and go all over the eastern portion of our States working on public works, for example, where contracts have been made? Mr. HALL. Yes. Senator DILLINGHAM. That is to say, does not the Boston boss take these gangs and carry them all over New England? Mr. HALL. He takes gangs, undoubtedly, but I doubt very much whether the gangs are any considerable portion of the immigration of those races. Undoubtedly a certain number of Italians are employed on public works, but I fancy it is not a large proportion of the total Italian immigration. That is true of Boston. Senator DILLINGHAM. But the gangs come out of that class? Mr. HALL. Yes, sir; but they go out and do a job, and when they get through they go somewhere else. They do not settle in the country regions in the Eastern States, still less in the Western States. In fact those States do not desire them. That is brought out on page 17 of the pamphlet. The immigration investigating commission, which was appointed to look into this general question in 1895, sent out letters to the governors and commissioners of labor and agriculture, etc., in the different States, and at the top of page 17 are tabulated the replies they received. The CHAIRMAN. What was that immigration investigating commission? Was it a Government commission? Mr. HALL. It was a Government commission, appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury, composed of Dr. Senner, Mr. McSweeney, and I have forgotten who the third member was. The CHAIRMAN. They published a report, did they not? The CHAIRMAN. Did they publish a further report? Mr. HALL. Their report was written, but was destroyed in the Ellis Island fire, and its results have never been available. The other is a very valuable report, and there is considerable testimony from labor leaders and other persons as to what they thought desirable along these lines. I have spoken of the indorsements of different classes of persons, charity organizations, boards of trade, all kinds of bodies which have indorsed this measure, and at the end of the pamphlet are named a certain number of other bodies and individuals who have asked for restriction generally without specifying this particular measure. I should like to say a word in regard to the character of the opposition to this measure. With 90 per cent of the press of the entire country in favor of it, it is evident that the opposition can not be large, and so far as I have observed it is confined to three classes. There are one or two persons who believe in the absolute laissez faire as regards everything-persons who believe in the Manchester school of political economy, and who do not believe in any sort of restriction on this subject or regulation of any kind. Those are very few. Then there are a certain number of people like Mr. Edward Atkinson, theoretical political economist, who believe that the economic gain from even the worst immigrant counterbalances the burdens upon our charities and our penal institutions, insane asylums, and schools from the introduction of this class of people, and the danger to the social fabric, and the lowering of the standard of living. Outside of that the opposition seems to be confined to those who have a personal interest in bringing people here. When the President's message came out the other day the stock of the North German Lloyd Company and of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company went down 3 points on the German stock exchange. That shows just where the shoe pinches. In the Fifty-fifth Congress there were a few protests sent in against this measure, as compared with some thousands of petitions sent in in favor of it. The CHAIRMAN. Where did they come from? Mr. HALL. They came in a measure almost entirely from a few Irish and German societies in Chicago and New York City. The CHAIRMAN. Have you not omitted one influential source of opposition; that is, large investors of capital who desire cheap labor on public works and constructions? Mr. HALL. That is probably true at the present time. It did not appear in evidence in 1896, and so far it has not appeared as yet. I suppose those things will work together. Any man who is occupied with the sole question of seeing how many dollars can be got out of a certain thing, without any reference to the good of the State, would undoubtedly want to bring them in at any price. But I may say that the testimony of many owners of mines in the mining regions, the same owners who originally brought in the class of labor that caused the passage of the contract-labor act, is that they made a mistake; that in the long run they could have done more with less friction with the original Scotch and Irish and German miners than they have done by employing the more turbulent and less intelligent class of labor which they have employed. The CHAIRMAN. In your opinion, has the contract-labor law been productive of good, substantial results? Mr. HALL. I think it has been largely evaded, and it is being evaded at the present time. I think it has had a double effect-to keep out some of the worst labor and some of the best. Whether the good overbalances the evil is a question of one's point of view. The CHAIRMAN. Ought not Congress, in considering this subject, to take some action which would tend to strengthen the contractlabor law and correct it where it is defective? 