Immigration

The first act passed by the federal government of the United States which can in any way be called an immigration law was primarily designed, not to restrict or control the admission of immigrants into this country, but to make some provision for their comfort and safety while on the voyage—matters which had been shockingly neglected in the past, with the result of untold sufferings and horrors. These evils were largely due to the intolerable overcrowding on shipboard which was habitual. The act in question aimed to correct these evils by limiting the number of passengers which might be carried on any ship to two to every five tons of the ship’s weight. It furthermore provided that each ship or vessel leaving an American port was to have on board for each passenger carried sixty gallons of water, one gallon of vinegar, one hundred pounds of salted provisions, and one hundred pounds of wholesome ship bread. It is very doubtful how much good either of these provisions ever did to the immigrants. The clause in regard to overcrowding, based as it was merely on the ship’s total weight, was wholly inadequate to prevent extreme overcrowding in such parts of the vessel as might be assigned to passengers. And as far as the provision regarding supplies is concerned, it could have been of no help to the immigrants, as it applied only to ships leaving an American port. There was one provision of the law, however, which has been of permanent benefit. This was the stipulation that at the port of landing a full and complete report or manifest was to be made by the ship’s officer to the customs authorities, which was to state the number of passengers carried, together with the name, sex, age, and occupation of each. This act was passed on March 2, 1819, and in the year ending September 30, 1820, the first official statistics of immigration were collected. From this time to the present we have a continuous record of arrivals, increasing in detail with subsequent legal requirements. Thus the year 1820 stands as a fitting beginning for our third period.

The decade of the twenties was one of great industrial activity on the part of the American people. Manufactures increased. The Erie Canal was completed, others were commenced, and there was a fever of excitement about them. The first railroads were projected, and vied with the canals in arousing public enthusiasm. There was a vast movement of population westward, and the Ohio River was a busy thoroughfare.

All of these enterprises aroused a demand for labor, which, as we have seen, the native population would not readily supply. By the middle of the decade the stream of immigration had begun to respond, so that in 1825 the number of arrivals for the year reached the ten thousand mark for the first time since statistics had been collected. By the end of the decade the number had more than doubled. In the fifteen months ending December 31, 1832, there were over sixty thousand arrivals, and in the year 1842, 104,565—the first time the hundred thousand mark had been reached. Such an enormous increase in immigration as this could not fail to have its effect upon the social life of the nation, and to attract widespread attention. Coupled with the changing nature of industry, it brought many new problems before the American people—congestion, tenement house problems, unemployment, etc. Pauperism, intemperance, beggary, and prostitution increased.^[59] For many of these evils it began to appear that the immigrants were partly responsible.

Yet during the twenties it seems that the immigrants were, on the whole, in good favor. The great economic need which they filled outweighed the social burden which they imposed, but which, as yet, was only vaguely felt. The hard manual labor on the construction enterprises of the period was mainly performed by Irish laborers, who flocked over in great numbers, constituting the largest single element in the immigration stream, amounting to probably nearly half of the entire number. It was believed by many Americans, as well as by foreign travelers and observers, that the canals and railroads could never have been built without these sturdy Irishmen. They were a turbulent and reckless lot, though perhaps not wholly through their own fault. Their miserable wages were supplemented by copious supplies of whisky, with the result that the labor camps were frequently the scenes of riotous demonstrations which shocked the sensibilities of the American community.

By the end of this decade, however, the evils attendant upon unregulated immigration were beginning to make themselves felt among the native population. Chief among these was the danger from an increase of pauperism. The frightful shipping conditions, which had marked previous periods, continued with practically no amelioration. The records of the time are full of heartrending tales of crowded, filthy, unventilated ships, and penniless, starved, diseased immigrants, often landed in a state of absolute destitution. The sickening details of these accounts make the most lurid description of present-day steerage conditions seem absolutely colorless. Under such circumstances it was inevitable that a very large number of these miserable victims should come immediately, or in a very short time, upon the public for support. The censuses of the poorhouses showed an altogether disproportionate number of foreign-born paupers among the inmates. In Philadelphia, for instance, it appears that at the beginning of the thirties the foreign-born paupers made up nearly one third of the total number, and by 1834 this proportion had increased to practically one half.^[60] Such a state of affairs naturally aroused the consternation of the natives, and the feeling was made more intense by the belief that many of these paupers were taken directly from the almshouses of foreign countries, and shipped to this country at public expense. This matter has been the subject of so much debate that it will be worth while to examine the truth of these charges in this connection.

