Chapter 5
The truth is, the transportation agent has become a figure of international consequence and concern. The artificial cause behind the present unprecedented exodus from Europe, according to Whelpley, is the abnormal activity of the transportation companies in their effort to secure new and profitable cargo for their ships. In 1900 over $118,000,000 was invested in trans-atlantic steamship lines, which are largely owned by foreigners. New lines to the Mediterranean have been put on with distinct purpose to swell the Italian and Slav immigration. Rate cutting has at times made it possible for the steerage passenger to go from Liverpool to New York for as low as $8.75. The average rate is not high enough to deter anyone who really wants to come. An English line, in return for establishing a line direct from a Mediterranean port, has secured from the Hungarian government a guarantee of 30,000 immigrants a year from its territory.
[Sidenote: Solicitation Law Violated]
The law forbids transportation companies or the owners of vessels to "directly or through agents, either by written, printed, or oral solicitations, solicit, invite, or encourage the immigration of any aliens into the United States except by ordinary commercial letters, circulars, advertisements, or oral representations, stating the sailings of their vessels and terms and facilities of transportation therein." That this restrictive provision is persistently evaded is made plain by the reports of government inspectors sent abroad to investigate. The annual migration involves more than a hundred millions of dollars, and where money is to be made law is easily disobeyed.
[Sidenote: The Ubiquitous and Unscrupulous "Runner"]
One of the inspectors says the chief evil in this solicitation business is the so-called "runner." Here is his description of this mischievous _genus homo_. "It is he who goes around in eastern and southern Europe from city to city and village to village telling fairy tales about the prosperity of many immigrants in America and the opportunities offered by the United States for aliens. The runner does not know of anyone who is undesirable; he claims to be all-powerful, that he has representatives in every port who can 'open the door' of America to anyone. It is he who induces many a diseased person to attempt the journey, and it is also he and his associates who do their best to have the undesirables admitted. The steamship companies, as a rule, do not deal with these runners directly and disclaim all responsibility for their nefarious practices. But the official agents of the steamship companies do pay their runners commissions for every immigrant referred to them. I have especially studied this problem along the borders of Germany, Russia, and Austrian Galicia. Here most of the emigrants are smuggled across the frontiers by these runners and robbed of the greater part of their cash possessions. When they arrive at the 'control station' it is remarkable that most emigrants have cards with the address of a certain steamship ticket agent, and the agent, on the other hand, has a list of all the individuals who were smuggled across the frontiers. When I asked one of these representatives how this was done, he told me that he paid 'good commissions' to the runner on the other side of the frontier for each case. When steamship companies and their agents stop paying commissions to runners for emigrants referred to them, individuals will only by their own initiative attempt to come to the United States, and most of those considered undesirable will remain at their native homes."[28]
[Sidenote: Law in Contempt]
Violations of law abound. Smuggling persons is regarded with much the same moral leniency as smuggling goods. The law forbids importation of persons under contract to work. In April last two Italian steamships carried back to Europe more than 1,000 laborers, who had been brought over in violation of the contract-labor laws. Commissioner Watchorn had word from his special investigators abroad that the men had been collected in the Balkan States to work for padrones in this country. So back went the thousand Slavs; but it was a chance discovery. The men admitted that the padrones had paid their passage and agreed to furnish them work. They said the rosiest conditions had been painted before their eyes, and they believed "big money" was to be made here. The steamship companies had to bear the expense of taking them back, but the padrones have not suffered any penalty, and will go on with their unlawful work.
[Sidenote: How the Laborers are Engaged]
Mr. Brandenburg learned from an Italian woman that her husband had been commissioned by a contractor in Pittsburg to go into the Italian provinces of Austria and engage 200 good stonemasons, 200 good carpenters, and an indefinite number of unskilled laborers. These people were to be put in touch with sub-agents of lines sailing from Hamburg, Fiume, and Bremen, and these agents were to be accountable for these contract laborers being got safely into the United States. This woman said many of her neighbors in Pittsburg had come into the country as contract laborers and held the law in great contempt, as it was merely a matter of being sufficiently instructed and prepared, and no official at Boston or Ellis Island could tell the difference.[29] Why should not the law be held in contempt, not only this one but all law, by the immigrant who is introduced to America through its violation, and trained to perjure himself at the outset of his new career? Does not the Commissioner-General sound a note of warning when he says:
[Sidenote: The Christian Duty]
"It is not reasonable to anticipate that if the great transportation lines do not respect the laws of this country their alien passengers will do so, nor can it be conceded that those aliens whose entrance to the United States is effected in spite of the law are desirable or even safe additions to our population."[30]
[Sidenote: Remedy Demanded]
It is painful to think that such conditions can exist in connection with so vital a matter as immigration. But it is better to have the facts known, in order that a remedy may be found. Publicity is the safety of republics and communities. And the disclosures of the lengths to which men will go in order to make money should give new and mighty impulse to those who believe in righteousness and have not bowed to the god mammon. If the work of Christianizing the aliens is made harder by the experiences through which they pass and the examples they have set before them by unscrupulous persons, it must be undertaken with so much the more zeal. Respect for law must be preserved, and one of the best ways to accomplish this is to see to it that the laws are enforced and the violators of them punished, even though they represent giant corporations and vast capital.
QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER II
AIM: TO REALIZE THE NECESSITY OF JUST AND ADEQUATE LAWS FOR THE ADMISSION AND RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRANTS
I. _Method of Admission._
1. What proportion of the immigrants now coming land at New York?
2. What is Ellis Island like--materially--spiritually?
3. Suppose yourself an immigrant: what steps would you take to reach New York? What processes would you undergo on landing? How would you be directed?
II. _Governmental Regulation._
4. What two kinds of government regulation are practicable? Are both in force?
5. Do the steamship companies obey the law? with regard to its letter? to its real intent?
III. _Restriction._
6. * Do you think unrestricted immigration is best for our country?
7. Why is the present discrimination against the Chinese not just?
8. When and to what extent was control over immigration assumed by the United States Government?
9. What measures were passed in 1903? Has there been any action since?
10. What classes of immigrants are excluded as unfit? Who decides in case of doubt?
11. Are many immigrants sent back? Why do the steamship companies bring the unfit?
IV. _Violation._
12. How is immigration solicited? How is it coerced?
13. What is the purpose and what the actual working of the "Contract-Labor Law"?
V. _What Can the Christian Public do to Improve Conditions?_
14. * Can we expect immigrants to obey our laws, if they are started in such ways? Why not?
15. Has Christian public opinion any special duty in this matter? What is it?
REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.--CHAPTER II
I. Visit and inspect if possible, some receiving station for immigrants, and report; or else consult the statements and charts of Reports of the Commissioner of Immigration, for the year ending June 30, 1905.
II. Describe the Brandenburgs during life among Italians, and journey to this country as immigrants; their aims, and the results achieved. Brandenburg: Imported Americans, IV, XIII, XV, XXII.
III. The present regulation of immigrants, with special reference to "The Excluded." Laws for 1903. Hall: Immigration, 216-231. Brandenburg: Imported Americans, 248-274.
IV. Is there need for further restriction? Hall: Immigration, XI, XII. Hunter: Poverty, VI. Charities and The Commons, issue for March 31, 1906.
_The evils attendant upon unrestricted immigration are not theoretical but actual. Emigration from one place becomes immigration into another. It is an international affair of greatest importance, and should be speedily recognized as such._--J. D. Whelpley.
III
PROBLEMS OF LEGISLATION AND DISTRIBUTION
The immigration question in this country has never had the attention to which its importance entitles it. It has sometimes been the scapegoat of religious and racial prejudices, and always, in recent years, an annual sacrifice to the gods of transportation.--_Prescott F. Hall._
It is exasperating to any patriotic American to have brought convincingly before him the proofs of a wholesale evasion of a very carefully planned code of laws which he fain would think is a sufficient protection of his country's best interests. It is more annoying to realize that the successful evaders are for the most part foreigners, and those, too, of commonly despised races. The conclusion is plain: Seek the grounds on which to deny passage to undesirable emigrants who wish to come to the United States, in the villages from which they emanate. In the communes of their nativity the truth is known and cannot be hidden.--_Broughton Brandenburg._
The mesh of the law needs to be stiffened rather than relaxed. The benefit of the doubt belongs to the United States rather than to the alien who clamors for admittance.--_Commissioner-General Sargent._
Distribution, rather than wholesale restriction, is being more and more recognized as the real way out of the difficulties presented by our immense unassimilated immigration.--_Gino C. Speranza._
The need is to devise some system by which undesirable immigrants shall be kept out entirely, while desirable immigrants are properly distributed throughout the country.--_President Roosevelt._
III
PROBLEMS OF LEGISLATION AND DISTRIBUTION
_I. The Present Situation_
[Sidenote: Difficulties in the Way]
There is a growing conviction that something ought to be done to check the present enormous inflow of immigrants. But when it comes to what that something is, difficulties at once arise. There are so many foreigners already in America, and so many children of foreign-born parents, that it is impossible to touch the stream at any point without protest from some source. As some one says, "You do not have to go very far back in the family line of any of us to find an immigrant. Scratch an American and you find a foreigner." And not a few of these foreigners sympathize with the Irishman who said to a lady against whom he had a grievance because she insisted on having a Chinese servant, "We have a right here that those who are here by the mere accident of birth have not." On the other hand, it was a foreigner of wide vision who said: "I do not believe there is any peculiar virtue in American birth, or that Americans are (_per se_) superior to all other nations; but I do believe that they are better fitted than all others to govern their own country. They made the country what it is, and ought to have the first voice in determining what it is to be. In this alone consists their superiority."[31]
