protection of his country's best interests. It is more annoying to
realize that the successful evaders are for the most part foreigners,
and those, too, of commonly despised races. The conclusion is plain:
Seek the grounds on which to deny passage to undesirable emigrants who
wish to come to the United States, in the villages from which they
emanate. In the communes of their nativity the truth is known and cannot
be hidden.--_Broughton Brandenburg._

The mesh of the law needs to be stiffened rather than relaxed. The
benefit of the doubt belongs to the United States rather than to the
alien who clamors for admittance.--_Commissioner-General Sargent._

Distribution, rather than wholesale restriction, is being more and more
recognized as the real way out of the difficulties presented by our
immense unassimilated immigration.--_Gino C. Speranza._

The need is to devise some system by which undesirable immigrants shall
be kept out entirely, while desirable immigrants are properly
distributed throughout the country.--_President Roosevelt._

III

PROBLEMS OF LEGISLATION AND DISTRIBUTION

_I. The Present Situation_

[Sidenote: Difficulties in the Way]

There is a growing conviction that something ought to be done to check
the present enormous inflow of immigrants. But when it comes to what
that something is, difficulties at once arise. There are so many
foreigners already in America, and so many children of foreign-born
parents, that it is impossible to touch the stream at any point without
protest from some source. As some one says, "You do not have to go very
far back in the family line of any of us to find an immigrant. Scratch
an American and you find a foreigner." And not a few of these foreigners
sympathize with the Irishman who said to a lady against whom he had a
grievance because she insisted on having a Chinese servant, "We have a
right here that those who are here by the mere accident of birth have
not." On the other hand, it was a foreigner of wide vision who said: "I
do not believe there is any peculiar virtue in American birth, or that
Americans are (_per se_) superior to all other nations; but I do believe
that they are better fitted than all others to govern their own
country. They made the country what it is, and ought to have the first
voice in determining what it is to be. In this alone consists their
superiority."[31]

[Sidenote: The Immigration Conference of 1905]

It is significant and