitions and chemical industry; Charles L . Fleischmann
(Hungarian), of the yeast business; David Samoff (Russian), of
the radio industry; and William S. Knudsen (Danish), of the automobile industry.
Scientists and inventors: Among those whose genius has benefited the United States are Albert Einstein (German), in physics;
Michael Pupin (Serbian), in electricity; Enrico Fermi (Italian), in
atomic research; John Ericsson (Swedish), who invented the ironclad ship and the screw propeller; Giuseppe Bellanca (Italian)
and Igor Sikorsky (Russian), who made outstanding contributions
to airplane development; John A. Udden (Swedish), who was responsible for opening the Texas oil fields; Lucas P. Kyrides
(Greek), industrial chemistry; David Thomas (Welsh), who invented the hot blast furnace; Alexander Graham Bell (Scot), who
�66
A N A T I O N OK I M M I G R A N T S
invented the telephone; Conrad Hubert (Russian), who invented
the flashlight; and Ottmar Mergenthaler (German), who invented
the linotype machine.
But the anonymous immigrant played his indispensable role
too. Between 1880 and 1920 America became the industrial and
agricultural giant of the world as well as the world's leading
creditor nation. This could not have been done without the hard
labor, the technical skills and the entrepreneurial ability of the
23.5 million people who came to America in this period.
Significant as the immigrant role was in politics and in the
economy, the immigrant contribution to the professions and the
arts was perhaps even greater. Charles O. Paullin's analysis of the
Dictionary of American Biography shows that, of the eighteenthand nineteenth-century figures, 20 percent of the businessmen,
20 percent of the scholars and scientists, 23 percent of the painters, 24 percent of the engineers, 28 percent of the architects, 29
percent of the clergymen, 46 percent of the musicians and 61 percent of the actors were of foreign birth—a remarkable measure of
the impact of immigration on American culture. And not only
have many American writers and artists themselves been immigrants or the children of immigrants, but immigration has provided American literature with one of its major themes.
Perhaps the most pervasive influence of immigration is to be
found in the innumerable details of life and the customs and
habits brought by millions of people who never became famous.
This impact was felt from the bottom up, and these contributions
to American institutions may be the ones which most intimately
affect the lives of all Americans.
In the area of religion, all the major American faiths were
brought to this country from abroad. The multiplicity of sects
established the American tradition of religious pluralism and
assured to all the freedom of worship and separation of church
and state pledged in the Bill of Rights.
So, too, in the very way we speak, immigration has altered
American life. In greatly enriching the American vocabulary, it
has been a major force in establishing "the American language,"
which, as H. L. Mencken demonstrated thirty years ago, had
diverged materially from the mother tongue as spoken in Britain.
T H E I M M I G R A N T CONTRIBUTION
67
Even the American dinner table has felt the impact. One writer
has suggested that "typical American menus" might include some
of the following dishes: "Irish stew, chop suey, goulash, chile con
carne, ravioli, knackwurst mit sauerkraut, Yorkshire pudding,
Welsh rarebit, borsch, gefilte fish, Spanish omelet, caviar, mayonnaise, antipasto, baumkuchen, English muflBns, Gruyere cheese,
Danish pastry, Canadian bacon, hot tamales, wiener schnitzel,
petits fours, spumone, bouillabaisse, mate, scones, Turkish coffee,
minestrone, filet mignon."
Immigration plainly was not always a happy experience. It
was hard on the newcomers, and hard as well on the communities
to which they came. When poor, ill-educated and frightened
people disembarked in a strange land, they often fell prey to
native racketeers, unscrupulous businessmen and cynical politicians. Boss Tweed said, characteristically, in defense of his own
depredations in New York in the 1870's, This population is too
hopelessly split into races and factions to govern it under universal
suffrage, except by bribery of patronage, or corruption."
V/ But the very problems of adjustment and assimilation presented a challenge to the American idea-a challenge which subjected that idea to stem testing and eventually brought out the
best qualities in American society. Thus the public school became
a powerful means of preparing the newcomers for American
life. The ideal of the "melting pot" symbolized the process of
blending many strains into a single nationality, and we have come
to realize in modem times that the "melting pot" need not mean
the end of particular ethnic identities or traditions. Only in the
case of the Negro has the melting pot failed to bring a minority
into the full stream of American life. Today we are belatedly,
but resolutely, engaged in ending this condition of national
exclusion and shame and abolishing forever the concept of
second-class citizenship in the United States.
Sociologists call the process of the melting pot "social mobility."
One of America's characteristics has ajways been the lack of a
rigid class structure. It has traditionally been possible for people
to move up the social and economic scale. Even if one did not
succeed in moving up oneself, there was always the hope that
one's children would. Immigration is by definition a gesture of
�w.
68
A NATION OK I M M I G R A N T S
faith in social mobility. It is the expression in action of a positive
belief in the possibility of a better life. It has thus contributed
greatly to developing the spirit of personal betterment in American society and to strengthening the national confidence in
change and the future. Such confidence, when widely shared,
sets the national tone. The opportunities that America offered
made the dream real, at least for a good many; but the dream
itself was in large part the product of millions of plain people
beginning a new life in the conviction that life could indeed be
better, and each new wave of immigration rekindled the dream.
This is the spirit which so impressed Alexis de Tocqueville,
and which he called the spirit of equality. Equality in America
has never meant literal equality of condition or capacity; there
will always be inequalities in character and ability in any society.
Equality has meant rather that, in the words of the Declaration
of Independence, "all men are created equal . . . [and] are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights"; it has
meant that in a democratic society there should be no inequalities
in opportunities or in freedoms. The American philosophy of
equality has released the energy of the people, built the economy,
subdued the continent, shaped and reshaped the structure of
government, and animated the American attitude toward the
world outside.
The continuous immigration of the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries was thus central to the whole American
faith. It gave every old American a standard by which to judge
how far he had come and every new American a realization of
how far he might go. It reminded every American, old and new,
that change is the essence of life, and that American society is a
process, not a conclusion. The abundant resources of this land
provided the foundation for a great nation. But only people
could make the opportunity a reality. Immigration provided the
human resources. More than that, it infused the nation with a
commitment to far horizons and new frontiers, and thereby kept
the pioneer spirit of American life, the spirit of equality and of
hope, always alive and strong. "We are the heirs of all time,"
wrote Herman Melville, "and with all nations we divide our
inheritance."
C H A P T E R
6
Immigration Policy
From the start, immigration policy has been
a prominent subject of discussion in America. This is as it must
be in a democracy, where every issue should be freely considered
and debated.
Immigration, or rather the British policy of clamping down
on immigration, was one of the factors behind the colonial
desire for independence. Restrictive immigration policies constituted one of the charges against King George I I I expressed in
the Declaration of Independence. And in the Constitutional Convention James Madison noted, "That part of America which has
encouraged them [the immigrants] has advanced most rapidly in
population, agriculture and the arts." So, too, Washington in his
Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1795 asked all Americans
"humbly and fervently to beseech the kind Author of these blessings . . . to render this country more and more a safe and
propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries."
Yet there was the basic ambiguity which older Americans have
often shown toward newcomers. In 1797 a member of Congress
argued that, while a liberal immigration policy was fine when the
country was new and unsettled, now that America had reached
its maturity and was fully populated, immigration should stop—
an argument which has been repeated at regular intervals
throughout American history.
The fear of embroilment in the wars between Britain and
France helped the cause of the restrictionists. In 1798 a Federalist
Congress passed the Alien Act, authorizing the expulsion of
foreigners "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United
69
�Lyndon B. Johnson, ig6^
couraging report because it indicates that
concrete progress is being made.
Among other things, it reflects the plans
to make this Capital the Nation's showcase.
It outlines what is being done to beautify
locauons that range from such diverse areas
as New York City to the great open spaces
of the West.
It indicates in strong fashion that research
and training are important tools to be used
in giving natural beauty a foothold in both
urban and rural environments.
It sums up what we have done thus far to
promote natural beauty in the countryside,
to retain and improve our scenic and historic
sites, and to preserve our wildlife.
It notes the action we have taken to offer
improved outdoor recreation to more of our
people.
It details our activities to improve our water and waterways as useful and yet beautiful
natural resources, and our plans for controlling pollution of streams and rivers.
It points up what we have done and what
we intend to do to make our vast network
of highways not only useful but beautiful.
There is much more.
This report reflects acdon that ranges from
schools and classrooms to local neighborhood projects, from the disposal of refuse
and waste products to the use of trash and
garbage as fuels for operating desalting
plants.
Oct. 3 [546]
And yet it is only a beginning. It is a
first step.
I have asked those who prepared this report to continue to report to me, on a regular
basis, the progress which they have made in
this all-important area. These reports will
be available as they are made.
But I want you to know that this is more
than just a report on action taken and action
contemplated.
It is also a request for help.
The task of creating a more beautiful
America, of making it a more pleasant place
in which to live, is not and cannot be the job
of the Federal Government alone. We must
have the enthusiasm, the concern, and the
cooperation of every level of government—
States, counties, cities, and precincts.
I believe that the American people share
our feelings. I believe that they want a
beautiful country. And I believe that they
will respond to the challenge which we have
set—to make this the most beautiful nation
on earth.
NOTE: The text of the report is printed in the Weekly
Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. I ,
P-357).
For the President's message to Congress of February 8, 1965, on the conservation and restoration of
natural beauty, see Item 54.
For the annual message to Congress on the State
of the Union, see Item 2.
For the President's remarks to the delegates to
the White House Conference on Natural Beauty, see
Item 277.
546 Remarks at the Signing of the Immigration Bill, Liberty Island,
New York. October 3,1965
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ambassador Goldberg, distinguished Members
of the leadership of the Congress, distinguished Governors and mayors, my jellow
countrymen:
We have called the Congress here this
afternoon not only to mark a very historic
occasion, but to settle a very old issue that
is in dispute. That issue is, to what congressional district does Liberty Island really
belong—Congressman Farbstein or Congressman Gallagher? It will be setded by
1037
• vl
�V
v
[546] Oct. 3
z
c
fl
1.
1'
Public Papers of the Presidents
whoever of the two can^walk first to the
top of the Statue of Liberty.
This bill that we will sign today is not a
revolutionary bill. It does not affect the
lives of millions. It will not reshape the
structure of our daily lives, or really add
importandy to either our wealth or our
power.
Yet it is still one of the most important
acts of this Congress and of this administration.
For it does repair a very deep and painful
flaw in the fabric of American justice. It
corrects a cruel and enduring wrong in the
conduct of the American Nation.
Speaker McCormack and Congressman
Celler almost 40 years ago first pointed that
out in their maiden speeches in the Congress.
And this measure that we will sign today
will really make us truer to ourselves both
as a country and as a people. It will
strengthen us in a hundred unseen ways.
I have come here to thank personally each
Member of the Congress who labored so long
and so valiandy to make this occasion come
true today, and to make this bill a reality.
I cannot mention all their names, for it
would take much too long, but my gratitude—and that of this Nation—belongs to
the 89th Congress.
We are indebted, too, to the vision of the
late beloved President John Fitzgerald
Kennedy, and to the support given to this
measure by the then Anorney General and
now Senator, Robert F. Kennedy.
In the final days of consideration, this
bill had no more able champion than the
present Attorney General, Nicholas Katzenbach, who, with New York's own "Manny"
Celler, and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, and Congressman Feighan of
Ohio, and Senator Mansfield and Senator
Dirksen constituting the leadership of the
IO38
Senate, and Senator Javits, helped to guide
this bill to passage, along with the help of
the Members sitting in front of me today.
This bill says simply that from this day
forth those wishing to immigrate to
America shall be admitted on the basis of
their skills and their close relationship to
those already here.
This is a simple test, and it is a fair test.
Those who can contribute most to this
country—to its growth, to its strength, to its
spirit—will be the first that are admitted to
this land.
The fairness of this standard is so selfevident that we may well wonder that it
has not always been applied. Yet the fact
is that for over four decades the immigration policy of the United States has been
twisted and has been distorted by the harsh
injustice of the national origins quota
system.
Under that system the ability of new immigrants to come to America depended upon
the country of their birth. Only 3 countries
were allowed to supply 70 percent of all
the immigrants.
Families were kept apart because a husband or a wife or a child had been born
in the wrong place.
Men of needed skill and talent were
denied entrance because they came from
southern or eastern Europe or from one of
the developing continents.
This system violated the basic principle
of American democracy—the principle that
values and rewards each man on the basis
of his merit as a man.
It has been un-American in the highest
sense, because it has been untrue to the faith
that brought thousands to these shores even
before we were a country.
Today, with my signature, this system is
abolished.
�Lyndon B. Johnson, 7965
We can now believe that it will never again
shadow the gate to the American Nation
with the twin barriers of prejudice and
privilege.
Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different
places or more they have poured forth into
an empty land, joining and blending in one
mighty and irresistible tide.
The landflourishedbecause it was fed
from so many sources—because it was nourished by so many cultures and tradidons and
peoples.
And from this experience, almost unique
in the history of nadons, has come America's
attitude toward the rest of the world. We,
because of what wc are, feel safer and stronger in a world as varied as the people who
make it up—a world where no country rules
another and all countries can deal with the
basic problems of human dignity and deal
with those problems in their own way.
Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American
Nadon returns to thefinestof its traditions
today.
The days of unlimited immigration are
past.
But those who do come will come because
of what they are, and not because of the land
from which they sprung.
When the earliest setders poured into a
wild continent there was no one to ask them
where they came from. The only question
was: Were they sturdy enough to make the
journey, were they strong enough to dear the
land, were they enduring enough to make a
home for freedom, and were they brave
enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so?
And so it has been through all the great
and tesdng moments of American history.
Our history this year we see in Viet-Nam.
Oct. 3 [546]
Men there are dying—men named Fernandez and Zajac and Zelinko and Mariano and
McCormick.
Neither the enemy who killed them nor
the people whose independence they have
fought to save ever asked them where they
or their parents came from. They were all
Americans. It was for free men and for
America that they gave their all, they gave
their lives and selves.
By eliminating that same question as a
test for immigradon the Congress proves
ourselves worthy of those men and worthy
of our own tradidons as a Nadon.
ASYLUM FOR CUBAN REFUGEES
So it is in that spirit that I declare this
afternoon to the people of Cuba that those
who seek refuge here in America will find it.
The dedicadon of America to our traditions
as an asylum for the oppressed is going to
be upheld.
I have directed the Departments of State
and Justice and Health, Education, and Welfare to immediately make all the necessary
arrangements to permit those in Cuba who
seek freedom to make an orderly entry into
the United States of America.
Our first concern will be with those
Cubans who have been separated from their
children and their parents and their husbands and their wives and that are now in
this country. Our next concern is with
those who are imprisoned for political
reasons.
And I will send to the Congress tomorrow
a request for supplementary funds of $12,600,000 to carry forth the commitment that
I am making today.
I am asking the Department of State to
seek through the Swiss Government immediately the agreement of the Cuban Gov-
1039
"in
.iff
�[546]
Oct. 3
Public Papers of the Presidents
ernment in a request to the President of the
International Red Cross Committee. The
request is for the assistance of the Committee in processing the movement of refugees
from Cuba to Miami. Miami will serve as a
port of entry and a temporary stopping place
for refugees as they settle in other parts of
this country.
And to all the voluntary agencies in the
United States, I appeal for their continuaUon and expansion of their magnificent
work. Their help is needed in the reception
and the settlement of those who choose to
leave Cuba. The Federal Government will
work closely with these agencies in their
tasks of charity and brotherhood.
I want all the people of this great land of
ours to know of the really enormous contribution which the compassionate citizens of
Florida have made to humanity and to
decency. And all States in this Union can
join with Florida now in extending the hand
of helpfulness and humanity to our Cuban
brothers.
The lesson of our times is sharp and clear
in this movement of people from one land to
another. Once again, it stamps the mark of
failure on a regime when many of its citizens
voluntarily choose to leave the land of their
birth for a more hopeful home in America.
The future holds litde hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the
people.
And so we Americans will welcome these
Cuban people. For the tides of history run
strong, and in another day they can return
to their homeland to find it cleansed of terror
and free from fear.
Over my shoulders here you can sec Ellis
Island, whose vacant corridors echo today the
joyous sound of long ago voices.
And today we can all believe that the lamp
of this grand old lady is brighter today—
IO4O
and the golden door that she guards gleams
more brilliandy in the light of an increased
liberty for the people from all the countries
of the globe.
Thank yoy very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 3:08 p.m. on Liberty
Island in New York Harbor before a group of several hundred guests who had crossed to the island by
boat for the ceremony. In his opening words he
referred to Vice President Hubert H . Humphrey,
Representative John W. McCormack of Massachusetts, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and
Arthur J. Goldberg, U.S. Representative to the
United Nations.
During his remarks the President referred to Representative Leonard Farbstein of New York, Representative Cornelius E. Gallagher of New Jersey,
Representative Emanuel Celler of New York, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach, Senator Edward M.
Kennedy of Massachusetts, Representative Michael
A. Feighan of Ohio, Senator Mike Mansfield of
Montana, majority leader of the Senate, Senator
Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, minority leader of the
Senate, and Senator Jacob K. Javits of New York.
As enacted, the immigration bill (H.R. 2580) is
Public Law 89-236 (79 Stat. 911).
In late September Cuban Premier Fidel Castro
had announced that Cubans with familin in the
United States would be permitted to emigrate. The
first of these refugees began arriving in Florida by
small boat on October 7, and by October 18 die
number had exceeded 700.
On October 31, 1965, the President approved the
Supplemental Appropriation Act, 19661 which included an additional sum of $12,600,000 for the
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for
assistance to refugees in the United States (Public
Law 89-309, 79 Stat. 1133).
On February 15, 1966, the White House made
public a report to the President from Attorney General Katzenbach which stated in part, "Although
the Act has been in eUect only two months, it has
already reunited hundreds of families through in
preferential admissions policy for aliens with close
relatives in the United States. . . . Another 9,268
refugees from Cuba arrived in the United States
during 1965. Of these, 3,349 came in December
via the airlift arranged by the United States and
the Cuban governments. Some 104,430 resi^L-nt
aliens were naturalized as American citizens during
the year." The text of the report is printed in the
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol.
2, p. 2 2 0 ) .
See also Items 601, 618.
�Richard Nixon,
portance of a strong defense—for New
Mexico and for the Nation.
These two men also understand that
true prosperity can only be achieved if
we can keep a lid on prices and taxes.
Manuel Lujan stood up in the Congress
for that principle this fall when he voted
in favor of a $250 billion ceiling on Federal spending. He knows, as do the people
of New Mexico, that the Federal Government does not really need any more of the
taxpayers' hard-earned money.
409
Nov. 4
[409]
In the coming years, we will face many
difficult quesdons in Washington, questions directly affecting the lives and prosperity of everyone in New Mexico. For
your own well-being and for the sake of
the Nation, I urge the people of New
Mexico to send Pete Domenici and
Manuel Lujan to Washington to help
make those tough decisions.
NOTE: The statement was released at Albuquerque, N. Mex.
Remarks at Albuquerque, New Mexico.
