I will say that I think the contractlabor law in the case of some individual immigrants works a hardship. The primary object of the law was to prevent employers of laborers in large numbers. in case of a strike. from sending out of the country and making contracts with gangs of workmen to come in here and take the places of the striking employds. With that object of the law I sympathize. but it works a great hardship in some individual cases. because it is a rigid rule that if an immigrant come here without any money and yet has an understanding with some person that he will give him work. he can not come in. andwe inexorably send him back across the water. If that rule is to continue it is utter folly for us to allow people to come in without any money. because for the first sixty days they are in imminent danger of going upon the publie authorities for support. Therefore. I argue that it is reasonable to require immigrants coming under such circumstances to have enough money to be sure of a support at least during the first sixty days after they arrive. Mr. President. I not only ask the help of Congress to make the conditions of steerage passages to the United States more tolerable and more decent. but I also ask the assistance of a higher power than Congress. that is to say. the steamship companies themselves. and of yet a greater power. that of the press of America. I find in the Washington Post of January 2. 1893. published by my former associate. Mr.
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immigrants steerage immigrant