[Sidenote: The Immigration Conference of 1905]
It is significant and hopeful that men are thinking upon the subject. What we want is full and fair discussion and thorough information. Nothing is so perilous in a democracy as ignorance and indifference. It is far better for men to disagree thoughtfully than to agree thoughtlessly. What all patriotic and Christian men seek is the best good of this country, which means so much to the whole world as the supreme experiment of self-government. That the people are awakening was shown by the Immigration Conference in New York in December of 1905, when five hundred men, most of them appointed by their state governors, gathered under the auspices of the National Civic Federation to discuss the whole question of immigration. The immigration experts of the country were present, and the company included United States Senators and Representatives, college presidents and professors, leading editors, lawyers and clergymen, and prominent labor leaders.
[Sidenote: Conclusions Reached]
No such conference on this subject has before been held, and the results of the discussion, which was for the most part as temperate and sensible as it was straightforward, were such as to bring about a better understanding between the men who are supposed to be theorists and the representatives of American labor. The resolutions unanimously adopted were conservative and practical. The most important recommendations call for admission tests in Europe rather than after the alien has reached America, for the spread of information leading to better distribution, and for the establishment of a commission to investigate the subject of immigration in all its relations, including the violations and evasions of the present law. Undoubtedly such a commission, appointed by the president and possessed of competent authority, could accomplish much good. For one thing, it could keep the matter before the people and wisely guide public sentiment.
[Sidenote: The Right of Self-Protection]
However much men may differ in view as to specific legislation, one point ought to be regarded as settled. That is, the right of Congress to pass such laws as may be deemed essential to safeguard American institutions and liberties. A nation has the inalienable right to protect itself against foreign invasion; and it does not matter whether the invasion be armed or under the guise of immigration. No foreign nation has the right to send its peoples to America, or by persecution to drive them forth upon other nations, and no foreigner has any inherent right to claim admission to the United States.
[Sidenote: Welfare of the State Supreme]
Right is determined, in migration as in civic relations, not by the will or whim of the individual, but by the welfare of the state. Further than this, the government has the right to deport at any time any aliens who may be regarded as unfit to remain. There ought to be no confusion as to rights in this matter.
[Sidenote: Cases that call for Reform]
The question recurs, however, is there need of doing anything? As to this President Roosevelt and the Commissioner-General of Immigration are agreed. In his last annual message the President recommended the prohibition of immigration through Canada and Mexico, the strengthening of our exclusion laws, heavier restraints upon the steamship companies, and severer penalties for enticing immigrants. It is a striking fact that nearly all of the proposed additions to our laws are intended to stop the evasion and violation of the laws we have, which are made ineffective by fraud and questionable practices of the most extensive kind. A recent writer[32] presents this matter in condensed form worthy of study, giving this "astonishing catalogue of abuses," brought to light by special inspectors in the employ of the Immigration Bureau:
[Sidenote: Astonishing Abuses]
"1. The importation of contract laborers, usually under the direction of padrones, from Greece, Italy, and Austria-Hungary.
"2. The smuggling of immigrants across the Canadian and Mexican borders who would be certain of rejection at our Atlantic ports.
"3. The 'patching up' of immigrants afflicted with favus, trachoma, and other loathsome or contagious diseases so that they can get past the inspectors without detection, even though the process is likely to augment their sufferings later.
"4. The forgery and sale of spurious naturalization certificates and the repeated use of the same certificates passed back and forth between relatives and friends.
"5. The assisting of immigration, either by local authorities in Europe or by earlier comers in America.
"6. The stimulating of immigration by transportation companies and their armies of paid agents and sub-agents in Europe."
[Sidenote: A Plain Necessity]
As a result, Mr. Ogg says, of the widespread operations through these underground channels there is an abnormal immigration movement so vast as "to override and all but reduce to a mere joke our whole restrictive system. That an appalling number of aliens who are on the verge of dependency, defectiveness, and delinquency do somehow contrive to get into the country every year is a fact too well known to call for verification here. Nobody undertakes to deny it." There is plain necessity, therefore, that some means of redeeming the situation should be found.
