So it will be seen that every time this proposition has been before either branch of Congress it has been adopted. and always by a most decisive majority. sometimes five or ten to one. Mr. President. as far back as 1896. when the evils of immigration were not so great as now. when these evils did not call as loudly for a remedy as now. the Republican national convention of that -year. not in general terms. not inferentially. but in direct and specific terms. indorsed the educational test as the best ind most effective method of keeping out undesirable foreigners. I want to read to the Senate this plank in the Republican platform of that year. It is as follows: For the protection of the quality of our American citizenship and of the wages of our workingmen against *the fatal competition of lowpriced labor we demand that the immigration laws be thoroughly enforced and so extended as to exclude from entrance to the United States those who can neither read nor write. The Democratic platform of that year indorsdd the principle. although It was not so specific as the Republican platform. It went to the root of the evil in so far as it affects economic conditions in this country. and that is the most acute phase of the evils of the present enormous immigration. It declared: We hold that the most efficient way of protecting American labor is to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor to compete with it in the home market. Shortly after the declaration I have read from the Republican platform. Mr.
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foreign pauper immigration