Oregon: As farmers and farmhands are our principal need, we prefer those from the British Isles, France, Italy, Germany, and Scandinavia. Montana: Farmers from the north of Europe, where climatic conditions approximate those of Montana. Idaho: Scandinavians or Germans are preferable. Colorado: First, for horticulture and agriculture, we prefer Germans and Scandinavians. Maine: Scandinavians, but not others. New Hampshire: Swedes and Germans for farmers and women for general housework. Pennsylvania: Our own laboring people are in sufficient number to supply the demand. Illinois: Not seeking further immigration just at present. Iowa: Any class of foreigners very undesirable at present time. Nebraska: Germans, Swedes, Italians. No demand for labor of any kind at present. Mississippi: Germans, Swedes, Italians; but not sure any immigrants are desirable as laborers at present. California: There is an oversupply of laborers in every branch of industry. There is no desire anywhere for immigration of the nonproducing classes, who are dependent upon manual labor for the means of subsistence. Massachusetts: Further immigration not needed. New York: No necessity at present for encouraging further immigration. Rhode Island: Every trade is more than supplied with all the labor needed. Kentucky: British, Germans, Swiss, Scandinavians. Poles, Huns, and Latin races are not desired, except individuals who come of their own volition. Virginia: English, Scotch, Irish, Germans, and Swedes. Georgia Germans, French, Hollanders, Belgians, Scandinavians, and Swiss. Arkansas: American, German, and English speaking immigrants-farmers, but welcome all desirable immigrants. Florida First preference for English-speaking. Texas: Desire immigrants who are sober, industrious, worthy, and who will make good citizens. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S VETO. President Cleveland returned the bill with his veto, March 2, 1897. He objected to the radical departure from the previous national policy relating to immigration, which welcomed all who came, the success of which policy was attested by the last century's great growth. In referring to the claim that the quality of recent immigration was undesirable, he said: "The time is quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens." The prevailing disturbed labor conditions he attributed to a general business depression, which would in no way be affected by restricting immigration. In referring to "the best reason that could be given for this radical restriction of immigration," the "protecting of our population against degeneration, and saving our national peace and quiet from imported turbulence and disorder," he said that he did not think it would be protected against these evils by limiting immigration to those who could read and write, for, in his mind, it was safer "to admit a hundred thousand immigrants who, though unable to read and write, seek among us only a home and opportunity to work, than to admit one of those unruly agitators who can not only read and write, but delight in arousing by inflammatory speech the illiterate and peacefully inclined to discontent." Those classes which we ought to exclude, he claimed, should be legislated against directly. a Appendix D, p. 127 (S. Doc. No. 185, 54th Cong., 2d sess.). The sections of the bill declaring it a crime for an alien regularly to come into the United States for the purpose of obtaining work from private parties, President Cleveland declared, were "illiberal, narrow, and un-American," and, besides, the residents of these border States and Territories "have separate and especial interests which in many cases make an interchange of labor between their people and their alien neighbors most important frequently, with the advantage largely in favor of our citizens." On March 3, 1897, the House passed the bill over the President's veto by a vote of 193 to 37, but no action was taken in the Senate, and, considering the close vote by which the conference report was adopted by the Senate, it is very doubtful that it could have been passed over the veto. In the Fifty-fifth Congress the bill which President Cleveland vetoed was introduced again, and at this time it received the special indorsement of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. The latter organization, in its convention held in Washington, D. C., February 6, 1898, declared for it as follows: We urge the adoption of a reasonable law to restrict undesirable immigration, such law to be based upon an educational qualification. The Knights of Labor, in their convention of the year before held in Louisville, Ky., also declared for it. The following extract from the Journal of the Knights of Labor, January 13, 1898, represents the attitude of that organization: Among the other matters requiring legislative action which were considered by the last annual convention of the general assembly of the Knights of Labor, held at Louisville, Ky., November 9 to 17, the subject of restricting immigration was discussed, with the result that House bill No. 74 and Senate No. 112 received the unanimous approval of that body. * * * As regards the propriety of the educational test, we are satisfied that it is the most practicable method yet advanced. Unlike the present laws or the proposed consular inspection, it will not leave the administration of the law to the discretion of the officials. Its redeeming feature is that it is positive and leaves no loopholes for thousands of contract laborers to crawl through, as is the case under the present law. The educational test might keep out a few desirable immigrants, but the country can well spare them if we rid ourselves of the large class of undesirable ones. The line must be drawn somewhere, and to our mind the educational test offers the best remedy. One of the most active opponents this measure had was the Immigration Protective