It is with unaffected regret that I find myself constrained by clear
conviction to return this bill (H.R. 6060, "An act to regulate the
immigration of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United
States") without my signature. Not only do I feel it to be a very
serious matter to exercise the power of veto in any case, because it
involves opposing the single judgment of the President to the judgment
of a majority of both the Houses of the Congress, a step which no man
who realizes his own liability to error can take without great
hesitation, but also because this particular bill is in so many
important respects admirable, well conceived, and desirable. Its
enactment into law would undoubtedly enhance the efficiency and improve
the methods of handling the important branch of the public service to
which it relates. But candor and a sense of duty with regard to the
responsibility so clearly imposed upon me by the Constitution in matters
of legislation leave me no choice but to dissent.
In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies a radical
departure from the traditional and long-established policy of this
country, a policy in which our people have conceived the very character
of their Government to be expressed, the very mission and spirit of the
Nation in respect of its relations to the peoples of the world outside
their borders. It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of asylum
which have always been open to those who could find nowhere else the
right and opportunity of constitutional agitation for what they
conceived to be the natural and inalienable rights of men; and it
excludes those to whom the opportunities of elementary education have
been denied, without regard to their character, their purposes, or their
natural capacity.
Restrictions like these, adopted earlier in our history as a Nation,
would very materially have altered the course and cooled the humane
ardors of our politics. The right of political asylum has brought to
this country many a man of noble character and elevated purpose who was
marked as an outlaw in his own less fortunate land, and who has yet
become an ornament to our citizenship and to our public councils. 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. Those who come seeking
opportunity are not to be admitted unless they have already had one of
the chief of the opportunities they seek, the opportunity of education.
The object of such provisions is restriction, not selection.
If the people of this country have made up their minds to limit the
number of immigrants by arbitrary tests and so reverse the policy of all
the generations of Americans that have gone before them, it is their
right to do so. I am their servant and have no license to stand in their
way. But I do not believe that they have. I respectfully submit that no
one can quote their mandate to that effect. Has any political party ever
avowed a policy of restriction in this fundamental matter, gone to the
country on it, and been commissioned to control its legislation? Does
this bill rest upon the conscious and universal assent and desire of the
American people? I doubt it. It is because I doubt it that I make bold
to dissent from it. I am willing to abide by the verdict, but not until
it has been rendered. Let the platforms of parties speak out upon this
policy and the people pronounce their wish. The matter is too
fundamental to be settled otherwise.
I have no pride of opinion in this question. I am not foolish enough to
profess to know the wishes and ideals of America better than the body of
her chosen representatives know them. I only want instruction direct
from those whose fortunes, with ours and all men's, are involved.