LEGISLATION TO PREVENT THE UNITED STATES FROM BEING MADE A RECEPTACLE FOR FOREIGN PAUPERS. [A paper by Martin B. Anderson, of N. Y., read at the Conference of Chari- ties held at Saratoga, September, 1876.] There is an element of the "pauper question" in our country which requires the attention of every citizen. The unprece- dented emigration to the United States within the past few years, although attended with much good, is also fraught with great dangers and evils. Of the persons who emigrate a large pro- portion are men of broken fortunes who from some cause or other have been unsuccessful in their own country. A still larger number of them are persons who expend their entire property in paying the cost of emigration to their new home. Among these a large number, from the difficulty of getting em- ployment and the discouragements natural to being separated from the friends of their early life, or illness induced by the voyage and change of climate, are thrown upon the public for sup- port. But this is an evil incidental to emigration, and should be accepted as a matter of course. There is evidence, however, to show that a large number of persons actually paupers or discharged criminals, have been sent over into our country either by governmental aid, or by the assistance of relatives who wish to avoid the disgrace and trouble attendant upon the association. Hence the class of emigrants, while containing a large number of most excellent and healthy additions to our population, has an undue proportion of the dependent and criminal classes. Of the population of the state of New York about one-third are of foreign birth, and from that one-third about two-thirds of the paupers supported at the expense of the state are derived. This fact alone will show the evil to which we have alluded to be a serious one. It repeats itself in various degrees of inten- sity in our maritime states, and, to a certain extent, in all the states of our union. While we gladly throw open our territory, and extend the protection of our institutions to emigrants from FOREIGN PAUPERS. foreign countries that are able and willing to earn their own support, we cannot and ought not to relieve the old countries of Europe from the care of their dependent population. Certain propositions regarding the duty of the nations to their dependent population seem to be clear : First. A nation is a moral organism which owes certain duties to its members, and to which its members owe certain duties in return. The bond between government and subject is a re- ciprocal one. Therefore, every citizen or subject is bound to maintain by his property, and defend by his life, the govern- ment, which extends to him its protection ; and, on the other hand, by the common practice of civilized peoples, the govern- ment assumes the care of its subjects when they are unable to care for themselves. Second. This obligation of a nation towards its dependent classes cannot be transferred to another without that other's consent. Commercial nations recognize this principle in their provisions through the consular system for the care of ship- wrecked, discharged, or disabled seamen. The foreign consuls of civilized nations provide for their maintenance, and return to their homes. Third. It is clearly an offense against the comity of nations for any government, national or municipal, to throw the burden of caring for its dependent population upon any foreign country. But it has been proved beyond all question, that both foreign municipalities and foreign nations have provided at the public expense for the transportation of considerable numbers of their pauper class to the United States. It is beyond all question that paupers and criminals in considerable numbers have been sent to the United States by their relatives. Fourth. A nation becomes bound to support a foreign born pauper only through his naturalization. Naturalization involves a reciprocal contract. The naturalized party repudiates his allegiance to the country in which lie was born, and takes upon himself all the obligations of a citizen. He becomes bound to pay taxes according to his ability, and if necessary to serve in the army or navy against domestic or foreign enemies : but an alien is free from a large measure of these obligations, and the PAPEll BY MARTIN B. ANDERSON. 3 state, on its part, comes under no obligation to maintain him, if he becomes dependent. The American sailor or resident living in England, who becomes a pauper, appeals naturally and right- fully to his own consul for protection aud aid. There is no reason in the nature of the case, why we should maintain pau- pers who are subjects of Great Britain or Germany, who are landed upon our shores in a dependent condition or in such a state of mental or bodily health that they must necessarily be- come dependent. We are no more bound, apart from the general law of humanity, to maintain such persons, than we are to pay the interest on the English national debt, or furnish conscripts for the German army. The question arises how shall this transference of the pauper population of the old countries of