Some preferred to see the passage of the Smith-Burnett Immigration bill as one measure that would insure a higher standard for immigrants to meet in order to guarantee citizenship; while others tended to interpret the law as being too restrictive, believing that it was only intended to exclude from citizenship Italians and Eastern-European Jews. This article reported on a massive New York protest decrying the Smith-Burnett bill that was attended by a whole boat load of New York glitterati. A Rabbi in attendance remarked:
“this measure would exclude the real worker and admit the undesirable idler…”
Green Card holders are to this day still required to show fluency in the English language, although the swearing-in ceremony and their voting ballots are often in their native language.
Click here to read about the 1921 [anti-]Alien Land Bill in California.
In this article Vladimir Lenin speaks of his fondness for The New York Times.
