In this connection, what was considered by the committee as a necessary exception was embodied in this act. It provides that where skilled labor of the kind desired can not be found unemployed in this country, then, under such circumstances, skilled labor may be imported. The practicability and propriety of this is obvious. The imported alien contract laborer injures the American workman only in displacing him. If labor of the kind desired can not be found in this country and is imported, no one is displaced.

Another change in this bill is in the substitution of the word "attempt" for "aid," the courts having in effect held that the word "aid" involved the actual landing of the prohibited aliens. Of course, when a steamship company willfully tried to land such class of aliens and the inspectors discovered they were illegally here, then they were immediately rejected and (technically) not allowed to land. Therefore the steamship company could not be held liable, because they had not aided the alien to land in view of the fact that he had not landed at all. Hence the word "attempt," so as to cover even the effort of the company to land such a person, whether he is rejected by the inspector or not.

What is considered a fair and equitable provision is also included, which provides that if an alien immigrant who is really not entitled under the law to enter this country should be admitted by the immigrant inspector, and is afterwards found to be here unlawfully, the fact that the inspector admitted him relieves of the penalty of a fine of not more than $1,000 provided for attempting to land such aliens, but does not relieve the steamship company from taking such alien back at the expense of the company if found here within one year after his arrival. Many safeguards are thrown around the actions of the inspectors under the proposed law, and it will be very difficult for an immigrant who should not be admitted to get through safely.

The provision also covers those immigrants who secure entrance into the country without inspection. The bill further provides that any alien contract laborer, rejected as such, may be detained, if such detention is necessary, to be used as a witness in behalf of the Government in any suit which may be brought against the person or persons inducing his unlawful immigration to the United States, the expense of such detention to be paid by the immigrant fund. The necessity for this legislation is due to the fact that the immediate return of such alien robs the Government in many cases of the sole witness it has to successfully maintain an action against a contractor.

The present bill makes it unlawful for any transportation company or vessel to bring to any port of the United States any alien afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease.

The company which brings such alien under this bill is subject to a fine of $100 for each alien so brought if the Secretary of the Treasury is satisfied that the disease existed at the time of foreign embarkation and that its existence then could have been discovered. To enable the collection of such fine the law prohibits the issuance of clearance papers to any vessel which has incurred such fine or refused or neglected to pay it, and it furthermore provides that such fine shall not be remitted. As before stated, the deportation of any such alien is provided for. This new legislation, by punishing the taking on shipboard, will, it is believed, abate the evil under discussion, for the owners of vessels will avoid the payment of any such fine by a more careful examination at the port of embarkation. The exclusion at the port of departure of all diseased persons will prevent the thousands of passengers on board ship en route to this country from becoming inoculated with any disease which would not manifest itself until days after such passengers had become distributed throughout the country. It is not at all unjust to the owners, for they can easily protect themselves by careful examination before embarkation of aliens and by the refusal of passage to those so afflicted.

Another feature provides for the return with any rejected alien who is helpless from infancy or physical inability of any person who has accompanied such helpless alien to this country.

A most important part of the system of supervision of immigration in this country is the examination at the port of arrival by physicians. Provision is therefore made in the bill for thoroughly competent physicians who are qualified within all reasonable limits for this particular work.

The time within which an alien who has become a public charge may be deported is extended by the bill from one to three years. The reason for this extension is found in the frequent complaints of communities charged with the burden of maintaining helpless aliens, such complaints being supported by an

array of figures which leave no doubt that the extension of time is imperative. It is a fact that many aliens of this particular class have come here, remained the one year formerly prescribed, and then, safe from deportation, entered the charitable institution in the community in which they happened to be, to remain there permanently a public charge and burden upon that community.

The old laws make a distinction between these aliens who become public charges from causes existing previous to their landing here and those who become so from causes arising after such landing. The new bill is the same in this respect. It provides that any alien who shall become a public charge from causes existing prior to landing shall be deported to the country whence he came at any time within one year after his arrival at the expense of the steamship company bringing such alien here, and to this is added in the proposed law one-half the cost of inland transportation to the port of deportation. Formerly the steamshp company was merely required to take the alien back on its ship. The added penalty of one-half the inland transportation (which is to be paid by the steamship company) will no doubt increase the vigilance of the companies and cause them to refuse passage to persons of this character from the other side. It is not a severe penalty, but since it involves some actual outlay it should be more effective than the mere return of such alien on ships regularly plying to foreign ports, which return is made at an appreciable cost.

Under the proposed bill it is provided that an alien who has become a public charge from causes existing before he landed may be deported within three years after the first year after arrival, the immigrant fund paying the cost of his ocean transportation to the country whence he came, and the corporation or municipality relieved of such burden paying the expense of delivering such alien at the port of deportation, including inland transportation, care, etc.