Europe to our shores be stopped. This is, confessedly, a difficult problem. The emi- grant commission system which has so long existed in some of our maritime states, has undoubtedly prevented the introduc- tion of many paupers and criminals, but it has on the whole proved in this respect a failure ; and constitutional difficulties have now been interposed to set it aside entirely for the future. So far as the question of international law is concerned, we have an undoubted right to send back such dependent persons to the countries to which they belong. If they have become natural- ized, we, of course, are bound to take care of them ourselves. It may be questioned whether the establishment of national bureaus will protect us against this influx of paupers and crimi- nals. A system which has failed to so great a degree in the states, under the influence of local supervision and where local interests were at stake, would be still more likely to fail to meet the evil through a bureau established by the general govern- ment. Besides there are several classes of persons whose in- terests will all the while lead them to evade the law. First, there is the shipping interest, which, of course, desires to pro- mote the emigration of all persons whose passage money is paid. Second, there is the land interest which seeks to sell to the emigrant vast tracts of unoccupied land held on speculation. Next, there is the railroad interest, whose profits are largely in- creased by the transportation of emigrants to distant portions 4 FOREIGN PAUPERS. of our country. There are also political interests which may be indirectly promoted by the increase of emigration. All these considerations render it extremely difficult to meet the evil through a bureau of emigration alone. Of those who enter our country from the dominion of Canada along its immense border very few could be reached by any emigrant commission, however efficient and active. All along the northern border of New York, and indeed in all northern states, the poor houses and orphan asylums contain a very large percentage of dependent persons of both European and Canadian birth who have sought a refuge within our limits. The recent special statistical ex- amination of poor house inmates, conducted by the New York Board of Charities, has shown that of the large number of alien paupers found in our northern counties few if any had landed in New York or Boston or could have been reached by any emigration bureau for the purpose of examination or the exaction of head money. Whatever may be done by a bureau with officers in our large seaports for meeting this danger, it seems to me that such efforts ought to be supplemented by other modes of action. 1 beg leave to suggest two. By requiring of the United States consuls, at all the large ports from which emi- grants are shipped, to take care that no dependent or criminal goes on board an emigrant ship without sending evidence of the fact to the authorities of the port to which the ship is bound we may prevent much of the evil under which we suffer. This course would exclude a large proportion of the class of paupers and criminals who, heretofore, have been surreptitiously landed in our country. I purposely avoided going into the details pf the process. It might be provided for by act of Congress and the duty imposed upon the consuls to examine emigrants and obtain authentic evidence regarding the residence, history, and character, of all persons reasonably suspected of being paupers or criminals. When paupers or criminals were found among passengers the shippers would not care to take them for fear of subjecting themselves to the penalties of our law. Concert of action among our consuls would enable them to secure evidence which could not be obtained after the pauper or criminal were once across the Atlantic. When a pauper is once here he is # PAPER BY MARTIN B. ANDERSON. 5 likely to be thrown on our care for life. If he should be sup- ported out of the head money for five years, after that time he is sure to be a burden on the taxpayer. The cost of maintaining such persons in a poor house or prison is a trifling evil compared with the moral contamination which they bring and the character of the progeny which in some cases they leave behind them. The hereditary character of pauperism and crime is the most fearful element with which society has to contend. The ex- penses of this preventive process would be light and the labor distributed among a large number of consuls could not be onerous. We thus might establish a kind of moral quarantine and those whom the consul permitted to embark without protest would have, by presumption, a clean bill of health. Second, provision might be made by law, either by congress or the several states as the principles of constitutional law might require, giving authority to the Boards of Charities in the several states to send back to the countries to which they belong every alien pauper, who has become such within a certain specified time after landing upon shores. The expenses of retransporta- tion might be borne by the general or state