Nothing but an international agreement can adequately protect this country against invasion occasionally by the most virulent and fatal form of contagious and infectious disease. I suggest. however. this as a matter for consideration. but Congress must make up its mind. as the people of this country have made up their minds. that there must be legislation upon this subject in advance of any which has heretofore existed. It may be. and I think it is true in regard to immigration. if it be a necessity when there is an epidemic of contagious disease in foreign countries and in the form of an extensive plague. that they shall be confined. as recommended by the State board of health of Illinois. in their entrance to this country to some one port in each Stateprobably the constitutional requirement will not admit of anything else. and at such ports the Government should have the most thorough and the most complete means of disinfection and arrangement for the detention. not such as is necessary where there is no preparation for it. but such as is consistent with humanity. I read in the reports here that in some of the quarantines established by Russia and upon the Turkish border the vilest imprisonment to which any human being was ever subjected is not worse than that prescribed by the conditions of confinement there. It is not worthy of an enlightened people that we shall allow such a condition of things to exist in our country. itis not worthy of an enlightened peQple that such a condition should exist as did exist in the port of Now York. where the excited people refused permission to the passengers on board a vessel affected with this plague to land. and kept them there in contact with this deadly disease.
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immigration