The central committee of the Polish National Alliance selected the following members to present to the President of the United States, William Howard Taft, a petition asking the President to veto the Dillingham-Burnett anti-immigration bill: K. Zychlinski, president of the Polish National Alliance; L. Mallek, director from Chicago; and Dr. Drobinski, director from Brooklyn, New York. Besides the delegation from the Polish National Alliance the following delegates were sent from other Polish organizations: N. Piotrowski, representing the Polish Roman Catholic Union; the Reverend Mr. Gordon, of Macierz Polska (Polish Alma Mater); W. Wilusz, of Glos Narodu (People's Voice), Jersey City, and W. Rylski, representing the Polish Falcons' Alliance, Pittsburg. Two spokesmen were selected, Dr. Drobinski and N. Piotrowski. Our representative, Dr. Drobinski, as official spokesman of our delegation, spoke as follows:

"Mr. President: It has fallen to my humble lot, in association with my colleague, to present to your Excellency some of the objections which the Polish citizens of the United States take to the Dillingham-Burnett bill. It seems a waste of time to mention the self-evident fact that this measure is unjust and un-American and ought not to be introduced into the legislature of any cultivated people. Permit me, therefore, to call your kind attention to the fact that any illiteracy which exists among the Polish people cannot be charged to them; it is due to the action of their oppressors, who deny them the opportunity of becoming literate. Inability to read, where the opportunity to learn has been denied, does not prove stupidity. It is, on the contrary, often compatible with a high degree of intelligence. Besides, illiteracy among the Poles rapidly disappears in the second generation. I myself am the native-born son of an immigrant. I have two brothers and two sisters, who have received the same opportunities as I; yet my father was a poor, hard-working immigrant. Do you gentlemen think that the United States has suffered any detriment by his coming here? I venture to say that it has not. This poor, hard-working immigrant proved to be of marked benefit to the United States, and it is people of 3this sort whom you would exclude from this country.

"Mr. President, what is most obnoxious to Poles in this bill is the fact that it is a piece of legislation directed especially against Poles, Italians, Greeks, and Syrians. In proof of this permit me to quote an extract from the majority report of the immigration committee of the House of Representatives of the Sixty-second United States Congress. After describing the terrible condition which immigration is supposed to have brought about in this country, the report reads:

'What relief will this measure give from this alarming condition? It will exclude 34 per cent of the Poles, 54 per cent of the Italians, 29 per cent of the Greeks, 54 per cent of the Syrians, and other immigrants of undesirable type.'

"Mr. President, may I ask these gentlemen since when have the Poles become undesirable? They were desirable in Colonial times, when Kosciuszko fought beside 4Washington, and Pulaski sacrificed his life for America's independence at Savannah. They were desirable then, but they are undesirable now.

Your Excellency, we do not question the right of the United States to declare who shall be admitted, and who shall not be admitted into this country. But we do question the moral right of freemen to deny asylum to lovers of freedom; we do question the moral right of the legislature of the United States to deny admission into this country to the descendants of those who gave their lives for the independence of America. Mr. President, I venture to state that the passage of this measure will be a triumph of Know-nothingism. I will not comment upon Know-nothingism; rather permit me to quote that peerless American, Abraham Lincoln, who dealt to Know-nothingism a hard blow when on August 24, 1855, he spoke as follows:

'I am not a Know-nothing; that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of the Negro be in favor of degrading masses of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a 5nation we began by declaring that "all men are created equal except Negroes". When the Know-nothings acquire control, the declaration will be that "all men are created equal except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics". When it comes to that, I should prefer to emigrate to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty,--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.'"

The bill was vetoed by the President.