# Immigration Investigation/Proceedings/Statement of Ramon O. Williams

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Statement of Ramon O. Williams, consul-general of the United States at Havana.
Senator Proctor. Will you please give the committee, in your own way, any information you can in regard to the subject-matter of this inquiry as you have heard it stated in the resolutions.
Mr. Williams. With respect to epidemic and contagious diseases and the danger of their introduction into the United States I would prefer that Dr. Burgess should give his testimony. There is scarcely anything I could say upon the subject that would be in addition to what he can tell you.
Senator Proctor. How long have you held this position as consul-general?
Mr. Williams. I was appointed by President Arthur, in 1884.
Senator Proctor. Before that you had been vice-consul for how long a time?
Mr. Williams. Nine and a half years.
Senator Proctor. Before that time?
Mr. Williams. I was here twenty-seven years engaged in American commerce with Cuba before I ever went into the consular service. My work has been connected, however, with the United States all the time.
​Senator Proctor. Your total residence here has been how long?
Mr. Williams. I went to school here fifty-nine years ago. I had relatives here. My knowledge of the city of Havana rans back further than that of any American in Cuba to-day, probably.
Senator Proctor. What have you to say with reference to emigration from Cuba to the United States?
Mr. Williams. I should say that there is no emigration from the island of Cuba, in the European sense of the word; that is, no emigrant class.
Senator Proctor. You mean they go as regular passengers?
Mr. Williams. They go as regular passengers.
Senator Proctor. There is no steerage?
Mr. Williams. There may be a steerage, but they go as regular passengers. Between Key West and Havana people go as between Albany and New York, or as between New York and Boston on the Sound.
Senator Proctor. By not being emigrants, you mean what?
Mr. Williams. I mean they are workingmen, who work for their living, and can always earn their living.
Senator Call. They go back and forward?
Mr. Williams. They go back and forward as those French laborers go from Canada into New England and work and then go back home. Sometimes the Cubans return, but a good many of them have remained there. In fact, Key West has been built up by Cubans.
Senator Proctor. Have you any knowledge about the number of emigrants annually?
Mr. Williams. No; there are no statistics in this office and I do not believe there are in any office.
Senator Proctor. Have you any opinion, as a matter of judgment, as to the average number?
Mr. Williams. I have no idea of the number.
Senator Proctor. How many steamship lines are there running from here to the United States, and to what points?
Mr. Williams. There are several steamship lines. There is a Spanish line running to Florida twice a month, and the Ward line to New York. There is an American line occasionally from here to New Orleans.
Senator Proctor. Doesn't it run to Punta Gorda?
Mr. Williams. Yes; there is one that runs to Punta Gorda.
Senator Proctor. Punta Gorda and New Orleans both?
Mr. Williams. Yes, sir.
Senator Proctor. Then there are four regular lines?
Mr. Williams. Yes; and these lines are all employed in carrying sugar and tobacco; not much in carrying passengers. The most of the passengers are tourists.
Senator Proctor. What would be the average number monthly of sailings from here to the United States?
Mr. Williams. The whole commerce of Cuba is with the United States.
Senator Proctor. Of these regular steamers, I mean.
Mr. Williams. We have now in the winter time three steamers a week between here and Florida; then we have two regular steamers between here and New York; that is, on the Ward Line two leave a week; the Spanish steamers to New York once in ten days, and the American line every week; and occasionally there is one thrown in besides. And there is another line of tramp steamers, called the Prince Line, I believe.
​Senator Proctor. You would make, then, an average of about eight weekly sailings?
Mr. Williams. Yes; at least that number of the regular ones.
Senator Proctor. Say thirty-five per month from Havana, besides those from other ports?
Mr. Williams. Perhaps so.
Senator Call. What do you have from other ports of Cuba?
Dr. Burgess. On the south side there is the Ward line running from New York to Cienfuegos twice a month, I think. That line also touches at Nassau in the winter.
Senator Call. Probably, including the tramps, there will be forty or fifty a month.
Dr. Burgess. Yes; fifty.
Mr. Williams. In the crop season there are that many.
Senator Squire. I would like to ask if the conditions relating to immigration from European countries to the United States should be changed so that the intending immigrants find it difficult to come by the usual route through New York, it would be likely that there might be any considerable immigration to the United States through Cuba by way of Havana.
Mr. Williams. They might do that. I do not know of any law to prevent it.
Senator Squire. Have there been any conditions to warrant the apprehension that it might occur?
Mr. Williams. Not heretofore.
Dr. Burgess. You remember that the German line used to stop here on the way to New Orleans; and English steamers have gone through here not very long ago with emigrants from Spain and different ports of Europe.
