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A high restrictive tax should be placed upon all immigrants to the United States. Because

A. It is an appropriate remedy. For

I. The evil is an industrial one.

B. It would sift the immigrants.

C. It would abolish transients.

D. It would be just to the immigrant. For

I. If he is to share the benefits of government,
he should contribute to its cost.

E. It would greatly benefit American laborers. For
I. It would prevent competition of low-grade

labor.

Proposition: A high tax should not be levied on immigrants to the United States.

Because

A. A high tax would not exclude undesirable immigrants as does the present law. For

I. Those liable to become a public charge are now prohibited, but might be brought in under a tax law.

II. A tax law would not exclude felons or persons who have been convicted of other infamous crimes.

III. A tax law would not exclude contract laborers.

For

a. The contractor could easily advance

wages to pay the tax.

B. A high tax will exclude large numbers of desirable immigrants. For

I. The average immigrant has hardly $25 on

landing in America.

II. Refutation. The claim that the demand for labor in this country is already oversupplied, cannot stand. For

a. There is a constant demand for laborers in the coarser occupations, such as digging canals and repairing railroads.

b There is a dearth of house servants.

c.

This country can support ten times its present population.

d. Every laborer is a consumer as well as a

producer.

III. Refutation. The claim that the immigrant is a menace to our free institutions is not supported by the facts. For

a. The boss, the boodler, the tax-evader, the corruptionist, the monopolist, is usually a native American.

b. The states having the largest percentage of foreign-born voters are the most progressive states in the union.

C. The proposed tax has nothing to commend it as a

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test of the qualifications of good citizenship. For

I. The poor frequently become the most useful citizens.

II. A bill making the ability to read a test for the admission of immigrants was vetoed by the President on the grounds of its not being an adequate test, yet it has more to commend it than a tax on immigrants.

143. Assignments on Arguments for the Proposition.

A. What considerations probably led to the first discussion of the proposition, "Monday is better than Saturday for the weekly school holiday"?

B. Would a knowledge of how and when the question originated help to an understanding of these propositions?"Lord Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare"; "The Boer Republic ought to have been given its independence by England"; "The Panama interoceanic canal should be completed"; "The United States should hold the Philippine Islands permanently as colonies."

C. Find in the Merchant of Venice at least one argument in favor of one of the following propositions; also evidence against the others that conflict with it. Write the argument.

1. Shakespeare shared the prejudice of his age against the Jews. 2. Shakespeare meant by this play merely to show the terrible injustice which the Jews suffered in his day.

3. Shakespeare wanted his audience to understand that the worst features of the Jewish character were a natural retribution upon Christians for the centuries of wrong they had heaped upon the Jewish race.

4. The deepest lesson of the play is found in the moral insensibility of all the characters, including Portia, to the wrong done Shylock.

5. Shakespeare wanted his audience to sympathize with Shylock.

D. Find facts and circumstances counting for or against one of the following propositions and write the argument: —

1. Shakespeare intended to belittle Cæsar's character in order to exalt Brutus's.

2. In the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius the latter was right.

3. Mark Antony's speech was more effective than Brutus's.

4. Brutus was persuaded on insufficient evidence to join the conspiracy.

5. Brutus's motive in entering into the conspiracy was more commendable than that of Cassius.

E. What specific instances can you adduce in favor of the proposition that "Wealthy men are to-day sensible of their obligations to the public," or that "A student who excels in mathematics will excel in physics," or that "The inaccuracy of newspapers is excusable." Write on one of the foregoing propositions.

F. What question of fact or of theory is implied in the following?

1. Women should be given the right to vote because they will purify politics.

2. Women should not be given the right to vote because they do not want it.

3. Portia was merciful because she delivered that fine speech beginning," The quality of mercy is not strained."

4. Portia was not merciful because she showed no mercy for Shylock after his sentence had been pronounced.

G. Find three arguments in favor of one of the following propositions. Which one of the three do you regard as indispensable? Write the arguments, putting the strongest last.

1. Cooking and sewing should be taught in the public schools. 2. Examinations are a true test of scholarship.

3. The education of girls should be the same as the education of boys.

Tests of Arguments for Pertinence.

144. Of course no honest person ever uses anything as an argument without believing that it applies to the proposition to be proved. Yet the dangers of mistake in selecting facts, and especially in using them, making inferences from them, interpreting them so that they will count, are manifold. Hence it was necessary in

enumerating the different things that may count as arguments to make this important qualification: The facts, circumstances, specific instances, appeals to experience or to authorities, precedents, principles, maxims, and theories, must be pertinent to the conclusion that one is trying to establish; that is, to the proposition.

How easy it is to make wrong inferences every one can illustrate in his own experience. In the second paragraph of the following, Howells warns his readers. against the equally common danger of making too broad an inference.

When I see five or six boys now lying under a tree on the grass, and they fall silent as I pass them, I have no right to say that they are not arranging to go and carry some poor widow's winter wood into her shed and pile it neatly up for her, and wish to keep it a secret from everybody; but forty years ago I should have had good reason for thinking that they were debating how to tie a piece of her clothesline along the ground so that when her orphan boy came out for an armload of wood after dark, he would trip on it and send his wood flying all over the yard.

This would not be a sign that they were morally any worse than the boys who read Harper's Young People, and who would every one die rather than do such a cruel thing, but that they had not really thought much about it.

-HOWELLS: A Boy's Town, p: 207.

The bridge was close by the market-house, but for some reason or no reason the children never played in that bridge. Perhaps the tollhouse man would not let them; my boy stood in dread of the tollhouse man; he seemed to have such a severe way of taking the money from the teamsters. HOWELLS: A Boy's Town, p. 58.

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