"6. The stimulating of immigration by transportation companies and their armies of paid agents and sub-agents in Europe."
A Plain Necessity
As a result, Mr. Ogg says, of the widespread operations through these underground channels there is an abnormal immigration movement so vast as "to override and all but reduce to a mere joke our whole restrictive system. That an appalling number of aliens who are on the verge of dependency, defectiveness, and delinquency do somehow contrive to get into the country every year is a fact too well known to call for verification here. Nobody undertakes to deny it." There is plain necessity, therefore, that some means of redeeming the situation should be found.
II. Proposed Legislation
Three Recommendations
The Commissioner-General of Immigration, in his report for 1905, devotes much space to new or amendatory legislation, which he regards as a necessity.[33] To bring the steamship companies to stricter regard for law, he would raise the penalty for carrying diseased persons from $100 to $500. He favors the debarring of illiterates, and as a special recommendation proposes an international conference of immigration experts, with a view to secure by treaty or convention the coöperation of foreign countries from which aliens migrate hither, both in reducing the number of immigrants and preventing the inadmissible and undesirable classes from leaving their own homes.
Value of International Conference
Such a conference would certainly be conducive to a good understanding between nations, would doubtless secure an effective restraint of the transportation agencies, and throw such light upon the attitude of foreign governments toward our present system of immigration restriction as would enable Congress to decide intelligently what additional measures are necessary to protect this country from the dangers of an increasing influx of aliens. This is an admirable recommendation. As Mr. Whelpley says, it is a question of emigration as well as immigration, and since two countries are interested in the migrants, the whole matter is properly one for international conference and action.
Immigration Bills in Congress
The interest taken by Congress in immigration is indicated by the introduction in the House during the session of 1906 of nineteen bills to regulate or restrict immigration, while a number were introduced in the Senate also. The House Committee on Immigration, of which Mr. Gardner, of Massachusetts, is chairman, took all the bills into consideration and reported a comprehensive Bill to Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the United States. This proposed law advances considerably beyond the Act of 1903, which it is designed to replace. It raises the head tax from $2 to $5, introduces the reading test,[34] and practically creates a money test also, by requiring every male immigrant to have $25 in hand at the time of examination.[35] The money from the head tax is to constitute a permanent immigration fund, to defray not only the cost of the Immigration Bureau, but also that of maintaining an information bureau, to save immigrants from being deceived and show them where they are most wanted and likely to succeed.[36]