Predictable History, Unpredictable Past: The Surrealistic States of America

20 November 2012

The Surrealistic States of America

By Roger Kimball

These last couple of weeks I have divided my time largely between talking to cleanup crews, insurance adjusters, and contractors who promise, eventually, to undo the ravages of Hurricane Sandy and restore our house to its antediluvian semi-splendor — “All in good time, Mr. Kimball” — and reading Like the Roman, Simon Heffer’s magisterial 1998 biography of the great, if much and unfairly maligned, British statesman Enoch Powell. To many people these days, Powell is totally unknown. To those who do recall his name, he is the author of the so-called “Rivers of Blood Speech” — what he himself always referred to as “the Birmingham Speech.” In that 1968 address to the Conservative Political Centre at the Midland Hotel, he warned of the consequences to British society of large-scale immigration of unassimiliating, perpetually dependent populations. “It is,” Powell said, “like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. So insane are we that we actually permit unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancées whom they have never seen.” What was extraordinary then is just business as usual today.

Among the several predictions that Powell made that came to pass, the braying excoriation of him by the commissars of established political opinion led the list. “I can already hear the chorus of execration,” he wrote. “How dare I say such a horrible thing?”

I believe — and now I can hear that chorus of execration myself — that Powell was correct in just about every particular of that speech. It ruined his career. And the fact that he was right about the effects of wholesale immigration made it all the more unforgivable.

I may well return to Powell at some point. For the moment, I just wanted to share with readers a comment that Powell’s biographer, the formidable Simon Heffer, made towards the end of his book.

Most politicians, as they become older, become more skilled in compromise. The sacrifice of what were once deeply held, and prominently advertised, convictions troubles their consciences less and less; it certainly leaves no moral imprint. In an age when many politicians have ceased to have a life outside politics, survival and the retention of power become paramount. What in normal society would constitute shameful duplicity is, by a modern politician, executed shamelessly: nobody expects better of them, least of all themselves, and they do not therefore disappoint. Retreating from principle, bending, concealing or sometimes even abandoning the truth are normal, everyday activities. Anyone who points out the depravity of such behaviour is seen as painfully unsophisticated.

Powell did not retreat from principle. He did not abandon the truth. No one could accuse this classics scholar, military man, and consummate orator of being unsophisticated. Instead, he was roundly denounced as “racialist,” the omnibus term of abuse that preceded our own favorite, “racism.”

As I look around at what is happening in the formerly United States of America, I feel the chill wind of disorientation. Are we not, in our fiscal incontinence and pullulating political correctness, piling up our own funeral pyre? Have not our politicians surrendered to a horrible venality as they struggle above all to maintain the reins of power, even to the point of allowing political calculation to trump their duty to save the lives of those diplomats who were murdered in Benghazi? Will the festering swamp of mendacity that surrounds that event ever be drained? The Obama administration has been on overdrive since September 11 to spin the event, lying, covering up, triangulating, and otherwise endeavoring to distract the public’s attention from this extraordinary attack on sovereign U.S. territory — our consulate in Benghazi — and the brutal murder of an American ambassador and three aides. What does it all mean? And what do the revelations about David Petraeus’s amorous adventures and pseudo-revelations about General Allen portend? Does anyone believe that it was a coincidence that they surfaced when they did?

I am not alone, I know, in sensing a fateful shift in the temper, the emotional weather, of America. I cannot pretend to know what it portends. In the course of his infamous speech, Powell quoted Euripides: “Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” He focused on Britain’s insane and self-destructive immigration policy. We have before us florid examples of other sorts of insanity. I sense the formation of a steely reaction to our present madness. Whether it will be too little too late is impossible to say. I hope not. But hope, like possibility, is a cheap commodity — the last evil in Pandora’s box of tricks, according to some. This much is clear: a great deal that we have taken for granted in this blessed country — about opportunity, about prosperity, about liberty and the tenor of social relations — is about to change. Whether we’ll manage to restore our former innocence is up for grabs. I’ve retired from the betting game, so I will refrain from offering a prognostication.

"This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or add importantly to either our wealth or our power..This bill says simply that from this day forth those wishing to immigrate to America shall be admitted on the basis of their skills and their close relationship to those already here. This is a simple test, and it is a fair test. Those who can contribute most to this country--to its growth, to its strength, to its spirit--will be the first that are admitted to this land...The days of unlimited immigration are past. But those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they sprung."

- President Lyndon B Johnson, signing into law the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Island, 3 October 1965.

"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same ... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset ... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia ... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think...

The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."

- Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965. pp. 1-3

"I would say for the Asia-Pacific Triangle it [immigration] would be approximately 5,000, Mr. Chairman, after which immigration from that source would virtually disappear; 5,000 immigrants would come the first year, but we do not expect that there would be any great influx after that."