Mrs. Trollope, writing in 1832, said, “I frequently heard vehement complaints, and constantly met the same in the newspapers, of a practice stated to be very generally adopted in Britain of sending out cargoes of parish paupers to the United States. A Baltimore paper heads some such remarks with the words ‘INFAMOUS CONDUCT’ and then tells us of a cargo of aged paupers just arrived from England, adding ‘John Bull has squeezed the orange and now insolently casts the skin in our faces.’” Mrs. Trollope states that careful investigation on her part failed to substantiate this charge.^[61] The article referred to is one which appeared in Niles’ Register for July 3, 1830. It gives an account of the ship Anacreon from Liverpool, which arrived at Norfolk with 168 passengers, three fourths of whom were transported English paupers, cast on our shores at about four pounds ten shillings per head. Many of them were very aged. The editor’s vehement protest against such action contrasts sharply with the complacency with which the same journal had viewed the advent of a crowd of transported Irish paupers seven years earlier.^[62]

An examination of the evidence on the question tends to support the statement of the Baltimore editor, rather than the denial of Mrs. Trollope. Other numbers of Niles’ Register contain frequent accounts of such practices. A letter written from England, dated February 7, 1823, and published in this journal states, “I was down in the London docks and there were twenty-six paupers going out in the ship Hudson, to New York, sent by the parish of Eurbarst, in Sussex, in carriers’ wagons, who paid their passage and gave them money to start with when they arrived in the U. States.” The editor states that “this precious cargo has arrived safely.”^[63] Other numbers of the Register contain similar instances, some of them quoted from other papers.^[64]

So far the evidence consists mostly of newspaper tales, and is perhaps open to reasonable doubt, though where there was so much smoke there must have been some fire. But more reliable testimony is available. Charges of the kind in question finally became so prevalent that the government ordered an investigation, and on May 15, 1838, Mr. John Forsyth, then Secretary of State, presented a report on the subject of pauperism and immigration. This contains a large amount of testimony, from which it will be sufficient to select a few typical cases.

On June 28, 1831, Mr. R. M. Harrison, United States consul at Kingston, Jamaica, reported that there was a local law compelling shipmasters who left that port to carry away paupers, for which they received $10 each as remuneration. If they refused to take them, they were fined $300. As various states had laws forbidding the landing of paupers, it was customary for shipmasters to sign the paupers as seamen. The pauper had the privilege of choosing his own vessel, and most of them went to the United States. Mr. Van Buren called the attention of Lord Palmerston, the British Foreign Secretary, to the affair, and requested a discontinuance of the practice. Lord Palmerston replied that the law was to expire December 31, and the governor of Jamaica had been instructed to withhold his assent to any similar law.^[65]

Mr. Albert Davy, United States consul at Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds, England, reported that while no reliable lists were kept at customhouses, distinguishing paupers from others, it was generally known that paupers emigrated, and several shipmasters admitted that passage was paid by parish overseers. If a pauper was an exceptionally hard case, he could demand considerable sums of money in addition to his passage, refusing to go unless they were paid.^[66] Mr. F. List on March 8, 1837, reported from Leipsic that not only paupers, but criminals, were transported from the interior to seaports, to be embarked for the United States. A certain Mr. de Stein contracts with the governments to transport paupers for $75 per head, and several of the governments have accepted his proposition. There is a plan to empty the jails and workhouses in this way. It is a common practice in Germany to get rid of paupers and vicious characters by collecting money to send them to the United States.^[67]

That it was customary to transport criminals as well as paupers is verified by the fact that during 1837 two lots of convicts arrived in Baltimore: one a party of fourteen convicts on a ship from Bremen, who had been embarked in irons, which had not been stricken off until near the fort; the other a shipload of 200 to 250 Hessian convicts, whose manacles and fetters remained upon their hands and feet until within the day of their arrival.^[68]

