reign to be
punishable, or to entail consequences indistinguishable from banishment.
Turkey, for instance, only tacitly assents to the expatriation of
Ottoman subjects, so long as they remain outside Turkish jurisdiction.
Should they return thereto their acquired alienship is ignored. Should
they seek to cure the matter by asking permission to be naturalized
abroad, consent is coupled with the condition of non-return to Turkey.
It is the object of a naturalization convention to remedy this feature
by placing the naturalized alien on a parity with the natural-born
citizen and according him due recognition as such. This consideration
gives us added satisfaction that negotiations on the subject have been
auspiciously inaugurated with Roumania. If I have mentioned this aspect
of the matter, it is in order that the two Governments may be in accord
as to the bases of their agreement in this regard; for it is
indispensable that the essential purpose of the proposed convention
should not be impaired or perverted by any coupled condition of
banishment imposed independently by the act of either contracting party.

The United States welcomes now, as it has welcomed from the foundation
of its government, the voluntary immigration of all aliens coming hither
under conditions fitting them to become merged in the body-politic of
this land. Our laws provide the means for them to become incorporated
indistinguishably in the mass of citizens, and prescribe their absolute
equality with the native born, guaranteeing to them equal civil rights
at home and equal protection abroad. The conditions are few, looking to
their coming as free agents, so circumstanced physically and morally as
to supply the healthful and intelligent material of free citizenhood.
The pauper, the criminal, the contagiously or incurably diseased, are
excluded from the benefits of immigration only when they are likely to
become a source of danger or a burden upon the community. The voluntary
character of their coming is essential,--hence we shut out all
immigration assisted or constrained by foreign agencies. The purpose of
our generous treatment of the alien immigrant is to benefit us and him
alike,--not to afford to another State a field upon which to cast its
own objectionable elements. A convention of naturalization may not be
construed as an instrument to facilitate any such process. The alien,
coming hither voluntarily and prepared to take upon himself the
prepara