Mr. President. the central idea which I had In mind when I consented to introduce this amendment. on which occasion I made the statement that it was prepared by another. was to extend the exemption from the literacy test to those who sought asylum in America as a refuge from persecution. I did so because I then believed. and am now confirmed In the belief. that the exemption reported by the committee is not broad enough to cover all cases of persecution or to accord with what I understand to have been the national policy upon this subject ever since the origin of the Government. I can conceive of no reason which justifies an exemption for those who desire to come here in order to escape religious persecution which is not equally applicable to those who are the victims of political or racial persecution. which is quite as intolerable as and sometimes more cruel than religious persecution. I believe thoroughly in a literacy test. provided one can be secured which is consistent with the right of asylum to all peoples except those which are specifically excluded for other reasons. The Senator from South Carolina . having charge of the bill. has said that if this amendment is adopted it virtually destroys the force and the efficacy of the literacy test. I am not prepared to accept that statement. but if it is true it is the strongest argument that has been uttered upon this floor against the inclusion in the bill of any such test whatever. for I deny. Mr. President. that there can be any consistency whatever or any Justice in a regulation which gives exemption to the object of religious persecution. but denies it to the object of political or racial persecution. It is persecntion that we desire to exempt from the operation of this clause. whether it be of a religious or of a political character. and when we begin to discriminate between the bases or causes of persecution in the application of a national doctrine we establish a condition that is absolutely foreign to what I have always understood to be the purpose and the policy of this Government with reference to immigration. But the criticisms which have just been made by the Senator from Massachusetts of the concluding paragraph of the amendment are of great force. I have been impressed from the inception of this debate with the general character and consequently the general scope of the exemption which would be created by that clause if it were enacted Into legislation.
Keywords matched
immigration literacy test