A memorial of the corporation of the city of New York, January 25, 1847, states that within the last year the ships Sardinia and Atlas from Liverpool arrived in New York, one with 294 and the other with 314 steerage passengers, all paupers, sent by the parish of Grosszimmern, Hesse Darmstadt, to which they belonged and by which their expenses were paid. Two hundred and thirty-four of these immigrants, 117 from each ship, eventually found their way into the New York almshouse.^[69]

On January 19, 1839, Niles’ Register reported a crowd of paupers which had arrived in New York from England. Their passage had been paid by the overseers of the poor at Edinburgh, and the majority of them were still wearing the uniform of the poorhouse. This naturally aroused objections, and the consignees of the vessel finally agreed to take them back to Europe, and to repay the city all expense that it had incurred on their account. The United States consul at Basle, Switzerland, reported in 1846 that it was the practice in that country for congregations or town authorities to send paupers to America.^[70]

Instances of this sort might be multiplied, but these will suffice to prove that the practice of transporting paupers was a common one during the period we are considering. Just when it was finally stopped it is impossible to say.^[71] It certainly played a large part in creating the feeling of hostility to immigrants which manifested itself strongly during the decade of the thirties.

That the situation was partially, at least, comprehended also in England is evidenced by a burlesque poem entitled “Immiscible Immigration,” written in that country, which commences with the following words:

While the dangers from pauperism and criminality were probably the leading causes for opposition to immigration, at this time, other broader and deeper objections were beginning to be felt and to be expressed in current writings. In the North American Review for April, 1835 (p. 457), there is a very sane, calm and convincing article by Mr. A. H. Everett, in which the disadvantages of immigration are set forth. Many of the stock arguments of to-day are well set forth here, among them, of course, the dangers from pauperism and crime, but also the dangers of a heterogeneous population, of poor assimilation, congestion in cities, misuse of political power, and the growth of foreign colonies. The author questions whether the immigrants are really filling the demand for labor, and urges the necessity of furnishing the immigrants with information about different sections of the country, and advising them about their destination. He also feels the need of much greater discrimination in the admission of aliens.

In the same magazine, in the issue for January, 1841, there is an article entitled “The Irish in America,” in which the author names as one of the great grievances against the immigrants that they do more work for less money than the native workingmen, and live on a lower standard, thereby decreasing wages. This is one of the earliest expressions which we find of this objection, and shows that by this time the country had passed beyond the primitive stage where there was room enough for everybody, and no fear of economic competition. It is the foreshadowing of modern conditions and modern thought.

There was still another ground for opposition to the immigrants which very possibly at the end of the thirties eclipsed all the others in positive influence.^[73] This was the hatred and fear of the Roman Catholic religion, to which the great majority of the Irish adhered. The Protestant bias which had strongly characterized the early settlers still persisted among the great body of the American people. This motive was the leading one which led to the formation of the first political party which was openly based on opposition to immigration. This was the Native American party which came into prominence as a political movement about 1835, in which year there was a Nativist candidate for Congress in New York City. In the following year the party nominated a candidate for mayor of New York. Nativist societies were formed in Germantown, Pa., and in Washington, D.C., in 1837, and two years later the party was organized in Louisiana, where a state convention was held in 1841. The adherents of this movement did not confine themselves to peaceful and orderly methods, but resorted to anti-Catholic riots in 1844. Two Catholic churches were destroyed in Philadelphia, and a convent in Boston.^[74]

In 1845 the Nativist movement claimed 48,000 members in New York, 42,000 in Pennsylvania, 14,000 in Massachusetts, and 6000 in other states. In Congress it had six representatives from New York and two from Pennsylvania. Its first national convention was held in Philadelphia in 1845.^[75] A national platform was adopted, the chief demands being the repeal of the naturalization laws, and the appointment of native Americans only to office. They succeeded in securing a certain amount of congressional investigation in 1838, and a bill was presented by a committee appointed for the purpose, which proposed to fine shipmasters who tried to bring into the United States aliens who were idiots, lunatics, maniacs, or afflicted with any incurable disease, in the sum of $1000, and to require them to forfeit a like sum for every alien brought in who had not the ability to maintain himself. “Congress did not even consider this bill, and during the next ten years little attempt was made to secure legislation against the foreigner,”^[76] though many petitions to extend the period of residence for naturalization were received. The ever increasing opposition to unregulated immigration had not yet become sufficiently widespread to accomplish any positive measures.

