Speech #640066729

Chairman. I must proceed. I agree with the proponents of this bill that we should restrict undesirable immigration. but I can not agree with them that worthy and hardworking immigrants who can not read are so undesirable that they should be excluded. We have plenty of law to keep out immigrants who are criminal. insane. anarchistic. or otherwise undesirable. and if any of them slip into the country It is due to the administration of existing law rather than to the law itself. The pending bill. in a great many pages reaffirms existing law. It excludes undesirable immigrants who are already excluded by law and imposes an additional head tax upon those who are admissible. It enters upon ticklish ground in its treatment of Asiatics. but the chief new feature of the bill is the provision which excludes immigrants who seek a haven in the United States for no other reason than that they can not read. This provision is insisted upon by the ultraimmigration restrictionists despite the fact that it resulted in vetoes by Presidents Cleveland. Taft. and Wilson. which vetoes- were sustained in every instanceby Congress. The eloquent gentleman from Alabama: . who has championed this measure for many years has indicated that its passage would correct many of our social and. industrial evils. advancing his line of thought so far as to. suggest it. would stop the raids of Villa on the Mexican border: The confidence of the gentleman in this regard is- as sublime: as his faith in "our wabcful waiting" policy in Mexico or the: unthinkable thought that President Wilson. who vetoed this bill two years ago. will cliuige his mind and approve it now. This bill will not stop the raid. of Villa nor the smuggling of Asiatics northe sneaking in of untiesirables any more than any law will prevent murderor theft. If we were to adopt the thought of the gentleman from Alabama with respect to border raids or smuggling. it would be necessary. for us to increase the Immigration Inspection Service to twice the size of the present standing army. plus the addition of the 40.000 men provided for in the Hay bill. For. the sake of the present administration and in order that our overburdened Treasury may not be too speedily depleted itwould be well for some political strategist to induce the gentleman ftom Alabama to eliminate the suppression of Villa from his immigration program. My objection to this bill Mr. Chairman. is due to the literacy test it proposes. Such a test is neither patriotic nor humane. It favors the worthless and designing immigrant who is capable of making trouble for this country and it casts down utterly the worthy toiler who struggles patiently and laboriously under the burdens imposed upon him by the strong and the heartless. Gentlemen in debate. spurred on by petitions and resolutions dictated by expediency and without regard to the human side of the problem. have inveighed against the. illiterate. Strange enough. many of these same gentlemen on other occasions have been the most persistent friends of the downtrodden and oppressed.