Speech #590039249

I think there is no question about It. Mr. Gardner. (From page 69 of Commissioner Sargents testimony before the Immigration Committee.) . Now. In the report of Commissioner Williams. of New York. in 1904: A very large percentage of the present immigration is of the assisted class. (Page 1O5. Annual Report of CommIsslonerGeneral of Immigration for 1904.) I quote from Inspector Marcus Brauns report of his investigations abroad. page 27: Furthermore. these immigrants are mostly contract laborers. He is referring. as the context will show. to immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. I have evidence here of the same tenor from Mr. Campbell. of the Bureau of Immigration. I think any man who goes down to Ellis Island and uses his eyes and hears these people answer the inspectors would be convinced that the contractlabor law is nearly inoperative. But how can the inspector prove it in any individual case? The inspector stands there with the manifest in front of him. the answers stamped or written in. He asks the immigrant a series of questions. The immigrant answers him exactly in the words of the manifest. The inspector asks whether anybody has given him money for his passage and the immigrant says "No." He asks him if he has come there under a contract. and receives the same reply. Then they crossexamine the immigrant. often by another interpreter. Unless that imnigrant has been very badly schooled or is very stupid. or unless some suspicious circumstance arises. nobody can say that he ought to be excluded. Perhaps too many aliens are billed to the same address. That is suspicious. and the men are held for a board of special inquiry. sitting the next day. Once in a while. but not often. they are able to show a strong probability that those men are contract laborers. As a matter of fact. I think we sent home 1.164 contract laborers out of an immigration of a million last year. Yet I do not believe that any man who has looked into the question believes that much less than twothirds of our adult immigrants are indeed contract laborers. Now to come to the question of remedy. How lunch time lve I.