During this period the immigrants were almost wholly from the United Kingdom and Germany, with the Irish in the lead, as we have seen. There were also considerable numbers of French, who outnumbered the Germans in some years in the early part of the period, and small contingents from various other nations, particularly the Scandinavian countries. It was natural that the ties of relationship, language, etc., should put the United Kingdom at the head at this time, and conditions in Ireland were such as to make emigration a very welcome means of relief. The Irish tended to linger in the cities, where they went into domestic and personal service, or to go out into the construction camps. The Germans and Scandinavians, on the other hand, tended to move westward into the interior, and colonies of these races were becoming numerous in several of the middle western states. The Germans of this period were mostly farmers from the thinly settled agricultural sections of the old country, and the great attraction which the United States had for them was the ease with which good farm lands might be secured in this country.^[77]

Most of the agitation about immigration, as has been intimated, centered round the Irish, but there was also some feeling against the Germans. This was augmented by the decided clannishness of these people. There were many German societies and newspapers, and a strong and ill-disguised movement to form an independent German state in Texas, or elsewhere on the continent, which was not calculated to endear them to the native American.

Up to the year 1842 the total immigration did not reach one hundred thousand annually, and for the next three years it fell below that figure again.^[78] During the last half of this decade, however, certain events occurred in Europe which vastly increased the immigration current, and brought the matter more forcibly to the notice of the American people than ever before. These were the potato famine in Ireland, and the political upheavals of 1848 in various nations of Europe, particularly in Germany. The result of the latter occurrences was to leave a large number of middle class liberalists in Germany in a very undesirable situation, in spite of the partial success of the revolution. The way out, for them, was emigration. This is one of the best examples in history of the political cause of emigration, though even here economic motives were also concerned. A tremendous emigration followed, reaching its climax in 1854, when 215,009 immigrants from Germany reached this country. These were mainly persons of good character and independent spirit, as might be expected from the causes of their departure. Considerable numbers of Bohemians also emigrated at this period, similar in character to the Germans, and actuated by similar motives and conditions.

Conditions in Ireland at about the same time resulted in an emigration rivaling that from Germany in numbers, but by no means so desirable from the point of view of the United States. It was almost exclusively an economic movement. The introduction of the potato into Ireland by Raleigh in 1610 had seemed at first a blessing to the country. It furnished an easy and abundant food supply, and its cultivation spread rapidly. Population increased correspondingly, growing from 2,845,932 in 1785 to 5,356,594 in 1803 and 8,295,061 in 1845. By the latter year most of the population were dependent for their subsistence upon the potato. This was a precarious situation, for the potato furnishes the largest amount of food in proportion to the land used of almost any crop which is grown in temperate regions. In other words, the Irish were living on a very low standard as far as food was concerned, with no margin to fall back on in case of calamity. A people subsisting upon grains and meat may, in time of distress, resort to cheaper and more easily secured food materials temporarily. But a land which is densely populated by people living on the cheapest possible food has no resources when any misfortune attacks their staple supply. Ireland was in this situation in the middle forties, and the misfortune came in the shape of the potato murrain, which attacked the plants in 1845 and caused an almost complete failure of the crop for that year.

Extreme hardship, privation, and distress followed. From 200,000 to 300,000 died of starvation or of fever caused by insufficient food. All who could sought relief in flight. Benevolent agencies in England and Ireland came to their assistance, and enormous numbers of Irish, in one way or another, found the means for emigration, and embarked for Canada or the United States. Added to the great numbers of Germans who were coming at the same time, they caused the first great wave in the immigration current, reaching a maximum of 427,833 in the year 1854, a number which was not exceeded until 1873. After 1854 the immigration current dwindled rapidly, until in 1862 it amounted to only 72,183.

