REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER GENERAL OF IMMIGRATION. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, SIR: On the date of this report, July 1, 1913, I have occupied the position of Commissioner General of Immigration for one month only. During 11 months of the fiscal year covered Hon. Daniel J. Keefe was the incumbent of said office. It was my intention to ask Mr. Keefe either to sign this report jointly with me or himself make a separate report covering the period of his incumbency; but before the text could be prepared Mr. Keefe had left the United States for an extended tour in the Orient and Europe. The best I can do under the circumstances is to call attention to the fact that most of the work mentioned and accomplishments shown were done and attained during his able and effective administration, and to give place herein to some of the views heretofore expressed by him regarding important phases of the enforcement of the several laws under which the bureau and service operate. In this connection there is inserted as Appendix IV (pp. 257-260, post) a statement made by him when retiring from office, to which attention is directed for his views on the subjects treated therein. During the past fiscal year immigration to the United States, amounting to 1,197,892 aliens, has been much larger than in any fiscal year since 1907, and has been less than that shown for said year, the total for which was 1,285,349, by only 87,457, and exceeded that for the fiscal year 1912 by 359,720 and the average per year from 1908 to 1912 by 339,295. When it is remembered that during a considerable portion of the year a war was in progress in which a very large percentage of the able-bodied men of Turkey and the Balkan States were engaged, the number of immigrants entering this country seems the more remarkable. The year's net increase in population from immigration is 815,303, as compared with a net increase for the preceding year of 401,863, and for 1911 of 512,085. The aliens have not only come, but have remained in larger numbers than heretofore. It was found necessary and possible under the provisions of the immigration law to exclude 19,938 aliens during the year, amounting to 1.38 per cent of the total number (1,447,165) applying for entry. The principal grounds of rejection were: Likely to become a public charge, of which class 7,941 were excluded; afflicted with physical or mental defects affecting ability to earn a living, 4,208; contract laborers, 1,624; afflicted with contagious diseases or tuberculosis, 2,564; and afflicted with serious mental defects, 753. Simultaneously with the rejection at the ports of the number of aliens above mentioned belonging to classes declared by the law to be inadmissible, it has been necessary to remove from the United States at considerable expense and trouble 3,461 aliens found here in violation of law. This total was composed principally of 714 who became public charges within three years after landing, 464 who entered without inspection, 1,262 who were likely to become public charges at time of entry, and 551 who belonged to the immoral classe at times of entry or engaged in immoral practices after landing. When it is remembered that the foregoing results, in addition to other important labors of the bureau, have been accomplished during the past year with an appropriation of $2,225,000 (only about 53 per cent of the amount collected as head tax on admitted aliens during the year), and that therefore the force of inspectors, doctors, interpreters, and other employees available to the service has necessarily been kept at a number wholly inadequate properly to perform the work required, no one can fail to realize that the year's results have been secured only by the most painstaking and thorough administration and constant application of the employees of the service to the particular duties assigned them. This bureau, in its present situation, may be likened to a great manufacturing plant, fully equipped, with the major cost of operation fixed and unavoidable and with an output limited by failure to utilize its powers of production owing to insufficiency of funds to secure all the labor and material required to attain its maximum capacity. An institution so conducted operates at a loss, just as our service is doing, notwithstanding its thoroughness of organization and ability to approximate maximum efficiency in administration. Increased appropriations and a larger force of officers in the several stations as well as at the main office, and more Public Health surgeons, with the necessary interpreters, to make possible a thorough inspection and a more strict enforcement of the law, are as important considerations in the effort to deal with immigration problems as the passage of new laws. New laws, no matter how well drawn, will not in the future, any more than such have in the past, accomplish the end sought unless necessary appropriations are made available for exercising the ample powers of the bureau to lessen the opportunity for the entry, as well as to facilitate the deportation, of the physically, mentally, and morally defective. The full exercise of the powers of the bureau through the means above suggested would effectively regulate immigration, even under existing laws, as it would debar more aliens on primary inspection as well as after examination by boards of special inquiry, check illegal entries, and deport all in the country not entitled to remain. As a consequence immigration would be much reduced, directly through these methods and indirectly by preventing the coming of those not clearly admissible who, warned thereby, would not risk the expense and loss of time required to come to our ports of entry. The latter are not deterred now, owing to the small percentage of debar ments. The congested conditions in our cities, the result mainly of the concentration of our own people from interior sections and that of |