Speech #520115648

I desire simply to say in respect to the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana. that if this bill shall be passed and shall be found to be defective in any respect. the Senator from Louisiana. as well as all other Senators. knows that Congress may amend it and repeal it at any hour of any session it may choose. It is not entirely as experimental as many Senators seem to think it. for. if Senators will look at the act approved June 2. 1879. they will find that on that day an act was approved which contains every power contained in this bill. indeed. the bill which is now pending was taken from that act. the only difference being in substance that that act conferred these powers upon the National Board of Health. which then existed and which still exists in the statute. under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. while this bill drops the National Board of Health out of view. and proposes to repeal the act which created it. The only other exception to be found as between that act and the pending bill is the section which gives the President the power in cases of emergency to suspend immigration temporarily. That act expired by its own limitation. for it was amended iust before its passage by a provision that the act should expire in four years from the date of its approval. It was in force for four years. from 1879 to 1883. and under its provisions the yellow fever which occurred in 1879 was promptly stamped out. there was no further importation. and the country was freed for those years from imported contagion.