November 4, 1972
THANK YOU very much for being here
and introducing us as you have to this
wonderful crowd in Albuquerque. As you
know, we started this morning from
Washington, D.C. We were first in North
Carolina for one of the record crowds of
the campaign, and then arriving here this
day in Albuquerque. I saw in advance
that it was the opening day of hunting
season and the homecoming game for the
university, ancj I wondered if anybody
would be here. Thank you for coming.
And although the Lobos lost today,
speaking as one who knows how it is to
lose and win, they will come back. They
will win next time.
Also, may I say to you that it is a very
great privilege to be here on this platform with the other candidates who
stood here a moment ago, because this
is truly a team effort. We often think of
the President of the United States sitting
in the Oval Office making the great decisions that affect the Nation and the
world. But as you all know, he can only do
1
1
igyz
University of New Mexico football team.
the job that needs to be done with your
help, the help of millions of Americans
and also with the help of Members of the
House and Senate.
For that reason, I am stopping here,
because we are interested in what you, of
course, will do, and how you will vote
on election day, at the top of the ticket,
but also, in asking for your support for
the men we need in the House and in the
Senate, so that we can do what America
wants done over these next 4 years that
you have been talking about.
If I could say a word, now, about
Manny Lujan; Manny was one who seconded my nomination. I was not there,
because, you know, the tradition is that the
candidate is not supposed to go to a convention until after he is nominated, and
I had to wait to make sure, but I remember seeing it on television. As I think of
all the seconding speeches, the one that
gave me the biggest charge was Manny's.
I think it is the first time that a seconding speech has been given in both English
and Spanish, and I understood the Spanish as well as the English.
1121
�[409]
Nov. 4
Public Papers of the Presidents
As we went down the line and^shook
hands with the wonderful young people
in the band and the other people, and
received the welcome that we did, I must
say that you made us feel very much at
home. But I would like to put it in another
way. We, I know in this State just like
in my home Svate of California, have a
great tradition, a background of Spanishspeaking Americans, as well as people of
all other backgrounds, and so, consequently, we pick up a little language here
and there, even though we may not be of
that particular background ourselves;
I remember, however, that when we,
in English, say we want to welcome somebody someplace, we say, "Make yourself
at home." But those who speak Spanish
have a much warmer way of saying it.
They say, "Estan ustedes en su casa"—
you are in your own home—and that's the
way we feel today.
That allows me to say something that
in all the years I have been in the Oval
Office has meant more to me than almost
anything else in terms of telling me what
America really is. I remember one day
Manny was in and we were talking about
people of various backgrounds. Manny,
of course, is, as he should be, very proud
of his Spanish-speaking background. But
he said, "You know, Mr. President, we
shouldn't talk about hyphenated Americans," and he is absolutely right.
So often, I know, we go around, you
hear people say "He is Italian," or "He
is a Pole," or "He is a Mexican," or "He
is black," or whatever the case might be.
Let me say every one of us is proud of
our background, whatever it is, but most
of all, we are proud to be Americans.
That is what we are, and I speak to you
in that vein today.
There were many reasons for coming to
1122
New Mexico today—the sentiment, tfealf
feeling, the fact that we have alwayi hadf
such a wonderful welcome here. But \ <
'
wanted the opportunity as President o f l
the United States to pay a bipartiian*
tribute to one of the great Americans o i l
our time.
"
My daughter was here just a few weefa'%
ago to pardcipate in that tribute. I vat
unable to come. He is unable to be with m
today, but Senator Clinton Anderson was
our neighbor when we were in Washing. %
ton and when I served in the Senate awl
later as Vice President. He was a Demo-'
crat. I was a Republican. But Clintoo
Anderson, during the years that I k n e w l l
him in the Senate, was an Americanfirst3
and a partisan second—and a great Amep^l
ican he was.
He was also like so many from
great State of New Mexico, these great^l
Western States—independent. That Is'ita
tradition of Senators from this part of ttjjj^i
country—independent. A team playo^
but whenever he felt the interests of hfail
State or the interests of his Nadon re-*quired him to take a different position
than the other people in the party did, he
would take it. And he was known for that'?
As I think of Clinton Anderson, he was|
a very big man, and it is going to take sy
very big man to fill his shoes. I have I
thinking of whether there is a man
can fill those shoes—and there is one. 1
is Pete Domenici. He is the big man
can fill those shoes. I have known him, <
course, when he has campaigned befo
One time he lost. But again, having lost'%
then, this time he is going to win, I know.^
I know that is what is going to happen.
But let's look at Pete for a moment. He J |
is a Republican. But he is an American $
first. Second, speaking of that independ-^
ent tradition, I have talked to him quite;
a
��One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?
http://wwvv.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/ 180l-022298-idx.html
Start
HOME
INDEX
SEARCH"
...
ri
using your award points t * | ^ r ) t
JVR CHIVES
w a s h i n g to it post, v.
PRIHT EDITIOH
coMPimn
INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
STRAYER
UNIVKKSITY
NEWS
1 TOP HEWS
PORTS
WORLD
HATIOW
POLITICS
METRO
e
3.W3,y«
C L A S S I F I E D S
BUSINESS
WEATHER
One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?
Soon, No Single Group Will Comprise Majority
By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 22, 1998; Page A01
First of a series
Related Items
Print Edition
Today's National
Articles
Inside "A" Section
Front Page Articles
On Our Site
Clinton Special
Report
Top News/Breaking
News
Politics Section
National Section
Startusiug
^our award poiucs
right away.
of occasional articles
At the beginning of this century, as steamers poured into American
ports, their steerages filled with European immigrants, a Jew from
England named Israel Zangwill penned a play whose story line has
long been forgotten, but whose central theme has not. His production
was entitled "The Melting Pot" and its message still holds a
tremendous power on the national imagination — the promise that all
immigrants can be transformed into Americans, a new alloy forged in
a crucible of democracy, freedom and civic responsibility.
In 1908, when the play opened in Washington, the United States was
in the middle of absorbing the largest influx of immigrants in its
history ~ Irish and Germans, followed by Italians and East
Europeans, Catholics and Jews ~ some 18 million new citizens
between 1890 and 1920.
I S I I I I I I C
Today, the United States is experiencing its second great wave of
immigration, a movement of people that has profound implications
for a society that by tradition pays homage to its immigrant roots at
the same time it confronts complex and deeply ingrained ethnic and
racial divisions.
investing in
mutual funds?
Click here fust to get
the whole picture
The immigrants of today come not from Europe but overwhelmingly
from the still developing world of Asia and Latin America. The are
driving a demographic shift so rapid that within the lifetimes of
today's teenagers, no one ethnic group - including whites of
European descent - will comprise a majority of the nation's
population.
This shift, according to social historians, demographers and others
studying the trends, will severely test the premise of the fabled
melting pot, the idea, so central to national identity, that this country
can transform people of every color and background into "one
America."
Just as possible, they say, is that the nation will continue to fracture
into many separate, disconnected communities with no shared sense
of commonality or purpose. Or perhaps it will evolve into something
in between, a pluralistic society that will hold on to some core ideas
about citizenship and capitalism, but with little meaningful interaction
among groups.
1 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:01
�One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/180l-022298-idx.html
The demographic changes raise other questions about political and
economic power. Will that power, now held disproportionately by
whites, be shared in the new America? What will happen when
Hispanics overtake blacks as the nation's single largest minority?
"I do not think that most Americans really understand the historic
changes happening before their very eyes," said Peter Salins, an
immigration scholar who is provost of the State Universities of New
York. "What are we going to become? Who are we? How do the
newcomers fit in ~ and how do the natives handle it ~ this is the great
unknown."
This is the first of a series of articles examining the effects of the new
demographics on American life. Over the next few months, other
reports will focus on the impact on politics, jobs, and social
institutions.
Bygone Consensus
Fear of strangers, of course, is nothing new in American history. The
last great immigration wave produced a bitter backlash, epitomized by
the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the return, in the 1920s, of the
Ku Klux Kian, which not only targeted blacks but Catholics, Jews and
immigrants as well.
But despite this strife, many historians argue that there was a greater
consensus in the past on what it meant to be an American, a yearning
for a common language and culture, and a desire - encouraged, if not
coerced by members of the dominant white Protestant culture - to
assimilate. Today, they say, there is more emphasis on preserving
one's ethnic identity, of finding ways to highlight and defend one's
cultural roots.
More often than not, the neighborhoods where Americans live, the
politicians and propositions they vote for, the cultures they immerse
themselves in, the friends and spouses they have, the churches and
schools they attend, and the way they view themselves are defined by
ethnicity. The question is whether, in the midst of such change, there
is also enough glue to hold Americans together.
"As we become more and more diverse, there is all this potential to
make that reality work for us," said Angela Oh, a Korean American
activist who emerged as a powerful voice for Asian immigrants after
the Los Angeles riots in 1992. "But yet, you witness this persistence
of segregation, the fragmentation, all thesefightsover resources, this
finger-pointing. You would have to be blind not to see it."
It is a phenomenon sometimes difficult to measure, but not observe.
Houses of worship remain, as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
described it three decades ago, among the most segregated institutions
in America, not just by race but also ethnicity . At high school
cafeterias, the second and third generation children of immigrants
clump together in cliques defined by where their parents or
grandparents were bom. There are television sitcoms, talk shows and
movies that are considered black or white. Latino or Asian. At a place
like the law school of the University of California at Los Angeles,
which has about 1,000 students, there are separate student
2 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:08
�One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/180l-022298-idx.html
associations for blacks. Latinos and Asians with their own law review
journals.
It almost goes without saying that today's new arrivals are a source of
vitality and energy, especially in the big cities to which many are
attracted. Diversity, almost everyone agrees, is good; choice is good;
exposure to different cultures and ideas is good.
But many scholars worry about the loss of community and shared
sense of reality among Americans, what Todd Gitlin, a professor of
culture and communications at New York University, calls "the
twilight of common dreams." The concern is echoed by many on both
the left and right, and of all ethnicities, but no one seems to know
exactly what to do about it.
Academics who examine the census data and probe for meaning in
the numbers already speak of a new "demographic balkanization," not
only of residential segregation, forced or chosen but also a powerful
preference to see ourselves through a racial prism, wary of others,
and, in many instances, hostile.
At a recent school board meeting in East Palo Alto, Calif, police had
to break up a fight between Latinos and blacks, who were arguing
over the merits and expense of bilingual education in a school district
that has shifted over the last few years from majority African
American to majority Hispanic. One parent told reporters that if the
Hispanics wanted to learn Spanish they should stay in Mexico.
The demographic shifts are smudging the old lines demarcating two
historical, often distinct societies, one black and one white. Reshaped
by three decades of rapidly rising immigration, the national story is
now far more complicated.
Whites currently account for 74 percent of the population, blacks 12
percent, Hispanics 10 percent and Asians 3 percent. Yet according to
data and predictions generated by the U.S. Census Bureau and social
scientists poring over the numbers, Hispanics will likely surpass
blacks early in the next century. And by the year 2050, demographers
predict, Hispanics will account for 25 percent of the population,
blacks 14 percent, Asians 8 percent, with whites hovering somewhere
around 53 percent.
As early as next year, whites no longer will be the majority in
California; in Hawaii and New Mexico this is already the case. Soon
after, Nevada, Texas, Maryland and New Jersey are also predicted to
become "majority minority" states, entities where no one ethnic group
remains the majority.
Effects of 1965 Law
The overwhelming majority of immigrants come from Asia and Latin
America ~ Mexico, the Central American countries, the Philippines,
Korea, and Southeast Asia.
What triggered this great transformation was a change to immigration
law in 1965, when Congress made family reunification the primary
criteria for admittance. That new policy, a response to charges that the
law favored white Europeans, allowed immigrants already in the
3 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:09
�One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History
9
littp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/180I-022298-idx.html
United States to bring over their relatives, who in turn could bring
over more relatives. As a result, America has been absorbing as many
as 1 million newcomers a year, to the point that now almost 1 in every
10 residents is foreign bom.
These numbers, relative to the overall population, were slightly higher
at the beginning of this century, but the current immigration wave is
in many ways very different, and its context inexorably altered, from
the last great wave.
This time around tensions are sharpened by the changing profile of
those who are entering America's borders. Not only are their racial
and ethnic backgrounds more varied than in decades past, their place
in a modem postindustrial economy has also been recast.
The newly arrived today can be roughly divided into two camps:
those with college degrees and highly specialized skills, and those
with almost no education or job training. Some 12 percent of
immigrants have graduate degrees, compared to 8 percent of native
Americans. But more than one-third of the immigrants have no high
school diploma, double the rate for those bom in the United States.
Before 1970, immigrants were actually doing better than natives
overall, as measured by education, rate of homeownership and
average incomes. But those arriving after 1970 are younger, more
likely to be underemployed and live below the poverty level. As a
group, they are doing worse than natives.
About 6 percent of new arrivals receive some form of welfare, double
the rate for U.S.-bom citizens. Among some newcomers Cambodians and Salvadorans, for example - the numbers are even
higher.
With large numbers of immigrants arriving from Latin America, and
segregating in barrios, there is also evidence of lingering language
problems. Consider that in Miami, three-quarters of residents speak a
language other than English at home and 67 percent of those say they
are notfluentin English. In New York City, 4 of every 10 residents
speak a language other than English at home, and of these, half said
they do not speak English well.
It is clear that not all of America is experiencing the impact of
immigration equally. Although even small midwestem cities have
seen sharp changes in their racial and ethnic mix in the past two
decades, most immigrants continue to cluster into a handful of large,
mostly coastal metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, New York, San
Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Washington, D.C, and Houston. They
are home to more than a quarter of the total U.S. population and more
than 60 percent of all foreign-bom residents.
But as the immigrants arrive, many American-bom citizens pour out
of these cities in search of new homes in more homogeneous locales.
New York and Los Angeles each lost more than 1 million native-bom
residents between 1990 and 1995, even as their populations increased
by roughly the same numbers with immigrants. To oversimplify, said
University of Michigan demographer William Frey, "For every
Mexican who comes to Los Ajigeles, a white native-bom leaves."
4 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:09
�One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/180l-022298-idx.html
Most of the people leaving the big cities are white and they tend to
working class. This is an entirely new kind of "white flight," whereby
whites are not just fleeing the city centers for the suburbs but also are
leaving the region, and often the state.
"The Ozzies and Harriets of the 1990s are skipping the suburbs of the
big cities and moving to more homogeneous, mostly white smaller
towns and smaller cities and rural areas," Frey said.
They're headed to Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Portland, Denver,
Austin and Orlando, as well as smaller cities in Nevada, Idaho,
Colorado and Washington. Frey and other demographers believe the
domestic migrants ~ black and white ~ are being "pushed" out, at
least in part, by competition with immigrants for jobs and
neighborhoods, political clout and lifestyle.
Frey sees in this pattern "the emergence of separate Americas, one
white and middle-aged, less urban and another intensely urban,
young, multicultural and multiethnic. One America will care deeply
about English as the official language and about preserving Social
Security. The other will care about things like retaining affirmative
action and bilingual education."
Ethnic Segregation
Even within gateway cities that give the outward appearance of being
multicultural, there are sharp lines of ethnic segregation. When
describing the ethnic diversity of a bellwether megacity such as Los
Angeles, many residents speak soaringly of the great mosaic of many
peoples. But the social scientists who look at the hard census data see
something more complex.
James P. Allen, a cultural geographer at California State
University-Northridge, suggests that while Los Angeles, as seen from
an airplane, is a tremendously mixed society, on the ground, racial
homogeneity and segregation are common.
This is not a new phenomenon; there have always been immigrant
neighborhoods. Ben Franklin, an early proponent of making English
the "official language," worried about close-knit German
communities. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y) described the
lingering clannishness of Irish and other immigrant populations in
New York in "Beyond the Melting Pot," a benchmark work from the
1960s that he wrote with Nathan Glazer.
But the persistence of ethnic enclaves and identification does not
appear to be going away, and may not in a country that is now home
to not a few distinct ethnic groups, but to dozens. Hispanics in Los
Angeles, to take the dominant group in the nation's second largest
city, were more segregated residentially in 1990 than they were 10 or
20 years ago, the census tracts show. Moreover, it is possible that
what mixing of groups that does occur is only a temporary
phenomenon as one ethnic group supplants another in the
neighborhood.
If there is deep-seated ethnic segregation, it clearly extends to the
American workplace. In many cities, researchers find sustained
"ethnic niches" in the labor market. Because jobs are often a matter of
5 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:10
�One Nation. Indivisible: Is It History?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/180l-022298-idx.html
whom one knows, the niches were enduring and remarkably resistant
to outsiders.
In California, for example, Mexican immigrants are employed
overwhelmingly as gardeners and domestics, in apparel and furniture
manufacturing, and as cooks and food preparers. Koreans open small
businesses. Filipinos become nurses and medical technicians. African
Americans work in government jobs, an important niche that is
increasingly being challenged by Hispanics who want in.
UCLA's Roger Waldinger and others have pointed to the creation, in
cities of high immigration, of "dual economies."
For the affluent, which includes a disproportionate number of whites,
the large labor pool provides them with a ready supply of gardeners,
maids and nannies. For businesses in need of cheap manpower, the
same is true. Yet there are fewer "transitional" jobs ~ the blue-collar
work that helped Italian and Irish immigrants move up the economic
ladder - to help newcomers or their children on their way to the jobs
requiring advanced technical or professional skills that now dominate
the upper tier of the economy.
A Rung at a Time
Traditionally, immigration scholars have seen the phenomenon of
assimilation as a relentless economic progression. The hard-working
new arrivals struggle along with a new language and at low-paying
jobs in order for their sons and daughters to climb the economic
ladder, each generation advancing a rung. There are many cases
where this is true.
More recently, there is evidence to suggest that economic movement
is erratic and that some groups - particularly in high immigration
cities ~ can get "stuck."
Among African Americans, for instance, there emerge two distinct
patterns. The black middle class is doing demonstrably better ~ in
income, home ownership rates, education ~ than it was when the
demographic transformation (and the civil rights movement) began
three decades ago.
But for African Americans at the bottom, research indicates that
immigration, particularly of Latinos with limited education, has
increased joblessness, and frustration.
In Miami, where Cuban immigrants dominate the political landscape,
tensions are high between Hispanics and blacks, said Nathaniel J.
Wilcox, a community activist there. "The perception in the black
community, the reality, is that Hispanics don't want some of the
power, they want all the power," Wilcox said. "At least when we were
going through this with the whites during the Jim Crow era, at least
they'd hire us. But Hispanics won't allow African Americans to even
compete. They have this feeling that their community is the only
community that counts."
Yet many Hispanics too find themselves in an economic "mobility
trap." While the new immigrants are willing to work in low-end jobs,
their sons and daughters, growing up in the barrios but exposed to the
6 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:11
�One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History
0
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22,1801-022298-idx.html
relentless consumerism of popular culture, have greater expectations,
but are disadvantaged because of their impoverished settings,
particularly the overwhelmed inner-city schools most immigrant
children attend.
"One doubts that a truck-driving future will satisfy today's servants
and assemblers. And this scenario gets a good deal more pessimistic
if the region's economy fails to deliver or simply throws up more bad
jobs," writes Waldinger, a professor of sociology and director of
center for regional policy studies at the University of California-Los
Angeles.
Though there are calls to revive efforts to encourage
"Americanization" of the newcomers, many researchers now express
doubt that the old assimilation model works. For one thing, there is
less of a dominant mainstream to enter. Instead, there are a dozen
streams, despite the best efforts by the dominant white society to
lump groups together by ethnicity.