During this entire period, up to the time of the great influx from Germany and Ireland, immigration had been practically unregulated so far as the United States government was concerned, the only federal law bearing on the subject being the ineffective act of 1819. Many of the individual states, however, had attempted to cope with the evils of the situation by restrictive or protective measures. New York took the lead in this matter. In this state there were two sets of laws bearing on the question. The first of these had to do with the support of the marine hospital. As early as 1820 New York had passed a law (April 14, 1820, Chapter 229) levying a tax of $1.50 each for the captain and cabin passengers, and $1 each for steerage passengers, mates, sailors, and mariners, payable by the master of every vessel from a foreign port arriving at a New York port. The proceeds were to be used for the benefit of the marine hospital. This law was continued and reënacted, with slight changes in the amount of the tax, at frequent intervals during the next twenty-five years.^[79] It was a real head tax, and may have had a slight restrictive influence upon immigration.

Much more important than this set of laws, however, was another group, specifically concerned with the immigration situation. The first^[80] of these was the law of February 11, 1824, which required the master of every ship coming from any foreign country, or from any other state than New York, to report to the mayor in writing, within twenty-four hours after landing, the name, place of birth, last legal settlement, age, and occupation of all passengers, under a penalty of $75 for each person not reported, or reported falsely. The mayor might require a bond, not exceeding $300, for each passenger not a citizen of the United States, to indemnify the authorities of New York against any expense incurred in connection with such passengers, or their children born after landing, for the space of two years. Whenever any passenger, being a citizen of the United States, was deemed likely to become a public charge to the city, the master of the ship should at once remove him at his (the master’s) expense to his place of last settlement, or else defray all expenses incurred by the city. Non-citizens entering the city with the intention of residing there must within twenty-four hours report themselves to the mayor, giving their name, birthplace, etc., the time and place of landing, the name of the ship and commander, under penalty of $300.

This law remained in force for twenty-three years. On May 5, 1847, a more inclusive immigration law was passed of which the most important provisions were as follows:

Section 1. The shipmaster shall report the name, place of birth, last legal residence, age, and occupation of every person or passenger arriving in the ship, not being a citizen of the United States. The report shall further specify whether any of the passengers reported are lunatic, idiot, deaf and dumb, blind or infirm, and if so, whether they are accompanied by relatives likely to be able to support them. A report is to be made of those who have died on the voyage. Penalty for violation, $75.

Section 2. For each person reported, the sum of one dollar is to be paid by the master within three days after arrival.

Section 3. The commissioners of emigration shall go on board of arriving vessels and examine their passengers. If any of the defective classes mentioned in Section 1 are found, not members of emigrating families, and likely to become a public charge, a bond of $300 for five years shall be required, in place of the commutation fee of one dollar.

Section 4. Commissioners of emigration are appointed, to have charge of the business of immigration.

Section 14. The commissioners of emigration are made recipients and custodians of the marine hospital funds.

Section 16. The commissioners are given power to erect buildings for the handling of the immigration business.

Section 18. The act of February 11, 1824, is repealed.

Under this law a special body of officials took charge of the handling of immigrants for New York State, and a more systematic and effective method was introduced.

The foregoing law and the corresponding law of Massachusetts were both declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in January, 1849,^[81] on the ground that the power to levy a head tax was conferred on Congress by Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, being included in the “power to regulate commerce with foreign nations.”^[82]

New York, however, at once (April 11, 1849) passed another law, even more stringent in its requirements than the foregoing one, but designed to avoid the constitutional difficulties. A bond of $300 was required for all alien passengers, which might be commuted for the sum of $1.50. If any alien passengers are “lunatic, idiot, deaf, dumb, blind, or infirm persons not members of emigrating families,” or likely to become a public charge, or have been paupers in any other country, they are to be bonded in the sum of $500 for ten years, in addition to the commutation money. On such bonds the authorities were empowered to collect enough money to defray the expenses incurred in connection with the immigrants, not exceeding the amount of the bond.

By the act of July 11, 1851, the defective classes were added to by the inclusion of persons maimed, or above the age of sixty years, or under thirteen, widows having families, or women without husbands having families, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge. The bond of $500 for undesirables was retained, but the time limit was reduced to five years.

Practically all of the other states which received trans-Atlantic vessels had laws similar to the bonding law of New York, for their protection against pauper immigration. The Massachusetts law was much more severe than that of New York, and was believed to keep many immigrants away from that state. The Massachusetts law passed April 20, 1837, required shipmasters to deposit a bond of $1000 for ten years for each lunatic, idiot, maimed, aged, or infirm immigrant brought in, and for those incompetent to maintain themselves, or who have been paupers in any other country. For each other alien passenger the shipmaster was to pay the sum of $2.

