Speech #610072641

Greater profits are realized from the toil of our laboring people in our protected manufacturing and other industrial interests than ever recorded in any period of the worlds history. The trouble is. under the theory of protection as represented in the PayneAldrich bill. that we are now laboring o1. and every other tariff law made by the Republican party since the close of the civil war. there is an unjust and unrighteous division of the results or profits of labor between the laborer and the employer. If these things be true. then Congress at least should see to it that the laboring people of our country ought to be safeguarded against *the hordes of criminal pauper immigrants that come to our shores annually. I believe that one of the niost desirable reforms is to increase the head tax on the inmigrant. Under the law existing it is only $4. It is well established that this head tax is not paid by the immigrant. but is paid by the steamship company that brings him over. The imlmigrant is not even informed about this head tax. Yet we are advised that the expenditures of the immigrant fund annually exceed the receipts from the payment of head taxes by several millions. By such a paltry head tax of $4 we are not only doing injustice to the laborer of our country. but we are filling the pockets of foreign steamship companies that never contribute a dollar to the expenses of our Government. It is these foreign steamship companies that are the most active procurers and agents in drumming up the worthless idle pauper class of foreigners to transport them to our country. It is well known that many cities cheerfully pay the passage of all idle dependent pauper in order to get rid of him. I have had occasion before to express my opinion on this subject. In the Fiftyninth Congress I introduced the following bill: A bill to amend the immigration laws of the United States. Be it enacted. etc.. Tlat the head money collected from alien passengers under the act of March 3. 1903. to regulate the immigration of aliens. shall be $20 instead of $2. as provided in said act. SEC. 2. That this act shall take effect ninety days after its passage. Observation o1 all the line of prepared statistics as to the insanity. criminals. and paupers among these immigrants as compared to our native people convinces me now that the amount prescribed as head tax in my bill was right. and if such had been the law great benefit would have come to our country. Why. Mr. Speaker. when we realize the fact that quite 42 per cent of the inmates of our insane asylums are of foreign birth. not to say anything as to how many are inmates of our penal and charitable institutions. then we realize the true situation. I do not wish to be understood as saying or believing that all immigrants are undesirable citizens. but I do declare from the appalling statistics of insanity. crime. and pauperism among the immigrants that reach our country some method ought to be devised to prevent such a class from coming here. Our deportation laws ought to be amended by striking out the words "from causes existing prior to landing." That is a broad. open device to keep any of the unworthy class from being sent back to tile country they came from. Take one of that class who has violated our penal laws or is an inmate of one of our charitable institutions. how can you legally establish the fact that he became a public charge or an inmate of a penal institution "from causes existing prior to landing? " I admit that valuable amendments have been made in the last few years to our immigration laws. and experience demonstrates that other amendments are needed. Let us have a genuine deportation provision. practicable and easily enforced. Our present ain should be to prevent the undesirable class of immigrants from ever landing. This is the specific remedy. Let us refuse to give any ship engaged in the transportation of immigrants clearance papers at any of our ports. if guilty of a failure to comply with all the stipulations. conditions. and requirements prescribed by our Government before passage is allowed to ani immigrant from a foreign port. Many of the great industrial and labor organizations from all sections of our country are deeply interested in this question. It is a subject that demands their most earnest consideration.