Under the proposed law those aliens who become public charges from causes arising after landing may be deported if found here within three years after arrival in the same way, the immigrant fund paying the cost of ocean travel and the corporation or municipality paying the expense of delivering the alien at the port of departure.

In order to keep track of them in our institutions, the proposed law improves the system whereby undesirable aliens may be traced, and this information will be carefully taken and preserved. Heretofore these immigrants have been lost sight of and have actually filled many of our institutions. Careful periodical inspection of all these institutions is to be made also with this end in view. What is generally considered one of the best features of the proposed law in this connection is the requirement that the passenger manifests of vessels carrying immigrants shall be full, detailed, and explicit in all data that may serve in personal identification.

The Secretary of the Treasury is given power to arrest and deport aliens found to be unlawfully in the United States, and their return is required by the transportation company bringing them here to the country whence they came, or if that can not be done, as in the case of tramp steamers, then at the expense of the immigration fund. The time within which such arrest may be made is extended to three years to correspond with the parts of the proposed bill just referred to.

The foregoing comprises briefly all the legislation that is essentially new in this act; that is, all that is not already on the statute books, and the entire codification is really and simply a fuller application of the principle of existing laws.

The principal amendment to this bill presented in the House was one providing for an educational test. As adopted, it provided that all persons over 15 years of age who were unable to read the English language or some other language, excepting the wife, children under 18 years of age, and parents or grandparents of an admissible alien, should be excluded. The machinery for the test was also supplied. There was little objection to the adoption of this amendment in the House, it being accepted by a vote of 86 to 7.

With the addition of the illiteracy test the bill passed the House May 27, 1902, practically as introduced by Mr. Shattuc. The Senate did not act on the bill at that session.

In his message to Congress at the following session, December 2, 1902, President Roosevelt again recommended the enactment of a new immigration law, and indorsed the bill passed by the House at the previous session, saying: "

I again call your attention to the need of passing a proper immigration law covering the points outlined in my message to you at the first session of the present Congress; substantially such a bill has already passed the House.

When the bill was taken up in the Senate the head tax, fixed at $1.50 by the House, was raised to $3, in order, it was claimed, to provide adequate revenue for a more efficient inspection of aliens and deportation of the excluded classes. The claim was also made that such an increase would exclude a certain number of undesirable immigrants. Fearing, however, that such an increase might injure the chances of the final passage of the bill, it was finally reduced to $2, where it remained. For the same reason friends of the bill in the Senate permitted the elimination of the illiteracy test.

Besides eliminating the educational test and raising the head tax to $2, the Senate added sections making it unlawful for any person to assist in the unlawful entry or naturalization of alien anarchists. These amendments were adopted by the House. Before the passage of the bill it was amended by providing that no alien, even if belonging in the excluded classes, should be deported if liable to execution for a religious offense in the country from which he came, but this provision was eliminated in conference.

The bill as it originally passed the House included contract laborers among the excluded classes, but for some reason they were not actually included in the list of excluded persons when the bill was approved. However, as the new law made provision for the deportation of contract laborers and also contained a list of persons who could enter under contract, it was held that contract laborers were still excluded by the act of 1885.

The bill passed the Senate February 28, 1903, and in conference was agreed upon practically as amended in the Senate. The conference report was adopted in the Senate March 2, 1903, and in the House March 3, by a vote of 194 to 11. It was approved by the President March 3.

From the act of March 3, 1903, until the act of February 20, 1907, no laws of general importance affecting immigration were enacted by Congress.

Prior to the act of 1903, on February 14 of the same year, the Department of Commerce and Labor was established, and the Commissioner General of Immigration placed under the jurisdiction and supervision of that department. By an act of April 28, 1904, the words "Secretary of Commerce and Labor" were substituted for the words "Secretary of the Treasury" wherever found in the immigration laws.

MINOR IMMIGRATION ACTS.

By the act of March 22, 1904, citizens of Newfoundland were added to those excepted under the law of March 3, 1903, from paying the head tax.

Fifty-seventh Congress, second session, Cong. Record, p. 9.
Appendix B (32 Stat., pt. 1, p. 176).

By the act of February 3, 1905, the Commissioner General of Immigration, upon approval by the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, was given power to refund head taxes erroneously collected.

By the act of February 6, 1905, it was provided that all money' collected from head taxes on aliens going into the Philippine Islands should be paid into the treasury of the islands to be used for their benefit.

By the act of June 29, 1906, the designation of the Bureau of Immigration was changed to the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, with the additional duty of having charge of all matters concerning the naturalization of aliens. By this law a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout the United States was provided.

IMMIGRATION AGITATION, 1903-1907.