It is a particularly American phenomenon, many say, to label citizens
by their ethnicity. When a person lived in El Salvador, for example,
he or she saw themselves as a nationality. When they arrive in the
United States, they become Hispanic or Latino. So too with Asians.
Koreans and Cambodians find little in common, but when they arrive
here they become "Asian," and are counted and courted, encouraged
or discriminated against as such.
"My family has had trouble understanding that we are now Asians,
and not Koreans, or people from Korea or Korean Americans, or just
plain Americans," said Arthur Lee, who owns a dry cleaning store in
Los Angeles. "Sometimes, we laugh about it. Oh, the Asian students
are so smart! The Asians have no interest in politics! Whatever. But
we don't know what people are talking about. Who are the Asians?"
'Too American'
Many immigrant parents say that while they want their children to
advance economically in their new country, they do not want them to
become "too American." A common concern among Haitians in
South Florida is that their children will adopt the attitudes of the inner
city's underclass. Vietnamese parents in New Orleans often try to
keep their children immersed in their ethnic enclave and try not to let
them assimilate too fast.
One study of the children of immigrants, conducted six years ago
among young Haitians, Cubans, West Indians, Mexican and
Vietnamese in South Florida and Southern California, suggests the
parents are not alone in their concerns.
Asked by researchers Alejandro Portes and Ruben Rumbauthow how
they identified themselves, most chose categories of hyphenated
Americans. Few choose "American" as their identity.
Then there was this ~ asked if they believe the United States in the
best country in the world, most of the youngsters answered: no.
A POPULATION OF CHANGING DIMENSIONS
7 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:11
�One Nation. Indivisible: Is It History?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/ 1801-022298-idx.html
In 25 years, non-Hispanic whites will not be a majority in four states,
including the two most populous ones, and in 50 years, they will
make up barely half the U.S. population.
U.S. POPULATION (PROJECTION)
1997:
Hispanic: 11%
Black: 12%
Asian: 4%
White: 73%
2050:
Asian 8%
Black 14%
White 53%
Hispanic 25%
NOTE: "Asian" category includes Pacific Islanders. Other races,
including American Indians, make up less than 1 percent.
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau
ONE IN 10 U.S. RESIDENTS WAS BORN ABROAD
In 1960, foreign-bom Americans were mostly from Europe. Now
most come from Asia and Latin America.
Foreign-bom, by country of origin:
1960
Germany 990,000
Canada 963,000
Poland 748,000
Soviet Union 691,000
Mexico 576,000
England 528,000
Ireland 339,000
Austria 305,000
Hungary 245,000
8 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:12
�7
One Nation. Indivisible: Is It History'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/\vp-s...te/1998-02/22/180l-022298-idx.html
Czechoslovakia 228,000
1996
Mexico 6,679,000
Philippines 1,164,000
China 801,000
Cuba 772,000
India 757,000
Vietnam 740,000
El Salvador 701,000
Canada 660,000
Korea 550,000
Germany 523,000
Nearly 1 in 10 Americans was bom outside the country, a high rate
among industrialized nations:
Americans bom abroad:
1996: 9.6%
Percentage bom abroad:
Switzerland 18.6%
U.S. 9.6
Belgium 9.1
Austria 8.9
Germany 8.6
Sweden 6.1
Netherlands 5.0
Norway 3.8
Denmark 3.8
U.K. 3.4
Italy 1.6
Spain 1.2
Japan 1.1
9 of 10
02/26/98 10:18:13
�One Nation, Indivisible: Is It History?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s...te/1998-02/22/ 180l-022298-idx.html
Foreign-bom Americans have less education and are more likely than
natives to be poor and unemployed.
High school graduates:
Native-bom 84%
Foreign-bom 64%
Unemployment rate:
Native-bom 5.7%
Foreign-bom 7.7%
Poverty rate:
Native-bom 13%
Foreign-bom 22%
New* foreign-bom 33%
* Arriving after 1990
SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau, World Bank. Foreign-bom data for
other nations from 1994; other current data are for 1996.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
wtishirKjtonposf
I P W T EDITIOH
^
10 of 10
ytMowpagaj)
|
News
TOP MEWS
WORLD
HATIOW
SPORTS
POLITICS
C L A S S I F I E D S
METRO
BUSIHESS
Continental HSl The policies behind the
On-Line $.•JJM -
WEATHER
politics.
02/26/98 10:18:14
�The
Price
of
Immigration
HY was the old immigration—the
white European diaspora of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
—"what made this country great." as
sententious orators still insist, whereas the new immigration gives polarizing politicians an irresistible target? To think through this question, to help inform the
coming debate on immigration, The Atlantic offers the
following two articles. David M. Kennedy, the Donald
J. McLachlan Professor of American History at Stanford University, sets the two great
immigrations, then and now, against each other, finds potentially worrisome patterns in
the Southwest that are unprecedented in our history, and yet comes to conclusions that
should shame nativism. George J. Borjas, a professor of public policy at Harvard's John
F. Kennedy School of Government (and a Cuban emigre), who has done pioneering work
on the economics of immigration, shows what economic research can contribute to immigration policy.
Borjas. whose numbers reveal that while affluent
Americans and the economy as a whole gain'from
immigration, poorer Americans suffer a multibilliondollar reduction in wages, argues for fundamental
change in the country's immigration laws—but rational change in the name of justice to the least-advantaged among us, not a xenophobic, demagogue-led
retreat from decency, compassion, and memory.
[ II I
VT I \ M
I I
« (I \ T H I 1
l l l u s l r a l i o n s bv Sesmour Chwasl
'Si
" "
i
�Can W Still
e
Afford to Be a
Vation of
Immigrants?
Comparing
with
yesterday
today's,
struck
by the
of our
present
s
a historian
unprecedented
situation
T
b) imil) M. kK\\KI)\
HE question in my uile implies J premise: that
hisioneally ihe L'nued Stales hus well jttorded to
be a nation of immigrants—indeed, has benerited
handsomely from its good tonune as an immigrant destination. That proposition uas once so deeply embedded in our
national mythology as to be axiomatic More than a century
ago. for example, in the proclamation that made Thanksgiving Day a national holiday. Abraham Lincoln gave thanks to
God for having "largely augmented our free population by
emancipation and b> immigration."
immigration
is
nature
Lincoln spoke those words uhen there were but 34 million Americans and half a continent remained to be settled.
Today, however, the United States is a nation of some 264
million souls on a continent developed beyond Lincoln's
imagination. It is also a nation
�experiencing immigraiion on a scale never before seen. In
the past three decades, since the passage of the immigration
•nd Naiionalitv Act of 1965. the first major revision in
\nierican immigration statutes since the historic closure of
immigration in the 1920s, some 20 million immigrants have
entered the United States. To put those numbers in perspective: prior to 1965 the period of heaviest immigration to the
United States was the quaner century preceding the First
World War. when some 17 million people entered the couniry—roughly half the total number of Europeans who migrated to the United States in the century after 1820 (along
with several hundred thousand Asians). The last pre-war
census, in 1910. counted about 13.5 million foreign-born
people in the American population, in contrast to about
22.5 million in 1994. Historians know a great deal about
those earlier immigrants—why they came, how they ended
up. what their impact was on the America of their day.
Whether America's historical experience with immigration
provides a useful guide to thinking about the present case
is the principal question 1 want to address. I want not only
to explore the substantive issue of immigration but also to
test the proposition that the discipline of
history has some value as a way of knowing and thinking about the world.
Ipfp
�In his ow n inimitable idiom
Patton was invoking what for
most Americans was—and
still is—the standard explanation of who their immigrant
forebears were, why thev left
their old countnes. ane ' .iat
was their effect on Amencan
society. In this explanation
immigrants were the mainchance-seeking and most energetic, entrepreneurial, and
freedom-loving members of
their Old World societies.
They were draw n out of Europe by the irresistible magnet
of American opportunity and
liberty, and their galvanizing
influence on American society
made this country the greatest .
in the world.
With respect to immigration itself. I intend to explore two
sets of questions.
• Why did people migrate to America in the past, and what
were the consequences, for them and for American society,
once they landed?
• Why are people migrating to America today, and what
might be the consequences, for them and for American society, of their presence in such numbers ?
A radically different explanation of immigration has also
historically been at work in the American mind. As the not- ;
ed social scientist Edward Alsworth Ross put it in 1914:
Observe immigrants not as they come travel-wan up the
gang-plank, nor as they issue toil-begrimed from pit's
The I'ull of America
A
GENERATION or two ago upbeat answers to the
first pair of questions so pervaded the culture that
they cropped up in the most exotic places—in
Tunisia, for example, on July 9. 1943. The occasion was the
eve of the invasion of Sicily, and General George S. Patton
Jr. was addressing his troops, who were about to embark for
the battle. He urged. "When we land, we will meet German
and Italian soldiers whom it is our honor and privilege to attack and destroy. Many of you have in your veins German
and Italian blood, but remember that these ancestors of
yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country
to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the
people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and continued as slaves."
Aboi-e: This ISSO cartoon
was
captioned
'Welcome
to all.'" The signs proclaim
the
many
benefits
of the Xew World. High!: an ISSS
lithograph
urged neirly
arrived
immigrants
fleeing
the 'tiredOld World lo settle
in
the promising
Dakota
Terrilory
54
MMtMBER
1 9 •» !>
�mouth or mill-gate, but in their gatherings, washed,
combed, and in their Sunday best. . [They] are hirsute,
low-browed, big-faced persons of obviously low mentality. . • . They simply look out of place in black clothes and
stiff collar, since clearly they belong in skins, in wattled
huts at the close of the Great Ice Age. These ox-like men
are descendants of those who always stayed behind.
Ross was describing in these invidious terms what he and
his tum-of-the-century contemporaries called the "new" immigrants—new because they came predominantly from eastem and southern Europe, as distinct from the "old." early-andmid-nineteenth-century immigrants, who had come mainly
from northern and western Europe. Ironically. Ross was also
talking about the parents of those very troops (at least the Italian-American troops) whom Patton addressed in 1943.
Between those two poles of explanation American views
of immigration have oscillated. On the one hand, as Patton
reminds us, immigrants were judged to be noble souls,
tugged by the lodestone of American opportunity, whose
talents and genius and love of liberty account for the
The Push of Europe
F
OR the first three centuries or so after the European
discovery of the New World the principal source of"
immigrants to the two American continents and the
Caribbean was not Europe but Africa. Only in the early nineteenth century did the accumulated total of European settlers
in the New World exceed the approximately 10 million
Africans who had made the trans-Atlantic voyage in the
years since 1492. To explain the African diaspora by citing
entrepreneurial instincts, the love of democracy, or the freely
chosen decisions of migrants to follow the lodestar of American promise would be a mockery. Clearly, the involuntary
movement of those 10 million Africans is best explained not
in terms of their individual characters and choices but in
terms of the catastrophically disruptive expansion of largescale plantation agriculture and its accursed corollary, largescale commercial slavery.
A comparable—though, to be sure, not identical—element of involuntariness characterized emigration from nine-
hrtttt circumstances eased immigration in the
past—the relatively small number of
immigrants present at any given time, their
diversity, and U. S. economic vitality.
magniticent American character. On the other hand, as in
Ross's view, especially if they had the misfortune to arrive
on a more recent boat, immigrants were thought to be degraded, freeloading louts, a blight on the national character
and a drain on the economy—the kind of people described
all too literally, so the argument goes, by Emma Lazarus's
famous inscription on the base of the Statue of Liberty:
"your tired, your poor... the wretched refuse of your teeming shore."
Yet for all their differences, the two views have several
things in common. Both explain immigration in terms of the
moral character of immigrants. Both understand immigration as a matter of individual choice. And both implicitly invoke the American magnet as the irresistible force that put
people in motion, drawing them either to opponunity or to
dependency.
Those concepts do not bear close analysis as adequate explanations for the movement of some 35 million human beings over the course of a century. This was a historical phenomenon too huge and too specific in time to be sufficiently
accounted for by summing 35 million decisions supposedly
stimulated by the suddenly irresistible gravitational attraction of a far-off continent.
56
teenth-century Europe. Any generalization about what
prompted a phenomenon as long-lived and complicated as
the great European migration must, of course, be subject to
many qualifications. All discussions of the migration process
recognize both push and pull factors. But at bottom the evidence convincingly supports the argument that disruption is
essential to the movement of people on such a scale. And. as
in the African case, the best, most comprehensive explanation for a process that eventually put some 35 million people
in motion is to be found in two convulsively disruptive developments that lay far beyond the control of individual Europeans. Those developments had their historical dynamic
within the context of European, not American, history.
Thefirstof these needs little elaboration. It was. quite simply, population growth. In the nineteenth century the population of Europe more than doubled, from some 200 million to
more than 400 million, even after about 70 million people
had left Europe altogether. (Only half of these, it should be
noted, went to the United States—one among many clues
that the American-magnet explanation is inadequate.) That
population boom was the indispensable precondition for Europe to expon people on the scale that it did. And the boom
owed little to American stimulus; rather, it was a product of
N(MEMBER
1 9 •» S
�aspects of European historical evolution, especially improvements in diet, sanitation, and disease control.
The second development was more complex, but we know
it by a familiar name: the Industrial Revolution. It includes
the closely associated revolution in agricultural productivity.
Wherever it occurred, the Industrial Revolution shook people
loose from traditional ways of life. It made factory workers
out of artisans and. even more dramatically, turned millions
of rural fanners into urban wage-laborers. Most of those migrants from countryside to city, from agriculture to industry,
remained w ithin their country of origin, or at least within Europe. But in the early stages of industrialization the movement of people, like the investment of capital during the unbridled early days of industrialism, w as often more than what
the market could bear. In time most European societies
reached a kind of equilibrium, absorbing their own workers
into their own wage markets. But in the typical transitional
phase some workers who had left artisanal or agricultural
employments could not be reabsorbed domestically in European cities. They thus migrated overseas.
The large scholarly literature documenting this process
might be summarized as follows: Imagine a map of Europe.
Across this map a time line traces the evolution of the Industrial Revolution. From a point in the British Isles in the late
eighteenth century the line crosses to the Low Countries and
Germany in the early and mid nineteenth century and to eastern and southern Europe in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Across the same map a second line traces
the chronological evolution of migration to the United States.
As it happens, the two lines are almost precisely congruent—
migration came principally from the British Isles in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, then mainly from Germany, and finally from the great watersheds of the Vistula
and the Danube and the mountain ranges of the Apennines
and Carpathians to the south and east.
The congruence of those lines is not coincidental. Industrialization, in this view, is the root cause and the most powerful single variable explaining the timing, the scale, the geographic evolution, and the composition of the great
European migration.
For another perspective on the importance of understanding the European migration from a European point of view,
consider the lyrics of a nineteenth-century Italian folk song
called "The Wives of the Americans.'" In this case, the "Americans'" were men w ho had gone off to America and left their
wives behind in Italy—specifically, the southern region of
Campania. In fact. men. young men in panicular. predominated in the nineteenth-century migratory stream, and their predominance constitutes a reliable indicator of their purposes.
Many of them never intended to settle permanently elsew here
but hoped to work abroad for a time and eventually return to
the old country. Repatriation rates for European immigrants
averaged nearly 40 percent. Only the Jews and the Irish did
58
not go home again in significant numbers. For some later,
"new" immigrant groups, especially from the southern
Danube regions, repatnation rates ran as high as 80 percent.
The song describes the wives of the Americans going to
church and praying. "Send money, my husband. Send more
money. The money you sent earlier I have already spent. I
spent it on my lover. I spent it with pleasure. Send more money, you comuto fottuto [damnable cuckold]." Those lyrics
conjure an image of immigration quite different from the one
General Patton urged on his Italian-American troops in 1943.
Together with thefigureson repatriation, they offer a strong
corrective to uncritical reliance on the American-magnet explanation for the past century's European migration.
The Immigrants in
America
W
HAT happened to European immigrants, and to
American society, once they arrived? Much historical inquiry on this point focuses on immigrant
hardship and on recurrent episodes of nativism. anti-Semitism. anti-Catholicism, and anti-foreign-radicalism, from the
Know-Nothing movement of the 1850s to the American Protective Association of the late nineteenth century and the revived Ku Klux Klan of the early twentieth century, culminating in the highly restrictive immigration legfslation of the
1920s. Those are important elements in the history of American immigration, and we would forget them at our peril.
But getting the questionrightis the most challenging part of
any historical investigation, and there is an analytically richer question to be asked than Why did immigrants meet
sometimes nasty difficulties'
An even more intriguing question is How did tens of millions of newcomers manage to accommodate themselves to
America, and America to them, without more social disruption How can we explain this society's relative success—
and success I believe it was—in making space so rapidly for
so many people?
The explanation is surely not wise social policy. Beyond
minimal monitoring at the ports of entry, no public policy
addressed the condition of immigrants once they were cleared
off Castle Garden or Ellis Island. But three specific historical
circumstances, taken together, go a long way toward composing an answer to the question.
First, somewhat surprisingly, for all their numbers, immigrants—even the 17 million who arrived from 1890 to
1914—never made up a very large component of the already
enormous society that was tum-of-the-century America. The
census of 1910 records the highest percentage of foreign-bom
people ever resident in the United States: 14.7 percent. Now.
14.7 percent is not a trivial proportion, but it is a decided
minority, and relative to other societies that have received
large numbers of immigrants, a small minority. The compa1
1
M ) \ K >1 B l: K
14 9 6
�Above: On Independence
Day. 1917.
graduates
of Ihe h'ord Motor Compuny
English
School
emerge from a "melting
pol" after nine months
of
language
lessons.
Below: Italian
slonerullers
at u-ork on the Library
of Congress
building.
IH94
.ablefiguresin Australia and Canada at approximately the
same time were 17 percent and more than 20 percent, and
even higher in Argentina. So here is one circumstance accounting for the relative lack of social conflict surrounding
immigration a century ago: at any given moment immigrants were a relatively small
presence in the larger society.
A second circumstance was
economic. Immigrants supplied the labor that a growing
economy urgently demanded. What is more, economic
growth allowed the accommodation of newcomers without
forcing thorny questions of redistribution—always the occasion for social contest and
upheaval. Here, as so often in
American history, especially
during the period of heavy
immigration before the First
World War. economic growth
worked as a pre-emptive solu^n to potential social conflict.
The third circumstance was
more complicated than sheer
T H i:
»T L V \ TI<
M (I \ T II I. 1
numbers or economic growth.
I call this circumstance "pluralism""—by which I mean
simply that the European immigrant stream was remarkably variegated in its cultural,
religious, national, and linguistic origins. These many
subcurrents also distributed
themselves over an enormous
geographic region—virtually
the entire northeastern quadrant of the United States—and
through several political jurisdictions. By the 1920s immigrants were distributed w idely
across the great industnal belt
that stretched from New England through New York. New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, and beyond: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The states with the
most immigrants, not incidentally, also had per capita incomes higher than the national average—an important fact
pertinent to understanding the relationship between immigration and economic vitality.