governments. The expense, however, in either case would be a trifle compared with that of maintaining a pauper during the average term of such paupers' lives. It is by no means clear that the principles of international law would not justify us in insisting that the ex- pense of such retransportation of paupers should be borne by the countries from which they come ; it being a fair presumption that the countries themselves had either actively transported among the emigrants such paupers or winked at the process when ori- ginated by individuals or municipalities. This, however, would be a matter for negotiation. It is clear that the extradition of such paupers or criminals would be an immense saving to all our states. The average term of life of all paupers cannot be less than from ten to fifteen years. The maintenance of such paupers cannot be less in the aggregate than fifteen hundred dollars apiece. The cost of sending them across the Atlantic (estimating transportation at the usual rates both by land and water) could not be more than fifty dollars per capita on the average. The moral and economic advantages in other respects 6 FOREIGN PAUPERS. which such an expurgation of our population would confer, can hardly be estimated. If we take this course with regard to foreign nations, they will be open to take the same course re- garding our own citizens. The obligation and the duty would be reciprocal. We may ask of other nations what they may ask of us. We are ready to discharge the same duty that we require of them to discharge towards us. Such a demand would be equitable and just. The principle that each nation should care for its own pauper, insane and .dangerous classes is beyond all possible question, and the plan which we propose is a simple application of it to the existing state of things. The law of settlement in its bearing on municipalities has been enforced with much rigidity both in Great Britain and in our own country, and we are familiar with its bearing on the pauper question. No town will support a pauper who has a settlement in another town, and almost all the states have passed laws pro- viding for the transportation out of the state of paupers that have no legal settlement within its borders, to the states where such paupers belong. This law has been applied for a considerable time and with uniformly good results. The same principle which the states of the union have acted upon, relatively to each other, regarding the support of paupers, may be applied to foreign nations. A non-naturalized pauper, having a legal settlement in Canada, would in that case be transported to Canada. Another, having a settlement in Ireland or Scotland or Germany, would be transported there. The plan which we propose is the same as that which we have in operation among ourselves. Many of the maritime states have taken action in sending alien paupers to their homes in foreign countries already, but this has not been recognized as a fixed and uniform policy. If the states or the general government, as case may be, should make regular appro- priations for the purpose of sending back, under the limitations naturally suggested by humanity and good sense, all alien paupers which have been smuggled into our states, foreign governments and " national " philanthropists would soon cease to regard our country as a " Botany Bay " to which they can with impunity send their paupers to be supported and their criminals to plun- PAPER BY MARTIN B. ANDERSON. 7 der. That they have done so in the past is an offense which ought, ere this, to have been a subject for negotiation and remon- strance by the department of state. The course which we have suggested may not improbably be made applicable in the correction or removal of some of the problems of the Chinese question, which are presented for solu- tion to our Pacific states. It might be feared that measures of the character recom- mended would be distasteful to our foreign born fellow citizens. In reply we would say that no class of persons are more decided in their opinions regarding the injustice of the transportation of paupers and criminals to our own country. The foreign born citizens immigrate often for the purpose of escaping the burden of taxation and military conscription. When they come to the United States, and are naturalized, and have assumed their pro- per share of our responsibilities, they are by no means anxious to take on in addition a part of the public burdens of the coun- tries which they have voluntarily left. It will be found, as soon as any active measures are taken to remedy the evils we have alluded to, that our foreign born citizens will give them their hearty support. I now beg leave to call attention to some facts tending to show that the class of persons referred to have been system- atically sent to our shores by nations and municipalities acting under regularly enacted laws. I will remark in passing that the English people years ago suffered a modified form of the evil we have been discussing, and that out of it grew the present Irish Poor Law. Before the establishment of the Irish Poor Law, great numbers