IS THE SYSTEM OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT A FAILURE? Mr. President, it has seemed to me from such examination of this subject as I have been able to make that the President is very much mistaken in the facts upon which he assumes to base his action; that he is mistaken in his conception of the laws of the United States bearing on this question; and that he is not fully informed regarding the policy which has been adopted by Congress upon this subject. In his message he also assumes a position which, to my mind, is absolutely new in the history of the Nation. It is new in its arrogation of Executive power. It is, in fact, a denial of all the principles of a represenative government in the United States to-day. Senators will remember that this same bill was introduced into this body in the Sixty-second Congress, that it was fully debated, received the fullest consideration, and passed the Senate by a vote of 56 to 9. It was then adopted in the House by a vote of 18 to 52, and was sent to the President for his approval. Instead of meeting the approval of President Taft the bill was returned to the House in which it originated, accompanied by a message in which he based his action upon reasons which were urged in a letter written to him by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, Mr. Nagel. Upon the question whether the measure should become a law notwithstanding the objections of the President the Senate answered in the affirmative by more than the necessary two-thirds majority, and in the House it only failed to receive the requisite two-thirds majority by perhaps four or five votes, showing that the sentiment of that Congress was overwhelmingly in favor of the principles embodied in this measure. The same bill, with hardly a change in its phraseology, was introduced into the present Congress, passed the House by a vote of 252 to 126, and, after three weeks' debate in the Senate of the United States, passed this body by a vote of 50 yeas to 7 noys. This bill, having been thus indorsed by two separate Congresses each coming fresh from the people, has now met with the disapproval of President Wilson, and for the reasons given in his message, from which I have already quoted. It seems to me, Mr. President, a strange thing that the President of the United States should thus utterly ignore the existence of the representative princip'e in government and say, in substance, that the House of Representatives is incapable of dealing with this question as a policy, or that it is incapable of representing the opinion of the people of the United States. from whom its Members received their election. By his action he has said substantially that Senators now composing this body are incapable of interpreting the public sentiment, the thought. the judgment, the conviction of the people of their respective States, and in order to be convinced that the people are really behind this measure he demands that action by some political party be taken in favor of the policy of restriction, and that the question shall in that way be brought directly to the attention of the people and their verdict solicited. Let me read what he says: It is because I doubt it That is, that the people approve this measure It is because I doubt it that I make bold to dissent from it. willing to abide by the verdict, but not until it has been rendered. 83350-14620 I am He says that he has a method of determining this question, and one only which will satisfy him. He says: Let the platforms of parties speak out upon this policy and the people pronounce their wish.' 66 He says further: The matter is too fundamental to be settled otherwise. Think of it, Mr. President! A matter of great national policy 'too fundamental to be settled" by a House of Representatives, freshly chosen from the people every two years, and by the Senate of the United States, selected by the respective States to represent them in the legislative department of the Government. POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE ALREADY SPOKEN. The President seems to feel entirely justified in interposing a veto of this act upon the broad ground that he can only be convinced of what the people want when one or the other of the great parties of this Nation shall have incorporated the principle of restriction into its platform, and have gone to the country upon that issue. It is a remarkable attitude to be assumed by a man who is an historian. In reply, I need only to call attention to the fact that as early as 1896-I shall have occasion to refer to this matter later on in my remarks-the Democratic national convention adopted the following plank in its platform: We hold that the most efficient way of protecting American labor is to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor to compete with it in the home market. The term 'foreign pauper labor" must, of course, refer to the labor that comes from those nations of Europe where the wages are infinitesimal in character, where the laboring masses are largely lacking in the proper means of support, and where the standard of living conditions which exist in the United States is unknown. It was, however, not only the Democratic Party which so long ago as that assumed this attitude, for the Republican Party in its national convention of 1896 proposed this very measure, this very scheme for reducing the flow of immigration to this country of the classes indicated. In its platform in that year it declares: For the protection of the quality of our American citizenship and of the wages of our workingmen against the fatal competition of lowpriced labor we demand that the immigration laws be throughly enforced and so extended- Mark the words as to exclude from entrance to the United States those who can neither read nor write. That was the declaration of the Republican Party in 1896, and it was the expression of a public sentiment in favor of restriction which then existed and which has been growing from that day until the present time. DIFFERENCE IN CONDITIONS AT HOME AND ABROAD. Why, Mr. President, the President of the United States seems to have wholly overlooked the development of public sentiment upon this question. He seems also to have overlooked the growth of a national policy, as expressed in various pieces of legislation, in which it has been sought to improve the quality and to restrict the flow of immigration to this country. He 83350-14620 also utterly fails to recognize the difference in the conditions, industrial and legislative, existing prior to the year 1882 and since that time. Up to 1882 we had received only about 9.000 000 immigrants, either before or after the Civil War. About 5,000,000 had come prior to that great conflict. During the busy years succeeding the Civil War, and down to 1882, we received that magnificent body of men, women, and children from northern and western Europe who, with those coming previously, have been so thoroughly assimilated and have so greatly helped to build up American institutions that their advent is counted as a national asset. We glory in the citizenship which they have developed. The President, however, fails to understand, or perhaps fails to appreciate, the fact that since 1882 we have received not 9.000.000, which represented the immigration of all preceding years, but substantially 19.000 000 aliens, 11.000.000 of whom are of the new type, as we express it; a type differing from that which preceded it, one coming from eastern and southern Europe-Russia, Austria, Hungary, the Balkan States. southern Italy, and some nations farther east than those I have mentioned. Immigration from Europe by countries, 33 years (1882-1914). CONDITIONS WHICH INVITED OLD IMMIGRATION. Mr. DILLINGHAM. It seems to me also. Mr. President, that in considering this matter the Chief Executive overlooks the wonderful de elopment which occurred in this country during the period of the Germenic invasion. In some remarks submitted in the Senate when this bill was under consider tion I called attention to the fact that between 1866 and 1882 we 83350-14620 |