Speech #630381152

Mr. President. I want to call the attention of the Senator to the fact that the bill here before us is a confession by the honorable committee of which the Senator is the head that the former bills on this subject went too far.* There was a bill some years ago which required that an immigrant should be able to read 25 words of the Constitution of the United States as a test. and then. two or three years ago. the same committee reported another measure requiring that the immigran t should be able to read and write so many words in some recognized language. and now. still retreating from a position that ought never to have bee.n taken. the committee says " We will limit it to the capacity of the immigrant to read a certain number of words "-not to write. but to read a certain number of words-" in any hnoWn language. Including the Yiddish." As you have so far receded from the original position. you ought to have left It odt entirely. Mr. President. when the last immigration bill was before the Senate. reported. I think. by the senior Senator from Massachusetts . he said In his report that. in the first instance. they left out the literacy test because they thought it such a change in American policy and such a radical departurefrom the whole course of American history in dealing with this subject that It ought to be considered. discussed. and acted upon as a separate measure. Then afterwards they wrote it in. Mr. President. when the bill requiring that the immigrant should be able to read 25 wordsI thifkthat was the provisionof the Constitution went to the then President. Mr. Cleveland. he vetoed It on the ground that that test was unAmerican. In a speech I made before the Senate when the last immigration bill was being considered. three or four years ago. Iquoted from that veto messageof President Cleveland. I ahm not going to take the time of the Senate. and particularly the time of the Senator from South Carolina. who is so anxious to proceed. by reading again what I read at that time. but I will ask that the marked portions of that veto message..on the first and third pages of the printed message. may be incorporated at this point In my remarks.