of the Irish poor emigrated to England. The burden to Eng- land became so great that the strongest representations were made to induce Parliament to remedy the evil. In a letter to the agriculturists of England, published in 1830, and quoted in the Quarterly Revieiv of that year, it was represented that the poor of Ireland were compelled, through want, to migrate to England " in hordes," and " that owing to the absence of a poor-law in Ireland, English property was virtually rated to maintain a great part of the Irish pauper population." England 8 FOREIGN PAUPERS. and Ireland brought their products to a common market. It was said that the English agriculturist paid a heavy tax out of the produce of his land toward the support of the Irish poor, while the Irish agriculturist, receiving the same price for goods, paid no poor rate at all. This influx of Irish pauperism into England for support was one of the strongest motives which led to the enactment of the Irish Poor Law. The injustice to the English rate-payer was so evident, that Parliament supplied the remedy at an early clay. What was an intolerable grievance to England, with Ireland a part of the British empire, would have been still more so had she been a foreign nation. The Edinburgh Review, for March, 1831, speaking of the increase of paupers, says : " They can be disposed of only in one of two ways, that is, either by placing them on unoccupied and uncultivated lands at home, or moving them to the colo- nies." After showing that the first of these methods was im- practicable, it took up the advocacy of the second, and gave its approval to a bill, then before Parliament, for aiding paupers to remove to the colonies. Canada was the colony most prominent in the writer's mind. He goes on to say, in advocacy of the bill, " nothing, therefore, can be a greater mistake, than to sup- pose that those who consent to make an advance for the removal of paupers are making a sacrifice to get rid of an accidental and transitory evil. The fact is, they are making a comparatively small sacrifice to rid themselves of an evil which is deeply seated, which is rapidly spreading, and which, if it be not effect- ually counteracted, will, at no distant period, sink all classes below the level of that which is now lowest." It is known to all persons of experience, that a very large percentage of per- sons belonging to the hereditary pauper class, sent at first to Canada, migrate as soon as possible to the United States. The measure thus advocated in 1831, and which shortly after be- came a law, was virtually a law to facilitate the transportation of English paupers to the United States. " Emigration," says Knightis Cyclojicedia, under the article " Emigration," " is one of the 'modes of relief contemplated by the Poor-Law Amend- ment acts (4 and 5 Will. IV, c. 7G ; 11 and 12 Vic, c. 110; 12 and 13 Vic, c 103, and 13 and 14 Vic, c 101). In some PAPER BY MARTIN B. ANDERSON. 9 years a large number have emigrated with the assistance of funds obtained under the Act (4 and 5 Will. IV). By sec- tion 62 of that act, owners and rate payers are empowered to raise money on security of the rates, for the purposes of emigra- tion, under the authority of the Poor-Law Commissioners." * * * "By the 12 and 13 Vic, ch. 103, the guardians of any parish or union are empowered to expend money, to the amount of £10, upon the emigration of any poor person belong- ing to^the parish, or to any parish in the union, without the necessity of a parochial meeting to give their consent." * * * "The 13 and 14 Vic, c 101, enables boards or guardians, under similar restrictions, to expend money in and about the emigra- tion of orphan children under sixteen having no settlement, or whose settlement is unknown." * * * " Under the Irish Poor-Law Act, money may be raised for enabling poor persons to emigrate to British colonies, but the money so raised must not exceed one shilling in the pound on the net annual value of ratable property." It will be noted here, that Parliament thought it necessary to limit the amount which the authorities might expend in getting rid of their pauper population, rightly judging that their avarice, or their desire to relieve themselves of the burden of the poor, might lead them to too rapid action. The cheapest mode of getting rid of paupers byVhis emigra- tion process was evidently to send them to Canada, or to some one of the British North American colonies. While these laws, on their face, seemed designed to transport paupers from one part of the British empire to another, they have operated, in point of fact, to bring large numbers of them to the L^nited States, and especially to the state of New York. That the policy of shipping paupers to America is well recognized and understood in England, appears not only from the statute books, but from allusions made to the topic in treatises on pauperism. Fawcett, in his Lectures on Pauperism, page 55, says : " The most popular remedy to get rid of our own paupers is to ship them off to America. Now, the advocates of such a policy overlook the fact that the United States are beginning