Speech #570092905

If this bill should be enacted into law. the number of immigrant aliens admitted into the United States would be materially reduced. because that is the purpose of the legislation. and it is obvious that the immigration -fund would be proportionately reduced. That reduction must be met. even if the fund is only to be kept at its present amount. by an increase in the tax. The CommissionerGeneral of Immigration does not rely upon theory or argument as to the future. but states positively that he will need for the running expenses of Ellis Island $315.000. that for the administration of the contractlabor laws he will require $150.000. that for the expenses relative to the Canadian border he will require $300.000. that for new buildings at Ellis Island $500.000 will be required. for new buildings at Boston. most urgently required. as the Senator from Massachusetts knows. $500.000 will be needed. for a ferryboat. $90.000. and for a. tugboat. in connection with the Ellis Island station. $4.0.000there are other items which 1 do not happen to have contained upon this memorandum which I hold in my handmaking an amount of $1.895.000 absolutely required to carry out the work of the bureau for the ensuing year. Mr. President. the items which I have read do not include the expenses at Philadelphia. San Francisco. and other ports. The revenues from all sources to the immigration fund last year were some $912.000. hardly half of the amount requisite to carry on the work of the bureau for the ensuing year. particularly if by the reduction of the number of aliens admitted the amount received from the per capita tax is necessarily reduced. Mr. Goodwin Brown. the counsel for the lunacy commission for the State of New York. testified before the Immigration Committee this morning that over 50 per cent of the insane in the State of New York were aliens coming in under the lax provisions of the present law. and that that great State is put to an expense of $5.000.000 annually to support the insane population of the State. What that amounts to throughout the country at large it is difficult to tell. but it is an enormous figure. and certainly the people of the United States are subjected to enormous burdens enough of a financial character in order to support the criminals. the insane. and those unfit to become part of our population without adding to the burden and requiring them to appropriate over $1.000.000 annually on the work of this immigration restriction. There is another point which was not referred to by either of the Senators. members of the committee. who explained this increase. and that is. that in the opinion of the immigration officials this increase of the head tax to $3 will very largely tend to keep out the most objectionable and undesirable classes of immigrants. that the increase in the cost of their admission to the country will tend as a prohibition. and in that way work in harmony with the general purpose of the bill: