The President said : This bill embodies a radical departure from the traditional and longestablished policy of this country. a policy In which our people have conceived the very character of their Government to be expressed. the very mission and spirit of the Nation in respect of its relations to the peoples of the world outside their borders. It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of asylum which have always been open to those who could find nowhere else the right and opportunity of constitutional agitation for what they conceived to be the natural and inalienable rights of men. and it excludes those to whom the opportunities of elementary education have been denied. without regard to their character. their purposes. or their natural capacity. That last clause is directed. of course. against the literacy test. but the other is leveled at the provisions in the bill which the President vetoed which. as he said. all but closed the door of asylum. changing radically the policy of this Government. The amendment which the committee has reported here is more radical in that respect than anything contained in the bill which the President vetoed. I read further from the Presidents message of veto: Restrictions like these. adopted earlier in our history as a Nation. would very materially have altered the course and cooled the humane ardors of our politics.
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literacy test