Speech #460087148

And may be more. It is offering a bounty for the violation of law and encouraging the immigration of the very persons against whose introduction it pretends to seek to provide. What else it provides is that unconstitutional provision to which I have referred that for a year after they have come in they may be taken care of out -of the Treasury of the United States in whatever section of the country they may go. If the bill were properly drawn. Mr. Chairman. if it were a bill to regulate immigration and nothing else. I might give to it my support. but it is a bill to support the institutions of the city of New York under State or local authority. which have been built up out of the $15.000.000 of headmoney exacted from the immigrants by an unconstitutional law. And I ask the chairman of the committee whose is the property which has been built in the city of New York by this illegally exacted headmoney T Is that to be made oker to the United States Government ? What assurance have we that the owners of that property will not charge the United States for its use in housing and aiding the immigrants whom we now generously seek to take under our care and protection ? Is the city of New York or the corporations who now own this vast property to retain the ownership of it Are they to receive compensation for the use of it ? Nothing in this bill prevents it. Mr. Chairman. let the gentleman from New York reflect but a moment before he presses this bill further. Whatever authority Congress has to regulate immigration from a foreign port it has to regulate immigration between the States. If it can watch the port of New York and provide for the poor who enter there from abroad. it can also watch the depots of the great lines of railway that cross the boundaries of States. and protect the poor and sick who cross those lines. I am surprised that the gentleman from New York has not included within the bill some provision for the homeless and destitute who pass from one State into another. that they may be protected an{ provided for as they stand naked and shivering. poor. destitute. and in want upon river banks. at steamboat landings. and at railroad depots on their weary way from the places of their birth into other States to seek freer and happier homes. If the principle of this bill is correct. we may provide for them with equal pertinency. and with equal propriety. as for those whom it is here sought to make provision. But this. it seems to me. is the duty of the State and not of the General Government. It is the State that derives the benefit from immigration. and with the benefit it should assume the responsibilities. It has been said by my friend from New York that these immigrants pass through the State into other States. So many of them do . but they leave the money they bring with them. or much of it. in the State where they first land. The waters of the Nile do not leave a richer sediment on the plains of Egypt over which they pass on their course from the mountain to the sea than do the waves of immigration in the city of New York on their way from the sea to the interior of the country. Let. then. the State that is receiving the immigrants. and deriving the benefits from them. provide for their wants when they do come. Let the States into which they go. and where they endeavor to make a home. provide for them in thIr sickness and want until they are able to provide for themselves. I do not believe. sir. that the interior States which are not benefited. as is the State of the gentleman fron New York. by this immigration. should be taxed to pay the bills of the State of New York.. It is owing to this immigration that the great city of New York stands with its marble palaces fronting the sea. the home of a commerce and tralo greater and richer than floated into the harbors of Tyro. Carthage. or Venice. Let the State and the city which reap the benefits of this mighty immigration assume the responsibilities which devolve upon them in receiving that benefit and pay the bills for which provision is here sought to be made. and not seekto draw the money to meet them by an unconstitutional measure from the Treasury of the United States. Mr. Chairman. how much time have I remaining T