RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION

BY FRANCIS E. HAMILTON

Formerly Solicitor to the Collector

THE United States may properly be called the Experimental Nation. We present to the eyes of humanity the spectacle of a world power; still in its youth, filled with ambitions and struggling with problems which affect the welfare of a hundred million people.

Our methods of government, our system of finance, the universality of our franchise and the freedom of thought, speech and action which prevails, all tend to arouse the keenest interest among the nations of the world; and the errors into which we inevitably fall from time to time evoke sarcastic comment and corresponding caution on the part of our critics, who not unwillingly apply to themselves the benefit derived from our experience and failures.

Should not we as a nation be equally ready to profit by our own experiments, and to add to our knowledge through our own failures? Should not we make of them stepping stones to a firmer ground of national policy?

To the man in the street such action would commend itself, but unhappily Congress is not the man in the street but many men with many minds, many of them seeking advancement through local, not national approval, and often through unworthy channels.

Thus it results that measures which have been tried and found wanting, laws which have proven but broken reeds, are allowed to continue in force merely because no man brave enough is found to point out the failures, condemn the resultant evils and champion the needed legislation, lest such action call down the wrath of a home constituency or offer an issue through which some unscrupulous enemy may oust him from office.

The immigration laws of the United States are inadequate properly to protect the people, and year by year the evil results grow more threatening; nor can they be overcome until we realize our danger and properly guard our ports against the degenerate, the pauper and the criminal with far greater security than at present.

Since the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, this country has been the goal of the oppressed and the poor of the world. Probably the entire body of so-called Pilgrims could not have mustered £10,000 in earthly wealth when they, as immigrants, set foot upon our shores; but there

were among them no degenerates, no anarchists, no paupers and no criminals. Those who followed for more than 250 years were also the good seed of humanity, worthy of our soil, and because of them we are to-day the nation that we are; but within the past fifteen years a great change has taken place in the class of our immigration, a change that threatens more and more as each year adds to the accumulation of undesirables in our land.

In 1864 Abraham Lincoln said in his fourth annual message to Congress :

I regard our immigrants as one of the principal replenishing streams which are appointed by Providence to repair the ravages of internal war and its waste of national strength and health.

When these words were written the annual number of immigrants was less than 200,000, all of them, except 10,000 coming from Germany, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and from Norway and Sweden; sturdy, honest hard-working Saxon and Celt, capable of becoming the brawn and sinew and the brain of their adopted land.

To-day the number of immigrants approximates 1,000,000 annually —it was more than a million and a quarter in 1907—and more than three-fifths of this enormous influx hales from Russia, Austria Hungary, Italy, and the southern countries about the eastern end of the Mediterranean,―men of alien races, mixed in blood and of many tongues and often the last resultants of effete and decaying civilizations.

It is doubtful if our Great President would repeat his words of fortyfive years ago in face of present conditions.

Immigration ebbs and flows in cycles which roughly accord with the tides of prosperity. Note these tables covering six year periods.

340,238 282,032

333,637 219,946

1890-5-2,579,181 555,275 490,067 377,986 1900-5..4,281,648 433,490 195,482 385,156 1,059,903 749,522 1,059,026 399,069 1907-..1,285,349 113,567 37,807 70,081 285,731 258,943 338,452 180,768

These figures speak for themselves and the warning note rings clear. We no longer draw from Northern Europe-from the Celt and the Saxon-but the strangers who pour into Ellis Island to-day come from Russia, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Roumania, Sicily, Poland, Turkey, Bosnia, Africa and the ends of the earth.

Fifty years ago the immigrants were from the same shores that sent our ancestors across the sea to seek a land of freedom, while to-day not one in six of those who come over hale from England, Germany, or France, and seven out of every ten are Latins, Aryans or Slavs. We no longer receive accessions from the best peoples beyond our borders but from the mediocre and the worst. Year by year the tone has changed, little by little the morale has fallen, until notwithstanding somewhat more stringent laws and most watchful enforcement thereof, we are steadily adding to the percentage of pauper and criminal aliens in our country in spite of every effort.

In 1897, the total immigration was 231,000, of whom 1617 were refused as criminals, paupers or persons afflicted with loathsome and contagious disease; seven ineligibles out of every thousand.

In 1907, ten years later, the total immigration was 1,285,000, out of which enormous number 13,064 were refused admission for the reasons given above; nearly eleven ineligibles out of every thousand, an increase in proportion of ineligibles in ten years of quite fifty per cent.

If the authorities charged with the duty of separating the chaff from the wheat were called upon to prevent more than 13,000 persons from entering the country in one year, their undesirability being known and visible under the law, how many other thousands, concealing their unfitness, were able to pass our gates and mingle unmolested with our citizens.

That many such do enter may be determined from the records in the annual report of the Commissioner of Immigration for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1908.

