or “educational” test has been before Congress at different times and has, on three different occasions, falied to become a law. President Cleveland vetoed it in 1897, Taft in 1913, and Wilson in 1915. All three Presidents objected to this bill principally on the ground that it was such “a radical departure” from all previous national policy in regard to immigration. President Wilson’s veto of 1917 was overcome and the bill became a law by a two-thirds majority vote of both houses. This law requires that entering aliens must be able to read the English language or some other language or dialect. The one thing which the literacy test was designed to accomplish—to decrease the volume of immigration—was brought about suddenly and unexpectedly by the European War. From the opening of the war, the number of immigrants steadily decreased until, for the year ending June 30, 1916, it was only 298,826[1] and for the year ending June 30, 1917, only 110,618.[2] Then it began again to increase steadily until for the year ending June 30, 1920, it reached a total of 430,001.[3]
On June 3, 1921, an emergency measure known as the three per cent, law was passed. This act provided that the number of aliens of any nationality who could be admitted to the United States in any one year should be limited to three per cent, of the number of foreign-born persons of such nationality resident in the United States as determined by the census of 1910. Certain ones were not counted, such as foreign government officials and their families and employees, aliens in transit through the United States, tourists, aliens from countries having immigration treaties with the United States, aliens who
