Speech #540121913

They have provided that: All persons physically capable and over 16 years of age who can not read and write the English language or the language of their native or resident country. Here is a provision to which I call the attention of the Senator from Massachusetts in answer to his inquiry made of me a moment since as to where a change has been made by the conferees. The object of the immigration bill as passed by the Senate. and as passed by the House of Representatives. was to admit immigrants who could conform to the educational test. The conferees have gone outside of the authority with which they were invested by their respective Houses. and have. added what the House and the Senate never before passed upon. and that is the prohibition entirely and absolutely of a class of immigrants who would have been admitted under the Senate bill and under the House bill. The explanation of that is to be found in the fact that there are thousands of immigrants eligible under the House bill and under the Senate bill who are ineligible under the conference report because of the fact that they have not a resident country and can not speak the language of their native country. Those are Russian Jews. the Slavs. the Hungarians. Mennonites. and thousands more of the different classes of immigrants that I might mention. who are intended to be admitted under the bill passed by both Houses. who are excluded by the conference report. I hope that point is clear Mr President. I come to the other provisions where the conferees further transcended their authority. Under the bill substituted by the Senate for the House bill there was a provision that a man who could pass the illiteracy test should be permitted to send for his wife. if he had left her behind. or. if she had accompanied him and was illiterate herself. that she was admissible if he was. and yet. transcending the plain proposition on the part of the Senate and on the part of the House of Representatives. the conferees in their report ave added to what the House of Representatives and the Senate had agreed upon by undertaking to separate man and wife and to commend the alien immigrant to the society of his grandfather rather than to that of his wife. They have excluded the wife and admitted the grandfather. The House of Representative5 and the Senate passed no such bill. and yet the conferees. seeking by indirection. as I charge here. rather than by express legislation. have altered it by adding to what has been agreed upon by both Houses.