CHAPTER IX

THE REGULATION AND RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION

The main provisions of the Immigration Act of 1907, as amended in 1910, 373.Recommendations of the United States Immigration Commission, 382. — The case for restrictive legislation, 387. Possible remedies, 389. — Government control of distribution, 391. Requirement of passports for admission, 391.- Abolition of the contract-labor clause, 392.— Restriction of the number of unskilled admitted, 394.-Some fallacies, 395.-Argument against restriction, 401.- President Wilson's veto of the literacy test, 405. — The problem of Oriental immigration, 409. The ethical aspects of regulation, 419

[The conflict between the restrictionists and the anti-restrictionists has been fought in and out of Congress for many years. The Immigration Act of 1907, which, as amended in 1910 to prevent more effectively the importation of aliens for immoral purposes and to secure the deportation and punishment of aliens who profit by prostitution, constitutes the present immigration law, was a slight victory for the restrictionists, as it made certain additions to the excluded classes and otherwise provided for more stringent regulation. It also provided for a Congressional Immigration Commission, to make an exhaustive study of the whole problem. The Report of this Commission, from which several selections are reprinted in this volume, is a mine of information, unfortunately in large part ill-digested, upon nearly every aspect of immigration and especially upon the fundamentally important industrial and economic phases of the situation. The Commission as a result of its investigations declared its belief in the desirability of restrictive legislation and advocated the literacy test as "the most feasible single method" of restriction. It is upon this specific method that the struggle is now centered, although the opponents to the literacy test are also to a great extent opposed to restriction in any form. The literacy test was passed by Congress in 1897, but the bill was vetoed by President Cleveland.1 1 See his veto message, 54th Cong., 2d Session, Sen. Doc. No. 185.

Early in 1913, Congress again provided for it, but President Taft vetoed it in a very brief message which did not state his reasons for so doing. Two years later Congress once more enacted the literacy test, only to have it vetoed by President Wilson, January 28, 1915. The House failed, by a very narrow margin, to pass the bill over his veto. A noteworthy development in recent years is the very strong organized opposition to restriction and to the literacy tests in particular.]

31. THE MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE IMMIGRATION ACT

OF 19071

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there shall be levied a tax of four dollars for every alien entering the United States. The money thus collected shall constitute a permanent appropriation to be called the "immigrant fund," to be used to defray the expense of regulating the immigration of aliens into the United States. The tax imposed by this section shall be a lien upon the vessel or other vehicle of transportation bringing such aliens to the United States.

SEC. 2. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers, persons likely to become a public charge, professional beggars, persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists

1 As amended in sections 2 and 3 by the Act of March 26, 1910. For the full text of the act, see Abstracts of the Reports of the Immigration Commission, 1911, Vol. II, pp. 731-747.

or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy, anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all government, or of all forms of law, or the assassination of public officials; prostitutes, or women or girls coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who are supported by or receive in whole or in part the proceeds of prostitution; persons who procure or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women or girls for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons hereinafter called contract laborers, who have been induced or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment or in consequence of agreements, oral, written or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled, or unskilled; those who have been, within one year from the date of application for admission to the United States, deported as having been induced or solicited to migrate as above described; any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that such person does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes, and that said ticket or passage was not paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government, either directly or indirectly; all children under sixteen years of age, unaccompanied by one or both of their parents, at the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor or under such regulations as he may from time to time prescribe: Provided, That nothing in this Act shall exclude, if otherwise admissible, persons convicted of an offense purely political, not involving moral turpitude: Provided further, That the provisions of this section relating to the payments for tickets or passage by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government shall not apply to the tickets or passage of aliens in immediate and continuous transit through the United States to foreign contiguous territory: And provided further, That skilled labor may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed cannot be found in this country: And provided further, That the provisions

of this law applicable to contract labor shall not be held to exclude professional actors, artists, lecturers, singers, ministers of any religious denomination, professors for colleges or seminaries, persons belonging to any recognized learned profession, or persons employed strictly as personal or domestic servants.

SEC. 3. That the importation into the United States of any alien for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose is hereby forbidden; and whoever shall directly or indirectly, import, or attempt to import, into the United States, any alien for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose, or whoever shall hold or attempt to hold any alien for any such purpose, in pursuance of such illegal importation, or whoever shall keep, maintain, control, support, employ, or harbor in any house or other place, for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose, in pursuance of such illegal importation, any alien, shall, in every such case, be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof be imprisoned not more than ten years and pay a fine of not more than five thousand dollars. Jurisdiction for the trial and punishment of the felonies hereinbefore set forth shall be in any district to or into which said alien is brought in pursuance of said importation by the person or persons accused, or in any district in which a violation of any of the foregoing provisions of this section occur. Any alien who shall be found an inmate of or connected with the management of a house of prostitution or practicing prostitution after such alien shall have entered the United States, or who shall receive, share in, or derive benefit from any part of the earnings of any prostitute; or who is employed by, in, or in connection with any house of prostitution or music or dance hall or other place of amusement or resort habitually frequented by prostitutes, or where prostitutes gather, or who in any way assists, protects, or promises to protect from arrest any prostitute, shall be deemed to be unlawfully within the United States and shall be deported in the manner provided by sections twenty and twenty-one of this Act. That any alien who shall, after he has been debarred or deported in pursuance of the provisions of this section, attempt thereafter to return to or to enter the United States shall be deemed guilty of a

misdemeanor, and shall be imprisoned for not more than two years. Any alien who shall be convicted under any of the provisions of this section shall, at the expiration of his sentence, be taken into custody and returned to the country whence he came, or of which he is a subject or a citizen, in the manner provided in sections twenty and twenty-one of this Act. In all prosecutions under this section the testimony of a husband or wife shall be admissible and competent evidence against a wife or husband.

SEC. 4. That it shall be a misdemeanor for any person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to prepay the transportation or in any way to assist or encourage the importation or migration of any contract laborer or contract laborers into the United States, unless such contract laborer or contract laborers are exempted under the terms of the last two provisos contained in section two of this Act.

SEC. 5. That for every violation of any of the provisions of section four of this Act the person, partnership, company, or corporation violating the same, by knowingly assisting, encouraging, or soliciting the migration or importation of any contract laborer into the United States shall forfeit and pay for every such offense the sum of one thousand dollars.

SEC. 6. That it shall be unlawful to assist or encourage the importation or migration of any alien by promise of employment through advertisements printed and published in any foreign country; and any alien coming to this country in consequence of such an advertisement shall be treated as coming under promise or agreement as contemplated in section two of this Act, and the penalties imposed by section five shall be applicable to such a case: Provided, that this section shall not apply to States or Territories, the District of Columbia, or places subject to the jurisdiction of the United States advertising the inducements they offer for immigration thereto, respectively.

SEC. 7. That no transportation company shall, directly or indirectly, either by writing, printing, or oral representation, solicit or encourage the immigration of any aliens into the United States, but this shall not be held to prevent transportation companies from issuing letters, circulars, or advertisements, stating the