The varied composition and broad dispersal of the immigrant stream carried certain crucial implications, one being
that no immigrant group could realistically aspire to preserve its Old World culture intact for more than a few generations at best. To be sure, many groups made strenuous efforts to do just that. Legend to the contrary, last century's
61
�immigrjnls did not cast their Old World habits and languages overboard before their ship steamed into New York
Harbor. In fact, many groups heroically exened themselves
to sustain their religions, tongues, and ways of life. The
Catholic school system, which for a generation or two in
some Amencan cities educated nearly as many students as
the public school system, eloquently testitied to the commitment of some immigrant communities to resist assimilation.
But circumstances weighed heavily against the success of
such efforts. The vinual extinction of the parochial school
system in the past generation—the empty schools and dilapidated parish buildings that litter the inner cores of the old
immigrant cities—bears mute w itness both to the ambition
and to ihe ultimate failure of those efforts to maintain cultural distinctiveness.
A second and no less important implication of pluralism
was that neither any single immigrant group nor immigrants
as a whole could realistically mount any kind of effective
challenge to the existing society " way of doing things. No
s
single group had sufficient weight in any jurisdiction larger
Today's Immigration
T
HE biggest apparent novelty in current immigration is
its source, or sources. Well over half of the immigration of the past thirty years has come from just seven
countries: Mexico, the Philippines. China (I am including Taiwan). Vietnam. Korea. India, and the Dominican Republic.
Not a single European country is on that list. Here, it
would seem, is something new under the historical sun. Europe has dried up as a source of immigration and been replaced by new sources in Latin America and Asia.
And yet if we remember what caused the great European
migration, the novelty of the current immigration stream is
significantly diminished. Though particular circumstances
vary, most of the countries now sending large numbers of
immigrants to the United States are undergoing the same
convulsive demographic and economic disruptions that
made migrants out of so many nineteenth-century Europeans: population growth and the relatively early stages of
their own industrial revolutions.
o previous immigrant group had the size and
concentration and easy access to its
original culture that the Mexican immigrant
group in the Southwest has today.
than a municipality to dictate a new political order. And
there was little likelihood that Polish Jews and Italian
Catholics and Orthodox Greeks could find a common language, much less common ground for political action.
To recapitulate: The most comprehensive explanation of
the causes of immigration a century ago is to be found in the
disruptions visited on European society by population
growth and the Industrial Revolution. The United States
was. to use the language of the law. the incidental beneficiary of that upheaval. The swelling immigrant neighborhoods
in tum-of-the-century American cities were, in effect, byproducts of the urbanization of Europe. And once landed in
America, immigrants accommodated themselves to the larger society—not always easily assimilating, but at least working out a modus vivendi—without the kinds of conflicts that
have afflicted other multinational societies. That mostly
peaceful process of accommodation came about because of
the relatively small numbers of immigrants at any given
time, because of the health of the economy, and because of
the constraints on alternatives to accommodation inherent in
the plural and dispersed character of the immigrant stream.
Having lit this little lamp of historical learning,' I would
like to carry it forward and see if it can illuminate the present.
64
to
Mexico, by far the leading supplier of immigrants to the
United States, conforms precisely to that pattern. Since the
Second World War the Mexican population has more than
tripled—a rate of growth that recollects, indeed exceeds, that
of nineteenth-century Europe. And as in Europe a century
ago, population explosion has touched off heavy internal migration, from rural to urban areas. By some reckonings,
Mexico City has become the largest city in the world, with
20 million inhabitants and an in-migration from the Mexican
countryside estimated at 1.000 people a day.
Also since the Second World War the Mexican economy,
despite periodic problems, has grown at double the average
rate of the U.S. economy. Rapid industrialization has been accompanied by the swift and widespread commercialization of
Mexican agnculture. A Mexican "'green revolution." flowing
from improvements in mechanical processing, fertilizers, and
insecticides, has in fact exacerbated the usual disruptions attendant on rapid industrialization: depopulation of the countryside, urban in-migration, and movement across the national
border. But as in nineteenth-century Europe, most of the movement has been within Mexico itself. Since 1970 somefivemillion Mexicans have entered the United States to stay: probably
more than 10 million have moved to Mexico City alone.
NOVEMBER
1996
�Thus we are in the presence of a familiar historical phenomenon, impelled by developments that are for all practical
purposes identical to those that ignited the great European
migration of a century ago.
What Does
the Future Hold?
I
F the causes of present-day immigration are familiar,
what will be the consequences for today"s immigrants
and tomorrow's America?
I have suggested that three historical circumstances eased
the accommodation between immigrants and the American
society of a century ago—the relatively small number of immigrants present at any given time, the needs and vitality of
the economy, and the plural and distributed character of the
immigrant stream. How do those factors weigh in an analysis of immigration today?
With respect to numbers, the historical comparison gives
a basis for confidence that the answer to our original question—Can we still afford to be a nation of immigrants?—is
yes. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that as of 1994 foreignbom people represented 8.7 percent of the American population, or just a bit more than half the proportion they made
up in the census of 1910. (Comparable recent numbers for
Canada and Australia, incidentally, are approximately 16
percent and 22 percent.) So. with reference to both American historical experience and contemporary experience in
other countries, the relative incidence of current immigra-
TORN
SHADES
How. in the first place, did
they get torn—pulled down hard
too many times: to hide a blow,
or sex, or a man
in stained pajamas? The tear blade-shaped,
serrated, in tatters. And once.
in a house flatside to a gas station.
as snow fell at a speed and angle you could lean on.
two small hands (a patch of throat, a whip
of hair across her face)—
two small hands
parting a torn shade
to welcome a wedge of gray sunlight into that room.
—THOMAS LUX
66
tion to the United States is rather modest. SureK the United
States at the end of the twentieth century is resourceful
enough to deal w ith an immigrant inflow proportionally half
what American society managed to deal with quite successfully in the early years of this century.
With reference to the needs and vitality of the economy,
the historical comparison is more complicated. Eco. - nic
theory suggests that immigration is a bargain for any receiving society, because it augments the labor supply, one of the
three principal factors of production (along with land and
capital), essentially free of cost. The sending society bears
the burden of feeding and raising a worker to the age when
he or she can enter the labor market. If at that point the person emigrates andfindsproductive employment elsewhere,
the source society has in effect subsidized the economy of
the host society. That scenario essentially describes the historical American case, in w hich fresh supplies of immigrant
labor underwrote the nation's phenomenal industrial surge
in the half century after the Civil War.
The theory is subject to many qualifications. Unskilled immigrant workers may indeed increase gross economic output, as they did from the Pittsburgh blast furnaces to the
Chicago packinghouses a century ago, and as they do today
in garment shops and electronic assembly plants from Los
Angeles to Houston. But as productivity has become more
dependent on knowledge and skill, the net valne of unskilled
immigrant labor has decreased, a point that informs much of
the current case for restricting immigration. Yet it is important to note that argument on this point turns on the relative
contribution of low-skill workers to overall output; the theory is still unimpeachable in its insistence on the absolute value of an additional worker, from whatever source, immigrant
or native. Nevertheless, large numbers of unskilled immigrants may in the long run retard still higher potential outputs, because the inexpensive labor supply that they provide
diminishes incentives to substitute capital and improved
technology for labor, and thus inhibits productivity gains. On
the other hand, just to complicate the calculation further, insofar as the host society continues to need a certain amount
of low-skill work done, the availability of unskilled immigrants may increase the economy's overall efficiency by
freeing significant numbers of better-educated native workers
to pursue higher-productivity employment. And overhanging
all this part of the immigration debate is the question of
whose ox is gored. Low-skill immigrants may benefit the
economy as a whole, but may at the same time impose substantial hardships on the low-skill native workers with whom
they are in direct competition for jobs and w ages.
Of course, the theory that immigration subsidizes the
host economy is true only insofar as the immigrant in question is indeed a worker, a positive contributor to the productive apparatus of the destination society. Even the crude
American immigration-control system of the nineteenth
S O \ K M B F R 1 9 9 fi
�immigration today with that in
the nineteenth century:
I.ox Angeles.
1994: In a display
of
polilical
unity
a largely
Hispanic
croird marches
against
a California
ballot
measure
that would
deny
social
services
lo illegal
immigrants
itury recognized that fact, when it barred people likely to
^ecome social dependents, such as the chronically ill or
known criminals. The issue of dependency is particularly
vexatious in the United States today for two reasons. First,
the 1965 legislation contained generous clauses providing
for "family reunification," under the terms of which a significant portion of current immigrants are admitted not as
workers but as the spouses, children, parents, and siblings
of citizens or legally resident aliens. In 1993. a typical year,
fewer than 20 percent of immigrants entered under "employment-based" criteria.
Because of family-reunification prov isions, the current immigrant population differs from previous immigrant groups
in at least two ways: it is no longer predominantly male and.
even more strikingly, it is older. The percentage of immigrants over sixty-five exceeds the percentage of natives in
that age group, and immigrants over sixty-five are two and a
half times as likely as natives to be dependent on Supplemental Security Income, the principal federal program making cash payments to the indigent elderly. Newspaper accounts suggest that some families have brought their relatives
here under the family-reunification provisions in the law expressly for the purpose of gaining access to SSI. Thus it appears that the availability of welfare programs—programs
t did not exist a century ago—has combined with the fam. -reunification provisions to create new incentives for immigration that complicate comparisons of the economics of
T II K \ T I » \ T I C
MONTHLY
But on balance, though today's low-skill immigrants
may not contribute as weightily to the economy as did their
European counterparts a hundred years ago. and though
some do indeed end up dependent on public assistance,
as a group they make a positive economic contribution
nevertheless. It is no accident
that today's immigrants are
concentrated in the richest
states, among them California
(home to fully one third of the
country's immigrant population), just as those of the
1920s were. And just as in
that earlier era, immigrants
are not parasitic on the "native" economy but productive
participants in it. The principal motivation for immigration
remains what it was in the past: the search for productive
employment. Most immigrants come in search of work, and
most find it. Among working-age males, immigrant laborforce-participation rates and unemployment rates are statistically indistinguishable from those for native workers. The
ancient wisdom still holds: Ubi est pane, ibi est patria
("Where there is bread, there is my country"). Not simply
geography but also that powerful economic logic explains
why Mexico is the principal contributor of immigrants to the
United States today: the income gap between the United
States and Mexico is the largest between any two contiguous
countries in the world.
One study, by the Stanford economist Clark W. Reynolds,
estimated the future labor-market characteristics and
prospects for economic growth in Mexico and the United
States. For Mexico to absorb all the new potential entrants
into its own labor markets, Reynolds concluded, its economy
would have to grow at the improbably high rate of some seven percent a year. The United States, in contrast, if its economy is to grow at a rate of three percent a year, must find somewhere between five million and 15 million more workers than
can be supplied by domestic sources. Reynolds's conclusion
was obvious: Mexico and the United States need each other,
the one to ease pressure on its employment markets, the other
to find sufficient labor to sustain acceptable levels of economic growth. If Reynolds is right, the question with which I began—Can we still afford to be a nation of immigrants?—may
be wrongly put. The proper question may be Can we afford
not to be? (For another perspective on this question see the
following article by George J. Borjas.)
67
�The
B
Reeonquista
UT if economic necessity requires that the United
States be a nation of immigrants into the indefinite future, as it has been for so much of its past, some important questions remain. Neither men nor societies live by
bread alone, and present-day immigration raises historically
unprecedented issues in the cultural and political realms.
Pluralism—the variety and dispersal of the immigrant
stream—made it easier for millions of European immigrants
to accommodate themselves to American society. Today, however, one large immigrant stream is flowing into a defined region from a single cultural, linguistic, religious, and national
source: Mexico. Mexican immigration is concentrated heavily
in the Southwest, particularly in the two largest and most economically and politically influential states—California and
Texas. Hispanics. including Central and South Americans but
predominantly Mexicans, today compose 28 percent of the
population of Texas and about 31 percent of the population of
California. More than a million Texans and more than three
million Califomians were bom in Mexico. California alone
holds nearly half of the Hispanic population, and well over
half of the Mexican-origin population, of the entire country.
This Hispanicization of the American Southwest is sometimes called the Reeonquista. a poetic reminder that the territory in question was. after all. incorporated into the United
States in the first place by force of arms, in the Mexican War
of the 1840s. There is a certain charm in this turn of the
wheel of history, with its reminder that in the long term the
drama of armed conquest may be less consequential than the
prosaic effects of human migration and birth rates and wage
differentials. But the sobering fact is that the United States
has had no experience comparable to what is now taking
shape in the Southwest.
Mexican-Americans will have open to them possibilities
closed to previous immigrant groups. They will have sufficient coherence and critical mass in a defined region so that, if
they choose, they can preserve their distinctive culture indefinitely. They could also eventually undertake to do what no
previous immigrant group could have dreamed of doing: challenge the existing cultural, political, legal, commercial, and
educational systems to change fundamentally not only the language but also the very institutions in which they do business.
They could even precipitate a debate over a "special relationship" with Mexico that would make the controversy over the
North American Free Trade Agreement look like a college
bull session. In the process. Americans could be pitched into
a soul-searching redefinition of fundamental ideas such as
the meaning of citizenship and national identity.
All prognostications about these possibilities are complicated by another circumstance that has no precedent in
American immigration history: the region of Mexican immigrant settlement in the southwestern United States is con68
1
tiguous with Mexico itself. That proximity may continuously replenish the immigrant community, sustaining its distinctiveness and encouraging its assertiveness. Alternatively,
the nearness of Mexico may weaken the community's coherence and limit its political and cultural clout by chronically attenuating its members' permanence in the United
States, as the accessibility of the mother country makes for a
kind of perpetual repatriation process.
In any case, there is no precedent in American history for
these possibilities. No previous immigrant group had the size
and concentration and easy access to its original culture that
the Mexican immigrant group in the Southwest has today. If
we seek historical guidance, the closest example we have to
hand is in the diagonally opposite comer of the North American continent, in Quebec. The possibility looms that in the
next generation or so we will see a kind of Chicano Quebec
take shape in the American Southwest, as a group emerges
with strong cultural cohesiveness and sufficient economic
and political strength to insist on changes in the overall society's ways of organizing itself and conducting its affairs.
Public debate over immigration has already registered this
prospect, however faintly. How else to explain the drive in
Congress, and in several states, to make English the "official"
language for conducting civil business? In previous eras no
such legislative muscle was thought necessary to expedite the
process of immigrant acculturation, because'altematives to
eventual acculturation were simply unimaginable. Less certain
now that the traditional incenuves are likely to do the work of
assimilation, we seem bent on trying a ukase—a ham-handed
and provocative device that may prove to be the opening chapter of a script for prolonged cultural warfare. Surely our goal
should be to help our newest immigrants, those from Mexico
especially, to become as well integrated in the larger American
society as were those European "new" immigrants whom
E. A. Ross scorned but whose children's patriotism George
Patton could take for granted. To reach that goal we will have
to be not only more clever than our ancestors were but also
less confrontational, more generous, and more welcoming
than our current anxieties sometimes incline us to be.
The present may echo the past, but will not replicate it. Yet
the fact that events have moved us into terra nova et incognita does not mean that history is useless as a way of coming to
grips with our situation. To the contrary, the only way we can
know with certainty as we move along time's path that we
have come to a genuinely new place is to know something of
w here we have been. "What's new in the starry sky. dear Argelander?" Kaiser Wilhelm I is said to have asked his state astronomer, to which Argelander replied, "And does Your
Majesty already know the old?" Knowing the old is the project
of historical scholarship, and only that knowledge can reliably
point us toward the new. As Lincoln also said, "As our case is
new. so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." #
NOVEMBER
1996
�The
New
Economics
of
Immigration
Affluent
poor
Americans
Americans
gain;
lose
T
by (,l ()H(,K J. B RA
OJS
HE United States is on the verge of another great
debate over immigration. Thus far the focus of
this still-inchoate debate has been on illegal immigration or welfare benefits to legal immigrants, not on the
larger issue of the character and consequences of the current high levels of legal immigration. Economic factors by
themselves should not and will not decide the outcome of
this debate. But they will play an important role. Economics
helps us to frame answerable questions about immigration:
Who gains by it ? Who loses' And in
light of the answers to these questions, what should U.S. immigration policy be?
1
There have been two major
shifts in immigration policy
in this century. In the twenties the United Stales began to limit the number
of immigrants admitted and established
the national-origins
�quota system, an allocation scheme that awarded entry visas
mainly on the basis of national origin and that favored Geriny and the United Kingdom. This system was repealed in
.965. and family reunification became the central goal of
immigration policy, with entry visas being awarded mainly
to applicants who had relatives already residing in the United States.
The social, demographic, and economic changes initiated by the 1965 legislation have been truly historic. The
number of immigrants began to rise rapidly. As recently as
the 1950s only about 250,000 immigrants entered the country annually: by the 1990s the United States was admitting
more than 800.000 legal immigrants a year, and some
300.000 aliens entered and stayed in the country illegally.
The 1965 legislation also led to a momentous shift in the
ethnic composition of the population. Although people of
European origin dominated the immigrant flow from the
country's founding until the 1950s, only about 10 percent
of those admitted in the 1980s were of European origin. It
is now estimated that non-Hispanic whiles may form a minority of the population soon after 2050. More troubling is
that immigration has been linked to the increase in income
inequality observed since the 1980s, and to an increase in
the costs of maintaining the programs that make up the welfare state.
These economic and demographic changes have fueled
. incipient debate over immigration policy. For the most
part, the weapons of choice in this
debate are statistics produced by economic research, with all sides mar-
�shaling t'acis and evidence that suppon particular policy
goals. In this essay I ask a simple question: What does economic research imply about the kind of immigration policy
that the United States should pursue
1
A Formula for Admission
E
VERT immigration policy must resolve two distinct
issues: how many immigrants the country should admit, and what kinds of people they should be.
It is useful to view immigration policy as a formula that
gives points to visa applicants on the basis of various characteristics and then sets a passing grade. The variables in the
f'omiula determine what kinds of people will be let into the
country, and the passing grade determines how many will be
let into the country. Current policy uses a formula that has one
overriding variable, whether the visa applicant has a family
member already residing in the United States. An applicant
who has a relative in the country gets 100 points, passes the
test, and is admitted. An applicant who does not gets 0 points,
tails the test, and cannot immigrate legally.
Of course, this is a simplistic summary of current policy.
There are a lot of bells and whistles in the immigration statutes
(which are said to be only slightly less complex than the tax
code). In fact the number of points a person gets may depend
on whether the sponsor is a U. S. citizen or a permanent resident, and whether the family connection is a close one (such as
a parent, a spouse, or a child) or a more distant one (a sibling).
Such nuances help to determine the speed with which the visa
is granted. A limited number of visas are given to refugees.
Some are also distributed on the basis of skill characteristics,
but these go to only seven percent of immigrants.
Although the United States does not officially admit to
using a point system in awarding entry visas, other countries
proudly display their formulas on the Internet. A comparison
of these point systems reveals that the United States is exceptional in using essentially one variable. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have more-complex formulas that
include an applicant's educational background, occupation,
English-language proficiency, and age along with family
connections.
Sometimes a host country awards points to people who
are willing to pay the visa's stated price. Canada, for example, has granted entry to virtually anyone who would invest
at least S250.000 in a Canadian business. Although this
"visas-for-sale" policy is a favorite proposal of economists
(if we have a market for butter, why not also a market for
visas?), it is not taken very seriously in the political debate,
perhaps because policymakers feel a repugnance against
what may be perceived as a market for human beings. I will
therefore discuss the implications of economic research only
for policies in which points are awarded on the basis of
socioeconomic characteristics, not exchanged for dollars.
