Another important change in the present law is that which provides for the exclusion of stowaways and deserting alien seamen. The Commissioner General of Immigration in his report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, has this to say:

Table XX is a compilation of figures covering alien seamen reported by masters of vessels as having deserted. They are known to be very inaccurate. For the past three years it has been impossible to obtain from the steamship lines accurate information concerning deserters. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Taylor case (207 U. S., 120), and the fact that a suit in which it was attempted to enforce the payment of head tax on account of deserting seamen was decided adversely to the Government, tend to encourage noncompliance with the provisions of rule 22 of the immigration regulations. The very serious nature of this matter is illustrated by the wholesale violations of law discovered in the case of the Hellenic Transatlantic Steam Navigation Co. In that case the immigration officers at New York, acting in conjunction with the United States attorney's office in Brooklyn, obtained very substantial results both as regards fines and imprisonments in connection with an investigation of the unlawful bringing to the port and landing of aliens placed upon the articles of the ship as employees, as set forth in the report of the commissioner at New York (p. 149).

In addition to the showing of this table, it should be stated that during the year over 30,000 Chinese seamen have come into the ports of the United States on merchant vessels, and many desertions have occurred. Moreover, Table 21 shows 528 stowaways brought to the United States ports during the past year, as compared with 474 for the preceding year. A bill (H. R. 32441) was introduced at the last session of Congress which, if enacted into law, will go a long way toward the abatement of these grave evils.

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The investigations of the Immigration Commission disclose that there is a practice of articling seamen simply for the voyage from a foreign country to the United States, and that men so articled are in many instances aliens who would be deported if coming as passengers. Under the decision in the Taylor case the immigration law does not apply to such aliens. This fact, and the fact that the number of desertions is increasing, creates a serious situation which requires legislation.

Closely related with this subject is that of stowaways, whose treatment has been a disputed question for years. The bill provides for their exclusion, but permits their admission under the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The committee deem both the exclusion and the exception wise-the exclusion because in a majority of cases stowaways are liable to become public charges; and the exception, because in some cases they are political refugees, and there should be discretion permitting their admission.

Another change of the old law provided for by this bill is that which permits the Secretary of Labor, when he deems it necessary to detail immigrant inspectors and matrons for duty on vessels carrying immigrants or immigrant passengers to or from the United States. This is not made imperative but is left to the option of the Secretary of Labor. We think this is in the interest of better and more humane treatment of the immigrants or immigrant passengers.

The bill also provides for the exclusion of aliens who advocate or teach the destruction of private property; also for the deportation of such persons and for the deportation of alien anarchists and those advocating or teaching the unlawful destruction of property, or advocating or teaching anarchy or the overthrow by force or violence of organized government or the assassination of public officials.

These are the principal changes which the bill makes in the existing law. Most of the committee, if not all of them, believe that some stringent measures should be speedily adopted to check the influx of Hindus and other Asiatics to the Pacific coast, but on account of the

delay that it might cause to the passage of this bill we thought that we should not go further into this question at this time than is done in section 3 by the provision which excludes those ineligible to naturalization and with the limitations contained in that provision.

The committee has labored earnestly to bring about an elimination of the most undesirable of those coming to our shores and at the same time not to strike down those who come to make their homes with us, to build up the moral and material prosperity of our country, and to become permanent citizens among us.

Mr. BURNETT introducd the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization and ordered to be printed.

DECEMBER 16, 1913.

Reported with amendments, referred to the House Calendar, and ordered to be printed.

[Omit the part inclosed in heavy brackets and insert the part printed in italics.]

A BILL

To regulate the immigration of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the word "alien" wherever used in this act shall include any person not a native-born or naturalized citizen of the United States; but this definition shall not be held to include Indians not taxed or citizens of the islands under the jurisdiction of the United States. That the term "United States" as used in the title as well as in the various sections of this act shall be construed to mean the United States, and any waters, territory, or other place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, except the Isthmian Canal Zone; but if any alien shall leave the Canal Zone and attempt to enter any other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, nothing contained in this act shall be construed as permitting him to enter under any other conditions than those applicable to all aliens. That the term seaman as used in this act shall include every person signed on the ship's articles and employed in any capacity on board any vessel arriving in the United States from any foreign port or place.

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That this act shall be enforced in the Philippine Islands by officers of the General Government thereof designated by appropriate legislation of said Government.

SEC. 2. That there shall be levied, collected, and paid a tax of $5 for every alien, including alien seamen regularly admitted as provided in this act, entering the United States. The said tax shall be paid to the collector of customs of the port or customs district to which said alien shall come, or, if there be no collector at such port or district, then to the collector nearest thereto, by the master, agent, owner, or consignee of the vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance or vehicle bringing such alien to the United States, or by the alien himself if he does not come by a vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance or vehicle. The tax imposed by this section shall be a lien upon the vessel or other vehicle or carriage or transportation bringing such aliens to the United States, and shall be a debt in favor of the United States against the owner or 9