Mr. Williams. Those intended for the Western States?
Senator Squire. Anywhere in the United States. I ask if it has been the case and might be again?
Mr. Williams. Oh, yes; but those passengers are not emigrants from the West Indies; we are now on the subject of the West Indies.
Senator Proctor. Is the passenger travel between here and the States on the increase?
Mr. Williams. I should say it had been on the increase. When the insurrection broke out it took a sudden start, and after that it became more established; more settled.
Senator Proctor. It is still going on as rapidly as ever, and, in your opinion, more so?
Mr. Williams. Yes, for the reason that Cuba is becoming more and more identified with the commercial system of the United States. Cuba is to-day commercially a part of the United States, and naturally you must expect that communication will be more active and constant.
Senator Proctor. Tell us what you know about the character of the emigrants.
Mr. Williams. They are generally laboring men who go to the United States to earn their living. They do not go there and live as paupers or throw themselves upon public charity at all.
Senator Proctor. What proportion should you judge go to Florida and what to Northern ports?
Mr. Williams. The largest portion I should think go to Florida, because, in the first place, there are a great many Cubans coming from families which formerly lived in Florida; they are descendants of old Floridians. When Florida came under the flag of the United States ​under the treaty of 1819 a great many families would not live under the American flag and they came over here; and there are a great many very good families in Havana and out in the country here who came from those people, and this office has been at times filled with them coming in here to get papers to visit their friends in Florida.
Senator Proctor. What proportion of passengers from Cuba do you think remain in the States?
Mr. Williams. It is hard to tell what the proportion is. It is according to how business is for them there and how wages are. If wages are good there they remain there; if work is slack there and they can get work here they come back here.
Senator Proctor. Do many of them take their families?
Mr. Williams. A good many take their families, but a good many of them go without their families. You must understand that these people look upon Florida almost as a part of their own country.
Representative Covert. Right in that connection let me ask whether you know of the existence of any contract system involving the labor of these immigrants.
Mr. Williams. I know of no contracts; I know of no such system. They go with funds to take care of themselves, and I know of no cases where they have been thrown upon public charity.
Senator Squire. I understand that 95 per cent of an the importations at Key West is tobacco for the purpose of being made into cigars. Do you know whether cigar-makers are taken from this place to Key West under contract to go there and go to work?
Mr. Williams. I do not know of any such case. The people here look upon Florida as so much a part of their own country that very often they come here and say, “I want to go to the Key,” just as in Baltimore they would say, “I am going over to Washington.”
Senator Squire. You have been familiar with the commercial aspects of the case. What has been the effect of this immigration of laborers to the United States upon the industry that they were engaged in here; has there been any transfer of that?
Mr. Williams. I recollect Mr. Ebor. When the insurrection broke out in 1868 the volunteers went and mobbed him because he was doing business with the United States. He established a place in Key West in order to avail himself of the difference of duty provided by our tariff. The volunteers mobbed him, so he finally resolved to move to Key West; then he went to Tampa and built a factory there; then he bought land out back of Tampa and built Ebor City.
Senator Call. He is a very wealthy man?
Mr. Williams. Yes.
Senator Proctor. Then the business drawing the workmen there indicates that it has been more profitable there?
Mr. Williams. I believe it has not only been more profitable to them, but it has been a great item in the development of Florida.
Senator Proctor. If these conditions should continue it would follow that the immigration would not only continue with the present flow, but would increase?
Mr. Williams. Yes; they love the personal benefit they derive from the presence of the United States flag.
Senator Proctor. Do they become citizens of the United States to any great extent?
Mr. Williams. Yes; most of them become citizens. We have a great many coming in here every day to go over there.
​Senator Squire. You say that those who go from here to Key West become citizens of the United States?
Mr. Williams. Most all of them; all of those who establish themselves there, and who live in accordance with the law, reside there five years, and become entitled to citizenship.
Senator Squire. Do they not, every time they go, pay their head tax at Key West, the 50 cents immigrant tax?
Mr. Williams. No, they go as passengers; they do not go as emigrants.
Senator Squire. I understood from the collector at Key West, that it was customary for them to pay their head tax over and over again, and not become citizens.
Mr. Williams. There may be some, but very few, I think.
Senator Dubois. The committee have learned that many Canadians come over into the United States during certain seasons and work for wages, and then return to their own country; a number of people come from different European countries and work here for a season at higher wages, and then return to their own country to spend the summer or winter. We find a good deal of that class of immigration from all countries, and we wish to know whether that holds good here.
Mr. Williams. As a general thing I think Cubans are more Americanized than those people; they have more attachment for the United States than that sort of people.