From 1903 to 1907 immigration increased rapidly. The effect of this was a renewal of the demand for restrictive legislation, or better selective legislation. A writer on immigration in analyzing this demand for legislation said: "

There are comparatively few who wish to reduce to a large extent the number of our immigrants by imposing a very high head tax, or by limiting the number who shall be allowed to come in any single year, or by suspending immigration entirely for a period of years. Such persons may properly be called restrictionists. The vast majority of persons in this country want some changes in our existing laws to make them effective, and some additions to the excluded classes. All such persons are in favor of selection or regulation, rather than restriction, and hence might rather be called selectionists. When thus named there are only a very few of our citizens who do not belong to this latter group. Most of the demand for further legislation is distinctly along selective rather than restrictive lines. Even the much talked of illiteracy test, which has called forth violent opposition at the hands of the antirestrictionists, would probably not permanently cut down the number of our immigrants to any considerable degree.

The demand for selective immigration was quite general. At the National Immigration Conference held in New York City, December, 1905, called by the National Civic Federation and composed of delegates appointed by governors of States, and by commercial, labor, charitable, patriotic, and religious bodies, the following recommendations were made:

That a fine of $100 be imposed on steamship companies for every alien rejected for any cause; increased air space, the exclusion of persons of enfeebled vitality, and a preliminary inspection of intending immigrants before they embark.

President Roosevelt in rather extended remarks on the subject voiced the same sentiments in his messages to the third session of the Fifty-eighth Congress and the first session of the Fifty-ninth Congress. The parts of his messages relating to immigration were as follows:

с

It

There is no danger of having too many immigrants of the right kind. makes no difference from what country they come. If they are sound in body

a R. De C. Ward, "Sane methods of regulating immigration," vol. 33, Review of Reviews (N. Y.), p. 336.

Same, p. 339.

Cong. Record, 58th Cong., 3d sess., p. 16.

and in mind, and, above all, if they are of good character, so that we can rest assured that their children and grandchildren will be worthy fellow citizens of our children and grandchildren, then we should welcome them with cordial hospitality.

The above was to the Fifty-eighth Congress, while to the Fiftyninth he said: "

The question of immigration is of vital interest to this country. In the year ending June 30, 1905, there came to the United States 1,026,000 alien immigrants. In other words, in the single year that has just elapsed there came to this country a greater number of people than came here during the 169 years of our colonial life which intervened between the first landing at Jamestown and the Declaration of Independence. It is clearly shown in the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration that while much of this enormous immigration is undoubtedly healthy and natural, a considerable proportion of it, probably a very large proportion, including most of the undesirable class, does not come here of its own initiative, but because of the activity of the agents of the great transportation companies. These agents are distributed throughout Europe, and by the offer of all kinds of inducements they wheedle and cajole many immigrants, often against their best interests, to come here. The most serious obstacle we have to encounter in the effort to secure a proper regulation of the immigration to these shores arises from the determined opposition of the foreign steamship lines, who have no interest in the matter save to increase the returns on their capital by carrying masses of immigrants hither in the steerage quarters of their ships.

As I said in my last message to the Congress, we can not have too much immigration of the right sort, and we should have none whatever of the wrong sort. Of course, it is desirable that even the right kind of immigration should be properly distributed in this country. We need more of such immigration for the South, and special effort should be made to secure it. Perhaps it would be possible to limit the number of immigrants allowed to come in any one year to New York and other northern cities, while leaving unlimited the number allowed to come to the South, always provided, however, that a stricter effort is made to see that only immigrants of the right kind come to our country anywhere. In actual practice it has proved so difficult to enforce the immigration laws where long stretches of frontier marked by an imaginary line alone intervene between us and our neighbors that I recommend that no immigrants be allowed to come in from Canada and Mexico, save natives of the two countries themselves. As much as possible should be done to distribute the immigrants upon the land and keep them away from the congested tenement-house districts of the great cities. But distribution is a palliative, nor a cure. The prime need is to keep out all immigrants who will not make good American citizens. The laws now existing for the exclusion of undesirable immigrants should be strengthened. Adequate means should be adopted, enforced by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship companies engaged in the passenger business to observe in good faith the law which forbids them to encourage or solicit immigration to the United States. Moreover, there should be a sharp limitation imposed upon all vessels coming to our ports as to the number of immigrants in ratio to the tonnage which each vessel can carry. This ratio should be high enough to insure the coming hither of as good a class of aliens as possible. Provision should be made for the surer punishment of those who induce aliens to come to this country under promise or assurance of employment. It should be made possible to inflict a sufficiently heavy penalty on any employer violating this law to deter him from taking the risk. It seems to me wise that there should be an international conference held to deal with this question of immigration, which has more than a merely national significance; such a conference could among other things enter at length into the methods for securing a thorough inspection of would-be immigrants at the ports from which they desire to embark before permitting them to embark.

In dealing with this question it is unwise to depart from the old American tradition and to discriminate for or against any man who desires to come here and become a citizen, save on the ground of that man's fitness for citizenship. It is our right and duty to consider his moral and social quality. His standard

a Cong. Record, 59th Cong., 1st sess., p. 101.

795212-VOL 39-11--5