Immigrant Senator

Magnavox Johnson, from the floor of the Senate:

"God knows, we have got too many people in the towns today. I remember well the time when I was an immigrant myself, and came to this country. I believe I am the only one in this body that ever had the opportunity to come to this country as an immigrant, except the Senator from Idaho, Mr. Gooding, who was an eight-year-old boy when he came, and the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Gouzens, who came across the line from Canada.

"I know the problems of the immigrant. I know the time will come when we will have to stop immigration entirely. I voted to exclude the yellow races and I think I was justified in doing so. But it seems to me, and I agree absolutely with the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Underwood, and also with the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Reed, when they made speeches here yesterday, that I never would be able to deliver.

"If you do not like Italians or the people from Southeastern Europe, why do you not say so and shut them out entirely? During the years that I have been traveling through the United States I have met persons of all nationalities, and I have met good and bad ones in all of them, even in my own nationality, which used to be Swedish.

"Among the Swedes we find scoundrels and hypocrites, and I was surprised that the able Senator from Alabama, Mr. Heflin, devoted an hour and 15 minutes to speaking about an immigrant boy who came over here and who had been here only a few months, who happened--perhaps he was insane--to stab a boy who had been born in this country."