# Immigration Investigation/Report

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In the Senate of the United States.
February 4, 1893.—Ordered to be printed.
Mr. Call, from the Committee on Immigration, submitted the following
Report:
[To accompany Senate resolutions of July 16 and December 14, 1892.]
The Committee on Immigration, acting under the resolutions of the Senate of July 16 and December 14, 1892, considered it advisable to appoint a subcommittee, consisting of Senators Proctor, Squire, Dubois, and Call, to act with Senator Gibson of the Senate Committee on Epidemic Diseases, and Representatives Stump (chairman), Covert, Wright, and Coburn, of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, to examine into the conditions of immigration from Cuba and the West India Islands, and the danger of the importation of epidemic and contagious diseases into the United States through immigrants from those islands.
The committee found it necessary to make their inquiry by visiting Florida and Cuba, where they took the testimony herewith reported. They discovered, as will appear from the evidence, facts which had not before been brought prominently to the notice of the country.
There is daily intercourse between the people of Havana and Key West and Tampa, Fla. The number of persons estimated to pass annually from Cuba to the United States and back is between 50,000 and 100,000. Havana is within six or seven hours, by steam, of Key West, and is connected with Europe by several lines of steamers running fifty ships, more or less, each month between the island and European ports, furnishing an easy, convenient, and cheap passage to immigrants from all parts of Europe to Cuba and Mexico and the United States.
The evidence shows that the most fatal form of yellow fever is always present in Havana, and in the summer and autumn it is liable to be imported into the United States, by both immigrants and merchandise passing through the State of Florida, unless the most careful and thorough preventive measures shall be constantly used.
The sanitary condition of Havana is a perpetual menace to the health of the people of the United States and invites the entry into the island of contagious and infectious diseases of the most virulent and fatal character. The danger from immigration and the constant passage backward and forward of persons on business who are temporary residents, and the increased commerce between the island of Cuba and the United States, requires the most unremitting care and vigilance.
The island of Cuba, lying in the Gulf of Mexico and almost touching the shores of the United States, was regarded by all the great statesmen of our earlier history as an outpost of the United States, the key of the Gulf, and the necessary place of guard and protection for its commerce. It is one of the most fertile regions in the world, ​and has a future before it of great development. Its commerce with the United States must continually increase, and the interests of the American people will become more closely connected with the health and prosperity of the people of the island.
In this view the conditions of intercourse with Cuba and the other West India islands, whether by immigration or other relations of business, are of the greatest concern to the people of the United States.
The question is growing more and more in importance because of the certainty of the opening of one or more transits by waterways across the States of Central America from the Pacific Ocean to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, which will provide convenient and cheap transit for the commerce of the peoples of the Eastern Hemisphere with those of the West. Cuba and the State of Florida lying across the necessary pathway of this commerce will offer the convenient places for the landing of the ships which shall carry its immigrants, visitors, and products.
Whatever restrictions or conditions it may be determined by Congress to impose upon immigration or commerce, either from Europe or oriental nations, for the exclusion of contagious and infectious disease and the promotion of maritime sanitation, must be applied strictly and enforced vigorously as between Cuba, the West India islands, and the United States.
The committee found that the sanitary and quarantine measures adopted by the State of Florida, with the aid of the system of inspection, examination, and certification of the Marine-Hospital Service at Havana, under the supervision of Dr. Daniel M. Burgess, of that service, have been adequate, so far, to prevent entirely the communication of epidemic or contagious diseases from the island of Cuba to the United States through the ports of Florida. The quarantine system has been maintained at the expense of the people of Florida, which, as the subject is one of national importance, should be borne by the national Government, and, in view of the threatened epidemic of cholera, the service should be increased in its efficiency and paid for out of the national Treasury. The committee also found that epidemic disease of a fatal character has been imported into the United States from the West Indies through the South Atlantic ports of Florida and of other Southern States, and recommend that an efficient system of maritime sanitation and quarantine be maintained in them by liberal appropriations to be used in coöperation with the State board of health in the absence of a national system of quarantine and sanitation, to be applied to the entire coast of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas.
The duties of the committee require them to examine into the conditions of immigration between Mexico and the United States, and from Canada and by sea into the Pacific States; but they have not so far had opportunity to fully make this investigation. Chinese immigration has already received consideration by Congress, but the subject of persons coming from countries in the Pacific Ocean, either for temporary or permanent residence, in connection with the importation of disease, is a branch inquiry to which the committee should give future and careful investigation in connection with the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the House and the Senate Committee on Epidemic Diseases.
The testimony accompanying the committee's report will be found to contain valuable information, which will aid Congress in formulating such legislation as will create adequate restrictions on immigration and ​the establishment, with the assistance of the State boards of health, of a national system of quarantine and maritime sanitation which will not impose unnecessary burdens on commerce.
The committee recommend an appropriation of $1,000,000, to be expended in the discretion of the President, in coöperation with and in aid of the State authorities or otherwise, in the prevention of epidemic and contagious disease, with authority to the President to suspend all immigration and commerce, when necessary, until the danger of contagion and infection shall have passed.
Your committee further recommend that a system of international sanitation and regulation be established for the prevention of contagion and infection through immigration between the people of the several Republics of North and Central and South America, and the governments having control of Cuba and the West India Islands.
The interests of republican government and the community of commercial interests and the necessary frequency of intercourse between the people of these republics and Cuba and the islands of the Gulf, demand that the closest sympathy should exist between them, and in the opinion of your committee the rapidly increasing population of the United States, its vast resources, and its great productions and commerce require that we should be foremost in the initiation of measures and policies which shall promote the prosperity, progress, and advancement of the people of these contiguous countries.
The day is near at hand when 100,000,000 people will inhabit the United States, the most prosperous, free, and intelligent people of the world, cultivating peaceful relations with all nations, but powerful enough to demand justice, right, and protection for all the people of the Americas and the adjacent islands, and with the duty incumbent on them to initiate the policies which will best conduce to their just and fair commercial intercourse, to their mutual protection, and their progress in all the arts and sciences which promote the wellbeing of the great body of their people.
The committee recommend the passage of the following amendment to the sundry civil appropriation bill:
One million dollars, to be expended in the discretion of the President of the United States, for the prevention and suppression of epidemic disease through immigration or temporary residents.