Speech #520115644

They are unreliable because all experience. foreign and domescic. proves the futility of quarantines of exclusion and sanitary cordous between States and communities on the same continent. A national quarantineor rather a national sanitary servicewould impose the minimum of interference with commerce while securing the maximum of protection to the public health. Let Congress enact that no immigrant shall enter the United States except tbrough certain specified ports of entry on the seaboard and frontier. at which ports smtable sanitary depots shall be established and maintained under the controlof the National Government. Then let the administration of such depots see to It that no immigrant passes the seaboard or frontier into the interior except through theportas of a bathhouse. nor his personal effects and belongings except through the washtub and disinfecting chamberand this if for no other reason than that the conditions of the steerage passage are conducive neither to cleanliness nor health. If from a healthy port. on a healthyvessel. and himself healthy. the detention of the immigrant for such purposes of purification would be a matter of a few hours only. if communicable disease existed or was suspected. the period of detention would vary according to the character of the disease. and he would. if sick. be properly treated and cared for in hospital under conditions most favorable for his speedy recovery. But under no circumstances should any immigrant or his belongings be allowed access to the interior until he and his had first been rendered incapable of carrying and spreading the exotic diseases and pestilences. XXIV30 This would render State quarantines unnecessary. since it is the infected immigrant who furnishes the chief cause for their being. It would alsorender the restriction or prohibition of immigration unnecessary from the standpoint of the sanitarian. and without reference to the social. economic. and political questions involved. It maybe added that the prohibition of immigration as a measure designed to exclude contagious disease is not defensible. It is not in accord with accepted sanitary principles. It is unscientific and calculated to beget a false sense of security in a vicarious protection. which would lead to a neglect of or indifference to the necessity for personal and public hygiene.