Shut the Door

 Source: Speech by Ellison DuRant Smith, April 9, 1924, Congressional
Record, 68th Congress, 1st Session (Washington DC: Government
Printing
Office, 1924), vol. 65, 5961–5962.

It seems to me the point as to this measure—and I have been so
impressed for several years—is that the time has arrived when we
should shut the door. We have been called the melting pot of the
world. We had an experience just a few years ago, during the great
World War, when it looked as though we had allowed influences to enter
our borders that were about to melt the pot in place of us being the
melting pot.

I think that we have sufficient stock in America now for us to shut
the door, Americanize what we have, and save the resources of America
for the natural increase of our population. We all know that one of
the most prolific causes of war is the desire for increased land
ownership for the overflow of a congested population. We are
increasing at such a rate that in the natural course of things in a
comparatively few years the landed resources, the natural resources of
the country, shall be taken up by the natural increase of our
population. It seems to me the part of wisdom now that we have
throughout the length and breadth of continental America a population
which is beginning to encroach upon the reserve and virgin resources
of the country to keep it in trust for the multiplying population of
the country.

I do not believe that political reasons should enter into the
discussion of this very vital question. It is of greater concern to us
to maintain the institutions of America, to maintain the principles
upon which this Government is founded, than to develop and exploit the
underdeveloped resources of the country. There are some things that
are dearer to us, fraught with more benefit to us, than the immediate
development of the undeveloped resources of the country. I believe
that our particular ideas, social, moral, religious, and political,
have demonstrated, by virtue of the progress we have made and the
character of people that we are, that we have the highest ideals of
any member of the human family or any nation. We have demonstrated the
fact that the human family, certainty the predominant breed in
America, can govern themselves by a direct government of the people.
If this Government shall fail, it shall fail by virtue of the terrible
law of inherited tendency. Those who come from the nations which from
time immemorial have been under the dictation of a master fall more
easily by the law of inheritance and the inertia of habit into a
condition of political servitude than the descendants of those who
cleared the forests, conquered the savage, stood at arms and won their
liberty from their mother country, England.

I think we now have sufficient population in our country for us to
shut the door and to breed up a pure, unadulterated American
citizenship. I recognize that there is a dangerous lack of distinction
between people of a certain nationality and the breed of the dog. Who
is an American? Is he an immigrant from Italy? Is he an immigrant from
Germany? If you were to go abroad and some one were to meet you and
say, “I met a typical American,” what would flash into your mind as a
typical American, the typical representative of that new Nation? Would
it be the son of an Italian immigrant, the son of a German immigrant,
the son of any of the breeds from the Orient, the son of the denizens
of Africa? We must not get our ethnological distinctions mixed up with
out anthropological distinctions. It is the breed of the dog in which
I am interested. I would like for the Members of the Senate to read
that book just recently published by Madison Grant, The Passing of a
Great Race. Thank God we have in America perhaps the largest
percentage of any country in the world of the pure, unadulterated
Anglo-Saxon stock; certainly the greatest of any nation in the Nordic
breed. It is for the preservation of that splendid stock that has
characterized us that I would make this not an asylum for the
oppressed of all countries, but a country to assimilate and perfect
that splendid type of manhood that has made America the foremost
Nation in her progress and in her power, and yet the youngest of all
the nations. I myself believe that the preservation of her
institutions depends upon us now taking counsel with our condition and
our experience during the last World War.

Without offense, but with regard to the salvation of our own, let us
shut the door and assimilate what we have, and let us breed pure
American citizens and develop our own American resources. I am more in
favor of that than I am of our quota proposition. Of course, it may
not meet the approbation of the Senate that we shall shut the door—
which I unqualifiedly and unreservedly believe to be our duty—and
develop what we have, assimilate and digest what we have into pure
Americans, with American aspirations, and thoroughly familiar with the
love of American institutions, rather than the importation of any
number of men from other countries. If we may not have that, then I am
in favor of putting the quota down to the lowest possible point, with
every selective element in it that may be.
The great desideratum of modern times has been education not alone
book knowledge, but that education which enables men to think right,
to think logically, to think truthfully, men equipped with power to
appreciate the rapidly developing conditions that are all about us,
that have converted the world in the last 50 years into a brand new
world and made us masters of forces that are revolutionizing
production. We want men not like dumb, driven cattle from those
nations where the progressive thought of the times has scarcely made a
beginning and where they see men as mere machines; we want men who
have an appreciation of the responsibility brought about by the
manifestation of the power of that individual. We have not that in
this country to-day. We have men here to-day who are selfishly
utilizing the enormous forces discovered by genius, and if we are not
careful as statesmen, if we are not careful in our legislation, these
very masters of the tremendous forces that have been made available to
us will bring us under their domination and control by virtue of the
power they have in multiplying their wealth.

