You are ready to believe, by
this time, that America is at least a spacious country, with room enough
in it for all who want to come. At the same time you will admit, as you
recall some of your fellow-passengers in the steerage, that there should
not be room in the country for those who ought not to come--not only the
diseased and insane, crippled and consumptive, who are shut out by the
law, but also the delinquent and depraved, whose presence means added
ignorance and crime. You only wish the inspectors could have seen some
of those shameless men on shipboard, so that in spite of their smooth
answers they might have been sent back whence they came, to prey upon
the innocent there instead of here. Now that it is all over, you
shudder for a long time at night as memory recalls the steerage scenes,
through which your faith in God and your constant prayers preserved
you.[18]
[Sidenote: The Alien's Chance]
In such manner the alien gains his chance to become an American. What he
will make of that chance is a matter of grave importance to the land
that has opened to him the doors of opportunity and liberty. Having seen
how the immigrants get into the United States, let us now see how they
are kept out.
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