While staying at Chief Rickard's house on the Tuscarora Reservation (in New York state) Deskaheh fell ill and sent for his traditional medicine man from the Six Nations Reserve in Canada. But the medicine man was not allowed across the border. The U.S. had just passed the Immigration Law of 1924, which denied entry to anyone who did not speak English ...
Although the measure was directed against Asians, covertly it allowed for the barring of North American Indians & thus the traditionally raised medicine man, who did not pass the English test since he only spoke his own language. He didn't make it to Deskaheh, who eventually who died in Chief Rickard's house.
On his deathbed in June 1925, Deskaheh told Rickard to "Fight for the line". Later that summer during the Six Nations Chiefs Council National Picnic the chosen successors to Deskaheh's work were: Chauncey Garlow (Mohawk) Alexander J. General (Cayuga) Robert Henhawk (Onondaga) & Clinton Rickard (Tuscarora) & so he devoted his life to defending the right of free passage for Aboriginal people.

"The Nationality Act, passed by Congress in 1940, not only conferred citizenship on American Indians (even though they had be granted citizenship in 1924), but required that Indian men register for the draft. Passage of the Act was opposed by the Indian Defense League of America. Tuscarora leader Clinton Rickard urged those who wished to volunteer for the armed services do so as alien non-residents."