Speech #520120286

My answer to that is that for one hundred years the immigration into this country has continued without any of the dangers or evil consequences which the gentleman dreads. If we are called upon here to legislate to meet an extraordinary situation let us legislate with reference to that. but I object to this amendment because it is an attempt to subject all transatlantic travel in the steerge. whether it be from places infected with cholera or from places which are entirely free from infectious diseaseto subject it to conditions so onerous that honest men. selfrespecting men. will not submit to them. If this were a provision relating to cholera. if this were a provision relating to any infectious disease. if this were a provision relating and limited to any particular period. the objection to it would not be so strong as it is to the amendment in the shape in which it is presented. But you propose to change the whole system. You want to subject every man. no matter whether disease be rife or whether disease be absent in the place from which he comes. to the imprisonment proposed here. and that in my judgment is an insuperable objection to it.