League, which, it is said, had been formed primarily for the purpose of defeating immigration legislation. Their principal means of working was by distributing circulars. The nature of their circulars is shown by the following quotation taken from one of them: " the nativistic authors of such entirely superfluous new laws pretend their only object is to protect the American laboring man against foreign competition. This is, however, only a poor excuse for their real scheme, dictated by that hatred of the foreigner, whom they would like to exclude altogether * * *. If in particular, the now comparatively feeble stream of immigration is completely cut off, then they will succeed in oppressing Germans in this country and ruin the German element politically and industrially. To the great satisfaction and delight of the English-American press, many a German news paper, whose competition is a thorn in their flesh, will 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. Such circulars, it is said, were a result of the misunderstanding of the provisions of the bill, because under it only a very few Germans would have been excluded. In referring to this, Senator Fairbanks, of Indiana, said: I received and am still receiving protests (against the Lodge bill) 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." There was also objection to the bill on the part of some Catholics. An idea of this is shown by a remark of Senator Gibson, of Maryland, which connected the bill with the A. P. A. movement. He said: This dangerous organization, Mr. President, which is generally believed to be instigating and urging the passage of the bill, has for its real purpose hostility to the Catholic Church." The Lodge bill passed the Senate January 17, 1898, by a vote of 45 to 28, but the House refused to consider it by a vote of 103 to 101. INVESTIGATIONS BY THE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION. By an act of June 18, 1898, the Industrial Commission was created. Section 2 of this act provided: * * * That it shall be the duty of this commission to investigate questions pertaining to immigration, and to report to Congress and to suggest such legislation as it may deem best upon these subjects. This commission was very influential in framing the immigration law of 1903, which, with the exception of the act of June 6, 1900, which gave to the Commissioner General of Immigration the administration of the Chinese-exclusion law, was the only legislation upon the subject since 1893. In his first message to the Fifty-seventh Congress President Roosevelt commented on the immigration question as follows: C Our present immigration laws are unsatisfactory. We need every honest and efficient immigrant fitted to become an American citizen, every immigrant who comes here to stay, who brings here a stout heart, a good hand, and a resolute purpose to do his duty well in every way and to bring up his children as lawabiding and God-fearing members of the community. But there should be a comprehensive law enacted, with the object of working a threefold improvement over our present system. First, we should aim to exclude absolutely all persons who are believers in anarchistic principles or members of anarchistic societies; but also all persons who are of a low moral tendency or of unsavory reputation. This means we should require a more rigid system of examination at our immigration ports, the former being especially necessary. The second object of a proper immigration law ought to be to secure, by a careful and not merely perfunctory test, some intelligent capacity to appreciate American institutions and act sanely as American citizens. This would not keep The Chicago Tribune, January 21, 1898. Congressional Record, Fifty-fifth Congress, first session, p. 5219. out all anarchists, for many of them belong to the intelligent criminal class. But it would do what is also in point, that is, tend to decrease the sum of ignorance, so potent in producing the envy, suspicion, malignant passion, and hatred of order, out of which anarchistic sentiment springs. Finally, all persons should be excluded who are below a certain standard of economic fitness to enter our industrial field as competitors with American labor. There should be proper proof of personal capacity to earn an American living and enough money to insure a decent start under American conditions. This would stop the influx of cheap labor and the resulting competition which gives rise to so much bitterness in American industrial life; and it would dry up the springs of pestilential social conditions in our great cities, where anarchistic organizations have their greatest possible growth. Both the educational and economic tests in a wise immigration law should be designed to protect and elevate the general body politic and social. A very close supervision should be exercised over steamship companies which mainly bring over the immigrants, and they should be held to accountability for any infraction of the law. On December 5, 1901, the report of the Industrial Commission on Immigration was transmitted to Congress, and its final report, containing recommendations and proposals for legislation, was submitted on February 10, 1902. A bill introduced in the House on March 6, 1902, by Mr. Shattuc, of Ohio, was substantially in accord with the recommendations of the commission. The legislation the commission recommended was the result of a conference of the commission, some of the leading alienists in the country, the Commissioner General of Immigration, and the commissioners of immigration at the ports of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and San Francisco. THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1903. The principal object of the bill was to codify in concise form all immigration legislation before enacted from the act of March 3, 1875, to the act of 1894, and to arrange the legislation