The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-28
TO RESTRICT IMMIGRATION
HOUSE BY 4 CLOSE TOTE ADOPTS
 THE CONFERENCE BILL.

Wide Divergence of Views on the Sub
 Generally Republicans Favored the Measure-An of Connectiout's Represent tstives Voted for the Bill.
 Washington, D. C., Jan. 27.-In ac- cordance with the notice given on Mon day, Mr Danford, rep, of Ohio, in the house to-day called up the conference report on the immigration bill. An agreement was reached by which the debate on the report should run until 4;15, when the vote should be taken.
 MT. Danford took the floor and made the opening argument in support of the report As 1t passed the house, he said, the bill applied the educational test only to males. This test was now eX- tended to females, It was this eXten- sion of the educational test, he said, which caused the principal antagonism to the adoption of the conference re- port, on the ground that it would sepa- rate families. Husbands might be ad- missible and wives excluded, or vice versa. If the bill became law, he derstood abroad by prospective immi- grants, and very few families would apply at our shores for admission who were not eligible If any did, the steamship companies were obliged to return them.
 He drew graphic picture of the over in the great centers of population, the great numbers out of work and the constant necessity of re- lieving them from want and starva- tion. He drew attention to the Corliss vent the birds of passage" from cross- ing the Canadian border each year in the spring and returning again in the fall. They took advantage of the high wages paid in the United States They paid no taxes and contributed nothing to the common veal He thought that this bill was less drastic than the one which passed the last house.
 In conclusion he said this bill did not go as far as he would like to go, be- cause he believed that the present un-
 
 stltuted the greatest danger to the re- public.
 MT. Barthold. rep, of Maine, who had charge of the opposition to the conference report, followed in favor of the rejection of the report and instruc- tions to the conferees to insist upon certain notifications of the bill As one or the conferees, he said, he had refused to sign the report because it would separate husband and wife, parent and child, and, further, it could not only exclude illiterates, but all those who could not read and write the language of their native or resident land' Reason, and not prejudice and passion, he trusted, would prevail in the consideration of this subject.
 These drastic provisions, MT. Bar thold said, were not contained in eith- CT the house or senate bill and their appearance vindicated his expressed fear some weeks ago that if the bill went to the conference it would return in shape which could not be justified to the constituents of many represen- tatives and would offend the sense of JoSeiIS o'iio VI llShL III CtlG COuItIy. u6 bill, he asserted, would defeat the pur- pose nominally urged by its advocates, of establishing an educational test. It would shut out, for instance, class of Germans who had for three hundred years made their homes in Russia, the language of which they did not speak, also, many residents in Alsace- Lor- raine, who had not yet acquired the German language.
 Many members interrogated Mr.Bar- thold with a view to demonstrate that the language of the bill would not work such disadvantage as he irnag ined, to all of whom he said his object was to perfect the measure so as not to expose desirable immigrants to the jeopardy involved in the present form of the bill. Several suggestions were made as to the best manner in which to secure this end, but friends of the bill found none of them acceptable
 Referring to the statement that the bill was intended to reach especially the Russian Jews MT. Barthold said
 If in this dawn of the twentieth century my constituents should ask me to joint in further persecution of them I would lay down my duties here, re- turn to my sanctum and write edito- TTN