Senator Dubois. Do I understand you to mean that laborers who go from here to Key West become naturalized?
Mr. Williams. Yes; many of them.
Senator Dubois. When they return here they are American citizens?
Mr. Williams. Very few of them return here to live permanently.
Representative Stump. I want to know whether you have looked at the act of 1882 creating the head tax and whether you are aware that that applies to all alien passengers, whether immigrants or not.
Mr. Williams. I have not seen that act. I have always understood that alien passengers pay the same tax. I think steamers generally pay this tax; it isn't collected directly from the passenger.
Representative Stump. How many European lines touch here?
Mr. Williams. We have three steamers a month from Spain, and I think two from France. Is it not so, doctor?
Dr. Burgess. Yes; the Transatlantique, the French line that passes through here once a month, and then there is the Hamburg line that touches here once a month.
Mr. Williams. There is no English steamer; they took away the Royal Mail several years ago.
Representative Stump. Is there any quarantine from Hamburg?
Dr. Burgess. Yes, coming direct from Hamburg, if they are not quarantined before they arrive here. The last one that arrived here was quarantined.
Mr. Williams. Yes, and a French steamer was quarantined here the other day.
Representative Stump. Do European steamers bring any immigrants to this port?
Mr. Williams. Not for this port. Those that come from Europe come mostly from Spain and they are passengers coming to Cuba through Spain just as our young men go from New England to the West.
Senator Call. They come here to reside?
Mr. Williams. Yes; to reside and establish themselves.
​Representative Stump. Have you any Chinese population here?
Mr. Williams. Yes; but not so large as it used to be.
Senator Proctor. Are they prohibited from coming here?
Mr. Williams. No, sir.
Senator Squire. Isn't it generally estimated that there are about 7,000 Chinese here?
Mr. Williams. I guess there are more than that. There was at one time supposed to be very nearly a hundred thousand, but since the stoppage of emigration by the Government very few come over, and the population has decreased wonderfully.
Representative Stump. I have understood that there were 40,000 on the island.
Mr. Williams. There were several years ago, but I doubt if there is that number here to-day. That could be ascertained at the Chinese consul's.
Representative Stump. How do the Chinese come here; through the States or directly from China?
Mr. Williams. Formerly they used to come direct from China.
Senator Squire. They come by way of the Isthmus, many of them, do they not?
Mr. Williams. Some. They used to come direct. I was a young clerk in the office that did that business on a large scale years ago, and I was very familiar with it; I used to revise the invoices.
Representative Stump. Do they not come in transit from San Francisco?
Mr. Williams. Not in such lots as they used to come. We used to receive 400 or 500 at a time.
Representative Stump. How did those 400 or 600 come?
Mr. Williams. Came in clipper ships.
Representative Stump. Do you know of any coming in transit from San Francisco?
Mr. Williams. No. Now and then we see new faces in the office that must be recent arrivals, but I do not know how they come here. They come and go back there.
Representative Stump. The transit business was broken up by order of the Secretary of the Treasury during Cleveland's administration. They used to come in great numbers before that. They were landed at San Francisco and came down across the continent. Now I ask whether that was not the mode by which the 40,000 arrived here?
Mr. Williams. A small number may have arrived that way, but the great bulk of them came direct in English and American ships. That was years ago, but you will recollect there is a law prohibiting the carrying of coolies in American vessels; but we received a great many cargoes of coolies in American vessels when I was there as clerk.
Representative Stump. Have you any foreign population other than Spaniards here?
Mr. Williams. We have Germans, a very respectable set of people, all connected with the commerce of the country and the commerce of the United States, and with that of Germany and England.
Representative Stump. Any Italians?
Mr. Williams. Yes, a very few; all respectable people.
Representative Stump. Can you tell us about their numbers?
Mr. Williams. I do not know how many there are. That could only be ascertained through the consul-general of that country.
Senator Squire. I would suggest that we now ask Dr. Burgess some questions.
​Senator Proctor. In what manner is Dr. Burgess connected with this consulate?
Mr. Williams. The duties of consular officers of the United States with respect to the performance of quarantine inspections and the issuance of bills of health at foreign ports to vessels bound to the United States are defined by paragraphs 333, 334, 335, 336, and 337 of the consular regulations. Under paragraph 336 at those ports that may be designated by the Department of State a physician will be employed or detailed to inspect such vessels, their passengers, crews, cargoes, and ballast, and in accordance therewith Dr. D. M. Burgess has been appointed for the performance of the services of this nature that devolve upon this consulate-general. On the filling out and receipt of his reports of inspection this consulate-general then issues bills of health in accordance with the said paragraph 336 of the consular regulations of the United States.