CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

September 22, 1965

Page 24780

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I hesitate to make the comment that I rise to make because my presence in the Senate may be an excellent argument for the point that perhaps the national origins quota system should have been in effect when my father came to this country. I believe it is undoubtedly true that if it had been in effect at that time his prospects for entering this country would have been substantially reduced to the point where he might not have entered it, I might not have been born here, might not have become Governor of my State, and might not have become a U.S. Senator.

So my entire life is testimony to my conviction that the philosophy of the bill before the Senate is the right one.

I do not believe that at any time in the first century of our national existence, or at any time prior to that, immigration into this country was in accordance with any fixed relationship of numbers as between peoples from different parts of the globe or from different countries. And so the base of our population was established without any such pigeon holes, without any such fixed guidelines.

I believe that what we should have learned from that experience is not that we had accidentally found the magic formula for the relationship between national backgrounds in this country, but rather that, without any magic formula, we have been able to bring into this country people from all over the globe, and that without exception our national experience demonstrates that each of them, whatever his origin, whatever the color of his skin, was able to make a positive contribution to the advancement of this country reflecting his individual merit.

So I am convinced, as I was when my father used to tell me of his own experience at his knee, that this country is a living, dynamic, growing illustration of the fact that all of God's children, when given the opportunities of freedom, can make freedom work, not only for their own advancement, but for the benefit of the society of which they are a part.