Political Quotes

“Madam President, it was not my intention to rise, but after listening to the remarks of the Senator from North Carolina, I felt it obligatory that I say something to clarify the record. I think it is well that we review a bit of the history of World War II. On July 26, 1941, the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, invited the Filipinos, issued a military order, and said: Join our forces in the Far East. If you do, at the end of the war you will be entitled to, well, apply for citizenship and receive all the benefits of a veteran of the United States. That was a promise made by the President of the United States in March of 1942. After going through the horror of Bataan and Corregidor, the Congress of the United States passed a law doing exactly that: authorizing Filipinos who wished to be naturalized to do so; and upon naturalization, a receipt of citizenship, they were entitled to all the benefits. Madam President, 470,000 volunteered, and many died as we know. Most of the men who marched in the Bataan Death March were not Americans; they were Filipinos. But then, when the war ended, we did send one member of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to Manila to take applications for citizenship. Before he settled down, he was recalled back to Washington. The Congress of the United States, in March of 1946, repealed that law, denying the Filipinos and reneging on the promise we made.…”