We have a right to ask not only whether the State has sufficient population at the time or a sufficient prospect of population in the future to entitle it to admission to statehood. but we also have the right to ask that that population should be of a proper quality. This is a matter of very great importance. The quality of our citizenship. as I have already pointed out. is something which we undertake to guard both in the immigration and in the naturalization laws. and it certainly ought to be guarded in any law which admits an entire community to citizenship in the United States. We have a right to ask of any Territory seeking admittance as a State to the Union whether their population is American.whether it is imbued with American ideas. attached to American institutions. whether it speaks our common language. and possesses all the other attributes.which we consider to be typical of an American community. The third test which it seems to me we have a right to apply is. whether the Territory presents those conditions which will insure a population such as any State in this Union ought ultimately to have.
Keywords matched
immigration naturalization