Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents | Page 9

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.
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.
Reciprocity must be treated as the handmaiden of protection. Our first
duty is to see that the protection granted by the tariff in every case
where it is needed is maintained, and that reciprocity be sought for so
far as it can safely be done without injury to our home industries. Just
how far this is must be determined according to the individual case,
remembering always that every application of our tariff policy to meet
our shifting national needs must be conditioned upon the cardinal fact
that the duties must never be reduced below the point that will cover
the difference between the labor cost here and abroad. The well-being
of the wage-worker is a prime consideration of our entire policy of
economic legislation.
Subject to this proviso of the proper protection necessary to our
industrial well-being at home, the principle of reciprocity must
command our hearty support. The phenomenal growth of our export
trade emphasizes the urgency of the need for wider markets and for a
liberal policy in dealing with foreign nations. Whatever is merely petty
and vexatious in the way of trade restrictions should be avoided. The
customers to whom we dispose of our surplus products in the long run,
directly or indirectly, purchase those surplus products by giving us
something in return. Their ability to purchase our products should as far
as possible be secured by so arranging our tariff as to enable us to take
from them those products which we can use without harm to our own
industries and labor, or the use of which will be of marked benefit to
us.
It is most important that we should maintain the high level of our
present prosperity. We have now reached the point in the development
of our interests where we are not only able to supply our own markets
but to produce a constantly growing surplus for which we must find
markets abroad. To secure these markets we can utilize existing duties
in any case where they are no longer needed for the purpose of

protection, or in any case where the article is not produced here and the
duty is no longer necessary for revenue, as giving us something to offer
in exchange for what we ask. The cordial relations with other nations
which are so desirable will naturally be promoted by the course thus
required by our own interests.
The natural line of development for a policy