Aliens or Americans? Part 28

TABLE III

DEBARRED IN 1905, FOR REASONS GIVEN

---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+ Race or People |Idiots|Insane|Paupers or|Loathsome |Contract|Relieved| | | |likely to |or |laborers|in | | | |be public |contagious| |hospital| | | |charges |diseases | | | ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+ African (black) | .. | .. | 107 | .. | 13 | 3 | Armenian | .. | .. | 25 | 50 | 5 | 78 | Bohemian and | | | | | | | Moravian | .. | 1 | 38 | 8 | 5 | 104 | Bulgarian, Servian, | | | | | | | and Montenegrin | .. | .. | 314 | 19 | 62 | 37 | Chinese | .. | 1 | 9 | 74 | 3 | 2 | Croatian and | | | | | | | Slovenian | .. | .. | 263 | 88 | 32 | 128 | Cuban | .. | 1 | 22 | 4 | 11 | .. | Dalmatian, Bosnian, | | | | | | | and Herzegovinian | .. | .. | 41 | 3 | 13 | 18 | Dutch and Flemish | 2 | 1 | 51 | 7 | 5 | 41 | East Indian | .. | .. | 12 | .. | 1 | 3 | English | 4 | 9 | 328 | 28 | 58 | 144 | Finnish | 2 | 1 | 33 | 46 | 4 | 89 | French | .. | 2 | 94 | 9 | 23 | 48 | German | 5 | 8 | 420 | 100 | 60 | 747 | Greek | .. | .. | 193 | 22 | 60 | 70 | Hebrew | 10 | 10 | 1,208 | 353 | 33 | 1,534 | Irish | 4 | 13 | 175 | 28 | 15 | 243 | Italian (north) | .. | 2 | 169 | 41 | 42 | 158 | Italian (south) | 6 | 19 | 1,578 | 247 | 205 | 1,290 | j.a.panese | .. | 1 | 238 | 285 | 13 | 2 | Korean | .. | .. | 4 | 18 | .. | 1 | Lithuanian | 2 | 1 | 48 | 92 | 8 | 269 | Magyar | .. | .. | 427 | 103 | 18 | 363 | Mexican | .. | .. | 7 | 8 | .. | 2 | Polish | .. | 4 | 444 | 204 | 125 | 991 | Portuguese | .. | .. | 50 | 7 | 1 | 26 | Roumanian | .. | .. | 388 | 14 | 111 | 47 | Russian | .. | 3 | 66 | 27 | 1 | 59 | Ruthenian (Russniak) | 1 | 1 | 186 | 14 | 13 | 115 | Scandinavian | | | | | | | (Norwegians, Danes,| | | | | | | and Swedes) | 2 | 9 | 152 | 43 | 14 | 253 | Scotch | .. | 2 | 77 | 10 | 21 | 75 | Slovak | .. | .. | 275 | 66 | 47 | 491 | Spanish | .. | 1 | 66 | 6 | 63 | 23 | Spanish American | .. | .. | 13 | 4 | 1 | 6 | Syrian | .. | .. | 124 | 155 | 59 | 200 | Turkish | .. | .. | 46 | 9 | 5 | 17 | Welsh | .. | 1 | 12 | 1 | 13 | 8 | West Indian | | | | | | | (except Cuban) | .. | 1 | 20 | .. | .. | 17 | All other peoples | .. | .. | 195 | 5 | .. | 74 | ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+ Grand total | 38 | 92 | 7,898 | 2,198 | 1,164 | 7,776 | ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAVE OF IMMIGRATION into the United States FROM ALL COUNTRIES during 87 Years.

ESTIMATED ARRIVALS 1776 TO 1820 250,000 ARRIVALS 1820 TO 1906 24,032,718]

APPENDIX B

TABLE OF ACTS OF CONGRESS CONCERNING IMMIGRATION

1862. Act of February 19, prohibiting building, equipping, loading, or preparing any vessel licensed, enrolled or registered in the United States for procuring coolies from any Oriental country to be held for service or labor.

1875. Act of March 3, providing that any person contracting or attempting to contract to supply coolie labor to another be guilty of felony. Excluding convicts, and women imported for immoral purposes, making this traffic felony.

1882. General Immigration Act of August 3; enlarging excluded list and establishing head tax.

1885. Contract Labor Act of February 26, to prevent importation of labor under the padrone or other similar system.

1891. Act of March 3, which codified and strengthened the previous statutes. Excluded cla.s.ses increased; encouraging of contract labor to emigrate by advertis.e.m.e.nts forbidden; scope of Immigration Bureau enlarged by establishing office of Superintendent of Immigration (now Commissioner-General), providing for return of debarred aliens, and making decision of immigration officers as to landing or debarment final.

