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were seeking girls for work as servants in these houses-that is, they went to the home, at a time when the young woman investigator first mentioned was living in the home, and applied for a girl for work as a servant in a house which they described as a "fast house 99 or sporting house" which was "well protected by the police" and "had never been raided," and where, if the girl did as she was told, and was not "nosey," she would be given opportunities of “earning money on the side." Two were engaged in investigating the addresses of immigrant girls for whom the home had found employment. None of these ten investigators stayed overnight in any of the homes. One of the investigators was a student in a school of philanthropy, one was a professional musician, one was an actress, two were settlement workers, and the others were young women who had had experience in investigation work. Besides these young women investigators, there were, at various times, seven men engaged in the work of investigation. The men were variously employed to live in the homes as immigrant laborers out of employment, to investigate the addresses of immigrant girls placed in employment by homes and aid societies, and to ascertain the position of the managers of some of the homes and employment agencies with respect to the contract-labor law by negotiating with them for laborers who were to be imported from Europe.

The data obtained for each immigrant home or aid society always represented the information gathered by several, often half a dozen, investigators. Each investigator made a separate report of the work which he or she had done in the investigation of the particular home or society, and the agent in charge of the investigation then checked these reports, one with another, and combined them in one general report covering that institution. In most instances the investigators swore to the truth of their reports before notaries public, this being done in practically all cases where the investigation brought out unusual or seemingly incredible facts. The majority of the reports regarding the addresses of immigrant girls placed in employment by homes and aid societies were checked by having a second investigator, who knew nothing of the reports of the first investigator, go to the same addresses. The reports of the two investigations of an address were then checked by the agent in charge of the investigation.

After this investigation was completed, the information obtained in the course of the investigation which showed exploitation and maltreatment of immigrants by institutions was placed in the hands of the immigration authorities at the ports where the particular organizations conducted their operations. As a result, the evils in many cases have been corrected. Commissioner William Williams, whose administration at Ellis Island began after the close of this investigation, acknowledged the assistance rendered him by the Commission in the following letter addressed to the Commission under date of December 14, 1909:

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to you for the assistance derived from reports of investigations made by one of your committees prior to the time when I assumed office concerning the condition of immigrant mission houses represented at Ellis Island. During my first administration (1902 to 1905) I had occasion publicly to arraign and to suspend the privileges of several of these institutions for exploiting and maltreating immigrants, and

upon my return to Ellis Island last summer I soon discovered that a number of them were again engaged in similar practices. From ten to twelve large mission houses have been allowed representation at Ellis Island, for the purpose of assisting certain immigrants in getting into quick touch with friends or relatives whose addresses they may have lost or securing profitable employment. Obviously these institutions are worse than useless unless conducted upon a high plane of efficiency and morality. On the other hand, your investigations disclosed the existence of shocking conditions at some of these places. Through the courtesy of Congressman Bennet, one of your members, a copy of your proposed report on these investigations was loaned to me in confidence to enable me the more readily to take appropriate action against such houses as were tolerating abuses. As already stated, the assistance which you thus afforded me was very great.

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I selected for early personal investigation those institutions in which conditions appeared to be the worst. The names of the agents employed by you having been given to me by Messrs. Bennet and Jenks, I sent for them, subjected them to severe cross-examination, and thereafter confronted them with several of the missionary agents against whom they had made accusations. On the records thus obtained, supplemented by independent investigations, I proceeded last August to suspend four of these institutions from their privileges of representation at Ellis Island.

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I should have been glad to complete my investigation of all of these houses last summer, but have been obliged to carry on this work with due regard to a mass of other work which is not less important. I am now looking into the conditions surrounding two of the other houses. In the cases of two others I was unable to secure evidence sufficient to warrant actual expulsion and the necessary correctives have been applied without resort to the drastic action taken in the four cases first mentioned. Back of many of these immigrant mission houses stand earnest, honorable people. This I believe to be true of the and homes. Their real supporters had been betrayed by their agents and had also failed in their duty of supervising these agents, leaving it to the Government to ascertain the real facts. All of this was very reprehensible, but constituted no reason for permanently barring the institutions in question after complete reorganization had been effected. This has actually occurred in three of the cases named, and with new agents in charge, the and societies have now been restored to the privilege of representation at Ellis Island.

