ranean ports," and he further said, "It is high time that the people and the Government awoke to a realization of the fact that Europe's plagues will obtain a foothold here before many months go by unless we keep close watch upon immigrants."

The Surgeon General then complained that after permitting for years our medical officers to examine embarking aliens, the Italian Government "has recently raised objections to United States medical officers being stationed in Italian ports, basing its position upon an old treaty which was dug up from goodness knows where."

With reference to foreign inspection and the attitude of foreign Governments towards our sifting out undesirables, on their soil, my understanding is that some years ago the State Department canvassed the situation and many foreign Governments objected.

In this connection, and with reference to compelling the steamship lines to reject "over there" under "pains and penalties," 13,000 aliens were brought here last year that were certified by our examining physicians as mentally or physically defective, and according to the annual report of the commissioner general the steamship companies were fined for bringing to this country contrary to law, 3,950 diseased and other inadmissible aliens. They brought 1,639 illiterates contrary to law, and were fined $52,800 therefor. The lines may do the best they can, but it has not always been so.

I have an extract from the report of one of the subcommittees of the Immigration Commission, which reads as follows:

Several ships were to sail from Queenstown the next day to America, and at nearly every station people were getting on the train for Queenstown to go on these ships. I talked with some of them and was told that they were laborers going to America seeking better wages than they could get at home. August 29 I arose early and went down to the dock, where a tender was to carry the emigrants to one of the ships sailing to America.

At the gateway I inquired of the gatekeeper where the medical examination of the third-class passengers was to be conducted. He replied that the doctor stood at the gangway, but that there was no medical examination. I went down to the gangway where the first and second class passengers were boarding a tender to be consigned to the ship. I asked one of the employees of the steamship company, who stood on the gangway, where the third-class passengers were to be examined. He replied, as the other had, that the doctor would stand right there and look at the passengers as they went by, but that it was merely formal, and there was, in fact, no examination.

I did not make myself known. Directly the third class were ordered aboard. The doctor stood at the gangway, as the employees had said he would do, and I stayed till every one of them had gone on, and not a single eye or head was examined nor any other examination made. I visited Mr. Culver, the American consul, afterwards, and asked him about the examination at the gangway, and he said they were very rigid. This did not conform to what I had seen, although I did not let Mr. Culver know that I had witnessed it.

The consul is an honorable gentleman, and had his deputy at the gangway where the third-class passengers were being examined, and no doubt thought it was properly conducted; but I fear that he is being imposed upon.

Mr. PATTEN. I can not share the statement that has been made before this committee that native-born Americans of native-born parentage have greater tendency to crime. I know what has been said with reference to what the statistics show, but it must be remembered that statisticians as a result of weighting, averaging, and selecting figures sometimes come to quite different conclusions.

However that may be, the New York Kings County grand jury only last month in its presentment petitioned Congress to prohibit"

certain immigration. The presentment is signed by the foreman and the secretary.

I beg to read this presentment, just as a word, in answer to what has been said about the greater relative criminality of native than foreign born and their offspring.

(The presentment of the New York Kings County grand jury presented by Mr. Patten is herewith printed in full, as follows:)

The experience of the grand jury for November for the county of Kings (which we are assured does not greatly differ from that of other recent grand juries) is such as to have caused us to give most earnest thought as to the origin of much of the crime with which we have had to deal.

A study of the record of our proceedings shows that all of the homicides and most of the graver, most desperate, and heinous crimes were committed by foreigners, who palpably have no understanding of the genesis or genius of American institutions. They not only have not been assimilated but seemingly are unlikely under present conditions ever to be assimilable.

The facts as to many of these crimes show the presence in this city of foreign colonies whose existence is a perpetual menace to the lives and property of our law-abiding and law-loving citizens. From the testimony of witnesses, some of whom were participants in these heinous crimes, it has been clearly revealed that interracial hatred, with their attendant feuds and vendettas, have been transplanted to this country. These feuds have been aggravated and perpetu ated by the increase and extension of these foreign colonies.

The formation and growth of these foreign colonies in our midst have subjected our institutions to a great strain. Unless their growth is prevented by the exclusion of countless thousands of like elements which are constantly ar riving at the port of New York, these colonies will be a constantly increasing menace and may threaten the submersion of the American elements in our popu lation.

