y, traditions, and ideals. Official
reports revealed that over twenty per cent of the men of the draft army
during the World War could not read a newspaper or write a letter home.
Perhaps most alarming of all was the discovery that thousands of alien
men are in the United States only on a temporary sojourn, solely to make
money and return home with their savings. These men, willing to work for
low wages and live in places unfit for human beings, have no stake in
this country and do not care what becomes of it.

=The Restriction of Immigration.=--In all this there was, strictly
speaking, no cause for surprise. Since the foundation of our republic
the policy of the government had been to encourage the coming of the
alien. For nearly one hundred years no restraining act was passed by
Congress, while two important laws positively encouraged it; namely, the
homestead act of 1862 and the contract immigration law of 1864. Not
until American workingmen came into open collision with cheap Chinese
labor on the Pacific Coast did the federal government spread the first
measure of limitation on the statute books. After the discovery of gold,
and particularly after the opening of the railway construction era, a
horde of laborers from China descended upon California. Accustomed to
starvation wages and indifferent to the conditions of living, they
threatened to cut the American standard to the point of subsistence. By
1876 the protest of American labor was loud and long and both the
Republicans and the Democrats gave heed to it. In 1882 Congress enacted
a law prohibiting the admission of Chinese laborers to the United States
for a term of ten years--later extended by legislation. In a little
while the demand arose for the exclusion of the Japanese as well. In
this case no exclusion law was passed; but an understanding was reached
by which Japan agreed not to issue passports to her laborers authorizing
them to come to the United States. By act of Congress in 1907 the
President was empowered to exclude any laborers who, having passports to
Canada, Hawaii, or Mexico, attempted to enter our country.

These laws and agreements, however, did not remove all grounds for the
agitation of the subject. They were difficult to enforce and it was
claimed by residents of the Coast that in spite of federal authority
Oriental laborers were finding their way into American ports. Moreover,
several Western states, anxious to preserve the soil for American