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owners of such vessel or other vehicle, and the payment of such tax may be enforced by any legal or equitable remedy. That the said tax shall not be levied on account of aliens who have in accordance with law declared their intention of becoming citizens of the United States or on account of aliens who shall enter the United States after an uninterrupted residence of at least one year, immediately preceding such entrance, in the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the Republic of Cuba, or the Republic of Mexico, nor on account of otherwise admissible residents of any possession of the United States, nor on account of aliens in transit through the United States, nor upon aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory: Provided, That the Commissioner General of Immigration, under the direction or with the approval of the Secretary of Labor, by agreement with transportation lines, as provided in section twenty-three of this act, may arrange in some other manner for the payment of the tax imposed by this section upon any or all aliens seeking admission from foreign contiguous territory: Provided further, That said tax, when levied upon aliens entering the Philippine Islands, shall be paid into the treasury of said islands, to be expended for the benefit of such islands: Provided further, That in the cases of aliens applying for admission from foreign contiguous territory and rejected, the head tax collected shall upon application be refunded to the alien: Provided further, That the provisions of this section shall not apply to aliens arriving in Guam or Hawaii; but if any such alien, not having become a citizen of the United States, shall later arrive at any port or place of the United States on the North American Continent the provisions of this section shall apply.

SEC. 3. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; vagrants; persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy; anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all forms of law, or who disbelieve in or are opposed to organized government, or who advocate the assassination of public officials or who advocate or teach the unlawful destruction of property; persons who are members of or affiliated with any organization entertaining and teaching disbelief in or opposition to organized government, or who advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers, either of specific individuals or of officers generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other organized government, because of his or their official character or who advocate or teach the unlawful destruction of property; prostitutes, or women or girls coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who procure or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women or girls for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who are supported by or receive in whole or in part the proceeds of prostitution; persons hereinafter called contract laborers, who have been induced, assisted, encouraged, or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment, whether such offers or promises are true or false, or in consequence of agreements, oral, written or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled; persons who have come in consequence of advertisements for laborers printed, published, or distributed in a foreign country; persons who have been deported under any of the provisions of this act, and who may again seek admission within one year from the date of such deportation, unless prior to their reembarkation at a foreign port the Secretary of Labor shall have consented to their reapplying for admission; persons whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that such person does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes; persons whose ticket or passage is paid for by any corporation, association, society,

municipality, or foreign Government, either directly or indirectly; stowaways, except that any such stowaway may be admitted in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor; all children under sixteen years of age, unaccompanied by one or both of their parents, at the discretion of the Secretary of Labor or under such regulations as he may from time to time prescribe; persons who can not become eligible, under existing law, to become citizens of the United States by naturalization, unless otherwise provided for by existing agreements as to passports, or by treaties, conventions, or agreements that may hereafter be entered into. The provision next foregoing, however, shall not apply to persons of the following status or occupations: Government officers, ministers or religious teachers, missionaries, lawyers, physicians, chemists, civil engineers, teachers, students, authors, [editors, journalists,] merchants, [bankers,] and travelers for curiosity or pleasure, nor to their legal wives or their children under sixteen years of age who shall accompany them or who subsequently may apply for admission to the United States, but such persons or their legal wives or foreign-born children who fail to maintain in the United States a status or occupation placing them within the excepted classes shall be deemed to be in the United States contrary to law, and shall be subject to deportation as provided in section nineteen of this act.

That after four months from the approval of this act, in addition to the aliens who are by law now excluded from admission into the United States, the following persons shall also be excluded from admission thereto, to wit:

All aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who can not read the English language, or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish: Provided, That any admissible alien or any alien heretofore or hereafter legally admitted, or any citizen of the United States, may bring in or send for his father or grandfather over fifty-five years of age, his wife, his mother, his grandmother, or his unmarried or widowed daughter, if otherwise admissible, whether such relative can read or not; and such relative shall be permitted to enter. That for the purpose of ascertaining whether aliens can read the immigrant inspectors shall be furnished with slips, of uniform size, prepared under the direction of the Secretary of Labor, each containing not less than thirty nor more than forty words in ordinary use, printed in plainly legible type in the various languages and dialects of immigrants. Each alien may designate the particular language or dialect in which he desires the examination to be made, and shall be required to read the words printed on the slip in such language or dialect. No two aliens coming in the same vessel or other vehicle of carriage or transportation shall be tested with the same slip. That the following classes of persons shall be exempt from the operation of the illiteracy test, to wit: All aliens who shall prove to the satisfaction of the proper immigration officer or to the Secretary of Labor that they are seeking admission to the United States solely for the purpose of escaping from religious persecution; all aliens in transit through the United States; all aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous territory: Provided, That nothing in this act shall exclude, if otherwise admissible, persons convicted of an offense purely political, not involving moral turpitude: Provided further, That the provisions of this act relating to the payments for tickets or passage by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign Government shall not apply to the tickets or passage of aliens in immediate and continuous transit through the United States to foreign contiguous territory: Provided further, That skilled labor, if otherwise admissible, may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be found in this country, and the question of the necessity of importing such skilled labor in any particular instance may be determined by the Secretary of Labor upon the application of any person interested, such application to be made before such importation, and such determination by the Secretary of Labor to be reached after a full hearing and an investigation into the facts of the case; but such determination shall not become final until a period of thirty days has elapsed. Within three days after such determination the Secretary of Labor shall cause to be published a brief statement reciting the substance of the application, the facts presented at the hearing and his determination thereon, in three daily newspapers of general circulation in three of the principal cities of the United States. At any time during said period of thirty days any person dissatisfied with the ruling may appeal to the district court of the United States of the district into which the labor is sought to be brought, which court or the judge thereof in vacation shall have jurisdiction to