The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., January 01, 1927, Image 5

THE
UNITED
A merican
A MAGAZINE OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
Devoted to the Cause of
Vol. 5
Americanization, Assimilation and Group Elimination; Pointing the way to a Constitutional
Americanism, to Equality in Citizenship, and a better understanding
between Native born and Foreign born.
?Xmeol,s 22
January, 1927
Number 4
PARTING IMMIGRANT FAMILIES BY LAW
STRANGE WORKINGS OF QUOTA RESTRICTION STATUTE
By H. J. LANGOE
'T HERE IS NO question that while the American
1 people, by a vast majority, did approve of the en­
actment of an immigration restriction law, they are,
in principle opposed to some of the provisions that
crept into the law, particularly the provision which
automatically closed the door to the waiting families
of previously accepted immigrants, who were count­
ing the days till the tickets should arrive and enable
them to start for America and for the new home pro­
vided for them over here.
For years immigrants, fathers and husbands, have
come to America alone, to struggle the first two or
three years to establish homes for their families to
move into when they should be able to send them the
tickets for the journey. Usually such immigrants
have been looked upon as immigrant assets, for they
nearly always have made good. They have never
lost any time in idleness, and wherever they settled
they immediately acquired a lot and began to build,
during their spare time, the modest little house that
would eventually represent the home of a reunited
family. Authors have tried, and only in part suc­
ceeded, to picture the heart throbs, the aches, the joys
and the hours of happy dreams of the homebuilding
immigrant plodding on alone among strangers in a
new land, and the anguish, the hours of watchful
waiting spent by a wife and and children in the old
country, hoping and praying for daddy, far away, that
he might be spared for them and that his noble
efforts might soon be rewarded so that the precious
letter, with the tickets, might come in an early mail.
*
*
*
Out of these fond dreams America has built up
reservoirs of contentment, realized hopes, and a love
of country that has grown deep into the soil, with
roots that have fed on tears and the sweat of the
brow. No American child can boast a nobler heritage
than the children of such immigrant parents. Nothing
can possibly draw out the ferver of patriotism such
as the occasion of an immigrant family which has
just arrived and weary of the journey is led by a
loving father and husband into the little home he has
built for them. The scenes of joy-that have been
witnessed behind the closed door of the new home of
a reunited immigrant family stand out without paral­
lels on the canvas of America-in-the-making. Only
those who have been fortunate enough to be partici­
pants in such scenes can know the meaning. No
matter how humble, perhaps, the “shanty,” it was
home nevertheless, and no millionaire in the most pre­
tentious palace can possibly have known the width,
the breadth and the depth of joy in possession and
achievement such as these happy immigrants haye
known in such a moment within the walls of a little
modest home—the first home in America.
*
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Why should these struggling, honest, toiling, hop­
ing, dreaming immigrants be deprived of the fruit of
their labor of love, such as has been done to those
immigrants who stood on the threshold of the new
life and reunion with their waiting families, when
those overzealous, thoughtless, and prejudiced Ameri­
cans in Congress effected a cancellation Qf all previous
conditions of immigration and also closed out the
families who stood ready to commence the journey
to husbands and fathers in America. No one probably
is anxious to explain, for an explanation would be
wanting in sufficient cause. The Lord’s prayer will
have to be said often if it is to atone for all the misery,
grief arid sorrow, broken hearts, broken spirits and
broken family ties—with trails that lead into the
land of crime and dispair, for not to mention the
loss of precious faith—which the madcap congress­
men and senators created when they, temporarily
bereft of reason, destroyed these hallowed bridges
between the waiting families left behind and the ac­
cepted home-making immigrants who had almost
finished preparing American homes for their loved
ones, when the crash came. Add to this the madden­
ing indifference the immigrant encounters when he