Speech #620267214

I aml going to give this bill my support and. in the brief time allowed me. will give soine of my reasons. My only regret is that it does not go far enough and include a character test as well as an educational test. The Republican Party. 16 years ago. in national convention. when it nominated William McKinley for President. declared as follows: For the protection of the quality of American citizenship and the wages of our workingmen against the fatal competition of lowpriced labor we demAnd that the immigration laws ho thoroughly enforced and so extended as to exclude from entrance to the United States those who can neither read nor write. Following that declaration our leader. the leader of the party to which I owe my allegiance. the good. wise. and beloved McKinley. sent this message to Congress: Our naturalization and immigration laws should be further Improved to the constant promotion of a safe. a better. and a higher citizenship. A grave peril to the Republic would be a citizenship too ignorant to understand or too vicious to appreciate the great value and beneficence of our institutions and laws. and against all who come here to war upon them our.gates must be promptly and tightly closed. Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the world under Providence we ought to achieve. President Roosevelt. in his message to Congress. said: The second object of a proper immigration law ought to be to secure by careful and not merely perfunctory educational test some intelligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act sanely as American citizens. The great Republican Party. in its convention at Chicago in 1912this good yearwrote this declaration or pledge: We pledge the Republican Party to the enactment of appropriate laws to give relief from the constantly growing evil of induced or undesirable immigration. which Is inimical to the progress and welfare of the people of the United States.