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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 6, 1952
New U.S. Immigration Policy Needed
The McCarran-Walter Immigration act is an insult to peoples of the world.
Congressmen voted to pass it over a presidential veto, but it has since rightly been criticized for its prejudices and injustices.
Sen. Pat McCarran (D.-Nev.) and Rep. Francis Walter (D.-Penn) defend the act as a much-needed codification of existing statues. In truth, the old laws didn't need to be codified. A new law was needed to do away with the racial discrimination and prejudices of the 1924 law under which we were operating.
The McCarran-Walter act does not do away with the bad points in the 1924 law, but incorporates them by retaining the national origins quota.
The quota system was contrived to let in more English and Fermans than Italians and Greeks, because in the 1920s it was believed that mankind was divided into biologically distinct races. American civilization was the work of Anglo-Saxon branch of the Aryan family. Additions to population from kindred stocks were harmless, but contact with inferior Latin or Slavs was dangerous, it was thought.
The 154,000 aliens were allowed to enter the country each year. This total was allocated among nationalities by a rigid formula
Under the system, Great Britain may send 65,000 in a year, while Italy can send less than 6,000, and Greece 300.
supposedly based on the contribution of each to this country.
The 1920s left us with a distrust of anything "foreign" and planted in our laws a consistent animus against the alien. For a quarter of a century the problem was left undiscussed, and the public remained ignorant of its import. Hence, it is no surprising that the law of 1952 reaffirmed the period of 1924.
The McCarran-Walter act strengthens and makes more rigid the obnoxious racial features of the quota system. A British subject born in London is considered Chinese if even one of his parents is Chinese. English citizenship doesn't entitle a Jamaican Negro to use the British quota. Race, not nativity or citizenship, is the ultimate test.
Consular officials who deal with potential immigrants are endowed with arbitrary powers against which the immigrant cannot appeal. Responsibility for errors and actions which are not crimes for natives will subject the alien to denaturalization proceedings and ultimate deportation. Even family matters can cause denaturalization proceedings.
grants to enter, no such number ever reaches our shores. Seventy per cent of quotas for countries like Great Britain remain unfilled. Yet we do not allow countries with thousands wanting to come to America to have quotas large enough to fill the need.
The old policy has hurt the United States, because we need immigrants to keep up production, to meet our declining birth rate, and to win in the struggle against communism. Long since, we proclaimed the cause of America to be the cause of all mankind, and now we must live up to it.
Although the quotas allow 154,000 immi-
There is no reason why the U.S. cannot adopt an immigration policy flexible and in meaningful relationship to our resources and population without expressing invidious prejudices against the peoples of the world.
A new law should do away with quotas based on national origins, allow one immigrant to every 600 Americans or 250,000 to enter the country, let first come first served, and treat immigrants as future citizens.
A new immigration policy would restore confidence to millions of persons in all parts of the world that Americanism is the true alternative to communism, that our ideals of freedom, equality, and respect for the individual hold for all people.
—Rozanne Atkins
Ike Sets Trend, Let's Congress Be
Dwight D. Eisenhower is trying to revive a partnership between the Presidency and Congress—a partnership which has not existed for many years.
He passed up a row when Congress knocked out the appropriation to keep the three-man Council of Economic Advisers going through
June, although he had prematurely recorded himself in its favor.
Because of the new trend, the President never would tell the public how he really felt about Charles E. Wilson's stockholdings. That was senatorial business.
He stood on his position that budget balancing must precede tax cutting, but he applauded those congressmen who were moving toward reduction.
President Eisenhower's plans are not limited to giving ground, nor to just holding it. He is pushing forward, digging in as he goes. For example, he is building a new Voice of America, while letting Sen. McCarthy whittle on the old one.
Democrats and Republicans alike
are affected by the sincerity and tactfulness of the President. To most congressmen he is the kind of man you can call up with your problem and expect him to say "Sure, come on down and we'll talk about it."
Although at first cooperation was lacking to the extent that the administration got voting tie-ups, the Bolen and Wilson appointments, the ammunition expose, and the mishandled Rosenberg case, the cooperative spirit has been contagious.
the treasury and reserve system—something lacking under John Snyder—fresh approach at the UN by Henry Cabot Lodge, and cleaning up state department and civil service branch of government and veterans' preference have brought a better spirit of working together.
