3. The exclusion of unskilled laborers unaccompanied by wives or
families.
4. Material increase in the amount of money required to be in the
possession of the immigrant at the port of arrival.
5. Material increase in the head tax.
6. Limitation of the number of immigrants arriving annually at any port.
7. The levying of the head tax so as to make a marked discrimination in
favor of men with families.
Eugenically, it is probable that (3) and (7), which would tend to admit
only families, would be a detriment to American welfare; (1) and (2)
have been the suggestions which have met with the most favor. All but
one member of the commission favored (1), the literacy test, as the most
feasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration, and it
was enacted into law by Congress, which passed it over President
Wilson's veto, in February, 1917.
Records for 1914 show that "illiteracy among the total number of
arrivals of each race ranged all the way from 64% for the Turkish to
less than 1% for the English, the Scotch, the Welsh, the Scandinavian,
and the Finnish. The Bohemian and Moravian, the German, and the Irish
each had less than 5% illiterate. Races other than the Turkish, whose
immigration in 1914 was more than one-third illiterate, include the
Dalmatians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Russians, Ruthenians, Italians,
Lithuanians, and Roumanians.
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