The
children and the compatriots of these illustrious Americans must stand
amazed to see the representatives of their Nation now resolved, in the
fullness of our national strength and at the maturity of our great
institutions, to risk turning such men back from our shores without test
of quality or purpose. It is difficult for me to believe that the full
effect of this feature of the bill was realized when it was framed and
adopted, and it is impossible for me to assent to it in the form in
which it is here cast.
The literacy test and the tests and restrictions which accompany it
constitute an even more radical change in the policy of the Nation.
Hitherto we have generously kept our doors open to all who were not
unfitted by reason of disease or incapacity for self-support or such
personal records and antecedents as were likely to make them a menace to
our peace and order or to the wholesome and essential relationships of
life. In this bill it is proposed to turn away from tests of character
and of quality and impose tests which exclude and restrict; for the new
tests here embodied are not tests of quality or of character or of
personal fitness, but tests of opportunity.
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