Whal Have W Learned?
e
T
HE academic literature investigating the economic
impact of immigration on the United States has
grown rapidly in the past decade. The assumptions
that long dominated discussion of the costs and benefits of
immigration were replaced during the 1980s by a nu, '.jerof
new questions, issues, and perceptions.
Consider the received w isdom of the early 1980s. The studies available suggested that even though immigrants amved at
an economic disadvantage, their opportunities improved
rapidly over time. Within a decade or two of immigrants' arrival their earnings would ovenake the earnings of natives of
comparable socioeconomic background. The evidence also
suggested that immigrants did no harm to native employment
opportunities, and were less likely to receive welfare assistance than natives. Finally, the children of immigrants were
even more successful than their parents. The empirical evidence, therefore, painted a very optimistic picture of the contribution that immigrants made to the American economy.
In the past ten years this picture has altered radically. New
research has established a number of points.
• The relative skills of successive immigrant waves have declined over much of the postwar period. In 1970. for example, the latest immigrant arrivals on average had 0.4 fewer
years of schooling and earned 17 percent less than natives.
By 1990 the most recently arrived immigrants had 1.3 fewer
years of schooling and earned 32 percent less than natives.
• Because the newest immigrant waves start out at such an
economic disadvantage, and because the rate of economic
assimilation is not very rapid, the earnings of the newest arrivals may never reach parity with the earnings of natives.
Recent arrivals will probably earn 20 percent less than natives throughout much of their working lives.
• The large-scale migration of less-skilled workers has done
harm to the economic opportunities of less-skilled natives.
Immigration may account for perhaps a third of the recent
decline in the relative wages of less-educated native workers.
• The new immigrants are more likely to receive welfare assistance than earlier immigrants, and also more likely to do
so than natives: 21 percent of immigrant households participate in some means-tested social-assistance program (such
as cash benefits. Medicaid, or food stamps), as compared
with 14 percent of native households.
• The increasing welfare dependency in the immigrant population suggests that immigration may create a substantial
fiscal burden on the most-affected localities and states.
• There are economic benefits to be gained from immigration. These anse because certain skills that immigrants bring
into the country complement those of the native population.
However, these economic benefits are small—perhaps on
the order of S7 billion annually.
• There exists a strong correlation between the skills of im\ < \ E \l R t B
>
1S 9 «
�miyrunts and the skills of their American-bom children, so
that the huge skill differentials observed among today's foreign-bom groups will almost certainly become tomorrow's
differences among American-bom ethnic groups. In effect,
immigration has set the stage for sizable ethnic differences
in skills and socioeconomic outcomes, which are sure to be
the focus of intense attention in the next century.
The United States is only beginning to observe the economic consequences of the historic changes in the numbers,
national origins, and skills of immigrants admitted over the
past three decades. Regardless of how immigration policy
changes in the near future, we have already set in motion
circumstances that will surely alter the economic prospects
of native workers and the costs of social-insurance programs
not only in our generation but for our children and grandchildren as well.
Whose Interests Will
We Serve?
I
F economic research is to play a productive role in the
immigration debate, researchfindingsshould help us to
devise the formula that determines admission into the
United States. We need to decide what variables are to be used
to award points to applicants, and what is to be the passing
grade. Before we can resolve these issues, however, we have
to address a difficult philosophical question: What should the
United States try to accomplish with its immigration policy?
The answer to this question is far from obvious, even
when the question is posed in purely economic terms. We
can think of the world as composed of three distinct groups:
people bom in the United Slates (natives), immigrants, and
people who remain in other countries. Whose economic welfare should the United States try to improve when setting
policy—that of natives, of immigrants, of the rest of the
world, or of some combination of the three? The formula
implied by economic research depends on whose interests
the United States cares most about.
Different political, economic, and moral arguments can
be made in favor of each of the three groups. I think that
most participants in the U.S. policy debate attach the greatest (and perhaps the only) weight to the well-being of natives. This is not surprising. Natives dominate the market for
political ideas in the United States, and most proposals for
immigration reform will unavoidably reflect the self-interest
and concerns of native voters.
Immigration almost always improves the well-being of
the immigrants. If they don't find themselves better off after
they enter the United States, they are free to go back or to try
their luck elsewhere—and. indeed, some do. A few observers attach great weight to the fact that many of the "huddled masses'' now live in relative comfort.
As for the vast populations that remain in the source
7tt
countnes. they are affected by U.S. immigration policy in a
number of ways. Most directly, the policy choices made by
the United States may drain particular skills and abilities
from the labor markets of source countnes. A brain drain
slows economic growth in the source countnes. as the entrepreneurs and skilled workers who are most likely to spur
growth move to greener pastures. Similarly, the principles
of free trade suggest that world output would be largest if
there were no national borders to interfere with the free
movement of people. A policy that restricts workers from
moving across borders unavoidably leads to a smaller world
economy, to the detriment of many source countries.
The three groups may therefore have conflicting interests,
and economics cannot tell us whose interests matter most.
The weight that we attach to each of the three groups depends on our values and ideology. For the sake of argument
I will assume a political consensus that the objective of immigration policy is to improve the economic well-being of
the native population.
Beyond that, we have to specify which dimension of native economic well-being we care most about: per capita income or distribution of income. As we shall see, immigration raises per capita income in the native population, but
this does not mean that all natives gain equally. In fact some
natives are likely to see their incomes greatly reduced. We
must therefore be able to judge an immigration policy in
terms of its impact on two different economic dimensions:
the size of the economic pie (which economists call "efficiency") and how the pie is sliced ("distribution"). The relative weights that we attach to efficiency and distribution
again depend on our values and ideology, and economics
provides no guidance on how to rank the two.
For the most part, economists take a very narrow approach: policies that increase the size of the pie are typically considered to be better policies, regardless of their impact
on the distribution of wealth in society. We shall begin our
construction of an immigration policy by taking this narrow
approach. In other words, let's assume that immigration policy has a single and well-defined purpose: to maximize the
size of the economic pie available to the native population of
the United States. We shall return to the distnbutional issues
raised by immigration policy later on.
The Economic Case
Tor Immigration
T
O see how natives gain from immigration, let's first
think about how the United States gains from foreign
trade. When we import toys made by cheap Chinese
labor, workers in the American toy industry undoubtedly suffer wage cuts and perhaps even lose their jobs. These losses,
however, are more than offset by the benefits accruing to
consumers, who enjoy the lower prices induced by addition\ (I \ I M B t
�al competition. An imponant lesson from this exercise, worth
remembering when we look at the gains from immigration, is
U for there to be gains from foreign trade for the economy
j a whole, some sectors of the economy must lose.
Consider the analogous argument for immigration. Immigrants increase the number of workers in the economy. Because they create additional competition in the labor market,
the wages of native workers fall. At the same time, however,
native-ownedrirmsgain, because they can hire workers at
lower wages: and many native consumers gain because lower labor costs lead to cheaper goods and services The gains
accruing to those who consume immigrants' services exceed
the losses suffered by native workers, and hence society as a
whole is better off.
Immigration therefore has two distinct consequences. The
size of the economic pie increases. And a redistribution of
income is induced, from native workers who compete with
immigrant labor to those who use immigrants' services.
The standard economic model of the labor market suggests that the net gain from immigration is small. The Unit-
migration, concludes that a 10 percent increase in the number
of workers lowers wages by about three percent.
If we accept this finding, we can argue as follows: We
know that about 70 percent of GDP accrues to workers (with
the rest going to the owners of companies), and that natives
make up slightly more than 90 percent of the population.
Therefore, native workers take home about 63 percent of
GDP in the form of w ages and salaries. If the 10 percent increase in the number of workers due to immigration has
lowered wages by three percent, the share of GDP accruing
to native workers has fallen by 1.9 percentage points (or
0.63 x 0.03). Thus my conclusion that in a $7 trillion economy native earnings drop by $133 billion.
Those lost earnings do not vanish into thin air. They represent an income transfer from workers to users of immigrants' services—the employers of immigrants and the consumers who buy the goods and services produced by
immigrants. These winners get to pocket the $133 billion—
and then some, because the goods produced by immigrant
workers generate additional profits for employers. Under the
he debate over immigration policy is not
over whether the entire country is made better
off by immigration—it is over how the
economic pie is sliced up.
ed States now has more than 20 million foreign-bom residents, making up slightly less than 10 percent of the
population. I have estimated that native workers lose about
$133 billion a year as a result of this immigration (or 1.9
percent of the gross domestic product in a $7 trillion economy), mainly because immigrants drive down wages. However, employers—from the owners of large agricultural enterprises to people who hire household help—gain on the
order of $ 140 billion (or 2.0 percent of GDP). The net gain,
which I call the immigration surplus, is only about $7 billion. Thus the increase in the per capita income of natives is
small—less than $30 a year. But the small size of this increase masks a substantial redistribution of wealth.
My calculation used the textbook model of a competitive
labor market: wages and employment are determined in a free
market that balances the desires ot people looking for work
w ith the needs of firms looking for workers. In this framework an increase in the number of workers reduces wages in
the economy—immigrants join natives in the competition for
jobs and bid down wages in the process. There is a lot of dis^ement over how much native wages fall when immigrants
..ter the labor market. Nevertheless, a great deal of empirical
research in economics, often unrelated to the question of imr II I
\ T I. « \ T I C H O N I II 1.1
assumption that a 10 percent increase in the number of
workers reduces wages by three percent, it turns out that the
winners get a windfall totaling $140 billion. Hence the $7
billion immigration surplus.
We can quibble about assumptions, but the rigor of economic theory suggests that this nitpicking may not alter our
conclusions much. For example, one could argue—and
many do—that immigrants do not reduce the earnings of native workers. If we wished to believe this, however, we
would also be forced to conclude that natives do not benefit
from immigration at all. If wages do not fall, there are no
savings in employers' payrolls and no cost savings to be
passed on to native consumers. Remember the lesson from
the foreign-trade example: no pain, no gain.
One could also argue that immigration has reduced the
earnings of natives very substantially—by. say. 10 percent.
The immigration surplus would then be about $25 billion
annually. The net gain from immigration, therefore, remains
small even with an unrealistically high estimate of the impact of immigration on native earnings. Imagine what U.S.
policy would look like today if our earnings had fallen by 10
percent as a result of past immigration.
The immigration surplus has to be balanced against the
�cost of providing services 10 the immigrant population. Immigrants have high rates of welfare recipiency. Estimates of
the fiscal impact of immigration (that is. of the difference
between the taxes paid by immigrants and the cost of services provided to them) vary widely. Some studies claim
that immigrants pay $25-$30 billion more in taxes than they
take out of the system, while other studies blame them for a
fiscal burden of more than $40 billion on natives.
It is doubtful that either of these statistics accurately reflects
the gap between taxes paid and the cost of services provided.
Studies that claim a beneficialfiscalimpact tend to assume that
immigrants do not increase the cost of most government programs other than education and welfare. Even though we do
not know by how much immigrants increase the cost of police
JUNIOR
SOCCER
You'd think the ball was a germ, the kids
exuberant antibodies swarming
to douse it with will, then finally
punish it toward the orange witch-hats goal.
My friend's daughter doesn't want us to know
she's eager for us to watch her jostle
her little body into the skirmish.
Her hair's an antenna for attention,
but she never turns, having learned to hide
childish reliance on Mom's esteem.
She still can't grasp the rationale of rules
or which of the brawling feet are on her team.
One boy, the coach's son. head-butts
the ball above a small astonished melee
of teammates contending with each other,
the younger kids intent on getting only
some piece of themselves to touch it.
like tongues waiting to catch the first raindrop,
the older ones more focused, their faces
braced: balanced surfaces of water.
The small girl who invited me here floats
to the sidelines, absentmindedly alone,
staring into the trees behind the school,
before she remembers again we're watching.
— ANDREW
78
FRISARDI
protection, maintaining roads and national parks, and so forth,
we do know that it costs more to provide these sen, ices to an
ever larger population. However, studies that claim a large fiscal burden often overstate the costs of immigration and understate the taxes paid. As a result, estimates of the fiscal impact
of immigration should be viewed with suspicion. Nevertheless, because the immigration surplus is around $7 billion,
the net benefit from immigration after accounting for the fiscal impact is very small, and could conceivably be a net loss.
How Many and Whom
Should W Admit?
e
I
N principle, we should admit immigrants whenever their
economic contribution (to native well-being) will exceed
the costs of prov iding social services to them. We are not,
though, in a position to make this calculation with any reasonable degree of confidence. In fact, no mainstream study
has ever attempted to suggest, purely on the basis of the empirical evidence, how many immigrants should be admitted.
This unfonunate lack of guidance from economic research
has. I believe, led to sudden and remarkable swings in policy
proposals. As recently as 1990 Congress legislated an increase
in the number of legal immigrants of about 175.000 people annually. Last year the Commission on Immigration Reform,
headed by Barbara Jordan, recommended thaHegal immigration be cut by about 240.000 people a year—a proposal that
was immediately supported by President Clinton. (The Clinton
Administration, however, successfully resisted congressional
efforts to follow up on the commission's recommendations.)
Although we do not know how many immigrants to admit,
simple economics and common sense suggest that the magic
number should not be an immutable constant regardless of
economic conditions in the United States. A good case can be
made for linking immigration to the business cycle: admit
more immigrants when the economy is strong and the unemployment rate is low. and cut back on immigration when the
economy is weak and the unemployment rate is high.
Economic research also suggests that the United States
may be better off if its policy of awarding entry visas favors
skilled workers. Skilled immigrants earn more than lessskilled immigrants, and hence pay more in taxes, and they
are less likely to use welfare and other social services.
Depending on how the skills of immigrants compare with
the skills of natives, immigrants also affect the productivity of
the native work force and of native-owned companies. Skilled
native workers, for example, have much to gain when lessskilled workers enter the United States: they can devote all
their efforts to jobs that use their skills effectively while immigrants provide cheap labor for service jobs. These gains,
however, come at a cost. The jobs of less-skilled natives are
now at risk, and these natives will suffer a reduction in their
earnings. Nonetheless, it does not seem far-fetched to assume
NOVEMBER
I »9«
�that the Amencan work force, particularly in companson with
the work forces of many source countries, is composed primarily of skilled workers. Thus the typical American worker
would seem to gain from unskilled immigration.
How does immigration affect companies' profits' Companies that use less-skilled workers on the production line
gain from the immigration of the less-skilled, who reduce
the earnings of less-skilled workers in favor of increasing
profits. However, other companies—perhaps even most—
might be better off w ith skilled immigrants. Many studies in
economics suggest that skilled labor is better suited to the
machines that are now used widely in the production
process. Most companies would therefore gain more if the
immigrant flow were composed of skilled workers.
Most workers prefer unskilled immigrants, whereas most
companies prefer skilled immigrants. This conflict can be resolved only by measuring how much native workers gain from
unskilled immigration and how much companies gain from
skilled immigration, and comparing the two. Although there is
a lot of uncertainty in the academic literature, we do know that
the productivity of capital is very responsive to an influx of
skilled workers. The large increase in the profits of the typical
company, and the corresponding reduction in the cost of goods
produced by skilled workers, suggest that the United States
might be better off with a policy favoring skilled immigrants.
The gains from skilled immigration will be even larger if
immigrants have "external effects" on the productivity of
natives. One could argue, for example, that immigrants may
bring knowledge, skills, and abilities that natives lack, and
that natives might somehow pick up this know-how by interacting with immigrants. It seems reasonable to suspect
that the value of these external effects would be greater if
natives interact with highly skilled immigrants. This increase in the human capital of natives might offset—and
perhaps even reverse—the harm that immigration does to
the wages of competing workers.
Although such effects now play a popular role in economic theory, there is little empincal evidence supporting
their existence, let alone measuring their magnitude. Ifindit
difficult to imagine that interaction with immigrants entering
an economy as large as that of the United States could have
a measurable effect. Nevertheless, if external effects exist,
they reinforce the argument that the United States would
gain most from skilled immigrants.
1
Efficiency Versus
Distribution
P
ARTICIPANTS in the immigration debate routinely
use the results of economic research to frame the discussion and to suggest policy solutions. Perhaps the
most important contributions of this research are the insights
that immigration entails both gains and losses for the native
80
population, that the winners and the losers are typically different groups, and that policy parameters can be set in ways that
anempt to maximize gains and minimize losses. If the objective of immigration policy is to increase the per capita income
of the native population, the evidence suggests that immigration policy should encourage the entry of skilled workers. It is
important to remember, however, that even though the immigration of skilled workers would be beneficial for the United
States as a whole, the gains and losses would be concentrated
in particular subgroups of the population.
As we have seen, the net gains from current immigration
are small, so it is unlikely that these gains can play a crucial
role in the policy debate. Economic research teaches a very
valuable lesson: the economic impact of immigration is essentially distributional. Cunent immigration redistributes
wealth from unskilled workers, whose wages are lowered by
immigrants, to skilled workers and owners of companies
that buy immigrants' services, and from taxpayers who bear
the burden of paying for the social services used by immigrants to consumers who use the goods and services produced by immigrants.
Distributional issues drive the political debate over many
social policies, and immigration policy is no exception. The
debate over immigration policy is not a debate over whether
the entire country is made better off by immigration—the
gains from immigration seem much too small, and could
even be outweighed by the costs of providing increased social services. Immigration changes how the economic pie is
sliced up—and this fact goes a long way toward explaining
why the debate over how many and what kinds of immigrants to admit is best viewed as a tug-of-war between those
who gain from immigration and those who lose from it.
History has taught us that immigration policy changes
rarely, but when it does, it changes drastically. Can economic research play a role infindinga better policy ? I believe it
can. but there are dangers ahead. Although the pendulum
seems to be swinging to the restrictionist side (with ever
louder calls for a complete closing of our borders), a greater
danger to the national interest may be the few economic
groups that gain much from immigration. They seem indifferent to the costs that immigration imposes on other segments of society, and they have considerablefinancialincentives to keep the current policy in place. The harmful
effects of immigration will not go away simply because
some people do not wish to see them. In the short run these
groups may simply delay the day of reckoning. Their potential long-run impact, however, is much more perilous: the
longer the delay, the greater the chances that when immigration policy finally changes, it will undergo a seismic shift—
one that, as in the twenties, may come close to shutting
down the border and preventing Americans from enjoying
the benefits that a well-designed immigration policy can bestow on the United States. 3>
8
NOVEMBER
1» 9«
�Toward a New Immigration Policy
Peter D. Salins
A
All in all, the congressional debate and its outcome neatly reflect the state of public feeling
about immigration: namely, ambivalence. While
opinion polls indicate that growing numbers, particularly in gateway states like California, favor
restrictions, the same polls also show that most
Americans do not have strong views on the issue
at all. This in itself is not surprising: why should
people care deeply about an issue which does not
affect them directly? But public ambivalence may
also be fed by the confusing spectacle of the immigration debate itself, each side of which is represented by normally incompatible bedfellows,
some of whom take positions strikingly out of political character.
