Journal of Political Economy Vol. 24 No. 5 1916
The Relation of the Literacy Test to a Constructive Immigration Problem
Abstract
An immigration bill which contains, first, a codification of existing immigration laws, second, provision for the literacy test, and third, certain other additions to our present statutes regulating immigration, was introduced in the House of Representatives on January 29, i9i6, by Congressman Burnett. On March 30 the bill, which is known as the Burnett Immigration bill, passed the House by a vote of 308 to 87. It is now pending before the Senate. This bill represents another attempt to enact into law practically the same measure which was vetoed in 19I3 after it had passed both houses of Congress. At that time it failed by a scant margin to muster the two-thirds vote in the Senate which would have made it a law in spite of the President's veto. In his veto of the bill of I913, President Wilson apparently regarded the literacy test as the overshadowing issue presented by the bill, and he based his objections to the entire measure chiefly upon his objections to the literacy test. Similarly, in the debates in Congress and in popular discussion throughout the country the other features of the proposed legislation of I913 attracted scarcely a passing comment. The present bill is considered in the same light. A literacy clause similar to that of I9I3, with the added provision that the literacy requirement shall not apply to aliens who are seeking admission to the United States to avoid religious persecution, is the storm center of the present Burnett bill. The problem of the further regulation of European immigration to this country has been a political question for at least twenty-five years, and throughout the greater part of that period it has been commonly discussed in connection with one single method of solution, the literacy test. Since the enactment of laws, in i882 and the decade following, barring aliens who were undesirable because of certain physical, mental, or moral defects, no important
- DOI
- 10.1086/252825
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 445-473
- Language
- en
- Sources
- semanticscholar openalex crossref