Congress, however, promptly passed the bill over the President’s objections, and so twenty years after President Cleveland’s veto of the Lodge Bill, the literacy test became the standard of fitness for immigrant admission into the United States.[52] The law excludes all aliens over sixteen years of age who are physically capable of reading and yet who cannot read.  They are required to read “not less than thirty or more than eighty words in ordinary use” in the English language or some other language or dialect.  Aliens who seek admission because of religious persecution, and certain relatives of citizens or of admissible aliens, are exempted.

The debate upon this law disclosed the transformation that has come over the nation in its attitude towards the alien.  Exclusion was the dominant word.  Senator Reed of Missouri wished to exclude African immigrants; the Pacific coast Representatives insisted upon exclusion of Asiatics, in the face of serious admonitions of the Secretary of State that such a course would cause international friction; the labor members were scornful in their denunciation of “the pauper and criminal classes” of Europe.  The traditional liberal sympathies of the American people found but few champions, so completely had the change been wrought in the thirty years since the Federal Government assumed control of immigration.

By these tokens the days of unlimited freedom in migration are numbered.  Nations are beginning to realize that immigration is but the obverse of emigration.  Its dual character constitutes a problem requiring delicate international readjustments.  Moreover, the countries released to a new life and those quickened to a new industrialism by the Great War will need to employ all their muscle and talents at home.

It is an inspiring drama of colonization that has been enacted on this continent in a relatively short period.  Its like was never witnessed before and can never be witnessed again.  Thirty-three nationalities were represented in the significant group of American pilgrims that gathered at Mount Vernon on July 4, 1918, to place garlands of native flowers upon the tomb of Washington and to pledge their honor and loyalty to the nation of their adoption.  This event is symbolic of the great fact that the United States is, after all, a nation of immigrants, among whom the word foreigner is descriptive of an attitude of mind rather than of a place of birth.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 50:  Congress has on several occasions granted aid for specific colonies or groups of immigrants.]

[Footnote 51:  Henderson et al. vs.  The Mayor of New York City et al. 92 U.S., 259.]

[Footnote 52:  The new act took effect May 1, 1917.]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

GENERAL HISTORIES

EDWARD CHANNING, History of the United States, 4 vols. (1905).  Vol.  II.  Chapter XIV contains a fascinating account of “The Coming of the Foreigner.”