alone. When entire cargoes have come out, it has been ascertained that the parishes have paid their expenses. An English gentleman recently stated that he had seen the poor marched down in droves from the poor-houses to the ships. It is stated on authority that the passage of more than 30,000 persons have been paid in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to enable them to leave there for America."
From the foregoing citations one is driven to infer that at the period of the first inquiry a large proportion of the immigration was of a highly undesirable class, and the general prospect far from pleasing. But despite the agitation which followed, and the attempts that were made to improve matters, the lapse of a very few years found similar conditions prevailing. During the session of the twenty-eighth Congress, a resolution was introduced in the Senate, directing the Judiciary Committee to inquire into the expediency of immediately modifying the naturalization laws, to prevent the recurrence of the gross and extensive frauds upon the ballot box that had recently been perpetrated, and to prohibit the further introduction of paupers and convicts into the United States. Some of the speeches made on this occasion indicate the unmistakable need of the proposed action. This took place in 1845. In the following year resolutions of a similar purport, passed by the Massachusetts legislature, were introduced in the House by Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, which led to a protracted and at times a heated debate.
Some ten years later the discussion reopens, and while differences of opinion were manifest as to the proposed methods of securing relief, the existing abuses were freely admitted, and a voluminous report was submitted on evils of foreign immigration, and recommending changes in the naturalization laws. Once more in 1869 and 1870 the question came up, and Senators Davis, Frelinghuysen, Bayard, Thurman, and others, took part in the ensuing debate. Finally, we had the investigation of 1888. Its revelations are too fresh in the public mind to need more than a passing allusion. But any one who may feel disposed to refresh his recollection, or comprehend the serious nature of the present outlook, will find interesting information in the report, furnished by his Representative to Congress, on the importation of contract labor.
As has been already intimated, the most casual acquaintance with the records suffices to disabuse the mind of an impression that only recent immigration has been deleterious in its nature. The statistics to the contrary are too clear and circumstantial. For a long time past very many of the immigrants to this land have been unwholesome, undesirable, unwelcome additions to its population. Serious and disturbing, however, as such a conviction must be, there is another consideration involved of vastly greater consequence and importance. A noticeable monotony pervades the history of immigration. The earliest and latest reports evince a strong, one might say an ominous, similarity. In 1838 we had paupers and " assisted "immigrants. More recently it has been paupers and "contract laborers,"—a choice of evils, truly!
The real significance of a comparison, therefore, and the real gravity of the problem, consists in the fact that the situation has confirmed virtually unchanged, so far, at least, as any efforts on our part are concerned. And whatever changes have occurred in the character and volume of immigration, from time to time, have been for the worse and not for the better. A steady increase in quantity has attended a perceptible deterioration in quality. The committee of 1838 was justified in thinking and in stating that their report "presented a combination of facts that cannot fail to arrest the attention of the American people, and to establish the necessity of immediate legislative action." "Legislative action "was taken repeatedly, then and at subsequent times. But so partial and temporary has been the relief afforded, that the
