IMMIGRATION LAWS. Their Strict Enforcement Has Benefitted the Working Classes. The enforcement of the laws enacted by Congress for excluding from our shores undesirable immigrants and alien laborers imported under contract has a very important bearing upon the interest of American workingmen. While the manufacturers of the country have been "protected" by a tariff, enacted at their behest, the laboring part of our population were for a long time unprotected from the danger of being superseded by underpaid and underfed laborers, imported from overstocked hives of in lustry in the Old World. In other words, our industrial population were subject to free trade in labor while they had to pay protection prices for the means of subsistence. The law now prohibits the immigration of laborers under contract, with a few exceptions, such as skilled workmen for new industries, labor for which cannot be otherwise obtained, actors, artists, lecturers, singers, and personal or domestic servants. It also excludes idiots, insane persons, paupers, persons suffering from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, and polygamists. It having been found difficult in many cases to prove a specific contract under which an alien laborer could be barred, a special statutory provision has been made that any assisted immigrant, or any alien whose ticket or passage has been paid for with the money of another, shall be barred ipso facto, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown on special inquiry that he does not belong to one of the excluded classes, including alien contract laborers. Federal legislation on this subject began in 1882. It has grown into quite a code of laws, which however, lack clearness and precision and need amendment in many respects. The difficulty in their enforcement is largely inherent in the subject but has been enhanced by the greed of steamship companies, to secure steerage passengers, and their connivance, in the past, at least, with agents, bankers, and padroni in this country, who make a business of supplying foreign laborers to employers-corporations, mines, railroads and factories. About eighty per cent of all the immigrants arrive at the port of New York. Prior to 1890 the New York State Government had charge of immigration at that port; but in that year the Secretary of the Treasury assumed control and appointed a Federal Superintendent of Immigration for the port. In 1891 an act of Congress was passed which enlarged the Goverment's control of the subject of immigration. Under it a general Superintendent of the Bureau of Immigration, with an office at Washington, was appointed, and commissioners were appointed at New York and several other ports by the Secretary of the Treasury. A large immigration station was erected at Ellis Island, so that all steerage passengers could be brought there with their baggage, for the purpose of full inspection and quasi-judicial determination of their right to land. In 1893 the immigration laws were further amended by providing that it should be the duty of every inspector of arriving immigrants to detain for special inquiry every person who might not appear to him to be clearly and beyond doubt entitled to admission, and that the issue should be tried and determined by a board of four inspectors, whose decision should be final, subject, however, to appeal to Washington. The Commissioner of Immigration at each port is charged with supervising his force of inspectors and other employees, and the work is of great magnitude. The number of immigrants applying for admission during the fiscal year 1891-2 was 445,967. The number of arrivals for the year 1892-1893 was 343,422, of whom 814 were barred, 458 being alien contract laborers. The number of arrivals for 1893-1894 (July 1st to July 1st) was 219,046, of whom 2,013 were barred, 1,444 being alien contract laborers. A Democratic Bureau of Immigration took charge of the execution of the immigration laws in the spring of 1893, soon after President Cleveland's inauguration, when a new superintendent of the general bureau at Washington was appointed, as well as a new commissioner at the principal port of New York. The efficiency of the Democratic over the Republican admini tration has been marked. The effect of the rigid enforcement of the laws is shown in various ways: First, by the decrease of immigration secondly, by the improved quality of the immigrants now arriving; thirdly, by the unprecedent dly numerous exclusions, both in actual numbers and proportionately, of intending immigrants, who have been forced to return to Europe by the watchful gatekeepers of our country; and fourthly, by the refusal on the part of the steamship companies to sell tickets to intending immigrants whose eligibility to land was not obvious, such refusal being due to the fact that under the new law the steamship companies must assume full responsibility for embarking undesirable immigrants. The systematic importation of laborers under contract has been practically stopped by the unceasing vigilance of the present Democratic officials. The Hon. John G. Carlisle, Secretary of the Treasury, has issued his warrant under the act of 1888, and has caused to be deported alien contract laborers who have not been in the United States over a year, thereby establishing a precedent and affording to American labor a protection not heretofore accorded. All aliens who have become a public charge within a year of their landing, who are insane or suffering from a oathsome disease, or who are permanently disabled from earning a living, are deported at the expense of the steamship companies who brought them here, or at the expense of the immigrant fund, thereby relieving our insane asylums and almshouses of this burden. It is confidently asserted that during this