1893. Act of March 3; requiring manifests and their verification; providing boards of special inquiry; and compelling steamship companies to post in the offices of their agents copies of the United States immigration laws, and to call the attention of purchasers of tickets to them.

1894. Act of August 18; making the decision of the appropriate immigration officials final as to admission of aliens, unless reversed by the Secretary of the Treasury on appeal.

1903. Immigration Restriction Act of March 3. (For its main provisions see p. 70 of this book, footnote 23.)

THE PRINc.i.p.aL EXCLUDED CLa.s.sES

(1) Idiots; (2) insane persons; (3) epileptics; (4) prost.i.tutes; (5) paupers; (6) persons likely to become public charge; (7) professional beggars; (8) persons afflicted with a loathsome or contagious disease; (9) persons who have been convicted of a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, not including those convicted of purely political offences; (10) polygamists; (11) 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 forms of laws, or the a.s.sa.s.sination of public officials); (12) those deported within a year from date of application for admission as being under offers, solicitation, promises or agreements to perform labor or service of some kind therein; (13) any person whose ticket or pa.s.sage is paid for with the money of another, or who is a.s.sisted by others to come, unless it is shown that such person does not belong to one of the excluded cla.s.ses; but any person in the United States may send for a relative or friend without thereby putting the burden of this proof upon the immigrant.

CRIMES UNDER THE ACT OF 1903

In order to enforce these provisions twelve violations were made crimes, with penalties of both fine and imprisonment: (1) Importing any person for immoral purposes; (2) prepaying the transportation or encouraging the migration of aliens under any offer, solicitation, promise or agreement, parol or special, expressed or implied, made previous to the importation of aliens, to perform labor in the United States; (3) encouraging the migration of aliens by promise of employment through advertis.e.m.e.nts in foreign countries; (4) encouraging immigration on the part of owners of vessels and transportation companies by any means other than communications giving the sailing of vessels and terms of transportation; (5) bringing in or attempting to bring in any alien not duly admitted by an immigrant inspector or not lawfully ent.i.tled to enter the United States; (6) bringing in by any person other than railway lines of any person afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; (7) allowing an alien to land from a vessel at any other time and place than that designated by the immigration officer; (8) refusing or neglecting to return rejected aliens to the port from which they came or to pay their maintenance while on land; (9) refusing or neglecting to return aliens arrested within three years after entry as being unlawfully in the United States; (10) knowingly or willfully giving false testimony or swearing to any false statement affecting the right of an alien to land is made perjury; (11) a.s.sisting any anarchist to enter the United States, or conspiring to allow, procure or permit any such person to enter; (12) failing to deliver manifests.

LAWS TO PROTECT THE IMMIGRANT

Act of 1819, providing that a vessel should not carry more than two pa.s.sengers for every five tons, and that a specified quant.i.ty of certain provisions should be carried for every pa.s.senger; requiring the master to deliver sworn manifests showing age, s.e.x, occupation, nativity, and destination of pa.s.sengers.

Act of 1855, limited number to one for every two tons, and provided that each pa.s.senger on main and p.o.o.p decks should have sixteen feet of floor s.p.a.ce, and on lower decks eighteen feet.

Act of 1882, providing that in a steamship the un.o.bstructed s.p.a.ces shall be sufficient to allow one hundred cubic feet per pa.s.senger on main and next deck, and 120 on second deck below main deck, and forbidding carrying of pa.s.sengers on any other decks, or in any s.p.a.ce having vertical height less than six feet; other provisions regulate the occupancy of berths, light and air, ventilation, toilet rooms, food, and hospital facilities. Explosives and other dangerous articles are not to be carried, nor animals with or below pa.s.sengers. Lists of pa.s.sengers are to be delivered to the boarding officer of customs.

Act of 1884, provision that no keeper of a sailors' boarding house or hotel, and no runner or person interested in one, could board an incoming vessel until after it reached its dock. This to protect aliens from imposition and knavery.

LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED IN 1905 BY THE COMMISSIONER-GENERAL OF IMMIGRATION

1. In regard to diseased aliens: that competent medical officers be located at the princ.i.p.al ports of embarkation; that all aliens seeking pa.s.sage secure as a prerequisite from such officer a certificate of good health, mental and physical; and that the bringing of any alien unprovided with such certificate shall subject the vessel by which he is brought to summary fine. 2. That the penalty of $100 now prescribed for carrying diseased persons be increased to $500, as a means of making the transportation lines more careful. 3. Such further legislation as will enable the government to punish those who induce aliens to come to this country under promise or a.s.surance of employment. Less exacting rules of evidence and a summary mode of trial are needed to make the law effective. 4. That Congress provide means for distributing arriving aliens who now congregate in the large cities. 5. That as a means of those incapable of self-support through age or feebleness; those who have not brought sufficient money to maintain them for a reasonable time in event of sickness or lack of employment. 6. That adequate means be adopted, enforced by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship companies to observe in good faith the law which forbids them to encourage or solicit immigration. If other means fail, a limitation apportioning the number of pa.s.sengers in direct ratio to tonnage is suggested. 7. That masters of vessels be required to furnish manifests of outgoing aliens, similar to those of arriving aliens, so that the net annual increase of alien population may be ascertained.

In addition two special recommendations are made, with view to control immigration and lessen the hardships of the debarred: (1) To enlighten aliens as to the provisions of our laws, so that they may not in ignorance sever their home ties and sacrifice their small possessions in an ineffectual attempt to enter the United States. To this end the laws and regulations should be translated into the various tongues and distributed widely. This might not prevail as against the influence and promises of transportation agents, but it would relieve this country of responsibility for needless distress and suffering. (2) An international conference of immigration experts.

APPENDIX C

WORK OF LEADING DENOMINATIONS FOR THE FOREIGN POPULATION

The following facts and figures, received from the leading Home Mission Boards, give some idea of the work which is now being done for the evangelization of the foreign peoples in the United States. We should be glad if the reports were more complete. They do not represent all of the work that is being done, because a considerable part of this work is carried on by the local churches in all of the denominations, and this work is seldom reported and does not enter into the statistics of the Home Mission Boards.

It is hoped that each Board will provide a supplementary chapter, setting forth in detail its work among the foreign population--a work abounding in incident and hopefulness. There is no more encouraging home mission work, and wherever earnest effort has been made, the response has been most gratifying. Write to your Home Mission Board for full information. Where a special chapter is not furnished for a supplemental study, the Boards will send the information and literature that will enable the leader of the study cla.s.s to show what is being done, with a detail impossible in the general treatment of the subject.

It is significant, in this connection, that all the Boards are calling especial attention to the needs of this work among the foreign peoples and urging large advance in plans for evangelization.

MISSION WORK OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN 1906 AMONG THE FOREIGN POPULATION

----------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------- | No. of charges | Members and probationers | receiving | in charge receiving Nationality | missionary aid | missionary aid ----------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------- Welsh 4 185 Swedish 135 12,076 Norwegian and Danish 85 4,236 German 265 19,184 French 8 350 Chinese 11 298 j.a.panese 30 1,666 Bohemian and Hungarian 11 1,666 Italian 18 1,014 Portuguese 3 86 Finnish 9 93 Foreign Populations 3 ....

--- ------ 582 39,557

Including the charges not now receiving missionary aid, the total number of missions, or charges, among the foreign peoples was 971, not including Spanish work, and the total membership, including probationers, was 92,082 in 1906. The work is extended all over the country.

The Woman's Home Missionary Society supports Immigrant Homes in New York City, and in Boston, Ma.s.s., in which immigrants may find protection and counsel as well as a safe lodging. In Philadelphia, Pa., work is also done for incoming strangers, and lodgings provided in case of need.

Missionaries are stationed at each of these points. Much work is done for foreigners by this Society through its three large city missions, and its numerous Deaconess Homes.

MISSION WORK OF THE PRESBYTERIAN HOME MISSION BOARD IN 1906 AMONG THE FOREIGN POPULATION

Nationality No. of Churches and Stations Membership

Armenian 3 183 Bohemian 30 1,529 Chinese 10 438 Danes and Norwegians 1 101 Dutch 12 1,365 French 9 508 German 156 13,446 Hungarian (Magyar) 15 1,035 --- ------ Total 236 18,605

Italian 32 955 j.a.panese 3 50 Korean 1 40 Russian 1 ....

Slavic 8 337 Syrian 2 15 Welsh 7 414 --- ------ Total 290 20,415

The Annual Report for 1906 says: In addition to the above it is doubtless true that there are many churches, and even individuals, carrying on religious work among foreigners which has not been reported to the Board. Two facts warrant special attention. One is that the proper carrying on of the work of giving the gospel to these foreign-speaking peoples necessarily includes and is closely allied with other needs--such as schools; literature in their own tongue, including tracts, papers, and the Bible; colporteur visitation; Bible reading, and so forth. It is not sufficient simply to open a church or hall where a meeting can be held and expect the people to come. A great deal of preparatory work must be done.