A few comparisons with the figures of 1904 are not deemed inappropriate. The total number of aliens found in 1904 to be inmates of institutions of this character (penal, reformatory, charitable) was 44,985 against 60,501 found by the recent investigation. . . . As to the class of institutions, increases are shown as follows: Penal from 9,825 to 15,323, insane from 19,764 to 25,606; and charitable from 15,396 to 19,572; while with regard to the character of the offence for which incarcerated in penal institutions an increase is shown from 4,124 to 8,197 in grave offences. . . . In classifying crimes under "grave" there are included murder, robberies, burglaries and other offences usually enumerated with the serious crimes.

If we estimate the immigrants in the country in 1904 to be those who had arrived since 1874, a period of thirty years only, we find that they numbered probably about twelve and one-half millions. From 1904 to and including 1908, four and a quarter millions were added. If the increase in alien criminals was in proportion to the added immigrants there should have been about one-third more found in penal institutions

in 1908 than 1904, but the figures show the actual increase was nearly sixty per cent., while the increase of those incarcerated for "grave" offences—that is, murder, robbery, burglary and the like-was almost ninety-nine per cent.

In other words the four years from 1904 to 1908 indicate an increase of practically one hundred per cent. of grave crimes committed by alien criminals, and this does not include the many immigrant criminals who have suffered death either by due process of law or at the hands of others, nor the undiscovered number still free of the law against whom must be charged some at least of the horrible and mysterious crimes which have blackened the records of the years since 1904.

These are facts and figures, not theory, and no argument can gainsay them. Unless we guard ourselves with greater care than at present, we shall become in truth "the dumping ground of Europe."

What is the remedy?

In the annual report above referred to the then Commissioner, Mr. F. P. Sargent, since dead, stated that as the President had recently appointed a Commission under Congressional authority to investigate all immigration questions he did not deem it proper to offer any recommendations for additional legislation. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor, however, in his annual report for 1908 calls attention to the law which refuses admission to those "who have been guilty of crimes or misdemeanors, who are believers in anarchy, or who are prostitutes or procurers of prostitutes, or persons otherwise similarly immoral," and speaks of it as a subject of grave moment, but adds, "the law regarding these moral defects needs to be amended and strengthened in several important respects."

The report of the Congressional Committee upon immigration above referred to has not yet been submitted, but I understand that it will be at the coming session of Congress.

It may be that in view of the information thus supplied all needed legislation will result; but the following plan is presented as possessing many safeguards and worthy of careful consideration.

First. By Act of Congress limit the number of immigrants permitted in any one year, and divide that number proportionately among our great ports; that is to say, permit fifty per cent. of the entire number to enter at New York, ten per cent. at Boston, Philadelphia and New Orleans respectively, and twenty per cent. at San Francisco. By this simple process the new arrivals will be approximately near the several sections of the country where needed and, to a large degree, will be prevented from massing, as at present, in any one city.

Second. Establish Immigration Inspection Stations at three or more of the most important ports in Europe. Equip these with a Chief, an Assistant Chief, two medical officers and such a corps of clerks as the business demands. The Chief and his Assistant should be men of high character and capacity, preferably linguists. The physicians should be Americans having had not less than ten years of general practice. The clerical force, with the exception of stenographers and messengers, should also be Americans. If necessary, an interpreter having a good knowledge of three or more Continental languages might be added. Salaries commensurate with the importance of the duty imposed and the fact that it means temporary expatriation should be paid to all the officials. A reasonable estimate of the expense would be not to exceed $100,000 annually for the maintenance of each station.

The prime test of the alien should be made before he leaves his native shore. Every person seeking to immigrate to the United States would have to make preliminary application to one of the Immigrant Inspection Stations for examination. In order to facilitate such application the printed forms would be supplied through the Department of Commerce and Labor to all American Consuls or Vice-Consuls, throughout Europe. In such form, the applicant would state his nationality, name, age and place of residence, would designate the port in the United States at which he desired admission, and would reply to a list of questions as to his family, children, employment, health and civic standing for three years past. He would also be required to give the name and official address of the chief civil and the chief criminal officer of the city, town, district, province or canton where he now lived and also the name of a judge within the same territory.

Upon filing this signed application with an Investigation Station, either in person or by mail, and the payment of a small fee not to exceed $1.00, the office of the Station would at once file the same and send to the nearest American Consul or Vice-Consul three other printed question sheets, one addressed to the chief civil officer named, one to the chief criminal officer named, and one to the judge. These in turn would be forwarded by the Consul or Vice-Consul, accompanied by a printed letter of instructions, requesting that the same be filled out from the records under the control of the several officers, signed, and returned to the Consul or Vice-Consul, who would at once send them to the Station from which they emanated.

The questions covered by these sheets would give a full history of the proposed immigrant and his family as to employment, politics, character, criminal record and past life. Upon receipt of these data the officials of