—Rozanne Atkins
Revision of the National Security Council, mutual friendliness of
Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, except Wednesday and Friday periods. Entered second class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1879.
One Man's Opinion
By DON SARTEN
There is an element in the local scene, which certainly exists in any college town, that is just positive the Hill is a breeding ground for communists, fascists, sex perverts, and what have you. They seize eagerly any publication that fosters this belief, and distribute it as such information can be circulated only in a small town.
Students take any material and examine it. If they cannot refute it, they learn it. But in the process of learning, "bull sessions" occur, and questioning minds are continually adding to the already vast reservoir of academic knowledge.
Normally this situation would be of little concern. It's popped up off and on in discussions overheard by this writer, for years. But lately it seems to be more rampant, more vicious.
Incidentally, inquiring minds come in all sorts of bodies. Temperaments and personalities develop and express themselves in an uninhibited manner. A few are possibly sick, mentally, as are a few in any society in any area.
All that's asked is that the next time somebody refers to an educational institution as a nest of anything—make them tell you why. And then write to me. I'll have an answer backed up by four years of college "experience."
They are happy because of a "parenthood by proxy" that enables them to help shape the philosophies of students. This "molding of clay" is done only by presenting the closest things to "the facts" thus far uncovered, and submitting them to students for consideration.
It's time for a little public relations work. If just a few statistics could be released into the small circle of scandal mongers, they might result in a little soul-searching.
On the Hill are students who have been studying different subjects for years. They have found a few answers and readily supply them. They are given a title of professor, or assistant professor, or instructor, but very little else. Few of their salaries compare with the poorest of farmers, for example, but most of them are happy.
There are 6,700 students on the Hill. They come from homes similar to those found in this area. Their parents raised them in the usual manner. The only thing unusual about them is a desire to learn. Questions about this and that follow as naturally as day follows night.
Do they?
Group Report Clouds Dam Issue
The three had introduced in the Kansas Legislature a preliminary report of their survey of the 60,000-square-mile basin, in which they recommended a three-way attack on the problems of the basin:
1. Construction of adequate flow-way channels for urban areas. Recommended were wider, deeper channels, higher, set-back levees; removal of obstructions such as low-hanging bridges.
Bob Stewart
Adding to the furor over the Tuttle Creek dam construction was a report released in February by three engineers hired by the state to study the flood situation in the Kaw valley.
Editor's Note: This is another in a series of interpretative editorials on the Kansas flood control controversy. A previous article dealt with the lineup of factions and issues. The letters column is open to readers' comments.
The engineers called for an immediate halt to construction of three big federal reservoirs—Tuttle Creek, Kirwin, and Webster, and said that no more dams should be started.
At present, construction continues on the Tuttle Creek dam. It may be for a limited time only—depending upon the final approved Eisenhower budget.
3. Better flood forecasting.
Their findings came as manna from Heaven to the militant Blue Valley people, who had been—and still are—campaigning for abandonment of plans for large federal reservoirs. Continuing construction of big reservoirs such as Tuttle Creek, they argued, would mean giving up their home-steads in order to furnish area for water held behind such dams.
Likewise, these findings were like a cold shower to the big dam proponents (chiefly consisting of residents of the Kaw river urban areas and those who owned land adjacent to the Kaw.
2. Control of flood plain occupa:
These people, bolstered by the Army Engineers, raised their voices louder in protest. Regardless, the Legislature memorialized Congress that funds for construction on big dams be held back until further hearings on the question.
Its flood control program, the group estimated,
would cost about $200 million, compared to an estimated cost of present federal plans of more than $1 billion.
The engineers' report cited a vast amount of misinformation which had come from federal officials since the '51 flood. They criticized flood damage estimates, costs of reservoirs and estimates of benefits.
The group reported, in essence, that even if the authorized projects had been in effect in 1951, levees along the Kaw river at Manhattan would have been overtopped by two or three feet; at Topeka, by at least one foot; at Lawrence, by about three feet; and at the Kansas City's existing levees by about two feet.
Little Man on Campus
"Who th' heck turned this in for criticism?"