LEGISLATION. It has already been pointed out that immigration into the United States was so much a matter of course that before 1820 it was not even recorded. While in that year records of the number of arrivals were introduced, noth ing was done in the way of legislation, either to promote or to restrict immigration into the United States, until the year 1864.
We may disregard the brief period in which the famous Alien Law was in force, 1798 to Is0t, which authorized the Pre•ident to expel foreign ers dangerous. to the peace of the nation, for this law was passed to meet a supposed political danger, and not to avert a threatened economic injury. Nor did the agitation against the for eigner, which gained such force in the Know nothing movement, during the early part of the fifties. lead to legislation. it is doubtful if the question mould have assumed so large an im portance had it not been for popular discon tent with the older political parties. Moreover. the agitation was quite as much anti•Catholie as it was anti-foreign, and no majority of the American people could be gained for an attitude savoring of religious persecution.
The police and sanitary regulations, including quarantine. affecting the ih Upon their landing in the United States, were matters of State, and not Federal legislation.
%Viten, in ISO4, Congress filially took cogni zance of the immigration question. it was with the idea of encouraging immigration into this country. Under the pressure of the demand for laborers in industrial pursuits, nn act was passed to encourage immigration which offered to the immigrant freedom front compulsory military service, and the services, upon their arrival, of a Commissioner of Immigration, whose duty it was to assist immigrants in obtaining transpor tation to their destination. and to protect them from the impositions to which their ignorance ex posed them. The act was repealed in 1868, and no further legislation to promote immigration was enacted. The general spirit of the times was, however, favorable to immigration, and cer tain special reports of the Bureau of Statistics, Labor in Europe and A merle(' (1570), for in stance, were widely disseminated with a view to encouraging immigration. About the same
time the States, particularly those of the West, established boards and commissioners of immi gration, charged with the duty of promoting im migration into their respective States.
It soon became evident that encouragement was no longer needed. and the title of public opinion began to turn toward restriction. This did not at first extend beyond the idea of preventing the introduction into the country of manifestly un desirable elements—the criminal, the pauper. the insane, and the vieious. Section 1 of the act of August 3, imposed a head tax of 50 rents (inereased to ::"1 by the act approved Au gust IS, 1494. and to by act of March 3, 1903) on each passenger not a citizen of the United States. stipulating that the money col lected shall be paid into the United States Treas ury as a fund to defray the expenses of regu lating immigration, of ea ring for immigrants, and relieving those in, distress, and for the gen eral purposes and expenses of carrying the act into effect. (This fund, it may be remarked, has been found ample for its purposes. and an annual surplus has been turned into the Treas ury.) Section 2 provided that the Secretary of the Treasury should be charged with the duty of exe cuting the provisions of the act, and for that purpose empowered him to enter into contracts with the officials of the several States at their several ports. By the act of March 3, 1903. the Commissioner-General of immigration is placed under the authority of the Secretary of the Treas ury, although the Immigration Bureau is subor dinate to the Department of Commerce.
Section 3 provided that the. Secretary of the Treasury establi-h such rules and regulations, and issue, from tinie to time, such instructions, not inconsistent with law, as he should deem best calculated for the protection of immigrants from frond and loss, anti for Carrying out the provi sions of the act and the immigration laws of the United States, etc.