Thus, on the anti-immigrant side we find, improbably enough, spokesmen for organized labor
and civil-rights liberals side by side with nativists,
supporters of Ross Perot, and zero- and negativepopulation-growth zealots. On the pro-immigration side, no less strangely, Latino advocacy
groups, high-tech businessmen, and libertarians
are to be found allied with cultural conservatives
and some old-fashioned liberals.
Such tangled alliances have tended to generate
PETER D. SALINS, here making his first appearance in
a correspondingly tangled web of assertions and
COMMENTARY, is professor of urban affairs and planning
at Hunter College and a fellow of the Manhattan Institute. counter-assertions about the costs and the conseThe present essay is adaptedfromMr. Salins's book, Assim-quences of immigration. At the root of them, I
ilation, American Style, which is being published by Basic would contend, is a failure to think clearly about
Books later this month. Copyright ©1997 by Basic Books, a our national purposes, and how immigration can
and should serve them.
division of HarperCollins.
rancorous debate, Congress made a
number of changes this past year in the law
affecting both legal and illegal immigrants. Legal
immigrants will no longer be eligible for most social-welfare programs that are available to American citizens, and the elderly or disabled among
them will no longer qualify for federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and its tandem
medical benefits. Illegal immigrants face closer
scrutiny of documents, fewer opportunities to appeal i f they are denied political asylum, and more
rapid deportation i f they commit crimes.
But as significant as what Congress did is what
it did not do. A proposal by Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Representative Lamar
Smith of Texas to reduce sharply the annual quota of legal immigrants was defeated without being
put to a vote. And the proposal of California
Congressman Elton Gallegly to bar the children
of illegal immigrants from attending public
schools was defeated after months of heated argument and repeated threats of a veto by President
Clinton.
FTER A
[45]
�COMMENTARY JANUARY 1997
P
easiest set of issues to deal with
is the economic. Many opponents of our
current policies argue that immigrants take jobs
away from native-bom workers, particularly minorities, and otherwise erode American economic strength, the sine qua non of national well-being. (A recent statement of the case is by George
J. Borjas in the November 1996 Atlantic.) In fact,
however, the evidence is overwhelming that immigration continues to make an enormous contribution to our economic health. This can be
seen even in immigration-inundated California,
birthplace of Proposition 187, which prohibits almost all forms of public expenditure on illegal
aliens.
Consider the case of San Diego, a city once
heavily reliant on military contracts and on the
presence of a naval base, and hit hard by the recession of 1989-92 and the post-cold-war military
demobilization. Over 20 percent of San Diego's
population today is foreign-born, and 30 percent
speak a language other than English at home. Yet
immigration has made it possible for the local
economy to reemerge with a roar: San Diego now
boasts a flourishing high-tech industrial sector,
low unemployment, enviably modest government
expenditures, and a crime rate that has fallen by
24 percent in recent years.
Perhaps the most striking example of a locality
whose fortunes have revived because of immigration is New York City. In the 1970's, the city
seemed to be in a terminal decline; it lost nearly
600,000 jobs and its population fell by more than a
million. By the end of the decade, however, as it
began to receive over 100,000 immigrants a year,
New York's economy also began to recover, and it
regained half the population loss it had suffered in
the previous ten years. Today, in neighborhoods
where immigrants have congregated—Elmhurst,
Jackson Heights, Flushing, Flatbush, Washington
Heights, and even the notorious South Bronx—
one encounters bustling shopping streets, new
housing construction, active parks and playgrounds, declining crime rates, and an atmosphere
of vitality and hope. If New York is in any way
typical, the physical regeneration of immigrant
enclaves also inevitably spills over into adjacent
neighborhoods inhabited by poor blacks.
Indeed, the economic and demographic resurgence of neighborhoods in port-of-entry cities
like Miami, Los Angeles, El Paso, San Francisco,
Chicago, and Boston stands in pointed contrast to
the economic malaise of low-immigration cities
like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and
ERHAPS THE
St. Louis. The latter show markedly higher rates
of unemployment and welfare dependency—and,
not coincidentally, much lower rates of black
employment.
' I ^His IS hardly to deny that immigration someX times produces short-term economic dislocation. Overall, however, it is impossible to make
a good-faith case against immigration on economic grounds alone. Nor, in truth, do most opponents base their arguments solely on economics. It is the cultural costs and benefits of immigration which really preoccupy them, and it is
here that the issue of national purpose is most direcdy joined.
For the past several years, a serious controversy has been raging over whether immigration can
continue to play its historic role of stocking
America with self-reliant, hard-working, freedom-loving newcomers. Some conservatives,
most notably Peter Brimelow, the author of Alien
Nation* and John O'Sullivan, the editor of National Review, have argued that America is, no
longer the powerful absorptive machine it once
was, and that the unchecked influx of new immigrants, especially from Latin America and elsewhere in the third world, is having an all-but-irreparably damaging effect on our common values
and our common culture. Others, however, take
an entirely different view. As Francis Fukuyama
has written in these pages,t immigrants to the
United States may be the most dedicated upholders of an uncompromising work ethic and a virtuous and responsible family life. Immigrants stay
married and support their children in spite of
poverty, and they tend in overwhelming numbers
to be religiously observant and to be intent on instilling traditional mores in their children.
Adjudicating this dispute is not easy, in part because the critics, in fixing on immigration as the
source of our problems, have been looking in the
wrong place. It is certainly the case that as a nation we seem to have been moving away from the
unifying conception of e pluribus unum toward a
divisive brand of ethnic federalism. But this is
much more the work of natives than of immigrants. It is generally the case that immigrants
themselves tend to resist the corroding impulses
of ethnocentricity, and are certainly not to be
numbered in the forefront of those who propound and spread them. We can, rather, look to
* Reviewed in COMMENTARY by Peter Skerry, May 1995.
t "Immigrants and Family Values," May 1993.
[46]
�TOWARD A NEW IMMIGRATION POLICY
the native-bom elites of America for the range of
policies and doctrines, from affirmative action to
bilingual education to multiculturalism, whose
effect has been to promote separatism, heighten
intergroup friction, and break down our common
culture.
Still, the anti-immigration critics are not
wholly wrong, either. For the fact is that, whatever immigrants themselves may believe, our policies have helped turn immigration itself into another component of America's ethnic preferential
spoils system.
Ever since the United States first developed a
comprehensive immigration policy in the
1920's, every formula for designing the mix of
newcomers has been wanting in one way or
another. The national-origins concept, introduced in the Immigration Act of 1924, was
explicitly and outrageously biased against Italians, Jews, and natives of Eastern Europe. That
approach was jettisoned in 1965, and our current, vastly liberalized, law has as its central
objective the principle of family reunification.
This is a superficially attractive criterion, but,
by increasingly skewing immigration toward the
nationalities of recent immigrants, it has nevertheless led to a latter-day version of the old
national-origins system. And this tendency has
been further exacerbated by the amnesty offered
under the provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which
gave legal status to three million illegal immigrants, including over a million Mexicans.
It is this disproportionate conferral of immigration slots on members of a few preferred categories and nationalities which has created the
well-founded sense that, like other governmentenforced redistributionist schemes in recent
decades, our immigration policies are unfairly
oriented toward a narrow range of beneficiaries,
and are conducing toward the further balkanization of our society. Precisely because that is so,
however, the solution offered by the critics—
namely, radically curtailing the numbers of immigrants—is no solution at all.
For one thing, those numbers, even including
illegal immigrants, are not all that high; as a ratio
of the total population, they run well below half
what they were at their historical peak in the first
decade of the century. For another thing, simply
cutting numbers would not address the larger
problem of skewed representation. Nor would it
get at a related and even deeper problem, which
is not that there are too many immigrants, but
that those who apply, and those who come, are
not required, or even asked, to assimilate.
O
aspect of the American ethos,
captured symbolically in the Statue of Liberty, holds that immigrants are always welcome to
our shores; an America that turned its back on
that simple but fundamental proposition would,
in a profound sense, cease to be America. But another and no less compelling aspect of our national ethos is captured in the image of the melting pot. As immigrants or as descendants of immigrants who have streamed here from lands far
and wide, Americans have nonetheless forged
what is still one of the most civically and culturally united nations on earth. Their success in doing so was no happy accident. It depended on a
powerful assimilationist ethic which demanded
that immigrants be integrated into our society,
that they subscribe to our civic ideals, take the
simple but enormously significant step of becoming citizens, and identify in every important respect with our common national culture.
Today, successful assimilation hinges both on
how well immigrants are integrated into American society once they arrive and on how we
choose, out of the millions who wish to come,
those whom we care to admit. Yet whatever else
our immigration policy has been recently, it has
not been assimilationist, either in conception or
in intent. That is, it has not been consciously
aimed at recruiting those who would truly cherish the opportunity to benefit from our open
economy, free political institutions, and unique
civil society. Our notoriously lax attitude toward
illegal immigration sends the message that we do
not care enough about who we are as a nation
even to enforce our own laws. Our policy toward
legal immigrants sends the no less irresponsible
message that admission into our national life is
conditioned almost entirely on the accidents of
birth and nationality. Finally, thanks to the triumph of bilingualism, multiculturalism, and other revisionist ideologies, what we tell our newcomers once they get here—and, worse, their
children—is that we do not necessarily expect
them to embrace America's most deeply held civic
values: to abide by the Protestant ethic, to take
pride in American history, to believe in the American Idea, or even to speak the English language.
There is no way to address the legitimate concerns raised by our immigration po icies without
developing a more assimilationist perspective:
one that views immigration as an instrument by
[47]
NE POWERFUL
�COMMENTARY JANUARY
which the United States grooms its next generation of citizens and revitalizes its civic culture.
This, of course, is a sweeping demand, and one
properly addressed to American society as a
whole; our immigration policies, after all, are
only a reflection of our national state of mind,
and lately that state of mind, as Nathan Glazer
has observed, is one in which "large statements of
an American national ideal of inclusion, of assimilation, understandably ring false." Nevertheless,
it is possible to point to concrete ways in which
just such an ideal might be embodied in our immigration laws and regulations.
The first requirement of an assimilationist policy is to clamp down, and hard, on illegal immigration: it is paradoxical but true that before we
can properly include, we need to exclude. Most of
today's approaches to this issue amount to more or
less wrong-headed attempts to lock the barn door
after the horse is gone. Imposing sanctions on employers of illegal immigrants, for example, has
failed to accomplish much of anything at all. The
proposal that all American citizens and legal residents carry forgery-resistant identification cards,
advocated by Senators Simpson, Dianne Feinstein,
and others, is righdy resisted by most Americans as
an unprecedented governmental intrusion of privacy. And as for the Gallegly amendment and similar measures being considered by some state legislatures, these not only are unattractive on moral
grounds but will not succeed either in deterring
new illegal immigrants from coming or in making
those already here leave.
The only way to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants in a manner consistent with American
civic values is to prevent them from gaining entry
in the first place. We can do much better than we
have done on this score: as Linda Chavez has observed, only 250 miles of our 2,000-mile border
with Mexico can be easily traversed by would-be
entrants, and with the mobilization of sufficient
resources—in equipment, personnel, and training—it should be possible to keep most from
crossing.* The same applies to those coming into
the country by air or by sea from other places.
The fact that we have failed to take the necessary
steps has made a laughingstock not only of our
entry policies themselves but of the very definition of America as a society of laws. The message
thus sent to legal immigrants is dispiritingly clear.
1997
were not so wildly unstable as it is now. Instead of
treating immigration as a wild card, adjustable
year to year depending on changes in administration or on the relative zeal with which we pursue
illegals, the United States would be better off setting a single aggregate annual quota. This should
be based on a percentage of the U.S. population,
with an allowance for anticipated illegal immigration. Indeed, if each year's quota were reduced
by the estimated volume of the previous year's i l legal influx, that in itself would create powerful
incentives across the board for stemming illegal
immigration and help assuage the fears of those
who believe immigration has been getting out of
hand.
The more important point, however, is this:
in place of the present arrangement, which favors those lucky enough to have relatives in the
U.S. or to have received a good education (and
thus qualify for a special skills-based
allotment),
the key objective of American policy should be
to recruit immigrants who will rapidly and gladly
assimilate.
Practically, the way to begin going about this is
to make the criteria for admission at once fairer
and more random. Existing law sets aside a small
number of slots, awarded by lottery, for the purpose of promoting geographic diversity. We
ought to enlarge this category substantially, while
at the same time scaling back family preferences,
dispensing with skill-based allotments, and considering applicants on a first-come, first-served
basis. To avoid being swamped by applicants from
the most populous countries (like China and India), limits might be established so that no nation's portion exceeds some specified percentage
of the total.
By drawing from a much broader array of countries, on a fairer basis, we would go far toward
eliminating our present ethnic spoils system. But
this is only the first step. Within the new formula,
applicants should be screened, not only for the
state of their health, and for any criminal or other
unsavory traits in their background, but in order to
assess—above all—their reasons for emigrating to
the United States, their eagerness to be a part of
the American way of life, and their appreciation of
America's political institutions.
Finally, a frankly assimilationist policy should
revise the process by which immigrants, once
here, become American—that is, naturalized. We
A
s FOR legal immigration, although numbers
are not the issue, it would help a great deal
to ease political anxieties i f the annual volume
• "What To Do About Immigration," COMMENTARY, March
1995.
[48]
�TOWARD A N E W IMMIGRATION POLICY
have always made this process extraordinarily
easy, and the citizenship we confer is also more
comprehensive and more unconditional than that
offered by other countries. Even so, throughout
most of America's history only about half of all
immigrants have availed themselves of the privilege. The likelihood of naturalization has also
varied greatly by nationality. At all times, the
overwhelming majority of Irish, German, and
Jewish immigrants became citizens; but among
turn-of-the-century immigrants, those from Italy
and Eastern Europe were far less likely to do so.
Today, Mexicans and other Hispanics have distressingly low naturalization rates.
Ironically, here is where the most controversial
and punitive elements of the recently enacted
welfare and immigration bills—namely, those that
make citizenship, rather than mere legal residency, a condition for receiving a wide array of social-welfare benefits—may have a constructive
role to play. That taxpaying legal immigrants
should be stripped of welfare benefits has outraged many, liberal and conservative alike, i n cluding those who favor reducing the overall
number of newcomers. Some have been quick to
dismiss the cutoff as another example of neonativism, and President Clinton has hinted he
may attempt to reverse the policy. Yet despite the
hardship this feature may visit on some, in the
end the restrictions might turn out to be a bless-
ing in disguise, first by discouraging those wouldbe applicants for whom the prospect of immediate welfare eligibility acts as a powerful lure, and
second by helping (or forcing) those already here
to resist the deadly temptations of dependency
and, most importantly, increasing the rate at
which they become citizens.
Indeed, that is already happening: the number
of applications for citizenship has jumped from
an annual average of slightly over 200,000 in the
1980's to over 950,000 in 1993, and in the wake
of Congress's most recent actions the numbers
have become a veritable flood. Though the motives may not in all cases be pure, citizenship in
itself is an unalloyed good, sealing the contract
between immigrants and native-born and underlining America's identity as a nation ethnically diverse but culturally unified.
Over the years, nothing—not even concrete
economic benefits—has so solidified domestic
support for America's immigration experiment as
our newcomers' record of successful assimilation,
a process which Americans traditionally have insisted upon. But even Americans can be made to
doubt the wisdom or efficacy of their traditions.
Unless we devise a policy that keeps faith with
those traditions, we will continue willy-nilly to
lend force to the arguments of the restrictionist
minority, and to undermine the good faith and
tolerance of the welcoming majority.
[49]
�PAGE
1ST STORY o f L e v e l
Copyright
2
1 p r i n t e d i n FULL f o r m a t .
1998 The New Y o r k Times Company
The New York Times
March 9, 1998, Monday, L a t e E d i t i o n - F i n a l
SECTION: S e c t i o n A; Page 19; Column 2; E d i t o r i a l
Desk
LENGTH: 114 3 words
HEADLINE: I m m i g r a n t s
Aren't
t h e Problem. We A r e .
BYLINE: By B i l l McKibben; B i l l McKibben i s t h e a u t h o r o f "The End o f N a t u r e "
and t h e f o r t h c o m i n g "Maybe One: A P e r s o n a l and E n v i r o n m e n t a l Argument f o r
Single-Child Families."
DATELINE: JOHNSBURG, N.Y.
BODY:
I n t h e n e x t f e w weeks, t h e h a l f m i l l i o n members o f t h e S i e r r a C l u b w i l l v o t e
t o s e t t h e c l u b ' s p o l i c y on t h e i s s u e o f i m m i g r a t i o n . S i n c e t h e S i e r r a C l u b does
n o t e x a c t l y c o n t r o l Congress, t h e f i n a l c o u n t won't much m a t t e r , b u t t h e d e b a t e ,
w h i c h has a l r e a d y been s p i r i t e d , r e p r e s e n t s an i n v a l u a b l e chance t o r a i s e t h e
i s s u e o f how many p e o p l e t h i s c o u n t r y c a n and s h o u l d c o n t a i n .
I m m i g r a t i o n i s a b o u t as d i f f i c u l t a m o r a l s u b j e c t as one c a n i m a g i n e , so even
t h e p r o p o s e d change i n S i e r r a C l u b p o l i c y -- i n f a v o r o f an u n s p e c i f i e d
" r e d u c t i o n i n n e t i m m i g r a t i o n " -- has i g n i t e d c o n t r o v e r s y . I n a w o r l d o f
desperate p o v e r t y , i t i s h a r d f o r c i t i z e n s o f t h e r i c h e s t n a t i o n t o argue t h a t
t h e d o o r s h o u l d be c l o s e d , e s p e c i a l l y s i n c e n e a r l y a l l o f us c a n r e c a l l o u r
immigrant r o o t s .
