IMMIGRATION IMMIGRATION
The laws now existing for the exclusion of undesirable
immigrants should be strengthened. Adequate means
should be adopted, enforced by sufficient penalties, to
compel steamship companies engaged in the passenger
business to observe in good faith the law which forbids
them to encourage or solicit immigration to the United
States, Moreover, there should be a sharp limitation
imposed upon all vessels coming to our ports as to the
number of immigrants in ratio to the tonnage which
each vessel can carry. This ratio should be high enough
to insure the coming hither of as good a class of aliens
as possible. (Fifth Annual Message, Washington,
December 5, 1905.) Mem. Ed. XVII, 373; Nat. Ed. XV,
none whatever of the wrong sort. Of course, it is
desirable that even the right kind of immigration should
be properly distributed in this country. We need more
of such immigration for the South; and special effort
should be made to secure it. Perhaps it would be
possible to limit the number of immigrants allowed to
come in any one year to New York and other Northern
cities, while leaving unlimited the number allowed to
come to the South; always provided, however, that a
stricter effort is made to see that only immigrants of the
right kind come to our country anywhere. (Fifth Annual
Message, Washington, December 5, 1905.) Mem. Ed.
XVII, 372-373; Nat. Ed. XV, 318.
IMMIGRATION—REGULATION OF. It is
urgently necessary to check and regulate our
immigration, by much more drastic laws than now
exist; and this should be done both to keep out laborers
who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out
races which do not assimilate readily with our own, and
unworthy individuals of all races, (Forum, April 1894.)
Mem. Ed. XV, 27; Nat. Ed. XIII, 23.
IMMIGRATION—RESTRICTION OF. I wish
Congress would revise our laws about immigration.
Paupers and assisted immigrants of all kinds should be,
kept out; so should every variety of Anarchists. And if
Anarchists do come, they should be taught, as speedily
as possible, that the first effort to put their principles
into practice will result in their being shot down . . . .
We must soon try to prevent too many laborers coming
here and underselling our own workmen in the labor
market; a good round head tax on each immigrant,
together with a rigid examination into his character,
would work well. (Before Federal Club, New York
City, December 13, 1888.). Mem. Ed. XVI, 137-138;
Nat. Ed. XIV, 85.
____________. Many working men look with distrust
upon laws which really would help them; laws for the
intelligent restriction of immigration, for instance. I
have no sympathy with mere dislike of immigrants;
there are classes and even nationalities of them which
stand at least on an equality with the citizens of native
birth, as the last election showed. But in the interest of
our working men we must in the end keep out laborers
who are ignorant, vicious, and with low standards of
life and comfort, just as we have shut out the Chinese.
(Review of Reviews, January 1897.) Mem. Ed. XVI,
380; Nat. Ed. XIII. 164.
____________. The prime need is to keep out all
immigrants who will not make good American citizens.
319.
IMMIGRATION — RESTRICTION OF
ORIENTAL. There has always been a strong feeling in
California against the immigration of Asiatic laborers,
whether these are wage-workers or men who occupy
and till the soil. I believe this to be fundamentally a
sound and proper attitude, an attitude which must be
insisted upon, and yet which can be insisted upon in
such a manner and with such courtesy and such sense of
mutual fairness and reciprocal obligation and respect as
not to give any just cause of offense to Asiatic peoples.
(1913.) Mem. Ed. XXII, 429; Nat. Ed. XX, 368.
IMMIGRATION POLICY. Our present immigration
laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest and
efficient immigrant fitted to become an American
citizen, every immigrant who comes here to stay, who
brings here a strong body, a stout heart, a good head,
and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way
and to bring up his children as law-abiding and God-
fearing members of the community. But there should be
a comprehensive law enacted with the object of
working a threefold improvement over our present
system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely not
only all persons who are known to be believers in
anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic
societies, but also all persons who are of a low moral
tendency or of unsavory reputation . . . .
The second object of a proper immigration law
ought to be to secure by a careful and not merely
perfunctory educational test some intelligent capacity to
appreciate American institutions and act sanely as
American citizens. This would not keep out all
anarchists, for many of them belong to the intelligent
criminal class. But it would do what is also in point,
that is, tend to decrease the sum of ignorance, so potent
in producing the envy, suspicion, malignant passion,
and hatred of order, out of which anarchistic
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