Page:Mead - The Overthrow of the War System.pdf/119

 America is largely localized near ports of entry, suggests that fairness demands that means be provided whereby the burden of this question may be distributed over the United States. When our immigration laws are properly revised, no single State should receive an overload of aliens. These can be administered by a National Employment Bureau, acting as a distributing agency, which will determine each State's quota by stipulating annually in advance its maximum capacity for alien assimilation.

New immigration laws rather than new military defenses

Laws providing for federal control of aliens should be urged upon Congress by all loyal Americans. Discriminatory state-legislation and local mob-violence against aliens are the chief causes of our international misunderstandings. Foreign governments can have no relations with our separate States, yet hold the United States responsible for state violations of our treaties. Under our Constitution, no State can deal directly with another nation. All such powers are reserved to the federal government. All aliens are therefore wards, not of individual States, but of the United States. Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft urged