April 14, 1952
It gives me much pleasure indeed to welcome you to this country of ours, and I hope you will get as much pleasure out of your citizenship in this country as I have had in helping you to get here.
This country of ours is a magnificently great country, and it was made up in the beginning of people who were displaced in their own countries. There isn't a colony in the country that was not made up of people who were fleeing from persecution and hunting a better life.
We have come to the point now, though, where some of the descendants of those early immigrants have come to the conclusion that they shouldn't help other people who are now in the same condition that they were at that time.
I am not one of them, although my roots go back as far as any of the people who claim ancestry in this country. I am not an ancestor hunter, I am a man who believes in doing things today that will make the world a better place to live in.
We took much time, and great effort, in bringing the displaced persons to this country, and it gives me much pleasure to welcome the last one on the list.
I hope it will not be the last one on the list, for I want to increase it to a much larger number.
Congratulations.
NOTE: The President spoke at 3:40 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House to the last group of refugees to be admitted into this country under the provisions of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (62 Stat. 1009).
It gives me much pleasure indeed to welcome you to this country of ours, and I hope you will get as much pleasure out of your citizenship in this country as I have had in helping you to get here.
This country of ours is a magnificently great country, and it was made up in the beginning of people who were displaced in their own countries. There isn't a colony in the country that was not made up of people who were fleeing from persecution and hunting a better life.
We have come to the point now, though, where some of the descendants of those early immigrants have come to the conclusion that they shouldn't help other people who are now in the same condition that they were at that time.
I am not one of them, although my roots go back as far as any of the people who claim ancestry in this country. I am not an ancestor hunter, I am a man who believes in doing things today that will make the world a better place to live in.
We took much time, and great effort, in bringing the displaced persons to this country, and it gives me much pleasure to welcome the last one on the list.
I hope it will not be the last one on the list, for I want to increase it to a much larger number.
Congratulations.
NOTE: The President spoke at 3:40 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House to the last group of refugees to be admitted into this country under the provisions of the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (62 Stat. 1009).