They have accumulated during the past ten days. They relate principally to the question. the important question. of the sale of beer on Ellis Island. Ellis Island. as the Senate well knows. is where the immigrants land on coming to this country. The persons engaged in this movement have been very industrious and have prepared printed petitions which have been circulated all over the country. I desire simply to read one of the petitions: Petition to the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Your petitioners. citizens of the State of Now York and representatives of the Womans Christian Temperance Union. realizing the demoralizing effect which the sale of beer has upon immigrants landing at Ellis Island. and believing the payment of $10.500 annually into the United States Treasury for the privilege of such sale to be a stigma upon our National Government. etc. And the petitioners request the passage of a measure that will prohibit the sale of beer at Ellis Island. There is another petition upon the same subject. printed in a little different form. which says simply that the sale at Bedloes Island "is a source of serious injury to the men stationed there." Mr. President. I can not very well see how the sale of beer to immigrants landing at Ellis Island can be of very great injury to the temperance cause or can seriously affect the health or lives of the immigrants who land there. On the contrary. I am disposed to think that a glass of beer would be very welcome to the immigrants upon their landing in this country. The vast effort made by wellmeaning. but misguided people in endeavoring to flood Congress with these petitions shows the crusade. the extreme Puritanism. or the extreme Rooseveltism. if I might use that term. that is in progress in the State of New York and in the country. Not only that. but I have also received from various parts of my State divers petitions from various societies asking that Congress should pass a Sundayrest law for the District of Columbia. and some of the petitionersstate that they desire to have Congress pass a law for the District of Columbia that is equal to the most efficient State Sunday law anywhere in the country.
Keywords matched
immigrants