The securing of evidence and the taking of testimony as to most of the grave crimes has become next to impossible in the language of our country. Every additional immigrant of this type but adds to the difficulty of protecting the lives and property of the law-abiding section of the community, of those who are native birth or were readily assimilable. The cost of administering our courts and of maintaining a constantly increasing police force in order to cope with these law-defying elements is an ever-increasing burden to this community. In the face of these conditions our people may well pause and inquire whether it will be possible to keep the wellsprings of our institutions pure if they are to continue to be subjected to the infusions of such elements, elements which are not merely unassimilable but largely hostile to the fundamental principles of liberty. Our institutions were subjected to a great strain during the war by reason of the divided allegiance of certain foreign elements. This pre vented the Nation from functioning unitedly in its efforts to preserve democracy. Unless steps are quickly taken to prevent the admission of those millions which wish to come, although hostile to our institutions, we are liable to be submerged by elements who have no devotion to the great ideals of humane liberty, have no regard for justice, nor respect for the sacredness of human life. America would then cease to be a beacon light to lead the nations to the complete establishment of democracy.

The stream of our national life can not rise higher than its source. To per mit any further pollution of this stream is to jeopardize our national existence. To allow any further admixture of races in our midst is to intensify both our foreign as well as our domestic problems. It will foster disunion in stead of promoting union. Instead of continuing as a Nation of high ideals. we shall degenerate into a mere medly of races, a hodgepodge of nationalities We therefore earnestly request the Congress of the United States to enact such legislation as will prohibit the immigration into the country of all who can not read and write English, and who do not possess an intelligent understanding of the fundamental ideas of human liberty.

We further request that comprehensive measures be taken for the education of every adult of foreign birth at least in the rudiments of simpler education such as will enable them to understand our form of government.

WILLIAM SHADDOCK, Foreman.
J. VAN V. SMITH, Secretary.

Mr. PATTEN. The King's County grand jury seem supported in their position by Justice Aspinall, of the New York Supreme Court, according to the New York World of March 31, which quotes the justice as saying: "If I had my way I would shut the gates."

According to the World the justice's remarks were occasioned by the effort to make easier nationalization requirements, and he is reported as saying:

An American boy at the age of 10 knows as much as the average Sicilian, and yet he must wait until he is 21 before he can vote or serve as a juror, while a Sicilian, after five years' residence, if of age, can secure both privileges. I suppose I will get the employing class down on me, for many people think we need these laborers, and feel that labor has had too much protection, and that capital needs more.

I have not made the painstaking study of the 42-volume report of the Immigration Commission that others have made. It may be that the commission's reports shows all these favorable things that have been said about foreign born and the less favorable about native born.

The first preliminary report of the commission, House Document No. 1489, Sixtieth Congress, at page 29, contained the following clauses and sentences:

Many undeniably undesirable persons are admitted to this country every year. The law, in theory, so far as its exclusion provisions are concerned, is exceptionally strong, but in effect weak and ineffectual. In theory the law debars criminals, but in fact many enter; the law debars persons likely to become public charges, but data secured by the commission show that too many immigrants become such within a short time after landing.

The Immigration Commission made its inquiry during 1908, 1909, 1910, reporting finally to Congress in December, 1910. Its inquiry, therefore, could be said to be a characterization of the immigration of that decade.

According to the census of 1910 our foreign-born population increased 3,129,766 from 1900 to 1910.

I have prepared, from the Annual Reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration, a table showing the arrivals, departures, and certain other facts. This table shows that practically 10,000,000 aliens arrived during the decade, and about three and a half million departed, leaving a net addition to our population of over 6,000,000 aliens.

(The table presented by Mr. Patten is herewith printed in full, as follows:)

Table showing immigration, emigration, etc., for 11 years, 1901 to 1911, inclusive.

Official Government statistics. (Annual report of Commissioner General of Immigration.) 2 Statistics furnished to the Government by steamship companies. (Required by act of í eb. 20, 1957 3 Not given after 1909.

NOTE. The distinction “immigrant alien" and "nonimmigrant alien" is fanciful, the only difference being as to whether the alien comes for the first time or comes intending to remain. A "nonimmigrant alien" is so classified if the alien says he expects to return to the native land.