to be burdened with their own pauperism, and, therefore, would very properly object to being made a receptacle of the pauper- 2 10 FOREIGN PAUPERS. ism of the old world." We think that every New York tax payer will coincide with the opinion so naively expressed by Professor Fawcett. Scrope, in his Political Economy, second edition, 1873, says : "I will not here reproduce the arguments employed in an early edition of this work, to show how griev- ously the British rate-payer and the British laborer suffer from the emigration of crowds of Irish poor, driven by impending starvation from their own country, to seek work at any wages, or relief of any kind, in the wealthier and more liberal island ; by which our own laborers were forced out of work and upon the rates ; nor those I urged in the interest of the Irish poor themselves, and the peace, order and security of property in Ireland." He goes on to say " that a commission to inquire into the condition of the Irish poor, among other means of affording relief, reported in favor of the establishment of depots in which they could be fed, and employed on public works until permanently provided for by emigration and location in a colony." After speaking of the terrible consequences of the Irish famine, he says : " Thousands upon thousands fled from a country so afflicted by Providence, and neglected by its own rulers, and the depletion occasioned by the famine itself, and the constant outflow of the peasantry to seek a living in the United States of America, which set in then and has continued ever since, have, together, solved the problem of the redundancy of population in Ireland." * * * "It [emigration] offers the true solution of the problem, how to deal with able-bodied pauperism wherever it exists." It will be remarked that these English writers unwittingly used, in their discussion, the term British colony and the United States as somehow convertible terms. It would not be courteous to put a law on the statute book, or to organize an association, or to provide money for the transportation of paupers to the United States ; but when they come to speak of the actual facts in the case, they recognize the United States as the country which the paupers, emigrating from England, ultimately and actually reach. The people of the United States are always ready to receive an industrious and able-bodied emigrant, however poor lie may be ; but they are not willing to support that class of indolent and hereditary PAPER BY MARTIN B. ANDERSON. 11 paupers which have been smuggled into our country by the connivance or direct agency of foreign nations. Frequent complaints have been made of the number of pau- pers and dependent persons, who have been introduced into our country from various parts of Germany and Switzerland. It is quite difficult to reach direct proof of such transportation of paupers to our shores, but that considerable numbers have been sent here is almost universally believed : and the positive evi- dence upon which this general conviction rests, might be reached by a certain amount of time and labor. That convicts have been pardoned on condition that they should emigrate to the United States, is unfortunately only too evident. In a debate on this subject in the United States Senate, March 19, 1866, Mr. Sumner referred to an " official correspondence, showing that the authorities in Basleland, in Switzerland, had recently undertaken to pardon a person found guilty of murder, on the condition that he would emigrate to America — meaning there- by the United States." Also, that it has been " the habit in the island of Newfoundland to pardon persons convicted of in- famous offenses, on condition that they would come to the United States ; and there are several very recent instances of pardons in the kingdom of Hanover, in Germany, on similar conditions. For instance, I have here," he says, " a copy of two scraps from a German newspaper. One is from the Lune- burg Advertiser, of September 10, 1865," to-wit, "Within the last few months, our chief justice has pardoned three of the greatest criminals in the kingdom, on condition they emigrate to the United States. Henry Gieske for theft, J. Sander for arson, and John Winter for robbery. The two former are already on their way to New York from Hamburg." Then there is another scrap from the same newspaper of the date November 12, 1865. " The culprit Camman, who was condemned to death for highway robbery and murder, has had his punishment com- muted to emigration to America." * * * "I have seen a gentleman who narrated to me an incident that occurred to him in one of the prisons of Baden-Baden, during the last year. Visiting that prison he heard himself the jailer or an officer of the prison make a proposition to a criminal to the effect that 12 FOREIGN PAUPERS. he should be pardoned on the condition that he would emigrate to the United States." In the same debate, Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, said : " I am as conscious as I can be of a fact that is not within my own personal knowledge, that the exportation of criminals from Germany to this