June 30, 1912, of 351 claims on account of injury and a decrease of 15 claims on account of death. In addition to the cases received, 76 cases were pending at the beginning of the year, making a total of 2,492 claims for compensation considered during the year ended June 30, 1913. Of these 2,492 there were found to be established 2,324 claims for compensation on account of injury and 48 claims for compensation on account of death; 77 claims on account of injury and 12 claims on account of death were not allowed, and 29 claims on account of injury and 2 claims on account of death were pending at the end of the year.

In connection with the administration of the compensation act, provision is made for reporting injuries to all classes of employees of the Government which occur in the course of employment when the injury causes disability for one day or longer or results in death, without regard to the scope of the compensation act. The total number of accidents thus reported was 5,461, including 92 reports of accidental death, an increase of 622 reports over the preceding year, during which time 4,725 reports of injury and 114 reports of death were received.

The above totals do not include cases of injury to employees of the Isthmian Canal Commission, the administration of the law respecting such employees having been transferred to that commission on March 3, 1911.

Several amendments and drafts of new bills have been introduced in Congress, none of which have been voted on.

BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION.

Among the four bureaus transferred from the former Department of Commerce and Labor to the Department of Labor by the act creating the latter, the largest and next to the oldest is the Bureau of Immigration. Its function is to execute our laws relating to the immigration and deportation of aliens and Chinese, and it is administered by the Commissioner General of Immigration under the direction and with the approval of the Secretary of Labor.

ORIGIN OF THE BUREAU.

Prior to the organization of this bureau, the various acts of Congress regulating immigration were administered by State officials under the direction and control of the Secretary of the Treasury, the expense being defrayed from a permanent appropriation provided for by Congress in 1882 and known as the "Immigrant fund." It was not until 1891 that the organization of this service as a Federal service exclusively was established. By an act of Congress of March 3 of that year the Federal office of Superintendent of Immigration was authorized and the duties theretofore performed by State officials

under the immigration acts of Congress were transferred to inspection officers under his control. He and they, however, were placed under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, as the State officials who preceded them had been. The title of Superintendent of Immigration was changed in 1895 to its present form of Commissioner General of Immigration; and upon the establishment in 1903 of the Department of Commerce and Labor, the Commissioner General and his official force, then known as the Bureau of Immigration, were transferred to that Department. In 1906 the Bureau of Immigration, having been given charge of the administrative execution of the naturalization laws, a Division of Naturalization within the bureau was organized and the title of the bureau changed accordingly to "Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization." But a separate bureau having been made of the Division of Naturalization by the organic act of this Department, the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization was by the same act restored to its original functions, reinvested with its original title of Bureau of Immigration, and, though remaining in charge of the Commissioner General, placed under the general jurisdiction of the Secretary of Labor.

The Bureau of Immigration, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, not having come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Labor until March 4, 1913, the Commissioner General's report, like that of the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, relates to the administration of the Department of Commerce and Labor for the preceding eight months and to the administration of the Department of Labor for the last four months only of the fiscal year.

OPERATIONS OF THE BUREAU FOR FISCAL YEAR 1913.

Alien arrivals and departures.-The Commissioner General's report makes important disclosures regarding immigration. During the fiscal year, 1,197,872 immigrant aliens had entered the United States an increase of 359,720 as compared with the 838,172 that entered during the preceding fiscal year. The months in which immigration was heaviest were September and October, 1912, and April, May, and June, 1913, the figures for which ranged from about 106,000 to 176,000 per month. In addition to the 1,197,892 immigrants, 229,335 aliens of the nonimmigrant class entered, making a total of 1,427,227, compared with 1,017,155 for the previous fiscal year. There departed from the country during the past year 611,924 aliens, of whom 308,190 were of the emigrant and 303,734 of the nonemigrant class. In the previous fiscal year 615,292 aliens left the country, of whom 332,262 were of the emigrant and 282,030 of the nonemigrant class. Therefore the actual increase in the alien population for the fiscal year 1913 was 815,303, compared with 401,863 for the fiscal year 1912.

The increases indicated by the above figures represent in percentages an increase of 43 per cent in immigrant aliens admitted to the country and 49 per cent in the resulting net addition to population, over the results shown by the statistics for the fiscal year 1912. Ages, literacy, and financial condition of immigrants.-A few of the most important and interesting items of information contained in the statistical tables appended to the Commissioner General's report with respect to the 1,197,892 immigrant aliens admitted during the year are the following:

The ages of 986,355 ranged between 14 and 44 years, 147,158 were under 14, and 64,379 were 45 or over. Of the 1,050,734 aliens over 14 years of age, 269,988 could neither read nor write, and 5,326 could read but could not write. It thus appears that 26 per cent of the aliens over 14 years of age who were admitted to the country were illiterate.

