Mr. Chairman. in the past three days of rather acrimonious debate. it appears to me that there has been one undercurrent of umanimity. for it seened to be the desire on the part of every Member in this body that if there should be an alien afilicted either mentally or physically. means should be provided to keep him out of the country. It is with that in view that I have offered this amendment. that there shall be assigned on every steamship a surgeon of the Public Health Service. trained in the psychiatry. and at the risk of wearying you a little I will repeat what I have said before: Since 1910. when the Immigration Commission reported to Congress. it has been proven that a great proportion of the evils in our society are the result of inherited mental defeats. and that these evils are transmitted according to the lines of the Mendelian law. To correct that. I offer this amendment. I have no means of knowing from what angle the committee will oppose this amendment. If they oppose it upon the ground of expense. I wish to suggest to the members of the colnnittee that since 1909 the head tax has been made a revenue measure. and over $1.000.000 a year has been covered into the Federal Treasury. which had far better been applied to the proper inspection of arriving inimigrants. If they oppose it on the ground of impracticability that the amendment is too broad. I should be very glad to hear suggestions from the committee mak~ig it perhaps a little bit more reasonable. If they oppose the alnendment on the ground of the legal aspects of it. I simply claim that when the Supreme Court of the United States held that the establishment of a head tax was a just and reasonable regulation under our maritime laws that there is no legal objection to our assigning these surgeons to the steamships. and if they object to it on the ground that the foreign ships do not want these surgeons on board. then. I say. let the foreign steamship companies take their vessels to some other country.
Keywords matched
Immigration head tax