in regular order and sequence according to the various specific subjects dealt with in the. bill. It was also the purpose of the bill to eliminate from the laws all those parts which had become obsolete as a result of subsequent legislation and to amend all parts of the laws which had been found inadequate to accomplish the objects intended by them because of judicial decisions and interpretations and because of lack of authority for their administration. Following the suggestion of the Commissioner General of Immigration the word "alien" was substituted for the word "immigrant" in all cases where it was necessary to make the law cover cabin passengers as well as steerage passengers. Before this the same degree of care was not used in inspecting cabin passengers as steerage passengers, the word "immigrant" being interpreted to mean only steerage passengers. Consequently many undesirables came in the cabin to escape inspection. This change made both liable to a like inspection. The bill as introduced in the House was explained by Mr. Shattuc as follows: " The bill increases the amount of the head tax on aliens coming into the United States by land transportation, as well as by water, from $1 to $1.50. The increase is justified by the greater cost of administering the law, which proposes to deal in a more effective way with the dangers of an already large • Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st session, pp. 5764-5. and rapidly growing alien population, not only by rejecting at our ports before landing those who are found to be inadmissible, but by following up those who have effected an entrance and afterwards become criminal or pauper burdens upon the local municipalities, and within three years after their arrival returning them to their own countries. The head tax, by the way, is also required to be paid by aliens coming into the United States across the land boundaries, and the proposed law imposes a penalty for the nonpayment of the same. The present bill consolidates with the general immigration laws existing legislation with regard to the importation of aliens under contract to perform labor in the United States, thus making the money from the head tax available for funds in payment of expenses for the enforcement of these laws instead of securing the necessary funds for the purpose through a special annual appropriation. The proposed law excludes from admission to the United States, or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the following classes of immigrants: All idiots, insane persons, epileptics, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; persons afflicted with a loathsome or with a dangerous contagious disease; persons who have been convicted of a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists; anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of all government or all forms of law or the assassination of public officials; prostitutes, and persons who procure or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women for the purpose of prostitution; persons whose migration to the United States has been induced by offers, solicitations, promises, or agreements, parol or special, express or implied, of labor or work or service of any kind in the United States, and also any person 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 living in the United States are not prevented from sending for a relative or friend who is not of these classes mentioned, nor are persons convicted of a purely political offense excluded. It is also provided that skilled labor may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be found in the United States. Professional actors, artists, etc., are not excluded. The new law in relation to the insane was introduced in this bill to relieve our state and municipal institutions from the burdens they have been made to bear by these immigrants obtaining admission to them and remaining there indefinitely. The provisions concerning anarchists were adopted upon the theory that an effective way to deal with this evil was by refusing admission to the United States to the teachers and disciples of such a system or belief. The part of the bill in relation to prostitutes and procurers is to complete the evident purpose of the act of March 3, 1875, which makes the importations of such aliens a felony, but omits to provide for rejection at ports of the United States. The wisdom of the proposed law in regard to contract alien labor can not be questioned. It is for the protection of the American workingman. He deserves all that we can legally do for him, and no law which will keep alien contract labor out of competition with him can be too strict. The old law is strengthened in this respect by dropping the word "contract" and inserting in its place the words “offer, solicitation, promise." This change has been made to meet the rulings of the courts, which held that in every case of alleged violation of the law the elements of a binding contract must be proven to bring offenders within the meaning of the act. Now the "contract" does not have to be proved under the proposed bill, only the "offer, solicitation, or promise." Certain rulings of courts have destroyed the value of the act as far as its protection was concerned, because under such rulings aliens could be imported with impunity upon the suggestion or assurance that employment awaited them in this country. Besides, Congress has already recognized, in section 3 of the act of March 3, 1891, the necessity of broadening the language of the act so as to cover the evil, for in this measure referred to it makes a violation of the law the migration of any alien to the United States in consequence of an advertisement in any foreign country promising work in this country. Therefore throughout the bill the words “offer, solicitation, promise" are used in lieu of the word "contract" as at present. |