MISSIONARIES AND REPRESENTATIVES.

The privilege of maintaining missionaries and representatives at immigrant stations, granted to philanthropic organizations which carry on the work of assisting newly arrived immigrants, has been dealt with in the first chapter of this report. The present chapter contains a brief survey of the work of these missionaries and representatives.

Missionaries and representatives assist arriving immigrants in various ways. They write letters for them and help them to get into communication with their friends and relatives in this country; trace lost baggage; give religious consolation; escort immigrants to their destinations in the city without charge except for car fares or other necessary expenses; take the names and addresses of immigrants of specific races or religions who are going to points outside of the city and forward these lists to organizations of the same race or religion at the points of destination; distribute clothing, Bibles, gospels, tracts, and other literature; sell Bibles and gospels (in 1907 the amount of these sales at one immigrant station was $1,013.97); investigate the cases of detained and excluded immigrants and the causes of such detention or exclusion; appear before the boards of special inquiry in behalf of detained immigrants and give evidence secured from conversations with the immigrants or from other

sources; reopen the cases of excluded immigrants by appealing from the decisions of the station authorities to the Department of Commerce and Labor; secure bonds for excluded immigrants; and have discharged in their care immigrants whose friends or relatives have failed to meet them on arrival, whose friends and relatives are unable to satisfy the immigration authorities that they are proper persons to receive and care for the immigrants who are waiting for money to be forwarded in order that they may continue their journey, or who are awaiting the recovery of a sick member of the family in the station hospital.

At one immigrant station the many missionaries and representatives who go there every day are provided with office headquarters in a room set aside for that purpose. A few representatives at this station have office room in the rear of one of the discharging divisions. At the other stations missionaries and representatives are present only upon the arrival of steamships, or when they visit the detention rooms for the purpose of assisting immigrants detained there.

Far too often the chief concern of missionaries and representatives seems to be to have immigrants discharged in their care. Some of the homes and aid societies seem to proceed on the theory that they are achieving results only when their missionaries and representatives are having immigrants discharged to them by hundreds. This view is evidently shared by an experienced discharging inspector at one of the immigrant stations, for this inspector stated that one society, which had a home, did the best work at his station because its representative took the most immigrants to the home. A certain institution became convinced that immigrants who, it thought, should be sent to its home, were being discharged to the representative of another home. Thereupon the president of the institution wrote to the immigration authorities pointing out which immigrants should be discharged to the institution's representatives, and declaring that an immigrant home could not exist without receiving immigrants from the immigrant station. In one instance the relatives of certain immigrants complained to agents of the Commission that the girls had been hurried off to immigrant homes before their relatives had time to go to the station for them, and that the relatives were then put to considerable expense of time and money in securing the girls.

Some of the missionaries and representatives are little more than "runners," whose business it is to secure a sufficient number of immigrants to fill their respective homes. It was the testimony of some of the leading officials at Ellis Island that the majority of missionaries and representatives there care only to secure the discharge of immigrants who have money and can pay for food and lodging. An inspector at the head of a discharging division stated that on one occasion he discharged about ten immigrants to a representative of a certain home. În about twenty minutes the representative returned with the immigrants and insisted on leaving them at the station, saying that he could not take them because they had no money.

One society officially stated to the immigration authorities that if it were not for its representatives at the immigrant station "immigrants would be without the aid and advice which they need to enable them to make proper communications with their relatives and friends.

in this country and to prevent misunderstandings affecting their right to land." Another society said that it sent representatives to the station "in order to facilitate the society's work and appearance before the board of special inquiry." The representative of still another society stated before a board of special inquiry in December, 1904, that the society existed "for the purpose of protecting aliens who have been excluded, in order to avoid their being sent back; and that is the reason I appear in behalf of these cases."

