Grover Cleveland: “This anomalous feature of the act should be reformed as speedily as possible...”

The time is quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens.

This requirement proceeds upon the assumption that the foreign relatives coming here are in every case, by reason of poverty, liable to become a public charge unless the immigrant is capable of their support.

I have not thought it compatible with the public interest that the correspondence referred to in the resolution should be communicated pending the public and exhaustive investigation about to be instituted.

When we consider these provisions of the bill in connection with our long northern frontier and the boundaries of our States and Territories, often but an imaginary line separating them from the British dominions, and recall the friendly…