In all of this legislation the states found themselves in the dilemma of wishing to frame laws which would keep out undesirable immigrants, and yet would not operate to discourage aliens of good quality. The desire for an increase of population by immigration, which was shared by practically all the states, and the fear of diverting the current from one state to another, led to a greater laxity in the attitude of each state than would probably have existed if each could have acted altogether independently. This made the state regulation of immigration most unsatisfactory.

It was inevitable, considering the immensity and suddenness of the immigration movement at this time, and the lack of experience in dealing with such a problem on the part of the American people, that grievous evils should arise. The immigrants, particularly the Irish, were a destitute and helpless lot, and fell an easy prey to the machinations of the host of exploiters which at once sprang up to take advantage of the newly presented opportunities. Countless devices were put in practice for separating the immigrant from whatever valuable goods he brought with him. New York, in particular, as the center of the traffic, swarmed with a host of runners, agents, and solicitors of every kind, who fleeced the newcomers without remorse or pity. These runners were themselves mostly earlier immigrants, who could more readily gain the confidence of the aliens. The handling and inspection of these aliens by the officials was also a weighty problem. It was in the hope of checking the operations of the runners, as well as to provide suitable arrangements for the examination of arriving immigrants, that the Board of Commissioners of Emigration of New York State was created by the act of 1847. This timely action undoubtedly prevented the various evils connected with this immense movement from going to the extremes that they otherwise would have reached, and that they did reach in certain respects in Canada.^[83]

In 1855 commissioners leased an old fort at the foot of Manhattan Island, known as Castle Garden, to serve as an immigrant station. This did duty for many years and was considered one of the most interesting spots in the metropolis. It also proved of great service in restraining the operations of the immigrant runners.^[84] It goes without saying that it was by no means successful in putting a permanent stop to them.

The bonding provision of the New York State law had one remarkable and unfortunate result. A class of brokers sprang up who took the responsibility of bonding the immigrants from the shipowners. It was obviously to their advantage to keep as many of the immigrants as possible from coming upon the public for support. To accomplish this, they established private hospitals and poorhouses on the outskirts of New York and Brooklyn, in which dependent aliens were placed. The effort to maintain them here at the least possible expense resulted in extreme neglect. A committee of the Board of Aldermen of New York City was appointed to look into this matter, in the year 1846. They found conditions which were almost unbelievable. In one apartment, fifty feet square, they discovered one hundred sick and dying immigrants lying on straw. In their midst were the bodies of two others who had died four or five days earlier, and had been left there. The worst kind of food was specially purchased for the consumption of these victims. The conditions unearthed by this investigation contributed to the sentiment which brought about the passage of the law of 1847.^[85]

The chaotic state of the immigration situation, the inadequacy of state control, and the increasing obviousness of the resulting evils led to a growing demand for federal action on the matter. This feeling found expression in numerous petitions and memorials presented to Congress by state legislatures, city councils, and private citizens. These began to appear about 1835, with the rise of the Native American party. With the increased immigration of the latter forties, the demand became more insistent. The immediate and crying evil, which attracted the greatest attention, lay in the unspeakable shipping conditions which still existed.^[86] In 1847 Mr. Rathbun stated on the floor of Congress that emigrants from abroad were frequently landed in the port of New York in such a diseased condition, due to overcrowding on the ships which brought them, that they were unable to walk. They were carried in carts direct to the almshouse, and sometimes died on the way.^[87] In the same year, out of ninety thousand immigrants who embarked for Canada in British vessels, fifteen thousand died on the way. This exceeded even the suffering in vessels bound for the United States.^[88] On the whole, conditions seem to have been the best on the German and American vessels.

In response to these conditions, and to the growing demand for a remedy, Congress on February 22, 1847, passed a law, superseding that of 1819, and designed to remedy the evils of overcrowding. The provisions about victualing the ships remained the same as before, but the new law provided for a certain allotment of superficial, or square feet of, deck space per passenger, and also limited the number of passengers in proportion to the tonnage of the ship. This law was not satisfactory, however, and was very soon superseded by the act of May 17, 1848, which remained in force until 1855. In 1849 the British government passed a law, designed to secure the same ends as the American laws. It was under the operation of these three laws that the great flood of Irish immigration crossed the Atlantic.