The great number of appeals from the decisions of the immigration authorities to the Department of Commerce and Labor, which are made by some of the representatives in behalf of excluded immigrants, is noteworthy. According to its annual report for 1906, one society filed during that year appeals for 282 excluded immigrants, 147 of whom were admitted and 135 of whom were debarred. A second society filed appeals in 1907 for 1,906 excluded immigrants, 1,252 of whom were admitted and 654 of whom were debarred. The report of the second society for the year 1907 states that "thousands have been saved from deportation; who can tell how many more might have been spared such a fate were we enabled to employ more men [the immigrant station]."

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The investigation showed that missionaries and representatives are sometimes instrumental in securing the admittance into this country of contract laborers. In order to test the good faith of some of the missionaries, representatives, and managers of homes, agents of the Commission went to them and, representing themselves to be agents of firms who wished to import skilled laborers from Europe, asked the cooperation of these managers and representatives in securing the workmen desired. Two of the managers and representatives readily agreed to assist in this business; one said that the firms should write directly to the home; and the others asked for time to think over the proposition, or to talk with their co-workers in regard to it. One representative said that he could have persons in this country send for their relatives who were in the old country, and that if the agent desired to make arrangements with some of these persons he would have them come to the home for a conference. Another missionary stated that he had been abroad recently and knew of many desirable people who could be brought over, and that he would be glad to go to his own country and get the immigrants in person, provided he was sufficiently well paid for the work. The record files at one immigrant station contain a copy of a letter written by the commissioner of immigration to the representative of a certain home, in which letter the commissioner states that it has come to his attention that the representative has taken it upon himself "to send advice to the relatives of detained aliens as to the causes of their detention or exclusion, such advice tending to offset the endeavors made by the government officials to enforce the United States immigration laws and regulations, this being particularly true in the case of aliens detained by reason of being suspected of violating the alien-contract-labor law." This letter admonishes the representative that he must not abuse his privilege of appearing at the station and having access to detained immigrants and to the records, and suggests that he communicate only with the friends of immigrants who are held as likely to become public charges.

At all of the immigrant stations, with one exception, which were visited by the Commission's investigators, some worthless, unprincipled missionaries and representatives were found. The unworthiness of these missionaries and representatives was shown in various ways. One member of the clergy frequently went to an immigrant station so intoxicated that he was entirely unfit to attend to his missionary work; one minister charged the relatives of detained immigrants large fees for getting these immigrants out of the station's detention rooms; some showed that they had low moral standards. The willingness of many missionaries and representatives to place immigrant women and girls in positions and surroundings that were likely to be detrimental to their morals is considered later in the report.

IMMIGRANT HOMES.

The greater part of the work of this inquiry was given over to an investigation of immigrant homes, in which institutions thousands of newly landed immigrants receive their first impressions of American ways and life.

It is of great importance that the immigrant's start in the new life be of the right kind. Whether or not he is to become a good citizen depends to no small degree upon the kind of treatment accorded him at landing and during the first few days after his arrival. If he is deceived, overcharged, and illtreated the moment he first sets foot upon our shores, he is likely to consider his treatment typical of the relations which members of society in this country bear toward each other, and to either accept his ill treatment submissively or try to retaliate by the same methods which were used against him. The kind of life that friendless young women and girls are to lead in this country depends to a large extent upon the protection which they receive while inmates of immigrant homes and upon the degree of care which these institutions exercise in placing them in employment.

The treatment of immigrants by managers and servants of homes, the sanitary conditions in homes, the rates charged for food and lodging, the financial management of the various homes, and the care exercised by home officials in placing immigrants, particularly young women, in employment, were all subjects about which the Commission desired first-hand and accurate information. Forty-four representative immigrant homes, in seven cities, were carefully investigated and reported upon.

In the majority of cases the homes investigated were located in respectable neighborhoods, but in a number of instances homes were located on streets of doubtful character and among vicious and squalid surroundings. Many of the homes, accommodating both men and women, or accommodating women and girls only, were managed by men and had no matrons on the executive staffs.

About two-thirds of the homes investigated were clean, comfortable, and sanitary, and about one-third were overcrowded, badly ventilated, filthy, and insanitary. When the representatives of a certain home were debarred from the immigrant station by the commissioner of immigration in August, 1909, on the ground that the home was not a fit place for immigrants to go to, the chairman of the executive committee of the home asked the commissioner to state the reasons for his action. In reply the commissioner wrote: