" This purpose will
be steadily pursued, both by the enforcement of the laws now in
existence and the recommendation and support of such new statutes
as may be necessary to carry it into effect.
Our naturalization and immigration laws should be further improved
to the constant promotion of a safer, a better, and a higher
citizenship. A grave peril to the Republic would be a citizenship
too ignorant to understand or too vicious to appreciate the great
value and beneficence of our institutions and laws, and against
all who come here to make war upon them our gates must be promptly
and tightly closed. Nor must we be unmindful of the need of
improvement among our own citizens, but with the zeal of our
forefathers encourage the spread of knowledge and free education.
Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain that
high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the
world which, under Providence, we ought to achieve.
Reforms in the civil service must go on; but the changes should be
real and genuine, not perfunctory, or prompted by a zeal in behalf
of any party simply because it happens to be in power. As a member
of Congress I voted and spoke in favor of the present law, and I
shall attempt its enforcement in the spirit in which it was
enacted.
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