Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 2 (of 7)Roosevelt, Theodore
History
Presidential addresses and state papers, Volume 2 (of 7)
Roosevelt, Theodore
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919; United States -- Politics and government -- 1901-1909
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 sentiment
inevitably springs. Finally, all persons should be excluded who are
below a certain standard of economic fitness to enter our industrial
field as competitors with American labor. There should be proper
proof of personal capacity to earn an American living and enough
money to ensure a decent start under American conditions. This would
stop the influx of cheap labor, and the resulting competition which
gives rise to so much of bitterness in American industrial life; and
it would dry up the springs of the pestilential social conditions in
our great cities, where anarchistic organizations have their greatest
possibility of growth.
Both the educational and economic tests in a wise immigration law
should be designed to protect and elevate the general body politic
and social. A very close supervision should be exercised over the
steamship companies which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they
should be held to a strict accountability for any infraction of the
law.
* * * * *
There is general acquiescence in our present tariff system as a
national policy. The first requisite to our prosperity is the
continuity and stability of this economic policy. Nothing could be
more unwise than to disturb the business interests of the country
by any general tariff change at this time. Doubt, apprehension,
uncertainty are exactly what we most wish to avoid in the interest of
our commercial and material well-being. Our experience in the past
has shown that sweeping revisions of the tariff are apt to produce
conditions closely approaching panic in the business world. Yet it
is not only possible, but eminently desirable, to combine with the
stability of our economic system a supplementary system of reciprocal
benefit and obligation with other nations. Such reciprocity is an
incident and result of the firm establishment and preservation of our
present economic policy. It was specially provided for in the present
tariff law.
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