ecovered from
the disorder of the eyes, which turned out not to be contagious,
but only caused by the glare of the water, or the hardships
of the voyage. The children are fair-haired, with blue eyes,
and of great personal beauty, and would be exhibited with
pride by any American mother.

When the President came to Worcester he expressed a desire
to see the children. They came to meet him at my house, dressed
up in their best and glorious to behold. The President was
very much interested in them, and said when what he had done
was repeated in his presence, that he was just beginning to
get angry.

The result of this incident was that I had a good many similar
applications for relief in behalf of immigrants coming in
with contagious diseases. Some of them were meritorious,
and others untrustworthy. In the December session of 1902
I procured the following amendment to be inserted in the immigration
law.

"Whenever an alien shall have taken up his permanent residence
in this country and shall have filed his preliminary declaration
to become a citizen and thereafter shall send for his wife
or minor children to join him, if said wife or either of said
children shall be found to be affected with any contagious
disorder, and it seems that said disorder was contracted on
board the ship in which they came, such wife or children shall
be held under such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury
shall prescribe until it shall be determined whether the disorder
will be easily curable or whether they can be permitted to
land without danger to other persons; and they shall not be
deported until such facts have been ascertained."

CHAPTER XXXII
NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

I have, since I have been in the Senate, taken great interest
in the passage of a bill for a system of National Bankruptcy.
The Constitution gives Congress power to establish a uniform
system of Bankruptcy. The people of Massachusetts, a commercial
and manufacturing State from the beginning, have always desired
a Bankrupt law. They were large dealers with other States
and with other countries. Insolvent debtors in Massachusetts
could not get discharge from their debts contracted in such
dealings. The Massachusetts creditors having debts against
insolvents in other States found that their debtors under
the laws of those States either got preferences or made fraudulent
assignments which they could not detect or prevent.

On the other hand, the bankru