The American statutes required that the deck space, unoccupied by stores or goods, except passengers’ baggage, should average fourteen square feet for each passenger, man, woman, or child, excepting infants not one year old. If the space between decks was less than six feet, there must be sixteen square feet per passenger, and if less than five feet, twenty-two square feet (a significant commentary on the ship construction of the day). There were to be not more than two tiers of berths on any deck, and the berths were to be not less than six feet by one and one half feet in dimensions. The British statute set a limit of one passenger (exclusive of cabin) for every two tons registered tonnage, two children under fourteen years of age being counted as one, and children under one year not being counted.

Up to this time it had been customary on immigrant ships to require passengers to provide their own stores, but on account of the lack of intelligence and foresight on the part of the passengers, both the American and British statutes required ships to carry a certain amount and kind of provisions for each passenger, as follows:

The passengers were still required to do their own cooking, and the American act provided for the building of cooking ranges for the use of steerage passengers, in proportion to the number carried.

Most of the Irish passengers were collected at Liverpool, though by 1847 there were also many direct sailings from Ireland. They were mainly booked through passenger brokers, who often imposed on them, but apparently not so much as might have been expected. There was a medical inspection at Liverpool, and emigrants were required to be certified against contagious diseases. The average length of the passage from Liverpool to New York in 1849 was about thirty-five days, and from London about forty-three and one half days. But voyages were often much prolonged. One ship, the Speed (!), in 1848 had a passage of twelve weeks, with great ensuing hardship. The British act provided that if ships had to turn back, the passengers must be transshipped to another vessel, and in the meantime maintained at the master’s expense. This often resulted in hardship, instead of benefit, as ships sometimes kept on the voyage when they were not fitted to sail. In 1849 and 1850 some ships turned back after having been out seventy days. The British government tried to induce steamers to take steerage passengers by allowing them to provide provisions for only forty days, while sailing vessels had to provide for seventy. Very few immigrants, nevertheless, were carried on steam vessels during these years. The deaths on these voyages were mainly due to ship fever, a severe form of Irish typhus.^[89]

Though the German immigrants at this time were at least as numerous as the Irish, they attracted much less attention. This was partly because they were less poverty-stricken, and partly because they mostly moved on to the west, and did not collect in the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. The Irish, in consequence of their native character, the circumstances which led to their coming, and the conditions of the voyage, were in a particularly helpless state when they arrived. They were the most prominent victims of the runners, and made the largest showing in the hospitals and almshouses. In spite of the good accomplished by the state and federal statutes, an extreme amount of destitution and suffering persisted. The burden of foreign pauperism, in particular, increased tremendously. In 1850 more than half the paupers wholly or partially supported in the United States were of foreign birth. In the North Atlantic coastal states the proportion was much larger.^[90]

These considerations, added to the preponderance of Roman Catholics among the Irish immigrants, led to a renewal of the anti-immigration agitation, which had been so vigorous ten years earlier. This time the movement took the form of a secret organization, started probably in New York City in 1850. This society grew rapidly. Its meetings were held in secret, and the purpose and even the name of the organization were so much of a mystery at first that the rank and file of the members, either from necessity or from choice, were in the habit of answering all questions regarding it by saying, “I don’t know.” Hence it came to be known as the “Know Nothing” party, and as such has come down to history.^[91]

The organization did not long maintain its ultra-secret character. This had mostly disappeared by 1854, and the society openly indorsed candidates, and put forward candidates of its own. It is recorded that in 1855 the governors and legislatures in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, California, and Kentucky were Know Nothings, and that they had secured many offices in other states. By 1855 they began to mature plans for the presidential election. They adopted a platform calling for a change in the existing naturalization laws, for the repeal of the state laws allowing unnaturalized foreigners to vote, and the repeal by Congress of all acts making land grants to unnaturalized foreigners and allowing them to vote in the territories. In 1856 a national convention was held, and Millard Fillmore was nominated for president. The principles of the platform adopted were that Americans must rule America, that native-born citizens should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal government employment in preference to all others, that the naturalization law should be changed so as to require twenty-one years’ residence, and that a law should be passed excluding from the United States all paupers or persons convicted of crime. This party had its greatest strength in the thirty-fourth Congress, 1854–1856, and in the discussions of the period many severe charges were made against the immigrants.