Not o n l y t h a t , t o o many p e o p l e who s u p p o r t t i g h t e r c o n t r o l s on i m m i g r a t i o n
a r e r a c i s t s o f v a r i o u s t y p e s . I g o t a l e t t e r l a s t month f r o m a b o a r d member o f
one n a t i o n a l g r o u p w o r k i n g on p o p u l a t i o n i s s u e s i n w h i c h he c o m p l a i n e d a b o u t
" b a r b a r i a n s " who l i t t e r e d t h e subways a n d p l a y e d " u g l y " m u s i c . (He p r o f e s s e d t o
p r e f e r t h a t a i l - A m e r i c a n composer J . S. Bach.) So i t i s no s u r p r i s e t h a t most
w i s e p e o p l e , i n c l u d i n g most w i s e e n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t s , s i m p l y i g n o r e t h e m a t t e r :
c u r r e n t l y , t h e o f f i c i a l S i e r r a C l u b p o l i c y i s t o " t a k e no p o s i t i o n on
i m m i g r a t i o n l e v e l s o r on p o l i c i e s g o v e r n i n g i m m i g r a t i o n i n t o t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s . "
E n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t s have f o c u s e d on l i v i n g more s i m p l y and more e f f i c i e n t l y as
t h e keys t o o u r p r o b l e m s h e r e a t home, b u t many, m y s e l f i n c l u d e d , have l a r g e l y
o v e r l o o k e d t h e m e s s i e r and more d i v i s i v e q u e s t i o n o f o u r s h e e r numbers. W h i l e
our b i r t h r a t e i s j u s t b e l o w t h e r e p l a c e m e n t l e v e l o f 2.1 -- t h e number o f
c h i l d r e n each m o t h e r w o u l d need t o b e a r t o keep t h e p o p u l a t i o n c o n s t a n t -- o u r
t o t a l p o p u l a t i o n c o n t i n u e s t o grow q u i c k l y compared w i t h t h a t o f o t h e r d e v e l o p e d
n a t i o n s . P a r t o f t h i s i s because o f o u r l o n g e r l i f e spans and t h e echoes o f t h e
baby-boom b u l g e -- even a t t w o c h i l d r e n a p i e c e , w e ' l l be i n c r e a s i n g o u r numbers
f o r decades t o come. B u t o u r p o p u l a t i o n i s a l s o g r o w i n g because we have by f a r
t h e w o r l d ' s h i g h e s t l e v e l o f i m m i g r a t i o n -- s o m e t h i n g l i k e 800,000 l e g a l
i m m i g r a n t s t a k e up r e s i d e n c e h e r e each y e a r ( n o t t o m e n t i o n i l l e g a l i m m i g r a n t s ,
e s t i m a t e d a t 300,000 a y e a r ) . N a t u r a l i n c r e a s e and i m m i g r a t i o n , t h e Census
Bureau p r o j e c t s , may combine t o s w e l l o u r p o p u l a t i o n b y as much as 50 p e r c e n t i n
t h e n e x t 50 y e a r s , b r i n g i n g i t t o n e a r l y 400 m i l l i o n ; by even t h e most
c o n s e r v a t i v e e s t i m a t e s , t h e r e w i l l be 30 p e r c e n t more A m e r i c a n s b y t h e m i d d l e
�PAGE
The
of
the next
New
Y o r k Times, March 9,
1998
century.
T h a t ' s a p r o b l e m f o r two r e a s o n s . The f i r s t , and most o b v i o u s , i s t h a t t h i s
c o u n t r y , so s e e m i n g l y empty when Europeans i n i t i a l l y a r r i v e d , i s by some
d e f i n i t i o n s becoming crowded. I t ' s t r u e t h a t t h e P l a i n s r e m a i n s p a r s e l y
p o p u l a t e d , and p r o b a b l y a l w a y s w i l l . But t h e p l a c e s A m e r i c a n s want t o l i v e a r e
jammed. The N o r t h e a s t c o r r i d o r o f s u b u r b s and c i t i e s i s a l r e a d y more d e n s e l y
p o p u l a t e d t h a n H a i t i o r E l S a l v a d o r ; C a l i f o r n i a ' s 30 m i l l i o n may become 50
m i l l i o n by 2050. W i t h each y e a r , t h e r i n g o f s u b u r b s s p r e a d s a l i t t l e f a r t h e r
out,
t h e r o a d s become a b i t more crowded, t h e m a r g i n f o r w i l d l i f e becomes
s l i g h t l y s m a l l e r . T h a t e n d l e s s g r o w t h p l a c e s r e a l s t r e s s on o u r s u p p l i e s o f
e v e r y t h i n g f r o m w a t e r t o s i l e n c e , f r o m f a r m l a n d t o s o l i t u d e . Such g r o w t h even
s t r a i n s o u r democracy. When t h e C o n s t i t u t i o n was r a t i f i e d , each member o f
Congress r e p r e s e n t e d 30,000 v o t e r s ; now i t ' s 570,000.
But t h e r e ' s a b i g g e r p r o b l e m s t i l l . A m e r i c a n s , as t h e w o r l d ' s most v o r a c i o u s
consumers, c o n t r i b u t e f a r more p e r c a p i t a t o t h e w o r l d ' s e n v i r o n m e n t a l p r o b l e m s
t h a n anyone e l s e . So an e x t r a h u n d r e d m i l l i o n A m e r i c a n s means, f o r i n s t a n c e , a
s t a g g e r i n g amount o f c a r b o n d i o x i d e e n t e r i n g t h e atmosphere and warming t h e
c l i m a t e . I t ' s t r u e t h a t we c o u l d a l l e v i a t e some o f t h a t p r o b l e m i f each o f . us
consumed l e s s and consumed more e f f i c i e n t l y -- i f we l i v e d i n s m a l l e r homes
h e a t e d by t h e sun. I ' v e s p e n t most o f my c a r e e r w r i t i n g about j u s t such i d e a s ,
and b e l i e v e i n them w h o l e h e a r t e d l y .
But a t t h e moment, we're b u i l d i n g b i g g e r homes and d r i v i n g b i g g e r c a r s . And
even i f we came t o o u r senses, t h e momentum o f n a t u r a l i n c r e a s e and i m m i g r a t i o n
w o u l d r e n d e r most o f o u r changes m e a n i n g l e s s . As t h e P r e s i d e n t ' s C o u n c i l on
S u s t a i n a b l e Development p o i n t e d o u t i n 1996, d o m e s t i c p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h means
w e ' l l need t o i n c r e a s e o u r e n e r g y e f f i c i e n c y 50 p e r c e n t i n t h e n e x t h a l f c e n t u r y
j u s t t o run i n place.
T h i s i s a v e r y d i f f e r e n t argument f r o m t h e t r a d i t i o n a l
" t h e y ' 1 1 - t a k e - o u r - j o b s - f r o m - u s " l a m e n t . E c o n o m i s t s by now have m o s t l y c o n c l u d e d
t h a t i m m i g r a n t s a c t u a l l y c r e a t e w e a l t h , w h i c h s h o u l d come as no s u r p r i s e t o
anyone who has v i s i t e d B r o o k l y n o r Queens i n r e c e n t y e a r s . I f t h o s e who w a n t e d
t o i m m i g r a t e h e r e s t a y e d i n s t e a d i n J u a r e z o r Shanghai o r , f o r t h a t m a t t e r ,
D u b l i n , t h e y w o u l d do f a r l e s s damage t o t h e p l a n e t p r e c i s e l y because t h e y w o u l d
n o t be as r i c h . T h a t ' s t h e p o i n t , and t h a t ' s a l s o t h e r u b . People want t o come
here f o r a b e t t e r l i f e w i t h more o p p o r t u n i t i e s , and who a r e we t o deny them t h a t
chance?
We o f c o u r s e a l r e a d y deny p l e n t y o f p e o p l e t h a t chance '-- even o u r c u r r e n t ,
h i s t o r i c a l l y g e n e r o u s i m m i g r a t i o n c e i l i n g means many p e o p l e a r e n ' t a l l o w e d i n .
Of t h e w o r l d ' s h u d d l e d masses, o n l y t h e t i n i e s t f r a c t i o n w i l l e v e r come h e r e
even w i t h e x i s t i n g l a w s . And w h i l e some p o p u l a t i o n - c o n t r o l a d v o c a t e s want t o see
i m m i g r a t i o n a l l b u t s t o p p e d , most whom I ' v e t a l k e d t o w o u l d p r e f e r t o see t h e
l i m i t s c u t r o u g h l y i n h a l f , t o a b o u t 400,000 a n n u a l l y , w i t h s p e c i a l p r o v i s i o n s
for asylum seekers. At t h a t r a t e , i f our b i r t h r a t e s i m u l t a n e o u s l y f e l l t o the
European a v e r a g e o f 1.5 c h i l d r e n , we c o u l d see o u r p o p u l a t i o n s t o p g r o w i n g
within a generation.
S t i l l , such a p o l i c y w o u l d be h a r s h . I t w o u l d mean 400,000 more p e o p l e a y e a r
who w o u l d be t u r n e d away a t t h e d o o r -- p e o p l e w i t h p a r t i c u l a r hopes, p a r t i c u l a r
s o r r o w s . And a l l i n t h e name o f a s - y e t f a i r l y a b s t r a c t p r o b l e m s l i k e g l o b a l
warming. Such r e s t r i c t i o n s w o u l d come a t r e a l c o s t t o t h e A m e r i c a n dream, t o o ;
�PAGE
4
The New York Times, March 9, 1998
i n most c i t i e s I know, New York i n c l u d e d , immigrants best e x e m p l i f y the k i n d of
c i t i z e n s h i p and community s p i r i t i n e r e a s i n g l y absent from the n a t i o n ' s
mainstream.
So I t h i n k we have no. r i g h t t o pass such laws, o r even t o support them i n
nonbinding forms l i k e S i e r r a Club referendums, unless we a l s o ' t a k e serious steps
i n our own l i v e s t o lessen our impact on the environment. I f we're not w i l l i n g
to reduce the s i z e o f our f a m i l i e s or the size o f our s p o r t u t i l i t y v e h i c l e s ,
then c u t t i n g immigrat '.on i s p i g g i s h scapegoating; i t may save some o f our
landscape, but a t the p r i c e o f our n a t i o n a l s o u l . I f , however, we are w i l l i n g t o
take some p a i n f u l steps ourselves, then we earn the r i g h t t o t e l l some tough
t r u t h s t o others -- c h i e f among them t h a t even t h i s r i c h land can't grow
f o r e v e r . Numbers count.
GRAPHIC: Drawing
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: March 9, 1998
�PAGE
4TH
STORY o f L e v e l
Copyright
1 printed
i n FULL f o r m a t .
1998 The N a t i o n a l J o u r n a l ,
The N a t i o n a l J o u r n a l
March 7,
SECTION: ISSUES & IDEAS; Pg. 532;
Inc.
1998
V o l . 30, No. 10
LENGTH: 1924 words
HEADLINE: Green Grows t h e I m m i g r a t i o n
BYLINE: D i c k
Debate
Kirschten
BODY:
A m e r i c a ' s o l d e s t and l a r g e s t c o n s e r v a t i o n g r o u p i s t r y i n g
to f o r d a treacherous stream i n environmental p o l i t i c s - - the
q u e s t i o n o f w h e t h e r i m m i g r a t i o n s h o u l d be c u r b e d i n t h e i n t e r e s t
of p r e s e r v i n g t h e n a t i o n ' s e c o l o g y .
I n March, 535,000 S i e r r a C l u b members w i l l be asked t o
vote e i t h e r f o r the club leadership's p o s i t i o n t h a t the club
s h o u l d t a k e no s t a n d U.S. i m m i g r a t i o n q u o t a s o r f o r a d i s s i d e n t
f a c t i o n ' s p r o p o s a l t h a t the c l u b adopt a p o p u l a t i o n p o l i c y
c a l l i n g f o r r e d u c t i o n s i n b o t h b i r t h r a t e s and n e t i m m i g r a t i o n .
A m e r i c a ' s r i s i n g p o p u l a t i o n , now a b o u t 268 m i l l i o n b u t
p r o j e c t e d t o h i t 387 m i l l i o n by 2050--combined w i t h t h e h i g h r a t e
a t w h i c h U.S. c i t i z e n s consume p h y s i c a l r e s o u r c e s - - i s a m a j o r
concern t o e n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t s . But mainstream green groups
g e n e r a l l y s t e e r c l e a r o f i m m i g r a t i o n p o l i t i c s , even t h o u g h
i m m i g r a n t s and t h e i r i m m e d i a t e d e s c e n d a n t s a r e now t h e p r i n c i p a l
e n g i n e s o f U.S. p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h . (The N a t i o n a l Academy o f
S c i e n c e s (NAS) e s t i m a t e d l a s t y e a r t h a t 80 m i l l i o n o f t h e 124
m i l l i o n - p e r s o n p o p u l a t i o n i n c r e a s e e x p e c t e d between 1995 and 2050
w i l l r e f l e c t ' ' t h e d i r e c t o r i n d i r e c t consequences o f
i m m i g r a t i o n . ' ' ) F o r many e n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t s , s i d e s t e p p i n g t h e
i m m i g r a t i o n i s s u e keeps them o u t o f a d e b a t e t h a t i s l i k e l y t o
become p o l a r i z e d a l o n g r a c i a l a n d e t h n i c l i n e s .
S i e r r a C l u b l e a d e r s have s t a k e d o u t t h e p o s i t i o n t h a t
t h e i r o r g a n i z a t i o n s h o u l d f o c u s on r e d u c i n g t h e ' ' r o o t causes''
of g l o b a l m i g r a t i o n by s e e k i n g improvements i n e d u c a t i o n and
r e p r o d u c t i v e h e a l t h s e r v i c e s f o r women i n d e v e l o p i n g n a t i o n s .
E x e c u t i v e d i r e c t o r C a r l Pope s a y s , however, t h a t i m m i g r a t i o n i s
''not r e a l l y an e n v i r o n m e n t a l i s s u e ' ' and t h e c l u b ' s b o a r d , i n an
a t t e m p t t o p u t t h e d e b a t e t o r e s t , v o t e d i n F e b r u a r y 1996 t o
i n s t r u c t a l l c l u b c h a p t e r s and r e l a t e d e n t i t i e s t o t a k e no
p o s i t i o n on i m m i g r a t i o n p o l i c y a n d t o c o n c e n t r a t e i n s t e a d on
world population s t a b i l i z a t i o n .
F o l l o w i n g t h e b o a r d ' s a c t i o n , however, c l u b member A l a n
Kuper, a r e t i r e d e n g i n e e r i n g p r o f e s s o r i n C l e v e l a n d , l e d a
s u c c e s s f u l p e t i t i o n d r i v e t o f o r c e t h e upcoming v o t e by t h e
g r o u p ' s e n t i r e membership. The r e s u l t s w i l l be t a l l i e d i n e a r l y
A p r i l . Kuper a r g u e s t h a t t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s - - a s t h e w o r l d ' s t h i r d -
�The
N a t i o n a l J o u r n a l , March 7,
199S
most p o p u l o u s n a t i o n - - m u s t j o i n o t h e r i n d u s t r i a l i z e d n a t i o n s i n
a c h i e v i n g p o p u l a t i o n s t a b i l i z a t i o n and r e d u c i n g p e r c a p i t a
e m i s s i o n s o f p o l l u t i o n , i f p r o g r e s s i s t o be made i n t h e b a t t l e
t o p r e v e n t g l o b a l warming. He d e n i e s any h i d d e n agenda t o d r i v e
out or exclude f o r e i g n e r s .
O u t s i d e o b s e r v e r s o f t h e S i e r r a Club d e b a t e suggest t h a t
b o t h s i d e s have a p o i n t . L e s t e r R. Brown, p r e s i d e n t o f t h e
W o r l d w a t c h I n s t i t u t e , a W a s h i n g t o n t h i n k t a n k on e n v i r o n m e n t a l
issues, i s concerned about p r o j e c t i o n s t h a t the Earth's
p o p u l a t i o n w i l l grow by a s t a g g e r i n g 3.3 b i l l i o n i n t h e n e x t
h a l f - c e n t u r y . While acknowledging t h a t a l l of the net increase
w i l l -occur i n t h e d e v e l o p i n g w o r l d , he n o n e t h e l e s s warns t h a t
c o n t i n u e d g r o w t h o f t h e U.S. p o p u l a t i o n a t t h e c u r r e n t r a t e o f 1
p e r c e n t p e r y e a r w i l l p u t heavy p r e s s u r e on a l r e a d y - s t r a i n e d
g l o b a l ecosystems.
But R o c k e f e l l e r U n i v e r s i t y b i o l o g i s t J o e l E. Cohen says
i t d o e s n ' t n e c e s s a r i l y f o l l o w t h a t more A m e r i c a n s means more
e n v i r o n m e n t a l damage. R e s i d e n t s o f
t h e r i c h w o r l d , ' ' he p o i n t s
out,
''have b o t h t h e w e a l t h t o mess up and t h e w e a l t h t o buy a
c l e a n e r e n v i r o n m e n t . ' ' Cohen, a u t h o r o f t h e 1996 book, How Many
People Can t h e E a r t h S u p p o r t ? says t h e d e b a t e s h o u l d be o v e r what
p e o p l e do. ' ' T a l k i n g a b o u t i m m i g r a t i o n i n terms o f numbers o n l y .
. . i s t o m i s s t h e b o a t , ' ' he s a i d . ' ' P o l i c y s h o u l d f o c u s on who
a r e t h e p e o p l e , why a r e we a d m i t t i n g them? What's i n i t f o r us?''
11
Former u n d e r s e c r e t a r y o f S t a t e f o r g l o b a l a f f a i r s T i m o t h y
E. W i r t h , who l e d t h e U.S. d e l e g a t i o n a t t h e 1994 U n i t e d N a t i o n s
c o n f e r e n c e on p o p u l a t i o n and d e v e l o p m e n t i n C a i r o , d i s a g r e e s w i t h
the S i e r r a b o a r d ' s p o s i t i o n b u t says i t ' s c o n s i s t e n t w i t h t h a t o f
o t h e r c o n s e r v a t i o n g r o u p s . ' ' I t h i n k e v e r y U.S.
environmental
g r o u p has g o t t o g e t engaged i n p o p u l a t i o n , and I t h i n k a l m o s t
e v e r y one o f them has t r i e d t o a v o i d t a l k i n g about t h e i s s u e , ' '
commented W i r t h , who now heads t h e f o u n d a t i o n a d m i n i s t e r i n g t h e $1 b i l l i o n
b r o a d c a s t e r Ted T u r n e r has p l e d g e d t o g i v e t o
U.N. p r o g r a m s o v e r t h e n e x t decade.
But t h e i s s u e wasn't a l w a y s so t o u c h y . T h i r t y y e a r s ago,
c u r b i n g p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h - - b o t h g l o b a l and domestic--was a cause
e e l b r e among U.S. e n v i r o n m e n t a l g r o u p s and t h e p o l i t i c i a n s who
c u r r i e d t h e i r f a v o r . The c o u n t r y ' s f e r t i l i t y r a t e h i t a p o s t w a r
peak i n 1960, w i t h A m e r i c a n women a v e r a g i n g 3.65 c h i l d r e n a p i e c e .
The b i r t h r a t e d e c l i n e d d u r i n g t h e r e m a i n d e r o f t h e '60s, b u t i t
s t a y e d w e l l above t h e s o - c a l l e d r e p l a c e m e n t r a t e o f j u s t under
2.1.
I n The P o p u l a t i o n Bomb, a 1968 book t h a t a t t r a c t e d wide
a t t e n t i o n , S t a n f o r d U n i v e r s i t y b i o l o g i s t Paul E h r l i c h p r e d i c t e d
i m p e n d i n g d i s a s t e r i f t h e p l a n e t ' s e x p l o d i n g p o p u l a t i o n was n o t
b r o u g h t u n d e r c o n t r o l . The f o l l o w i n g y e a r , P r e s i d e n t N i x o n won
r a v e s f r o m t h e e m e r g i n g g r e e n l o b b y by s e n d i n g a p a s s i o n a t e
message t o Congress u r g i n g t h e c r e a t i o n o f a Commission on
P o p u l a t i o n G r o w t h and t h e A m e r i c a n F u t u r e .
that
�PAGE
The
N a t i o n a l J o u r n a l , March 7, 1998
Congress r e a d i l y a s s e n t e d t o N i x o n ' s r e q u e s t f o r a
p o p u l a t i o n commission, b u t t h e panel r e c e i v e d a c o o l r e c e p t i o n
when i t c o m p l e t e d i t s work i n 1972. I t u r g e d s w i f t a c t i o n t o
a c h i e v e U.S. p o p u l a t i o n s t a b i l i z a t i o n , i n c l u d i n g a f r e e z e on
l e g a l i m m i g r a t i o n q u o t a s - - a t t h a t t i m e about 380,000 p e r y e a r - and p e r i o d i c r e v i e w s o f i m m i g r a t i o n p o l i c y , ' ' t o r e f l e c t
demographic c o n d i t i o n s . '
1
By t h e t i m e o f t h e commission's r e p o r t , however, i t was
c l e a r t h a t t h e U.S. f e r t i l i t y r a t e was d e c r e a s i n g - - i t t r o u g h e d a t
1.74 c h i l d r e n p e r woman i n 1976. What's more, recommendations by
t h e p a n e l and i t s c h a i r m a n , John D. R o c k e f e l l e r I I I , t o make
c o n t r a c e p t i o n and a b o r t i o n s e r v i c e s more w i d e l y a v a i l a b l e were
politically
inflammatory.
