Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-18
One Big Ring Smashed.

OAhS AAb ASaAA6 SAAAAe1SNs
Four stowaways In an Italian freighter
were smoked out of the ship during
fumigation and Italian police were put
on the trail of leaders Of a smuggling
ring.
On the first of the year immigration
officials in New York felt the Canadian
police authorities had at last smashed
the greatest passport-forgin and alien
smuggling ring ever operated. One
alleged padrone was arrested, accused
on illegal passports and selling" them
to farmers at $40 a head, as well as
taking large fees from the immigrants.
Crews and officers of coastal steam
ships have been accused of bringing
aliens from Canada into United States
ports. Three officers and six seamen of
a British steamship were arrested in
Boston and charged with smuggling
Is aliens. The arrests followed in
formation from Stamford, Conn, and
Jersey City that three taxicab loads
Of Chinese and Spaniards had been
overhauied by police.
Back in 1924, when the quota law
theoretically padlocked the gates to
millions of Europeans, there was a syn
dictate of taxi men In Montreal who
openly advertised along the river front
that they would take aliens over the
border. They did. indeed, bring hun
dreds into the United States from
Rouses Point to Ogdensburg, allowing
the aliens to work their way as best
they could down through New York
State to Manhattan and New Jersey.
Canada q Sieve for Aliens.
Rum runners, too, did fiourishing
business, bringing aliens at a price of
$40 to 5000 along with their contraband
Scotch. In one year, Canadian govern
ment records show that during six
months more than $50 900 immigrants
arrived from Europe, but o check-up
revealed that thousands Of this num-
Der were mysteriously missing inside
two months.
1t was no mystery. however. to Amer
lean immigration men, Canada, they
say, Is a sieve through which unde-
sirables from Europe sift across the in
ternational boundary.
A few years ago there was no sys-
tenn of protected territories" In the
"bohunk racket" and the attorney gen.
erals Office at Ottawa was compelled
to investigate the deaths of men drowned
in the st. Lawrence and Detroit Rivers
during fights between rival alien-Smug-
Cling gangs.
Another route into the United States,
across the Niagara River, has let many
illegal aliens slip across. Smugglers
located in Toronto, Hamilton. Montreal
and st. GATHERINGS have led their
charges over the Niagara routes, fire.
quently fooling the rs men OF the bor-
der patrol in that region. Three years
ago it was estimated that 10000 aliens
entered the United States clandestlnely
across Niagara.
Foreigners are ferried across the Nj
agara in rowboats and carried as pas
sengers on automobiles across the In
ternational bridge. Before the border
Jump is made the smugglers "Ameri-
caniZe" the newcomers with feather
edge haircutS and snappy college
clothes.
immigration inspectors at Buffalo
once learned that a railroad detective
was helping aliens come through II
freight cars His price was $35 man
In Winter when the river freezes be-
low the cataract, there is an ice bridge
over which aliens are struggled a
night. One night customs official
caught Toronto gangSter leading three
Poles across. One Polak escaped Will
bullets whistling around him.
ing the banks of the lower Niagara