Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 147, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1917 — ALL MUST BE ABLE TO READ [ARTICLE]

ALL MUST BE ABLE TO READ

Exemption* in New Immigration Law in Favor of Russian Jews Nullified by Revolution. The new Immigration law assumes a new ’interest in view of the changed conditions In Russia. This law excluded all alien Immigrants more than sixteen years of age who cannot read some language. But it exempts certain classes —exceptions that are inserted mainly in the interest of Russian Jews. Any immigrant who can show that he comes to the United States to escape religious and -economic persecution is admissible whether he can read or not. This is the motive that has impelled practically all the Russian Jewish Immigration of the last 30 years, says World’s Work. Thus the new Immigration law, had conditions remained intact. would have excluded practically no immigrants such as congregate In large numbers on the East side of New York. With the removal of all religious and economic disabilities in Russia as a result of the Russian revolution, this claim can no longer be made, and Russian Jews will now have to be able to read, like all other immigrants.