country has been going on for years. Last year I saw a gentleman, a citizen of my own town, who visited his fatherland, and when he came back told me that he came in company with a detective, who brought several criminals to New York, and turned them loose there. The government of one of the little German principalities paid all the expenses of the transportation of those criminals, and of the detective who brought them over in charge, and when they landed he gave them a certain sum of money with which to start, and probably within a short time they were in Sing Sing." * * A joint resolution was then passed protesting against such acts as unfriendly and inconsistent with the comity of nations. The intimation that muncipalities have been active in sending paupers to our country is very clearly illustrated by the follow- ing quotation from the last volume of the Cobden Club Essays, " On Local Government Taxation in Ireland, " by W. Neilson Hancock, LL.D. Speaking of the power given by Parliament to local authorities in Ireland to raise taxes for sending paupers out of the country, Mr. Hancock writes as follows : " The poor Law of 1838 sanctioned the principle of an emigration rate, but the original act prohibited assistance being given to emigrants going to other than British colonies, thus excluding emigration to the United States. When the pressure of the famine came, the most munificent contributions to alleviate the distress came from the United States, and Parliament repealed the restriction in 1849, and it was found afterwards that of the Irish agricul- tural classes eighty-four per cent usually emigrated to theL T nited States. " By the act of 1838 emigration rates were only to be levied when the majority in value of rate payers of an electoral divi- sion voted for the rate. In 1843 the guardians were allowed to impose emigration rates not exceeding in one year sixpence in the pound or two and a half per cent, but these were only to be applied to relieve persons who had been three months in the PAPER BY MARTIN B. ANDERSON. 13 workhouse. In 184V, after only four years' existence, both these restrictions were abolished. In 1849 provision was made for borrowing money for emigration, but Parliament thought it necessary to impose a limit. The entire sum borrowed to assist emigration was not to exceed eleven shillings and four pence in the electoral division, and two shillings and eight pence on the union at large, or fourteen shillings in the pound ; this would, at the then valuation of Ireland, have amounted to about £9,000,000. All the guardians did expend on emigration in twenty years after 1849 was only £119,280, or about £6,000 (or half a farthing in the pound) in the year. It thus appears that all attempts of Parliament to regulate what persons were to emigrate, where they were to go to, or how much was to be spent on them, eventuated in restrictions that had either to be promptly repealed, or were so wide of the mark as to be practically inoperative." It should be borne in mind that the whole paragraph is shown by the context to bear upon paupers in the strict sense of the term. It seems from this that the local authorities in Ireland have spent £119,280 or about $600,000 in assisting emigration. At the average rate of passage, this would provide for the trans- portation of something like twenty-four thousand persons to America. Probably something like ninety per cent of these landed ultimately in the United States, whether their nominal destination was Quebec or New York. From this very in- adequate estimate of the number of paupers that has been sent from Ireland we may infer the number that has been transported from the united kingdom, under sanction of act of Parliament, by local authorities, by friends, and in various surreptitious modes for the past twenty years. These statements will to some extent account for the fact that two-thirds of the paupers of the state of New York are foreign born, and will account also for the number of paupers that have been maintained here- tofore out of the proceeds of the head money by the emigrant commission at Ward's Island and elsewhere in the state. A similar state of things must exist to a greater or less extent in all the northern states. The magnitude of the evil has not been 14 FOREIGN PAUPERS. duly recognized because so little attention has been given to the facts. We believe it to be the imperative duty of the general govern- ment to take measures at once to prevent persons actually paupers or criminals from being sent to our country and also to give power to the states if need be to send such persons, when found, back to the countries from which they came and to which they belong. That we have a clear right to do so is shown by the paper of John N. Pomeroy, Esq., published in the report of the New York Board of Charities for 1875. If the United States and the states in the proper exercise of their several powers were to adopt and carry out with vigor the two classes of measures which we have hinted at, we believe that the evil which we have described would be greatly diminished if not entirely abated. r