Speech #540103229

During the last session we passed a law giving to that steamship line the exclusive carriage of express packages between Europe and this country by a discrimination which we made. Ifit is necessary to keep the American line running. or to establish another American line. I am willing to vote to aid the lines from the Treasury of the United States to any reasonable extent. but I am not in favor of doing it by imposing a head tax upon immigrants coming to this country. I am in favor of as rigid immigration laws as any Senator in this Chamber. I have endeavored to contribute to the enactment of laws for the limitation of immigration. but the policy as to the imposition of a head tax has been to levy only such a head tax as would pay the expenses of administering the immigration laws. It is right to pay for administering the laws. to pay for taking care of the paupers who come here through the year. after they come. to sustain them until they can be sent back to their native country. That principle is justifiableto make the immigrants pay the expenses of administering these laws. But. Mr. President. the last thing in the world that this country ought to do is to raise money by putting a tax upon immigrants coming here. to be put into the Treasury of the United States. A tax of one or two dollars a head pays all the bills. If this tax is imposed. we will take out of the pocket of every immigrant who comes here $8. So far as the imposition of the tax might tend to keep immigrants from coming. I sympathize with the motive. but we have to consider it with reference to the immigrants who come. When an immigrant comes here. a single man. a single woman. a man and wife. or family. if there is any good us to which they can put $8 each that will benefit this country it is to their own use. They need it when they come here. They are not allowed by existing laws to come here with any contract that they may go to work and earn a living. If they have any such contract. either express or implied. they are sent back. and so they come here poor and. as we are going to require now. intelligent immigrants to become a part of our social and political system. They come here to go out on the Western prairies. into the State of the Senator who addressed the Senate in opposition to the amendment. to make their homes there. The very best use to which that money can be put is to leave it in the hands of the immigrant. and I for one repudiate the idea that under any policy of restriction of immigration the United States ought by a head tax to take money out of the immigrants who come here and seek to become citizens of the United States and put it into the Treasury.