Date: December 13, 1930
Location: Northampton, MA
Summary: Coolidge explains the economic and social reasons why the United States should limit immigration to the country.
(Original document available here)
Immigration is not a simple question. The entire effect of restriction is unknown. Every immigrant is a consumer requiring food, clothing and shelter. To that extend work is made for wage earners. But when many are already idle, an influx of wage earners would aggravate the condition of unemployment.
Every race and creed that has come here in numbers has shown examples of unsurpassed loyalty and devotion to our country. But only by coming slowly, avoiding city colonies and spreading over the land do they arrive in the real United States.
The economic reasons for restricting immigration are not always the most important. We have certain standards of life that we believe are best for us. We do not ask other nations to discard theirs, but we do wish to preserve ours. Standards, government and culture under free institutions are not so much a matter of constitutions and laws as of public opinion, ways of thought and methods of life of the people. We reflect on no one in wanting immigrants who will be assimilated into our ways of thinking and living. Believing we can best serve the world in that way, we restrict immigration.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Fr. Stephen Lawson who prepared this document for digital publication.