_II. Proposed Legislation_
[Sidenote: Three Recommendations]
The Commissioner-General of Immigration, in his report for 1905, devotes much space to new or amendatory legislation, which he regards as a necessity.[33] To bring the steamship companies to stricter regard for law, he would raise the penalty for carrying diseased persons from $100 to $500. He favors the debarring of illiterates, and as a special recommendation proposes an international conference of immigration experts, with a view to secure by treaty or convention the coöperation of foreign countries from which aliens migrate hither, both in reducing the number of immigrants and preventing the inadmissible and undesirable classes from leaving their own homes.
[Sidenote: Value of International Conference]
Such a conference would certainly be conducive to a good understanding between nations, would doubtless secure an effective restraint of the transportation agencies, and throw such light upon the attitude of foreign governments toward our present system of immigration restriction as would enable Congress to decide intelligently what additional measures are necessary to protect this country from the dangers of an increasing influx of aliens. This is an admirable recommendation. As Mr. Whelpley says, it is a question of emigration as well as immigration, and since two countries are interested in the migrants, the whole matter is properly one for international conference and action.
[Sidenote: Immigration Bills in Congress]
The interest taken by Congress in immigration is indicated by the introduction in the House during the session of 1906 of nineteen bills to regulate or restrict immigration, while a number were introduced in the Senate also. The House Committee on Immigration, of which Mr. Gardner, of Massachusetts, is chairman, took all the bills into consideration and reported a comprehensive Bill to Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the United States. This proposed law advances considerably beyond the Act of 1903, which it is designed to replace. It raises the head tax from $2 to $5, introduces the reading test,[34] and practically creates a money test also, by requiring every male immigrant to have $25 in hand at the time of examination.[35] The money from the head tax is to constitute a permanent immigration fund, to defray not only the cost of the Immigration Bureau, but also that of maintaining an information bureau, to save immigrants from being deceived and show them where they are most wanted and likely to succeed.[36]
[Sidenote: The Reading Test Pro and Con]
The section in this proposed legislation that has caused most discussion and dissension is the illiteracy test. This measure has been pressed upon Congress by the Immigration Restrictive League ever since the organization of that Society in 1894. Senator Lodge fathered it and it was passed once and vetoed by President Cleveland. President Roosevelt recommended it in his message of December 3, 1901, and it has received the endorsement of many boards of charities and many leading men. The strongest argument in favor of it is contained in a resolution passed by the Associated Charities of Boston, although the same argument applies broadly to the question of restriction. The reading test was discussed by speakers at the National Immigration Conference, but that meeting did not include it in the resolutions adopted. The Jewish influence is thrown strongly against it, since the Russian Jews who are fleeing from oppression are among the most illiterate of the present immigration. This is due to lack of school facilities, however, for the Jews naturally take to education and the Jewish children in the public schools and high schools are carrying off the prizes. "Not long ago I saw a Jewish girl in a New England academy win the prize in constitutional history over the heads of the boys and girls from American families, though her father was an illiterate Russian Jew."[37]
[Sidenote: In Favor of Illiterates]
That is not by any means an unusual testimony. Another fact worthy of note is that many of those who have worked most closely among the immigrants do not favor the reading test. Mr. Brandenburg, for example, suggests that the illiterates often prove less opinionated and more easily assimilable than others of the same race who can read and write, and says that so far as his experience goes the great proportion of the rascals and undesirables can read and write; that if he had his choice between admitting to this country a wealthy educated Roman nobleman or an illiterate Neapolitan or Sicilian laborer, he would take the laborer every time, for his brain and brawn and heart make the better foundation on which to build the institutions of our Republic. Miss Kate Claghorn and other experienced workers agree in this view, and think it would be a positive misfortune to make ability to read the deciding test. Nor would these experts favor the money test. They believe the inspectors should have more leeway, as judges of human nature, and would rather rely on their judgment as to the character of the applicant than upon any arbitrary tests. So this is an open question for discussion, with good arguments on both sides.
[Sidenote: Three Further Propositions]
There are three propositions further. The first is a measure introduced into the House by the late Congressman Adams of Pennsylvania. This would restrict by law the total number of immigrants from any given country in any one year to 80,000. This would decrease the south of Europe quota, and might increase that from northern Europe. It would at any rate tend to stop the million a year rate.
[Sidenote: Itinerant Boards]