The only way is to make some fair. equitable. general rule as to the age within which people can reasonably be expected to learn to read and write. and then if they do not come to the United States. or if they separate from their husbands or their wives rather than do so. it is because they are not willing to learn to read and write. and we are no more responsible by our legislation for such separations than we are responsible today. No man need separate himself from his wife. no wife need separate herself from her husband. so far as the United States laws are concerned. We do not make. cause. or suggest any separation. we only seek a fair law which provides for the illiteracy test as the test for admitting immigrants to this country. This cry about the separation of husbands and wives is a purely sentimental one got up to defeat the bill. and has no foundation in fact. Mr. President. the immigration that it is proposed to limit last year amounted to 343.000 personsthe population of a large city. and a population equal to that of many of our States. Where did they go? About 80.000 of them went out into the West to go on the land and to become farmers and help build up that new country. The rest. some 260.000. I think. dropped right down here on the Atlantic Coast in our great cities. chiefly in New York. in Massachusetts. and in Pennsylvania. The class of immigrants that our brethren in the West receive on their prairies. on their fertile lands. is the class of immigrants that any people might be glad to receive. They do not see that class that comes and settles down in our great Eastern cities. I have referred already.
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immigrants immigration