Speech #620231050

The purpose of the bill is to check the influx of insane aliens to this country. Under the law as it now exists insane aliens are debarred from this country. but there is no penalty on the steamship com-. panies for bringing them in. Under section 9 of the present immigration law steamship companies are subject to a fine of $100 for bringing in aliens who are idiots. imbeciles. epileptics. or who are afflicted with tuberculosis. and so forth. This bill proposes to make this penalty $200 and to make it apply to persons afflicted with insanity. There is a growing necessity for this law. The insane asylums of New York and some other Northern States are being filled with insane aliens coming from eastern and southern Europe. and if immigration from these countries is not checked the asylums of the Southern and Western States will soon begin to be crowded with this same class of people. The steamship companies do not care how many of these people they dump on our shores so long as they can get the passage money. and they will continue to pour them in unless they are made to feel the heavy hand of the law forbidding it. I will here quote from the report of my Committee on immigration on this bill: An acute condition has arisen in certain sections of the country. conspicuously in New York State. where great numbers of insane aliens become the inmates of the State hospitals and are cared for at the States expense. This imposes a tremendous burden upon the State from a financial standpoint as well as throwing it into jeopardy from excessive numbers of insane aliens. The Commissioner of Immigration in his report for the fiscal year ended June 30. 1911. has this to say in regard to the question: One of the most useful provisions of the present statute Is section 9. by which a fine of $100 is assessed against any steamship line that brings to a United States port an alien afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease. or with tuberculosis. or with Idiocy. imbecility. or epiepsy. During the past year such fines were assessed in 246 cases. the aggregate amount being $24.600. of which $23.700 was on account of the first. $100 on account of the second. and $800 on account of the third class. respectively. It is believed this statute would be much more effective. however. if the amount of the fine were made considerably largersufficiently large to compel the transportation companies as a measure of selfprotection to use greater care in the medical inspection of embarking passengers. The fine should also be made to cover cases of Insanity. a class omitted from the present statute probably by inadvertence. On page 9. report of New York State Board of Alienists for the year ended September 30. 1911. is the following: It must be remembered that foreign countries look with favor upon the nigration to America of diseased and defective persons. Examinatiou by American officials at the ports of embarkation in Europe has been strenuously opposed by certain foreign Governments. and it is a notorious fact. commented upon in every annual report of the Commissioner General of Immigration. that the steamship companies make only. the most perfunctory medical examination of passengers upon their departure for America. Thus there are no obstacles in the way of diseased persons embarking for this country. In the case of those returning. however. the conditions are reversed. The passengers are carefully scrutinized by ships surgeons at. the gangway. as they embark at the port of New York. and those who do not satisfy the steamship officials .10232 or the representatives of foreign Governments stationed on such ships are peremptorily refused passage. even although they have been only a short time away from the countries to which they still owe allegiance. Cases are not decided individually. upon their merits. but as soon as it is learned that an applicant for passage has been in an institution for the insane he is at once rejected. It can be seen that. with an unimpeded flow of inferior immigrants to this country. and with an outflow which is so carefully regulated that only the prosperous and sound can return. we must ultimately become the asylum for an increasing number On page 22 of the same report is the following: For the first few years after the commencement of that remarkable migration of the races of southern and eastern Europe to this country (to which AustriatHungary. Italy. and Russia have contributed nearly 500.000 persons a year) it is noted that the increase of patients of those nationalities in the State hospitals was gradual. By 1905. however. it was possible to predict that when the effects of the "new immigration " commenced to be felt the "old immigration " (of Germans. Irish. and Scandinavians) would be outdone in the numbers of insane added to the foreignborn population of our State hospitals. Today that prediction is fulfilled. and during the year more than 55 per cent of the aliens deported by the United States Immigration Service were natives of those three countries. The New York Times of March 28. 1912. says: