the restricted area, and indeed it was the objection of the Japanese Government to other proposed methods of excluding Asiatics that led to the adoption of the latitude and longitude plan. Earlier drafts of the Burnett bill, and in fact every general immigration bill that has been considered by Congress since about 1911, contained a clause excluding persons not eligible to become citizens of the United States through naturalization, unless such persons were already excluded by some kind of treaty or agreement. At one stage the Hindus also appeared as a separate excluded class because it was feared that they might not be debarred under the naturalization provision. The Japanese are not eligible to naturalization, that privilege being granted only to white persons and negroes, but the proposed law would not have applied to them as long as the gentlemen's agreement before referred to remained in force. The Japanese Government, however, made formal objection to the proposal, probably because of resentment at the discrimination against that race in the matter of naturalization, and so the geographical provision, which did not affect Japan, was substituted But it is very evident that Congress was unwilling to depend upon a simple friendly agreement as the sole protection against a possible resumption of unrestricted immigration from Japan, and accordingly the rathe ingenious proviso that "no alien now in any way ex cluded from or prevented from entering the Unite States" was added to the bill. The Japanese, o course, are now prevented from entering the Unite States by reason of the gentleman's agreement, and is apparent that the provision quoted would be an e fective barrier against immigration from that countr in the event that the agreement became of no effect. from the operation of the illiteracy test, to wit: All aliens who shall prove to the satisfaction of the proper immigration officer or to the Secretary of Labor that they are seeking admission to the United States to avoid religious persecution in the country of their last permanent residence, whether such persecution be evidenced by overt acts or by laws or governmental regulations that discriminate against the alien or the race to which he belongs because of his religious faith; all aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who have resided therein continuously for five years and who return to the United States within six months from the date of their departure therefrom; all aliens in transit through the United States; all aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory. The enactment above quoted needs little explanation. It will be observed that its purpose is to exclude from the United States all aliens over sixteen years of age who can not pass a simple reading test, but care has been taken to prevent the separation of families, at least so far as children, dependent women and elderly persons are concerned. A concession is made in favor of the admission to the country of aliens who are seeking asylum from religious persecution, and from the language of the law in that respect it is very clear that Russian and Roumanian Jews are the chief intended beneficiaries, altho, of course, there are some other peoples like the Christians of Turkey who might also seek to take advantage of the exception, Still another exception permits illiterate aliens who have resided in the United States continuously for five years to make temporary visits abroad without foregoing their right to return. Compared to the reading tests proposed in previous bills the provision as finally enacted into law is more stringent in some respects and more lenient in others. In earlier bills, for example, immigrants from Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, or Cuba were not required to meet the test, but there are no such exceptions in the new law. On the other hand the bill which President Taft vetoed made no provision for letting down the bars to persons fleeing from religious persecution, and the first bill presented to President Wilson required that aliens, claiming exemption from the reading test on that account, must prove conclusively that they came to this country solely to escape such persecution, but the corresponding provision in the present act, as already shown, is far more liberal in that respect. The recent overturn of the Russian monarchy, however, and the subsequent edict of the provisional government granting entire religious freedom in Russia has seemingly made the exception inoperative, so far as Jewish immigrants from that country are concerned, and accordingly the law in that particular regard became practically obsolete even before it went into effect. EFFECT ON IMMIGRATION In the present situation it is practically impossible to make anything like a satisfactory forecast of the probable effect of the reading test on the future tide of immigration. Indeed, such a forecast would have been extremely difficult even in normal times, and now that war has become an unknown, but certainly a most important factor in the problem, any reckoning concerning what may happen must of necessity be largely if not purely speculative. One great difficulty in this regard lies in the fact that the reading test is qualitative and fixes no numerical limit to immigration. It will no doubt keep out the utterly illiterate, but the test |