Speech #630378277

The committee s thought it best to strike out the word "isental" and make it apply to purely physical defects of a nature which might affect t the ability to earn a living in order to make it certain. clear. and distinct. and so that there should be no misapprehension as to the nature of it. For that reason I favored the anmenda neIt. I wish to say in this connection that there are no provisions t in the bill that I feel are more important than those contained o in this section. -because. with the more than a million of immigrants who are coming to this country every year. the burden of the examination at all our ports becomnes not only expensive but n difficult. It has to be conducted with a certain degree of haste. particularly when we have from 3.000 to 4.000 to -be examined In a single day at Ellis Island. We have here a proposition that is better than having Government officers stationed at the ports abroad. because iVlth this penalty of $200 upon every steaniship company that violates the provision and brings a person whose condition might have been discovered by competent medical examination. we have compelled them to establish a corps of medical officers at every port of embarkation in Europe. Not only that. but the effect of it has been that these examinations have left at those ports such large numbers that the German Government has been compelled. in order to protect itself from caring for such people. to establish along the border of Germany control stations. so called. at which persons coming from Russia or Austria or Italy or any other country to take German lines of steamers coming to the United States are compelled to pass an examination by surgeons who are paid for by the steamship companies. The result has been that in a single year we have excluded of the defective classes through those examinations 40.000 intended immigrants. Now.. with this explanation it will be seen why the committee struck out the word "mental." They laid a penalty of $200 upon the steamship company bringing in any of that class. and here they are laying a penalty of $25 for bringing in any persoa who has a physical defect. the nature of which might affect -the ability of the alien to earn a living. I do not consider this particularly important.