Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
In dealing with this question it is unwise to depart from the old
American tradition and to discriminate for or against any man who
desires to come here and become a citizen, save on the ground of that
man's fitness for citizenship. It is our right and duty to consider his
moral and social quality. His standard of living should be such that he
will not, by pressure of competition, lower the standard of living of
our own wage-workers; for it must ever be a prime object of our
legislation to keep high their standard of living. If the man who seeks
to come here is from the moral and social standpoint of such a
character as to bid fair to add value to the community he should be
heartily welcomed. We cannot afford to pay heed to whether he is of one
creed or another, of one nation, or another. We cannot afford to
consider whether he is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Gentile; whether
he is Englishman or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian,
Scandinavian, Slav, or Magyar. What we should desire to find out is the
individual quality of the individual man. In my judgment, with this end
in view, we shall have to prepare through our own agents a far more
rigid inspection in the countries from which the immigrants come. It
will be a great deal better to have fewer immigrants, but all of the
right kind, than a great number of immigrants, many of whom are
necessarily of the wrong kind. As far as possible we wish to limit the
immigration to this country to persons who propose to become citizens
of this country, and we can well afford to insist upon adequate
scrutiny of the character of those who are thus proposed for future
citizenship. There should be an increase in the stringency of the laws
to keep out insane, idiotic, epileptic, and pauper immigrants. But this
is by no means enough. Not merely the Anarchist, but every man of
Anarchistic tendencies, all violent and disorderly people, all people
of bad character, the incompetent, the lazy, the vicious, the
physically unfit, defective, or degenerate should be kept out. The
stocks out of which American citizenship is to be built should be
strong and healthy, sound in body, mind, and character. If it be
objected that the Government agents would not always select well, the
answer is that they would certainly select better than do the agents
and brokers of foreign steamship companies, the people who now do
whatever selection is done.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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