Admitted aliens were able to show the inspection officers sums of money aggregating $40,890,197, an average of about $34 per person. There is no way to determine how much of this was sent to applicants by relatives or friends living in the United States. Amounts of less than $50 each were shown by 755,097 of the aliens, and amounts in excess of said sum were shown by 151,820; so that of those able to prove possession of money about 83 per cent had less than $50

each.

Of the aliens entering, 811,151 claimed to have paid their own passage, while 375,947 admitted that their passage had been paid by relatives and 10,794 admitted that it had been paid by persons other than relatives. These figures, which must fall considerably below the fact regarding assistance, show that over 32 per cent of the aliens who entered the country were assisted to migrate.

Ages and periods of residence of departing aliens.—During the year 308,190 aliens emigrated from the United States. With respect to 46,646 of these no record could be procured concerning length of residence here, as they left across the Canadian border. However, it is shown that of the remainder, 182,985 had resided in the United States less than 5 years, 63,471 from 5 to 10 years, 10,803 from 10 to 15 years, 1,559 from 15 to 20 years, and 2,726 over 20 years. As to the ages, 13,245 were under 14 years of age, 264,137 were from 14 to 44 years of age, and 30,808 were 45 or over.

Sources of immigration.-The fact that the bulk of our immigration comes from countries of southern and eastern Europe is again demonstrated by the statistics, which moreover show a marked increase in that regard. Only 182,886 immigrant aliens (15 per cent of the total number) came from northern and western Europe during the past year, divided as follows: Belgium, 7,405; Denmark, 6,478; France, 9,675; German Empire, 34,329; Netherlands, 6,902; Norway, 8,587;

Sweden, 17,202; Switzerland, 4,104; England, 43,363; Ireland, 27,876; Scotland, 14,220; Wales, 2,745. On the other hand, 896,553 (about 75 per cent of the total) came from eastern and southern Europe and western Asia, divided as follows: Italy, 265,542; Russia, (principally southern), including Finland, 291,040; Austria, 137,245; Hungary, 117,580; Greece, 22,817; Turkey in Europe, 14,128; Turkey in Asia, 23,955; Portugal, 14,171; Spain, 6,167; Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro, 1,753; Roumania, 2,155.

Exclusions of arriving aliens.-While as shown above immigration increased in the past year 43 per cent over the preceding year, the number of aliens excluded in 1913 exceeded the number excluded the previous year by only 24 per cent. Exclusions in 1912 amounted to 1.55 per cent of the applying aliens, and in 1913 to only 1.38 per cent. The totals are 19,938 for 1913 and 16,057 for 1912. It is noted by the Commissioner General that this failure to maintain in 1913 the proportion of exclusions of the previous year is due largely to the fact that, while immigration increased 43 per cent, the funds, employees, and facilities for the inspection of aliens were not increased in the least degree. This produced a situation in which it was necessary for individual officers to attempt to do so much work that necessarily some of it was not well done.

As the causes for which aliens are refused admission are of special interest and importance, a table given in the report of the Commissioner General is quoted here as furnishing comparisons with reference to each principal cause for the years 1907 to 1913, both inclusive.

Summary of arrivals and exclusions.-The following statement summarizes the totals of arrivals, exclusions, and admissions of aliens for the fiscal year closing June 30, 1913:

Arrivals of aliens, July 1, 1912, to June 30, 1913...
Detained for special inquiry.

1,447, 165 139,728

Alien contract laborers.-An especially important function of the Bureau of Immigration with reference to the purpose of the Department of Labor is the administration of the laws excluding such aliens as migrate to this country under labor contracts.

Some of those laws antedate the Bureau of Immigration. Designed to prevent labor importations, they were in operation as long ago as when the immigration laws of Congress were administered by State officials. Their expressed object, as now enforced, is to exclude "contract laborers," who are defined by the law to be aliens "who have been induced or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment, or in consequence of agreements, oral, written or printed, expressed or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled," unless skilled "labor of like kind unemployed can not be found in this country." They except, however, "professional actors, artists, lecturers, singers, ministers of any religious denomination, professors for colleges or seminaries, persons belonging to any recognized learned profession, or persons employed strictly as personal or domestic servants."

Regarding execution of the contract-labor exclusion laws, the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for the fiscal year 1912 shows that 1,133 aliens were excluded because found to be contract laborers and 31 were arrested within the country and deported. For the past year the corresponding figures are 1,624 and 54, respectively. Those figures afford, however, an inadequate index to the work which has been done by the Immigration Service in connection with the enforcement of such provisions of the immigration act as contemplate that aliens who have been induced or solicited to migrate by promises or assurances of employment shall be refused entry to the country (or deported therefrom if they enter without detection), and that persons and corporations securing employees abroad shall be punished. During the entire year a number of inspectors were as

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