Nixon, running f o r r e e l e c t i o n , took pains t o d i s s o c i a t e
h i m s e l f from t h e commission's f i n d i n g s , e f f e c t i v e l y knocking t h e
issue o f f t h e p o l i t i c a l radarscope.
. P o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h has s l o w e d a b i t s i n c e t h o s e y e a r s o f
advocacy, b u t t h e U.S. h e a d c o u n t c o n t i n u e s t o s t e a d i l y grow a t a
moderate r a t e . The NAS, i n i t s 1997 r e p o r t , e s t i m a t e d t h a t even
w i t h o u t f u r t h e r i m m i g r a t i o n , t h e U.S. p o p u l a t i o n w o u l d keep
i n c r e a s i n g u n t i l 2035, p e a k i n g t h e n a t 311 m i l l i o n . And w i t h
i m m i g r a t i o n a t c u r r e n t l e v e l s , t h e r e p o r t p r e d i c t e d , America's
p o p u l a t i o n w i l l keep e x p a n d i n g u n t i l 2050 and r e a c h a peak n e a r l y
d o u b l e t h e l e v e l i n 1960.
The i n f i g h t i n g a t t h e S i e r r a C l u b , however, has more t o
do w i t h c u l t u r e wars t h a n w i t h d e m o g r a p h i c s . M i c h a e l K. Dorsey,
an A f r i c a n - A m e r i c a n member o f t h e S i e r r a b o a r d , n o t e s t h a t
m a i n s t r e a m c o n s e r v a t i o n g r o u p s a r e s t r u g g l i n g t o come t o terms
w i t h t h e n e w l y emerged, m i n o r i t y - l e d ' ' e n v i r o n m e n t a l
justice
movement,' w h i c h c h a l l e n g e s t h e ' ' w h i t e n e s s o f t r a d i t i o n a l
environmentalism.''
1
Opposing r e s t r i c t i o n s on i m m i g r a t i o n i s a n a t u r a l
p o s i t i o n f o r the environmental j u s t i c e '
f o r c e s because most
recent immigrants are s o - c a l l e d people o f c o l o r , mostly o f Asian
o r L a t i n A m e r i c a n e x t r a c t i o n . And i m m i g r a n t s a l s o p r o v i d e
e n v i r o n m e n t a l i s t s w i t h a p o t e n t i a l l y r i c h t r o v e o f new
s u p p o r t e r s . O r g a n i z a t i o n s such as t h e San F r a n c i s c o - b a s e d
P o l i t i c a l E c o l o g y Group have e n l i s t e d many f o r e i g n - b o r n
A m e r i c a n s . And e n v i r o n m e n t a l l o b b y i s t s o f t e n can c o u n t on s u p p o r t
from o f f i c i a l s and l e g i s l a t o r s e l e c t e d by m i n o r i t y - g r o u p v o t e r s .
1 1
1
A s u r p r i s i n g backer of the S i e r r a leadership's d e c i s i o n
t o s t a y o u t o f t h e i m m i g r a t i o n d e b a t e f o r now i s c l u b d i r e c t o r
Anne F. E h r l i c h , one o f t h e f o r e m o s t e x p o n e n t s o f t h e t h e o r y t h a t
d i s a s t r o u s consequences w i l l f l o w f r o m o v e r p o p u l a t i o n o f t h e
p l a n e t . The P o p u l a t i o n E x p l o s i o n , a 1990 book t h a t E h r l i c h coa u t h o r e d w i t h h e r husband, P a u l , a r g u e s t h a t ' ' t h e b i r t h o f an
average A m e r i c a n baby i s h u n d r e d s o f t i m e s more o f a d i s a s t e r f o r
E a r t h ' s l i f e - s u p p o r t systems t h a n t h e b i r t h o f a baby i n a
d e s p e r a t e l y poor n a t i o n . ' '
�PAG
The
N a t i o n a l J o u r n a l , March 7, 1998
I n an i n t e r v i e w , E h r l i c h , a s e n i o r r e s e a r c h e r a t S t a n f o r d
U n i v e r s i t y , e x p l a i n e d , ' ' I t ' s n o t t h a t my o p i n i o n has changed on
t h e m a t t e r o f i m m i g r a t i o n , b u t t h a t t h e c l u b was n o t r e a d y t o
d e a l w i t h i t i n any c o h e r e n t way. We have p e o p l e t o t a l l y
p o l a r i z e d - - a t b o t h ends o f t h e i s s u e - - a n d t h e mob i n t h e m i d d l e
•not k n o w i n g what t o make o f i t . ' '
She s a i d t h a t members o f r a c i a l m i n o r i t i e s r e c e n t l y
r e c r u i t e d t o become c l u b members ' ' r e a c t v e r y b a d l y ' t o
p r o p o s a l s t o r e v i e w i m m i g r a t i o n q u o t a s . ''They assume t h a t
e v e r y o n e who b r i n g s up t h e t o p i c i s a r a c i s t o r has r a c i s t
m o t i v a t i o n s . And u n t i l we can p e r s u a d e them t h a t t h i s i s n ' t
n e c e s s a r i l y so, we a r e n ' t g o i n g t o have a c o o l , calm,
dispassionate discussion.''
1
Another seemingly u n l i k e l y supporter of the S i e r r a
b o a r d ' s p o s i t i o n i s f o r m e r Rep. P e t e r Kostmayer, D-Pa., now
e x e c u t i v e d i r e c t o r o f Z e r o P o p u l a t i o n Growth (ZPG), a g r o u p t h a t
c o n t e n d s t h a t p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h i n t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s may have
more s e r i o u s e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t s t h a n g r o w t h i n any o t h e r p a r t
o f t h e w o r l d . I n d e e d , Kostmayer's p r e d e c e s s o r , Dianne D i l l o n R i d g l e y , h e l p e d p e r s u a d e t h e P r e s i d e n t ' s C o u n c i l on S u s t a i n a b l e
Development t o d e c l a r e t h a t i m m i g r a t i o n , a l o n g w i t h f e r t i l i t y and
s e x u a l b e h a v i o r i s s u e s , must be a d d r e s s e d i n o r d e r t o speed
s t a b i l i z a t i o n o f t h e U.S. p o p u l a t i o n .
I n i t s 1996 r e p o r t , however, t h a t c o u n c i l , w h i c h i n c l u d e d
government o f f i c i a l s and t h e e x e c u t i v e s o f such m a j o r
c o r p o r a t i o n s as t h e Dow C h e m i c a l Co. and Enron Corp., c a u t i o n e d
t h a t t h e ' ' p o t e n t i a l l y e x p l o s i v e ' i s s u e o f i m m i g r a t i o n must be
handled ' ' w i t h g r e a t s e n s i t i v i t y . ' '
1
The case f o r t i g h t e r l i m i t s on i m m i g r a t i o n has been
a r g u e d l a r g e l y by s i n g l e - i s s u e g r o u p s such as t h e F e d e r a t i o n f o r
A m e r i c a n I m m i g r a t i o n Reform ( F A I R ) . More r e c e n t l y , o r g a n i z a t i o n s
w i t h names l i k e N e g a t i v e P o p u l a t i o n Growth, t h e C a r r y i n g C a p a c i t y
Network and P o p u l a t i o n - E n v i r o n m e n t
B a l a n c e have added t h e i r
v o i c e s t o t h e c a l l f o r r e d u c e d i m m i g r a t i o n . The newer g r o u p s
r e c e i v e f i n a n c i a l s u p p o r t f r o m many o f t h e same f o u n d a t i o n s t h a t
have f i n a n c e d t h e work o f FAIR o v e r t h e y e a r s . C o n s e r v a t i v e
a c t i v i s t R i c h a r d M e l l o n S c a i f e i s p r o m i n e n t among such
benefactors.
P r o m i n e n t S i e r r a members s u p p o r t i n g t h e d r i v e t o a l t e r
t h e c l u b ' s n e u t r a l s t a n c e on i m m i g r a t i o n i n c l u d e t h e W o r l d w a t c h
I n s t i t u t e ' s Brown; U n i v e r s i t y o f M a r y l a n d e c o n o m i s t Herman E.
D a l y ; Dave Foreman, p u b l i s h e r o f W i l d E a r t h magazine; A l a n
Weeden, head o f a New Y o r k C i t y - b a s e d f o u n d a t i o n t h a t p r o m o t e s
b i o d i v e r s i t y p r o j e c t s ; and H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y b i o l o g i s t Edward 0.
Wilson.
Weeden, a f i n a n c i a l b a c k e r o f Kuper's b a l l o t i n i t i a t i v e ,
w i s t f u l l y noted t h a t ' ' a l l of the environmental organizations
were v e r y much i n t h i s b a t t l e t h r o u g h o u t t h e '603 and '703. . . .
A l l o f them were c l a m o r i n g t o have U.S. p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h s t o p .
1 1
�PAGE
The N a t i o n a l Journal, March 7,
1998
Kuper, i n an i n t e r v i e w , i n s i s t e d t h a t the e f f o r t t o
reverse the club's p o l i c y ''has nothing t o do w i t h racism or
immigrant-bashing. We don't care about country of o r i g i n , ' ' he
said. ' ' A l l of us are i n t h i s together. We're not t a l k i n g about
being s e l f i s h , we're t a l k i n g about the b i g p i c t u r e of m a i n t a i n i n g
a sus'tainable environment.'
1
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: March 13, 1998
�PAGE
1ST
STORY o f L e v e l
Copyright
April
1 printed
8
i n FULL f o r m a t .
1998 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
26, 1998,
Sunday, L a t e
Edition - Final
SECTION: S e c t i o n 1 ; Page 18; Column 6; N a t i o n a l Desk
LENGTH: 6 52
words
HEADLINE: S i e r r a C l u b R e j e c t s Move To Oppose
BYLINE:
Immigration
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN J r .
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, A p r i l
25
BODY :
Members o f t h e S i e r r a C l u b , one o f t h e n a t i o n ' s l a r g e s t and most i n f l u e n t i a l
e n v i r o n m e n t a l g r o u p s , have v o t e d by a wide m a r g i n t o r e a f f i r m t h e c l u b ' s p o l i c y
of t a k i n g no p o s i t i o n on i m m i g r a t i o n i n t o t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s , i t s o f f i c e r s
announced t o d a y .
O f f i c i a l s o f t h e c l u b r e a c t e d w i t h r e l i e f t h a t b o r d e r e d on g l e e t o t h e
outcome o f t h e a n n u a l m a i l b a l l o t i n g , i n w h i c h members t u r n e d a s i d e an
a n t i - i m m i g r a t i o n p r o p o s a l mounted by an i n s u r g e n t f a c t i o n .
The b o a r d o f d i r e c t o r s , made up o f t h e l e a d e r s o f most c h a p t e r s , and i t s
p r o f e s s i o n a l s t a f f had worked t o d e f e a t the b a l l o t p r o p o s i t i o n , which c a l l e d f o r
i m m i g r a t i o n c o n t r o l s as one way t o h a l t p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h . The p r o p o s a l ' s
supporters argued t h a t the i n c r e a s i n g p o p u l a t i o n o f the United States would
i n t e n s i f y e n v i r o n m e n t a l damage.
About 84,000 o f t h e c l u b ' s more t h a n 550,000 members c a s t b a l l o t s ,
c o n s i d e r a b l y more t h a n t h e 60,000 o r 70,000 members who u s u a l l y v o t e , c l u b
o f f i c i a l s said.
Of t h o s e who marked t h e i m m i g r a t i o n q u e s t i o n on t h e b a l l o t , 31,134, o r 39.9
p e r c e n t , v o t e d i n f a v o r o f t h e a n t i - i m m i g r a t i o n p o s i t i o n , w h i l e 46,935, o r j u s t
o v e r 60.1 p e r c e n t , v o t e d f o r a c o m p e t i n g p r o p o s a l t h a t r e a f f i r m e d t h e c l u b ' s
existing policy.
C a r l Pope, t h e c l u b ' s e x e c u t i v e d i r e c t o r , who i s a p p o i n t e d by t h e b o a r d , s a i d
t h e r e s u l t s amounted t o a l a n d s l i d e endorsement o f t h e management's p o s i t i o n by
t h e most a c t i v e o f t h e c l u b ' s members.
"The S i e r r a C l u b c a n n o t p r o t e c t o u r e n v i r o n m e n t by b u i l d i n g a w a l l a r o u n d o u r
b o r d e r s , " he s a i d . "The common-sense s o l u t i o n t o r e d u c i n g o u r p o p u l a t i o n i s
b i r t h c o n t r o l , not border p a t r o l s . "
But Leon J . K o l a n k i e w i c z , a S i e r r a C l u b member and v i c e p r e s i d e n t o f t h e
C a r r y i n g C a p a c i t y N e t w o r k , a g r o u p t h a t a d v o c a t e s a m o r a t o r i u m on i m m i g r a t i o n ,
s a i d t h a t u n l e s s p o p u l a t i o n g r o w t h i s s l o w e d , t h e S i e r r a C l u b ' s "many l a u d a b l e
e n v i r o n m e n t a l i n i t i a t i v e s w i l l amount t o l i t t l e more t h a n mopping t h e f l o o r
w h i l e l e a v i n g the s p i g o t on."
�PAGE
The
New York Times, A p r i l
26,
3
1998
For t h e p a s t s e v e r a l months, v i g o r o u s c a m p a i g n i n g on t h e q u e s t i o n s p l i t t h e
c l u b . The o r g a n i z a t i o n ' s magazine had d e v o t e d l a r g e amounts o f space t o t h e
d e b a t e , and b o t h s i d e s had e s t a b l i s h e d Web s i t e s t o d e t a i l t h e i r a r g u m e n t s .
The c l u b ' s l e a d e r s warned t h a t a v o t e t o t a k e a s t a n d a g a i n s t i m m i g r a t i o n
w o u l d d r i v e away m i n o r i t y g r o u p s , e s p e c i a l l y H i s p a n i c and A s i a n p e o p l e i n t h e
club's t r a d i t i o n a l stronghold of C a l i f o r n i a .
A l t h o u g h most c u r r e n t and p a s t o f f i c i a l s o f t h e c l u b f a v o r e d t h e p o s i t i o n o f
t h e b o a r d , as d i d many l o c a l c h a p t e r s o f t h e c l u b and l e a d e r s o f o t h e r
e n v i r o n m e n t a l o r g a n i z a t i o n s , t h e c a l l f o r i m m i g r a t i o n r e s t r i c t i o n s drew t h e
endorsement o f many p r o m i n e n t f i g u r e s f r o m t h e e n v i r o n m e n t a l movement, i n c l u d i n g
L e s t e r R ' Brown, p r e s i d e n t o f t h e W o r l d w a t c h I n s t i t u t e .
.
And S i e r r a C l u b l e a d e r s a c c u s e d o u t s i d e r s o f i n t e r f e r i n g i n t h e c l u b ' s
i n t e r n a l p o l i t i c s by drumming up s u p p o r t f o r t h e a n t i - i m m i g r a t i o n i n i t i a t i v e .
Those o u t s i d e r s , t h e y s a i d , opposed i m m i g r a t i o n f o r r e a s o n s t h a t h a d n o t h i n g t o
do w i t h t h e e n v i r o n m e n t .
The P o l i t i c a l E c o l o g y Group, w h i c h i s based i n San F r a n c i s c o and a d v o c a t e s
environmental p r o t e c t i o n i n a d d i t i o n t o i m m i g r a t i o n r i g h t s , produced a study
showing how s e v e r a l a n t i - i m m i g r a t i o n g r o u p s had worked on b e h a l f o f t h e b a l l o t
proposal t o r e s t r i c t immigration.
"These o r g a n i z a t i o n s a r e g e n e r a l l y known f o r e x t r e m i s t , a n t i - i m m i g r a n t work,"
t h e r e p o r t s a i d . I t c i t e d p o s i t i o n s t a k e n by g r o u p s l i k e t h e F e d e r a t i o n o f
A m e r i c a n I m m i g r a t i o n Reform and C a l i f o r n i a n s f o r P o p u l a t i o n S t a b i l i z a t i o n .
The S i e r r a C l u b i s u n u s u a l among m a j o r e n v i r o n m e n t a l g r o u p s i n a l l o w i n g i t s
.embers t o v o t e by m a i l e v e r y y e a r , e l e c t i n g t h e b o a r d o f d i r e c t o r s and
d i r e c t i n g the club's p o l i c i e s through b a l l o t i n i t i a t i v e s .
F i v e o f t h e f i f t e e n b o a r d s e a t s were c o n t e s t e d t h i s y e a r ; t h e w i n n e r s o f
t h o s e r a c e s were D a v i d Brower, Chuck McGrady, and M i c h e l l e P e r r a u l t , a l l o f whom
were s e e k i n g r e - e l e c t i o n , a n d J e n n i f e r F e r e n s t e i n and V e r o n i c a Eady.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: A p r i l
26,
1998
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Michael Waldman
Description
An account of the resource
<p>Michael Waldman was Assistant to the President and Director of Speechwriting from 1995-1999. His responsibilities were writing and editing nearly 2,000 speeches, which included four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. From 1993 -1995 he served as Special Assistant to the President for Policy Coordination.</p>
<p>The collection generally consists of copies of speeches and speech drafts, talking points, memoranda, background material, correspondence, reports, handwritten notes, articles, clippings, and presidential schedules. A large volume of this collection was for the State of the Union speeches. Many of the speech drafts are heavily annotated with additions or deletions. There are a lot of articles and clippings in this collection.</p>
<p>Due to the size of this collection it has been divided into two segments. Use links below for access to the individual segments:<br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+1">Segment One</a><br /><a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=43&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=2006-0469-F+Segment+2">Segment Two</a></p>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Michael Waldman
Office of Speechwriting
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-1999
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0469-F
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
Segment One contains 1071 folders in 72 boxes.
Segment Two contains 868 folders in 66 boxes.
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
Clinton Presidential Records: White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Immigration Briefing Book [1]
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Office of Speechwriting
Michael Waldman
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
Box 58
<a href="http://clinton.presidentiallibraries.us/items/show/36404"> Collection Finding Aid</a>
<a href="https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7763296">National Archives Catalog Description</a>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
2006-0469-F Segment 2
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
White House Staff and Office Files
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Adobe Acrobat Document
Medium
The material or physical carrier of the resource.
Preservation-Reproduction-Reference
Date Created
Date of creation of the resource.
6/3/2015
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
7763296
42-t-7763296-20060469F-Seg2-058-001-2015