administration our insane asylums and almshouses are getting no alien pauper patients who were landed within a year, and it is the intention of the immigration officials in future to save our eleemosenary institutions from this crying evil. The immigration service has been more than self sustaining, and is supported entirely from the head tax paid by the immigrants; so that it is no charge upon the people. The decrease in immigration is unquestionably due to a very great extent to the strict inspection of immigrants insisted upon by the Democratic administration, in lieu of the tax and often collusive methods of their predecessors. The increased efficiency has been rendered possib e by a revision of the regulations, a reorganization of the service, and the substitution of highly competent, conscientious and sagacious employees for superannuated drones and "inspectors" who encumbered the offices without ever really inspecting. The greatest efforts are now made to detect and send back those alien passengers who leave their homes in Europe under contracts which make slaves of them, to take the places of American workmen at reduced wages, without debarring bona fide immigrants who come of their own free will because they are dissatisfied with European conditions, and are willing to take their fair and natural chance here. Those who are returned become, of course, anti-immigration agents in their own countries of the most effective type; and not even the enactment of the sternest imaginable statute could be more restrictive of undesirable immigration than these natural regulators of the ebb and flow in the tide of aliens. Many bodies of organized American workmen have made specific acknowledge. ment of the fact that their trades had been materially benefitted by the manner in which the law has been enforced for the last eighteen months, such as cigar makers, tailors, hatters, shoemakers, etc. The executive boards of many organiz tions, including the general executive boards of the American Federation of Labor, and the Knights of Labor, have visited Ellis Island during the Democratic adm nistration and carefu ly observed the manner of inspecting immigrants and searching for violators of the law. Their satisfaction at the methods adopted and the results achieved was apparent, and resulted, in a number of instances, in formal resolutions to that effect, which were transmitted to the Department. The work of the Supervisory Bureau of Immigration at Washington, under its distinguished Democratic chief, has been performed in such a manner as to give the greatest satisfac ion. The Secretary of the Treasury recently appointed the Hon. Herman Stump the Superintendent of Immigration, Dr. Joseph H. Senner the Commissioner of Immigration at the port of New York, and Edward F. McSweeney, Esq., the Assistant Commissioner, a commission to investigate and report to him information under the following five heads : 1. What changes, if any, in the rules and regulations now in force are necessary in order to secure a more efficient execution of existing laws relating to immigration and the laws prohibiting the importation of alien laborers under contract. 2. Whether said laws are defective in any particular, and what practical difficulties, if any, have been encountered in their execution. 3. What effect, if any, immigration has had upon the wages of labor or opportunities for employment in tne United States, and whether or not the existing industrial condition of the country is attributed in any degree to the influx of laborers from abroad. 4. Whether any measures, and, if so, what, can be adopted under existing legislation to discourage the concentration of immigrant laborers in particular localities and to secure a better distribution of immigrants whose admission to the country is not prohibited by law. 5. Whether the "Padrone" system exists in this country, and, if so, to what extent and among what class of immigrants, and what measures can be taken under existing laws to break it up and protect American laborers against its evil effects upon wages and at the same time improve the social and economic condition of the immigrants. The Commissioners have also been directed to secure and report such information, from all available sources, as will enable the Department to employ its official force in the most effective manner for the enforcement of the immigration and contractlabor laws according to their true intent and purpose, and to suggest such amendments as experience may have shown to be necessary in order to adapt them to existing conditions. This investigation is now in progress and has already resulted in the accumulation of a vast amount of documentary information and recommendations, which a e being sifted. The Commissioners are also visiting various sections of the country for the purpose of personally receiving the benefit of the practical knowledge of local heads of trades organizations. It is anticipatel that these efforts will lead to important amendments to the laws and regulations, so that the sifting process, by which only desirable immigrants shall be admitted and all the undesirable classes shall be utterly excluded, will be perfected in all its workings. Certainly no criticism can be made that the present officers of the Immigration Service are in anywise lacking in zeal, energy, or capacity, in dealing with this complex subject. On the other hand, their efforts are being daily supplemented by the assistance of intelligent and appreciative workmen throughout the whole United States, whose cooperation has been sought. The Democratic party has every reason to congratulate itself upon the successful efforts of its appointees to regulate immigration in accordance with the best interests of the whole people and without unworthy discrimina |