We are struggling to-day against the organized forces of man’s brain
multiplied a million times by materialized thought in the form of
steam and electricity as applied in the everyday affairs of man. We
have enough in this country to engage the brain of every lover of his
country in solving the problems of a democratic government in the
midst of the imperial power that genius is discovering and placing in
the hands of man. We have population enough to-day without throwing
wide our doors and jeopardizing the interests of this country by
pouring into it men who willingly become the slaves of those who
employ them in manipulating these forces of nature, and they few reap
the enormous benefits that accrue therefrom.

We ought to Americanize not only our population but our forces. We
ought to Americanize our factories and our vast material resources, so
that we can make each contribute to the other and have an abundance
for us under the form of the government laid down by our fathers.

The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Harris] has introduced an amendment to
shut the door. It is not a question of politics. It is a question of
maintaining that which has made you and me the beneficiaries of the
greatest hope that ever burned in the human breast for the most
splendid future that ever stood before mankind, where the boy in the
gutter can look with confidence to the seat of the Presidency of the
United States; where the boy in the gutter can look forward to the
time when, paying the price of a proper citizen, he may fill a seat in
this hall; where the boy to-day poverty-stricken, standing in the
midst of all the splendid opportunities of America, should have and,
please God, if we do our duty, will have an opportunity to enjoy the
marvelous wealth that the genius and brain of our country is making
possible for us all.

We do not want to tangle the skein of America’s progress by those who
imperfectly understand the genius of our Government and the
opportunities that lie about us. Let up keep what we have, protect
what we have, make what we have the realization of the dream of those
who wrote the Constitution.

I am more concerned about that than I am about whether a new railroad
shall be built or whether there shall be diversified farming next year
or whether a certain coal mine shall be mined. I would rather see
American citizenship refined to the last degree in all that makes
America what we hope it will be than to develop the resources of
America at the expense of the citizenship of our country. The time has
come when we should shut the door and keep what we have for what we
hope our own people to be.

 Source: Speech by Ellison DuRant Smith, April 9, 1924, Congressional
Record, 68th Congress, 1st Session (Washington DC: Government Printing
Office, 1924), vol. 65, 5961–5962.

It seems to me the point as to this measure—and I have been so
impressed for several years—is that the time has arrived when we
should shut the door. We have been called the melting pot of the
world. We had an experience just a few years ago, during the great
World War, when it looked as though we had allowed influences to
enter
our borders that were about to melt the pot in place of us being the
melting pot.


I think that we have sufficient stock in America now for us to shut
the door, Americanize what we have, and save the resources of America
for the natural increase of our population. We all know that one of
the most prolific causes of war is the desire for increased land
ownership for the overflow of a congested population. We are
increasing at such a rate that in the natural course of things in a
comparatively few years the landed resources, the natural resources
of
the country, shall be taken up by the natural increase of our
population. It seems to me the part of wisdom now that we have
throughout the length and breadth of continental America a population
which is beginning to encroach upon the reserve and virgin resources
of the country to keep it in trust for the multiplying population of
the country.


I do not believe that political reasons should enter into the
discussion of this very vital question. It is of greater concern to
us
to maintain the institutions of America, to maintain the principles
upon which this Government is founded, than to develop and exploit
the
underdeveloped resources of the country. There are some things that
are dearer to us, fraught with more benefit to us, than the immediate
development of the undeveloped resources of the country. I believe
that our particular ideas, social, moral, religious, and political,
have demonstrated, by virtue of the progress we have made and the
character of people that we are, that we have the highest ideals of
any member of the human family or any nation. We have demonstrated
the
fact that the human family, certainty the predominant breed in
America, can govern themselves by a direct government of the people.
If this Government shall fail, it shall fail by virtue of the
terrible
law of inherited tendency. Those who come from the nations which from
time immemorial have been under the dictation of a master fall more
easily by the law of inheritance and the inertia of habit into a
condition of political servitude than the descendants of those who
cleared the forests, conquered the savage, stood at arms and won
their
liberty from their mother country, England.


