challenge our best powers and invite us to build what will
last, the tasks to which we can address ourselves now and at all times
with free-hearted zest and with all the finest gifts of constructive
wisdom we possess. To develop our life and our resources; to supply our
own people, and the people of the world as their need arises, from the
abundant plenty of our fields and our marts of trade; to enrich the
commerce of our own States and of the world with the products of our
mines, our farms, and our factories, with the creations of our thought
and the fruits of our character,--this is what will hold our attention
and our enthusiasm steadily, now and in the years to come, as we strive
to show in our life as a nation what liberty and the inspirations of an
emancipated spirit may do for men and for societies, for individuals,
for states, and for mankind.

A MESSAGE

[Returning to the House of Representatives without approval an act to
regulate the immigration of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the
United States.]

TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

It is with unaffected regret that I find myself constrained by clear
conviction to return this bill (H.R. 6060, "An act to regulate the
immigration of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United
States") without my signature. Not only do I feel it to be a very
serious matter to exercise the power of veto in any case, because it
involves opposing the single judgment of the President to the judgment
of a majority of both the Houses of the Congress, a step which no man
who realizes his own liability to error can take without great
hesitation, but also because this particular bill is in so many
important respects admirable, well conceived, and desirable. Its
enactment into law would undoubtedly enhance the efficiency and improve
the methods of handling the important branch of the public service to
which it relates. But candor and a sense of duty with regard to the
responsibility so clearly imposed upon me by the Constitution in matters
of legislation leave me no choice but to dissent.

In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies a radical
departure from the traditional and long-established policy of this
country, a policy in which our people have conceived the very character
of their Government to be expressed, the very mission and spirit of the
Nation in respect of its relations to the peoples of the world outside
their borders. It seeks