of March. This law, which was based upon a careful preliminary
inquiry, may be called the first comprehensive American immigration
statute. It perfected the administrative machinery, raised the head
tax, and multiplied the vigilance of the Government against evasions
by the excluded classes. Anarchists and prostitutes were added to the
list of excluded persons. The literacy test was inserted by the House
but was rejected by the Senate.

This law, however, did not allay the demand for a more stringent
restriction of immigration. A few persons believed in stopping
immigration entirely for a period of years. Others would limit the
number of immigrants that should be permitted to enter every year. But
it was felt throughout the country that such arbitrary checks would be
merely quantitative, not qualitative, and that undesirable foreigners
should be denied admission, no matter what country they hailed from. A
notable immigration conference which was called by the National Civic
Federation in December, 1905, and which represented all manner of
public bodies, recommended the "exclusion of persons of enfeebled
vitality" and proposed "a preliminary inspection of intending
immigrants before they embark." President Roosevelt laid the whole
matter before Congress in several vigorous messages in 1906 and 1907.
He pointed to the fact that

In the year ending June 30, 1905, there came to the United
States 1,026,000 alien immigrants. In other words, in the
single year ... there came ... a greater number of people
than came here during the one hundred and sixty-nine years of
our colonial life. ... It is clearly shown in the report of
the Commissioner General of Immigration that, while much of
this enormous immigration is undoubtedly healthy and natural