1901 Theodore Roosevelt - Comprehensive Immigration Laws

Following the assassination of William McKinley by an anarchist, Theodore Roosevelt led a charge to unequivocally denounce anarchists and exclude absolutely all who are known to be believers in anarchist principles. In Roosevelt's address to congress in 1901, he expressed that "we need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a stout heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding and God-fearing members of the community. But there should be a comprehensive law enacted "

Roosevelt outlined 3 goals of a new immigration law in his 1901 State of the Union address.

1. Absolutely no anarchists, or persons with "low moral tendency". Every person at our immigration ports should be put thorough a rigorous inspection an examination.
2. Only those with a good education should be allowed in. Immigrants must take a "perfunctory educational test" and demonstrate the "capacity to appreciate American Institutions".
3. No "cheap labor". Immigrants must provide proper "proof of personal capacity to earn an American living and enough money to insure a decent start under American conditions".

Here are the words of Theodore Roosevelt.

"Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a strong body, a stout heart, a good head, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way and to bring up his children as law-abiding and God-fearing members of the community. But there should be a comprehensive law enacted with the object of working a threefold improvement over our present system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely not only all persons who are known to be believers in anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic societies, but also all persons who are of a low moral tendency or of unsavory reputation.

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 insure 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"

In 1903, after 14 months of debate, congress passed a new immigration bill. This new bill expanded the excludable classes of immigrants to include anarchists, prostitutes, epileptics and those who had been insane.

References

Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2018). Theodore Roosevelt: First Annual Message. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29542 [Accessed 2 Feb. 2018].

Law.jrank.org. (2018). Leon Czolgosz Trial: 1901 - Czolgosz's Trial Is Swift. [online] Available at: http://law.jrank.org/pages/2729/Leon-Czolgosz-Trial-1901-Czolgosz-s-Trial-Swift.html [Accessed 2 Feb. 2018].

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