But the Know Nothings were in the minority and consequently had little real influence on legislation. The immigration laws proposed by them were, as a rule, confined to the exclusion of foreign paupers and criminals, and none of these was passed.^[92] The diversion of public interest from immigration affairs to the great questions of slavery, and the events preliminary to the Civil War, coupled with the decline in the volume of immigration after 1854, led to the natural decline and final break-up of the Know Nothing party.

The agitation of the period, however, particularly in regard to steerage conditions, had its effect on Congress, and in 1853 a select committee of the Senate was appointed to investigate the conditions of steerage immigration and, in particular, “the causes and the extent of the sickness and mortality prevailing on board the emigrant ships on the voyage to this country,” and to determine what legislation, if any, was necessary to secure better conditions. This committee reported on August 2, 1854, and on March 3, 1855, a bill was passed which, with slight modifications, governed the carriage of immigrants up to 1882. The design of this act was to improve steerage conditions, and “theoretically the law of 1855 provided for an increased air space, better ventilation, and improved accommodations in the way of berths, cooking facilities, the serving of food, free open deck space, and so forth. Although the evil of overcrowding, which had been attended with such disastrous results in former years, appears to have been especially aimed at by the makers of the law, the wording of the act was, unfortunately, such that the provisions relating to the number of passengers to be carried were inoperative, and there was practically no legal restraint in this regard, as far as the United States law was concerned, between 1855 and 1882.”^[93]

Practically the only amendment to the steerage law from 1855 to 1882 was an act of 1860, designed to secure much-needed protection for female passengers from immoral conduct on the part of members of the crew. A fine of $1000 was imposed on any person employed on any ship of the United States who was found guilty of such conduct, and members of the crew were forbidden to visit parts of the ship assigned to immigrants, except under the direction or with the permission of the commanding officer.

It will be observed that, while the various state laws had a slightly restrictive effect, all of the federal acts of this period, designed as they were to secure better accommodations on the voyage, served as an encouragement, rather than a deterrent, to immigration. And, on the whole, in spite of the violent anti-immigrant agitation of the nativistic and Know Nothing movements and the dread of foreign paupers and criminals, the preponderance of public opinion in the United States was probably favorable to the immigrant as such. It must be remembered that during this entire period the United States was still distinctly a new country. There was an abundance of unoccupied land which might be secured on easy terms. There was a large westward movement of population from the Atlantic seaboard, and the growing manufactures and internal improvements created a large demand for labor. It was, as a whole, a decidedly thinly settled country. All of these things combined to give the immigrant every advantage in the mind of the native citizen.

Reviewing the third period, we see that it was a period of rapidly increasing immigration, responding to the expanding industry and exceptionally favorable agricultural situation in this country. The movement culminated in the enormous immigration of the late forties and early fifties. These were mainly Germans, who left their home primarily for political reasons, and took up farm lands in the west, and Irish, who emigrated because of economic disaster, and tended to linger in the eastern cities, or to go out into the construction camps. Both of these races were closely allied to the American people, and easily assimilated. At the beginning of the period, the attitude of the American people was almost wholly one of welcome, but with the increase of the current, bringing as it did enormous numbers of destitute and helpless aliens, there arose a distinct feeling of opposition to unregulated immigration, based primarily upon the dislike of foreign paupers and criminals, and aided by the undeniable practice of foreign countries of emptying their poorhouses, and even their jails, upon our shores. This feeling later came to be intensified by a strong antipathy to Roman Catholics and the restriction of immigration was made a party policy. Nevertheless, the opposition to immigration did not, during this period, attain sufficient strength to secure any important legislation. Many of the states had laws designed to indemnify the communities against expense on account of foreign paupers, which may have had a slight restrictive effect. But such federal legislation as there was, was directed to the improvement of the conditions of the voyage, and hence had an encouraging rather than a restrictive tendency. With the approach of the Civil War immigration fell off, and public attention was diverted to other matters.