66 Mr. HALL. In the administrative bill which is now before Congress, House bill 5817 and Senate bill 662, the Department, at my suggestion, incorporated the words "offers, solicitation, promises, or agreements”—I think that is the language—instead of the former wording, 'persons under a contract, oral or written, express or implied." The present difficulty is that the immigrants come over here without any contract whatever, but with the general understanding that when they get here there will be something for them to do, and agents are at work in the large cities for this purpose. The CHAIRMAN. Do you intend to address yourself to this bill or do some of the other gentlemen who are present? Mr. HALL. I have not thought of taking up the administrative bill and I shall not unless the committee desire that I shall do so. I understood this hearing was chiefly on the educational test. I shall be glad to answer any questions or to express any opinion about it if the committee desire. The CHAIRMAN. I suppose it is a bill that will require a good deal of explanation as to why certain changes have been made. In fact, I have been advised by a gentleman of very great experience in these matters that it would be unwise even to press it because there might be difficulty in having some of the provisions already on the statute books reenacted. Senator DILLINGHAM. To what bill do you refer? The CHAIRMAN. Senate bill 662. Senator DILLINGHAM. The administrative bill? The CHAIRMAN. The bill introduced by me, which was prepared by the Bureau of Immigration, or under the jurisdiction of that Bureau. Mr. HALL. The only part our league has had in this matter is this: We understood an administrative codification was being prepared, and we went over it with Mr. Commons, who is here, and Mr. Campbell, of the law department of the Treasury, and made various suggestions, some of which have been incorporated and some of which have not been, with the idea of introducing exactness and accuracy in the draft? The CHAIRMAN. You gentlemen had better proceed to-day with the discussion of the educational test. Mr. HALL. Speaking of the third class of opposition, those who are interested, I think it is a fact that a considerable number of protests from Germans against the passage of the educational test in 1896there were not many of them, anyway; only a few--were worked up by the steamship people. We found that their agents were sending telegrams all over the country informing Representatives in Congress that they would be defeated if they voted for the bill, and urging people to send telegrams to their Congressmen asking them to vote against the bill, saying: "Wire your Representative fully, and let us know cost of telegram, and we will promptly refund amount to you." There was no limitation on what the cost of the telegram should be. The CHAIRMAN. On what page of the pamphlet is that statement found? Mr. HALL. It is not in the pamphlet. It is in another leaflet which I have here. I bring that in, not to express any feeling against the steamship companies The CHAIRMAN. I understand. Mr. HALL. But to show that when this matter was up before they were acting in a manner which, to say the least, was open to question as to its propriety. Of course, they have a personal and pecuniary interest in bringing in immigrants; the capital stock of the companies is very largely owned abroad, and patriotic considerations therefore do not enter into it. But the method in which they stirred up the German societies shows that the protests of those societies must be taken at a considerable discount. In fact, I think it was Senator Fairbanks who looked up one of these protests from a German organization in Jeffersonville, Ind. Senator Fairbanks said: I received and am still receiving protests from various societies in Indiana. One of them was from a German organization in Jeffersonville. I took the trouble to investigate this, and found it had been directly instigated by a steamship agent, and that the members of the German Aid Society, who ostensibly protested, were led to believe that it was a general restriction of immigration and not merely an attempt to keep out illiterates, which these very men who protested heartily approved of. Dr. Senner, whom I referred to some time ago as having been Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York, after he left the Government service was interested in a society to defeat this very bill which, while Commissioner, he had advocated. He sent out a circular in the German language, to which I will refer. I am not now saying that Dr. Senner was put up to this by the steamship people, although there may be some grounds for supposing that to be the case, but the circular which he sent out contained this language: If, in particular, the now comparatively feeble stream of German immigration is completely cut off, then they— The advocates of this bill will succeed in oppressing Germans in this country and ruin the German element politically and industrially. To the great satisfaction and delight of the EnglishAmerican press, many a German newspaper, whose competition is a thorn in their flesh, would be forced to the wall. No German church building will then be erected any more or conserved; no German school could exist, and the German language will disappear from the public schools. The CHAIRMAN. Is that in this pamphlet? The CHAIRMAN. I think you had better let me have some of these pamphlets. Mr. HALL. I read that for the purpose of showing that anybody who gets out such nonsensical statements, on their face absolutely absurd Senator