Presidential elections may have changed a great deal in terms of the length of the campaigns and the fortunes spent, but it seems candidates are still wrestling over the same unresolved questions.
Take the story in today's Times about Republican candidates telling a Spanish-language audience that they want to strengthen security at the border.
Republican Candidates Firm on Immigration
By MICHAEL COOPER and MARC SANTORA
CORAL GABLES, Fla., Dec. 9 — In front of what will probably be their most pro-immigration audience, Republican candidates toned down their rhetoric but told Spanish-language television viewers in a debate on Sunday that they would take strong measures to close off the country’s borders to illegal immigration.
More than 75 years ago, foreign-language speaking residents were equally dissatisfied with the candidates on the topic of immigration.
October 23, 1932
IMMIGRATION VIEWS OF NOMINEES ASKEDForeign Language group seeks attitude of Roosevelt and Hoover on certain issues
The board of trustees of the Foreign Language Information Service made public yesterday a resolution it has adopted urging that President Hoover and Governor Roosevelt, as candidates for the presidency, state their attitude on certain issues of immigration policy of special interest to foreign-born voters.
In the 1952 election, immigration was one of the big issues, although it's hard to imagine such a fierce attack in today's watered down, focus-group tested rhetoric. It should be noted that Truman had already decided to bow out of the race.
October 18, 1952
CHARGES NOMINEE ACCEPTS ‘MASTER RACE’ THEORY OF NEW ALIEN LAWBy PAUL P. KENNEDY, special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17—President Truman denounced in unusually bitter terms today the Republican party and its Presidential candidate, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in relation to what he termed “cruel and repellent” immigration legislation. Mr. Truman’s attack drew immediate Republican criticism.
The President charged that General Eisenhower was willing to accept “the very practice that identified the so-called ‘master race’” despite the fact that the General had taken a leading role in breaking Nazi domination of Europe.
Mr. Truman declared General Eisenhower “has had an attack of moral blindness.” He asserted that the Republican candidate has had nothing to say on the subject of immigration and, in this connection, he “would endorse anyone with a Republican label, no matter what his record is on civil liberties.”
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