REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER GENERAL OF IMMIGRATION. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR, BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, Washington, July 1, 1911. SIR: It has been customary in reporting to you at the close of each fiscal year the work of this Bureau to deal with the subject of immigration largely in the abstract and from an impersonal point of view. This is natural, but tends to make uninteresting the discussion of a very interesting subject. In this report I shall endeavor to portray the work, aside from its strictly statistical features, in a concrete and humanly interesting manner and to illustrate with actual experiences several phases of the subject. A work dealing so largely in human beings ought to be susceptible of a presentation in which the human element predominates. It is hoped that you and others who may read this report may find its perusal quite as interesting as I have found its preparation. The human drama of the control of immigration is duplex; and attention must not be so focused upon the individuals' sorrows and joys that daily are given birth or forever laid to rest in the regular course of enforcing this law as to obscure the fact that the law is far-reaching in its ultimate effects and that its close application and proper enforcement may mean progress and its lax enforcement retrogression to many American communities, indeed to the Nation. Nowhere else is there a better illustration of the axiom that the individual must often suffer that the community may benefit; that there must be temporary individual inconvenience in favor of the general permanent convenience. So, I repeat, the drama is a double. one. And the difficulty of enforcing the law is increased through the constant necessity to insure that neither element shall be allowed to overshadow the other; that proper weight in each instance shall be given the personal and the public interests, respectively; that personal suffering shall be prevented but only so far as is consistent with the public interest under the law. This is no easy task. Mistakes are sometimes made, but the constant effort is to reduce them to the minimum. Another special feature of this report is "General administration," to which one portion (p. 321) is devoted exclusively, with frequent illustrations throughout the report consisting of specific cases. It has been customary to present in this report from year to year suggestions as to legislation. Except that there is again presented, as Appendix I hereof (pp. 326-364), the draft of a new immigration law, a codification of all existing laws regarding immigration and Chinese exclusion, with various proposed amendments, which formed an important part of last year's report and was extensively commented upon therein, only a few references to amendatory legislation are made herein. The proposed measure would be omitted but for the fact that I have reason to believe the subject of improving the law is likely to be quite generally discussed during the ensuing twelve months, with a resulting demand for the Bureau's views. The Bureau and Immigration Service proper are engaged in enforcing the immigration and Chinese-exclusion laws. The body of this report, therefore, is devoted to a discussion of that work. The Naturalization and Information Divisions and Services are under the supervision of their respective chiefs, whose reports are submitted herewith as Appendixes II (pp. 365-391) and III (pp. 393–404). The contents of the former need not be discussed here, but the subject covered by the latter requires some comment. By section 40 of the immigration act authority was given the Commissioner General to establish a "division of information," the duty of such division to be "to promote a beneficial distribution of aliens admitted into the United States among the several States and Territories desiring immigration." Congress specified the manner in which this "beneficial distribution" should be promoted, thus: Correspondence shall be had with the proper officials of the States and Territories, and said division shall gather from all available sources useful information regarding the resources, products, and physical characteristics of each State and Territory, and shall publish such information in different languages and distribute the publications among all admitted aliens who may ask for such information at the immigrant stations of the United States and to such other persons as may desire the same. When any State or Territory appoints and maintains an agent or agents to represent it at any of the immigrant stations of the United States, such agents shall, under regulations prescribed by the Commissioner-General of Immigration, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, have access to aliens who have been admitted to the United States for the purpose of presenting, either orally or in writing, the special inducements offered by such State or Territory to aliens to settle therein. It is gratifying to observe from the report of the division that considerable progress has been made in the past year toward carrying out the intent of Congress with regard to cooperation between the States and Territories desiring immigration and the Federal authorities, looking to the furnishing to admitted aliens of information respecting the opportunities afforded by different sections to those who desire to take up land. That Congress intended that two methods should be followed in furnishing information and thereby promoting a "beneficial distribution" is evident from the plain language of the statute, viz, (1) the collection, by correspondence and otherwise, of useful information regarding the resources, etc., of different sections, and furnishing same to admitted aliens and others desiring it, and (2) by the States and Territories placing representatives at immigrant stations to advise aliens orally or in writing of the opportunities offered by the various sections. "Beneficial distribution," in the light of the origin and history of the law, undoubtedly means a distribution that will benefit both the alien and the locality to which he goes; another purpose, incidental rather than immediate, being the benefiting of congested localities (cities) to which the alien is induced not to go. |