MCLAURIN of Mississippi. How many of these pamphlets have you? Mr. HALL. I have a few. The CHAIRMAN. You can mail to the committee a number of your publications, or the more important ones. Mr. HALL. Certainly. What opposition there was in the Fifty-sixth Congress was very largely manufactured, and manufactured by the most absurd representations; and in the case of some, at least, of those who remonstrated, it was a pure question of their being misled as to the purpose of the bill. If they had understood the purpose of the bill they would not have protested. I have taken up considerable time. The CHAIRMAN. You may take all the time you need. Mr. HALL. Unless the committee desires to ask me some questions, I will request Mr. Commons to present some further facts to the committee. STATEMENT OF JOHN R. COMMONS. Mr. COMMONS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I doubt whether there are any particular topics which Mr. Hall has not dwelt upon. I can only state my connection with this subject, and that might suggest any question which you have in mind in carrying out the topics that he brought up. I have been employed by the Industrial Commission during the past year to prepare for them a special report on immigration in this country, and in that connection I have visited the representatives of the different nationalties. I have visited nearly all the labor organizations and made a special examination of the mining industry and the clothing trade, which are affected more by immigration than other industries. I made quite an extensive inquiry into the subject of the proposed agricultural distribution of immigrants, as to whether there was a demand for immigrants in the country districts and whether practical means could be devised for moving them from cities, and if so, whether that would offset any further need of restricting immigration. I might say on the last subject that we have in the report here quite a large number of answers to letters from different parts of the country, and a description of such agricultural colonies of immigrants as have been established in this country. But the remarkable fact is, apparently, that the farmers who would employ these immigrants do. S. Doc. 62-2 not want the eastern European class of immigrants. They want t'e Scandinavians, or Poles, I should say, who make good farm laborers, but they are afraid of the Italians. That is the general expression. Such a demand for immigrants as there is in the country districts is not a permanent demand. It does not run through the year. want them simply at the harvesting season. So the conclusion reached is that any scheme for distributing immigrants from the cities into the rural districts would fail, because there is not an economic demand for them there. They The CHAIRMAN. Did you examine into the settlement of Italians in southern New Jersey? Mr. COMMONS. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. There are a considerable number there, and they seem to do very well. I am familiar with that part of the country. Mr. COMMONS. The Italians, in so far as they have established colonies, have done very well. They have been quite successful in small colonies in Alabama and in New Jersey, near cities, and they make good truck farmers. It is remarkable that the Italians who come to this country having been altogether, you might say, farm hands in Italy, distrust and dislike farming as they do. It is attributed by their representatives to the associations they have with the oppressive conditions under which they live in farming. The Italian who made this part of the report for me, a representative man, publishing an Italian paper, is quite an enthusiast in the matter of putting the Italians in the country districts. He has himself established a couple of colonies in Alabama. There is a very full report on that subject. The CHAIRMAN. We have some vast tracts in New Jersey, Alabama, and other States, and the few of Southern races who have gone there seem to have done so well that it has often occurred to me that if properly encouraged they would become very desirable people to develop the country. Mr. COMMONS. They certainly would be if it could be presented to them in the right light. The Industrial Commission have made some recommendations to the effect that the Department of Agriculture, through their crop reporting division, should report at stated intervals the opportunities for labor, as being a step toward informing immigrants of agricultural openings. While there have been quite a number of colonies that have succeeded, there have been as many, or a considerably larger number, that have failed. The CHAIRMAN. Do you recall the States where failures have occurred? Mr. COMMONS. The failures have been mostly among the Jewish colonies. The CHAIRMAN. Were they not philanthropic and benevolent enterprises fostered by bequests? Mr. COMMONS. Yes; they were. The CHAIRMAN. And by charity? Mr. COMMONS. As a rule. The CHAIRMAN. That rather explains their failure. Mr. COMMONS. The Jewish societies which inaugurated that plan of distribution have entirely abandoned it and have considered that that is not the proper way of diffusing the Jews. They have another plan now of finding individual Jews in New York City openings throughout the country and sending them there in order to relieve the congestion in New York City. Through that means the Jewish people are being sent around as individuals in different sections of the coun |