- Attorney General Robert Kennedy, testifying on immigration reform, U.S. Congress, House, 1964 hearings, p. 418

"This bill is not designed to increase or accelerate the numbers of newcomers permitted to come to America. Indeed, this measure provides for an increase of only a small fraction in permissible immigration."

- Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965, p.8

"The present estimate, based upon the best information we can get, is that there might be, say, 8,000 immigrants from India in the next five years ... I don't think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the United States ... There is not a general move toward the United States."

- Secretary of State Dean Rusk - U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington D.C., 10 February 1965, p.65

[Note: There were actually 27,859 Indian immigrants over the five years following passage of the bill, three times Secretary Rusk's predicted level. From 1965 through 1993, immigration from India totaled 558,980.]

"Asians represent six-tenths of 1 percent of the population of the United States ... with respect to Japan, we estimate that there will be a total for the first 5 years of some 5,391 ... the people from that part of the world will never reach 1 percent of the population .. .Our cultural pattern will never be changed as far as America is concerned."

Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI), U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965, pp.71, 119

[Note: From 1966 to 1970, 19,399 immigrants came from Japan, more than three times Senator Fong's estimate. Immigration from Asia as a whole has totaled 5,627,576 from 1966 to 1993. Three percent of the American population is currently of Asian birth or heritage.]

"I am aware that this bill is more concerned with the equality of immigrants than with their numbers. It is obvious in any event that the great days of immigration have long since run their course. World population trends have changed, and changing economic and social conditions at home and abroad dictate a changing migratory pattern."

- Rep. Sidney Yates (D-IL), Congressional Record, 25 August 1965, p. 21793

"Contrary to the opinions of some of the misinformed, this legislation does not open the floodgates."

- Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI), Congressional Record, 20 September 1965, p. 24480

The original version of the bill gave top preference to people with special skills, but that was changed in the final version to the current nepotistic emphasis on family relationship. A Washington Post editorial was no better at predicting the result than the bill's congressional supporters:

"The most important change, in fact, was in direction, shuffling the preference categories to give first consideration to relatives of American citizens instead of to specially skilled persons. This had more emotional appeal and, perhaps more to the point, insured that the new immigration pattern would not stray radically from the old one."

- The Washington Post, 4 October 1965, p. 16

Even Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), who voted against the bill out of concern for overpopulation, didn't think the new preference system would mean much of a change:

"The preferences which would be established by this proposal are based, I believe, on sound reasoning and meritorious considerations, not entirely dissimilar in effect from those which underlie the national origins quotas of existing law."

- Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC), Congressional Record, 17 September 1965, p. 24237

A few of the congressmen, who opposed the bill did see that the new system, even with tight controls to protect the labour force would result in dramatic changes:

"We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed, the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more ... shall we, instead, look at this situation realistically and begin solving our own unemployment problems before we start tackling the world's?"

- Congressman William Miller (R-NY), Republican Vice Presidential candidate, The New York Times, 8 September 1964, p. 14

[Note: Although immigration did increase as dramatically as Rep. Miller predicted, it took longer than he thought. By 1968 — when the law fully took effect — the 1965 level of 290,697 had increased to 454,448, "only" a 56 percent increase.]

"What I object to is imposing no limitation insofar as areas of the earth are concerned, but saying that we are throwing the doors open and equally inviting people from the Orient, from the islands of the Pacific, from the subcontinent of Asia, from the Near East, from all of Africa, all of Europe, and all of the Western Hemisphere on exactly the same basis. I am inviting attention to the fact that this is a complete and radical departure from what has always heretofore been regarded as sound principles of immigration."

- Sen. Spessard Holland (D-FL), Congressional Record, 22 September 1965, p. 24779

Among those who more accurately foresaw the future effects of the change in immigration law was a certain Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, who testified at a Senate immigration subcommittee hearing:

"In light of our 5 percent unemployment rate, our worries over the so called population explosion, and our menacingly mounting welfare costs, are we prepared to embrace so great a horde of the world's unfortunates? At the very least, the hidden mathematics of the bill should be made clear to the public so that they may tell their Congressmen how they feel about providing jobs, schools, homes, security against want, citizen education, and a brotherly welcome ... for an indeterminately enormous number of aliens from underprivileged lands....We should remember that people accustomed to such marginal existence in their own land will tend to live fully here, to hoard our bounteous minimum wages and our humanitarian welfare handouts ... lower our wage and living standards, disrupt our cultural patterns ...Whatever may be our benevolent intent toward many people, [the bill] fails to give due consideration to the economic needs, the cultural traditions, and the public sentiment of the citizens of the United States."

- Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., 10 February 1965, pp. 681-687

As Milton Friedman famously said:

"You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but you cannot have both."