NOTE 2.-Although 9,787,239 aliens entered this country during the last census decade (1300 to 1910; the Census Bureau reports that our foreign-born population increased only 3,129,766, which tends to show that the number of alien departures reported by the steamship companies falls short of the number that actually leave the country. The Immigration Commission reports that "at least 40 per cent of those coming return," taking a minimum of $250,000,000 annually out of the country.

Mr. PATTEN. It is difficult to reconcile the census figures, which show an increase of three and a half million foreign born, with the Immigration Bureau's figures showing a net alien addition of over six millions. Certainly, the difference can not be accounted for by mortality, since nine-tenths were in the prime of life. At any rate, the net addition of al ittle over 3,000,000 immigrants during the decade ending in 1910 was found by the commission to have caused "an oversupply of unskilled labor in the basic industries to an extent which indicates an oversupply in the industries of the country as a whole, a condition which demands legislation restricting the further admission of such unskilled labor."

The crux of the commission's 42-volume report about immigration conditions at the end of this decade, during which there was a net increase in foreign born of a little over 3,000,000 aliens, is to be found on page 48 of the first volume, where the whole 42 volumes are summed up as follows:

The commission as awhole-all nine members-recommends restriction as demanded by economic, moral, and social consideration, and furnishes in its report reasons for such restriction, and points out methods by which Congress can attain the desired result if its judgment coincides with that of the commission.

Then the commission goes on to say:

It is desirable in making the restriction that

(a) A sufficient number be debarred to produce a marked effect upon the present supply of unskilled labor.

(b) As far as possible, the aliens excluded should be those who come to this country with no intention to become American citizens or even to maintain a

permanent residence here, but merely to save enough, by the adoption, if necessary, of low standards of living, to return permanently to their home country. Such persons are usually men unaccompanied by wives or children.

(c) As far as possible the aliens excluded should also be those who, by reason of their personal qualities or habits, would least readily be assimilated or would make the least desirable citizens.

The following methods of restricting immigartion have been sugested: (a) The exclusion of those unable to read or write in some language. (b) The limitation of the number of each race arriving each year to a certain percentage of the average of that race arriving during a given period of years. (c) The exclusion of unskilled lborers unaccompanied by wives or families. (d) The limitation of the number of immigrants arriving annually at any port.

(e) The material increase in the amount of money required to be in the possession of the immigrant at the port of arrival.

(f) The material increase of the head tax.

(g) The levy of the head tax so as to make a marked discrimination in favor of men with families.

All these methods would be effective in one way or another in securing restrictions in a greater or less degree. A majority of the commission favor the reading and writing test as the most feasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration.

Mr. PATTEN. Just as these findings and conclusions of the Immigration Commission corroborated the results of previous hearings and inquiries, they were in turn confirmed in the report of the Commission on Industrial Relations to Congress in 1915, which contained the following summary:

The immigration policy of the United States has created a number of our most difficult and serious industrial problems and has been responsible, in a considerable measure, for the existing state of industrial unrest. The enormous influx of immigrants during the last 25 years has already undermined the American standard of living for all workmen except those in skilled trades, and has been the largest single factor in preventing the wage scale from rising as fast as food prices. The great mass of non-English speaking workers, who form about half the labor force in basic industries, has done much to prevent the development of better relations between employer and employee.

These reports establish the fact that immigration, as at present regulated, causes a surplus of unskilled labor in this country as a whole. Even alien labor is found, by these investigations, to be ruinously competing with itself, as well as with the native born. And precisely as it undermines the standard of living it undermines other standards and conditions.

"Economic, moral, and social considerations," the nine members of the Immigration Commission conclude, "demand" substantial limitation of foreign immigration, which during the decade of their searching inquiry averaged a net alien addition to our population of 300,000 a year.

Practically the weakest one of the nine restrictive remedies suggested was adopted by Congress, and it only in part and with many partially nullifying exceptions.

With Italy and other countries opening night schools to teach their populations to read, and with Europe war torn and seething with radicalism and a desire on the part of the people to get out from under those war-torn conditions, existing law does not seem to satisfy the commission's conclusions.

We should think first of America and Americans. Our country is thronged with unemployed. Soup kitchens are being opened this very week in parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio where they have been unknown before. The world is practically bankrupt and it is natural