I think we now have sufficient population in our country for us to
shut the door and to breed up a pure, unadulterated American
citizenship. I recognize that there is a dangerous lack of
distinction
between people of a certain nationality and the breed of the dog. Who
is an American? Is he an immigrant from Italy? Is he an immigrant
from
Germany? If you were to go abroad and some one were to meet you and
say, “I met a typical American,” what would flash into your mind as a
typical American, the typical representative of that new Nation?
Would
it be the son of an Italian immigrant, the son of a German immigrant,
the son of any of the breeds from the Orient, the son of the denizens
of Africa? We must not get our ethnological distinctions mixed up
with
out anthropological distinctions. It is the breed of the dog in which
I am interested. I would like for the Members of the Senate to read
that book just recently published by Madison Grant, The Passing of a
Great Race. Thank God we have in America perhaps the largest
percentage of any country in the world of the pure, unadulterated
Anglo-Saxon stock; certainly the greatest of any nation in the Nordic
breed. It is for the preservation of that splendid stock that has
characterized us that I would make this not an asylum for the
oppressed of all countries, but a country to assimilate and perfect
that splendid type of manhood that has made America the foremost
Nation in her progress and in her power, and yet the youngest of all
the nations. I myself believe that the preservation of her
institutions depends upon us now taking counsel with our condition
and
our experience during the last World War.


Without offense, but with regard to the salvation of our own, let us
shut the door and assimilate what we have, and let us breed pure
American citizens and develop our own American resources. I am more
in
favor of that than I am of our quota proposition. Of course, it may
not meet the approbation of the Senate that we shall shut the door—
which I unqualifiedly and unreservedly believe to be our duty—and
develop what we have, assimilate and digest what we have into pure
Americans, with American aspirations, and thoroughly familiar with
the
love of American institutions, rather than the importation of any
number of men from other countries. If we may not have that, then I
am
in favor of putting the quota down to the lowest possible point, with
every selective element in it that may be.
The great desideratum of modern times has been education not alone
book knowledge, but that education which enables men to think right,
to think logically, to think truthfully, men equipped with power to
appreciate the rapidly developing conditions that are all about us,
that have converted the world in the last 50 years into a brand new
world and made us masters of forces that are revolutionizing
production. We want men not like dumb, driven cattle from those
nations where the progressive thought of the times has scarcely made
a
beginning and where they see men as mere machines; we want men who
have an appreciation of the responsibility brought about by the
manifestation of the power of that individual. We have not that in
this country to-day. We have men here to-day who are selfishly
utilizing the enormous forces discovered by genius, and if we are not
careful as statesmen, if we are not careful in our legislation, these
very masters of the tremendous forces that have been made available
to
us will bring us under their domination and control by virtue of the
power they have in multiplying their wealth.


We are struggling to-day against the organized forces of man’s brain
multiplied a million times by materialized thought in the form of
steam and electricity as applied in the everyday affairs of man. We
have enough in this country to engage the brain of every lover of his
country in solving the problems of a democratic government in the
midst of the imperial power that genius is discovering and placing in
the hands of man. We have population enough to-day without throwing
wide our doors and jeopardizing the interests of this country by
pouring into it men who willingly become the slaves of those who
employ them in manipulating these forces of nature, and they few reap
the enormous benefits that accrue therefrom.


We ought to Americanize not only our population but our forces. We
ought to Americanize our factories and our vast material resources,
so
that we can make each contribute to the other and have an abundance
for us under the form of the government laid down by our fathers.


The Senator from Georgia [Mr. Harris] has introduced an amendment to
shut the door. It is not a question of politics. It is a question of
maintaining that which has made you and me the beneficiaries of the
greatest hope that ever burned in the human breast for the most
splendid future that ever stood before mankind, where the boy in the
gutter can look with confidence to the seat of the Presidency of the
United States; where the boy in the gutter can look forward to the
time when, paying the price of a proper citizen, he may fill a seat
in
this hall; where the boy to-day poverty-stricken, standing in the
midst of all the splendid opportunities of America, should have and,
please God, if we do our duty, will have an opportunity to enjoy the
marvelous wealth that the genius and brain of our country is making
possible for us all.


We do not want to tangle the skein of America’s progress by those who
imperfectly understand the genius of our Government and the
opportunities that lie about us. Let up keep what we have, protect
what we have, make what we have the realization of the dream of those
who wrote the Constitution.


I am more concerned about that than I am about whether a new railroad
shall be built or whether there shall be diversified farming next
year
or whether a certain coal mine shall be mined. I would rather see
American citizenship refined to the last degree in all that makes
America what we hope it will be than to develop the resources of
America at the expense of the citizenship of our country. The time
has
come when we should shut the door and keep what we have for what we
hope our own people to be.