End to National Origins Immigration Quotas: Triumph At Last for Humanitarian Concept By MILTON FRIEDMAN (Copyright, 1965, JTA, Inc.) WASHINGTON — Pending Con- gressional action on the new immigration bill, eliminating the discriminatory national origins quota system, will bring reality to a dream of the late President John F. Kennedy. This correspondent first became acquainted with Kennedy in the 1950s, when the latter served as a Senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy invited your correspond- ent to lunch in the Senate dining room. The purpose of the invita- tion, it emerged, was to muster public understanding of the need for immigration reform. - Kennedy stressed his abhorrence of the national origins quota sys- tem. He recalled the tragedy of Jewish refugees from Hitler's Ges- tapo who were denied admission to the United States because they were born in the "wrong" coun- tries, and quotas were oversub- scribed. He noted that dispropor- tionately large quotas were allocated to nations in Western and Northern Europe, while immi- grants from Eastern Europe • were deemed less desirable under our laws. At that time, Kennedy was sponsoring a bill t h a t would have achieved the same results as the measure just approved by the House Judiciary Committee. He admired the leading role taken in the Senate by the late Sen. Herbert H. Lehman, of New York, in the struggle for the Americanization of immigration laws. When Sen. Lehman died, Ken- nedy, then President, attended the funeral in New York. He com- mented on the Lehman liberalism generally, but specifically noted the Senator's heart-breaking fight for immigration reform. Another recollection of this cor- respondent is that Kennedy per- sonally presented him with a copy of a book, "A Nation of Immi- grants," a moving indictment of immigration bias. Kennedy wrote the book, linked with his reform legislation, when he served in the Senate. During the 1960 election cam- paign, Kennedy repeatedly stressed the priority he attached to liberali- zation of the entry laws and quota system. When elected, he in- structed Myer Feldman to pursue this objective. Special messages were sent to Congress. Calls were sounded in the State of the Union messages. President John-son took over where Kennedy left off. He asked Feldman, who stayed on for a time as personal aide on such matters, to renew contacts with Congress. President Johnson saw immigra- tion reform as a part of his "Great Society" philosophy. He felt the system of bias was a living contra- diction of domestic civil rights objectives. But the immigration bill sent to Congress by the White House became bottled up in the House Immigration Subcommittee. For many years, the subcommittee had been headed by Rep. Francis Walter, Pennsylvania Democrat, who co-authored the discrimina- tory McCarran-Walter Immigra- tion Act. Rep. Michael Feighan, Ohio Democrat, took over the chairmanship of the subcommit- tee on Rep. Walter's death. Chairman Feighan, however, de- layed action on the Administration measure because of personal dif- ferences, to some extent remote from immigration issue s, with Chairman Emanuel Celler of the House Judiciary Committee. After much b i t ter internal wrangling, agreement was reached, and a very acceptable bill was-re- ported out by an overwhelming vote of 26 to 4. Bipartisan support appeared from $ 39 Skirts to Match from ..19.99 Mink Ribbon Sweater 69.99 New Arrival From "Mr. Blackwell" SWIMS Lot-G Northland GEORGE OHRENSTEIN Certified Master Watchmaker and Jeweler 18963 Livernois Ave. UN 1-8184 OPEN THURS. TO 9 P.M. Strictly Kosher Meats and Poultry KAPLAN BROS. 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