The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-25

ernment, and to rely too heavily upon it, and too little upon their own initia- tive.
 The third, and last, faetor. in bringing about the new law has been the convic- tion that we were handling the business badly and were causing unnecessary suffering in allowing the immigrant to sever his home ties and cross the ocean before his admissibility was decided. It was obvious that much distress an1 suf- fering could be avoided if the selection of immigrants and the determination of their admissibility could be done at the source. Obviously, it is impracticable to locate immigration officials abroad {; but the idea has gained ground that our cohsuls could make preliminary de- cision about each immigrant before giv- ing him visa of his passport.
 Permits Calculation
 The reason that the national origin method of quota determination is post poned for three years is to permit a careful calculation to be made by the Census Bureal which will do no in justice to any of the nationalities in volved. Every one must realize the obvious impossibility of determinating national origins by questioning the per sons who are living in the, URited States today, since comparatively few of our native born could give their com plete pedigree accurately. >s. ~@
 But the same result can be reached with great accuracy by calculating what part of our present population is the modern descendant of each arriving lm- migrant We know the makeup of our population in the year 1700, and we know with almost complete accuracy how many immigrants of each national ity have reached our shores since 179O, The natural rate of increase in. each decade is known accurately. Working from these factors it is easily possible for the Bureau of the Census to say what part of our population of today represents immigrants who have come in. from each of the quota countries during our past history.
 The method of calculating quotas un. der our temporary law of 1921 was en- tirely unfair to the native-born Amer iean, since he was ignored in the as. were based exclusively upon the census of fOreign-born residents. In my judg- ments the argument is unanswerable that there was no justice in allowing the unnaturalized alien resident to be represented in calculating the quota of his country while the native-born American was ignored.
 This new method does away with all of this unfairnessS and each of us, American or alien, native born or foreign born, has an equal repre- sentation in the quotas. The effect is obvious The melting pot" is no longer necessary, for each years lm- migration that reaches our shores will be but a counterpart of the population that it finds on arrival. The racial composition of America at the present time thus is made permanent. The composition of our population will not change in future decades in the same way in which it changed between 1885 and the outbreak of the World war. It is true that T5 per cent of our immiRra- ton will hereafter come from North western Europe but it is fair that it should do SO, because T5 per cent of us who are now here owe our origin to immigrants from these same countries.
 Selection At Source
 The system of selection at the source has also been adopted. Hereafter no immigrant can receive Q visa of his passport until he has established to the consul's satisfaction that he is adniis- sible under our laws on arrival here. When that fact has been established and the necessary degree of literacy and physical and mental health has bene shown, the immigrant will then receive ''visa certificate" which will insure his being within the quota.
 Without such certificate he will not be accepted by the steamship company. With the certificate, however, both the immigrant and the steamship company will know that his place within the quota is bespoken. It is estimated by the committees of the House and of the Senate who have studied the matter that this system will do away with at least 90 per cent of the distress and hardship that have been caused by our
 present system and will avoid alnlos
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