Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/245/122.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 19:31:03+00:00

Document:
[245 U.S. 122, 123] Mr. H. W. Hutton, of San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.
Mr. Nathan H. Frank, of San Francisco, Cal., for respondent.
This is a suit to recover penalties upon the claim that the defendants 'knowingly assisted and encouraged the importation and migration' gration' of certain alien contract laborers into the United States, for the purpose of having them perform labor therein in violation of sections 4 and 5 of the Act of Congress of February 20, 1907 (34 Stat. 898).
The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the District Court, sustaining a general demurrer to the second amended complaint and the case is here for review on certiorari.
And, finally, it is averred that, pursuant to the second contract, Pau worked 'as a seaman' on board the Mackinaw in the Port of San Francisco for some days, and on the [245 U.S. 122, 125] Washington, and at Grays Harbor until the Washington, and at Grays Harbor until the time of the commencement of this action.
The employment of the man to serve as a bona fide seaman on the Mackinaw is not questioned, and the allegations of the complaint negative any suspicion that the employment of him in China was a subterfuge adopted for the purpose of unlawfully securing his entry into the United States.
Basing his right upon the allegations of the complaint, which we have thus epitomized, the claim of the petitioner is, that by employing and bringing an alien laborer as a seaman to San Francisco, in the manner described, for the purpose of shipping him, followed by his actually being shipped, as a seaman on board a vessel of American registry, the defendants violated the Act of Congress of February 20, 1907 (34 Stat. at Large, p. 898).
The argument in support of this claim is that the seaman, described in each count of the complaint, was an alien contract laborer; that the steamship Mackinaw was a part of the territory of the United States, and that therefore the contracting to bring such alien to San Francisco and to there employ him upon such a vessel was to knowingly assist and encourage the migration of an alien contract laborer into the United States, for the purpose of having him perform labor therein, in violation of the fourth and fifth sections of the act.
The validity of this claim, and of the argument in support of it, calls for the construction of three short provisions of two statutes.
The purpose of this alien labor legislation was declared by this court almost thirty years ago, in Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 , 12 Sup. Ct. 511, to be, to arrest the bringing of an ignorant, servile class of foreign laborers into the United States, under contract to work at a low rate of wages, and thus reduce other laborers engaged in like occupations to the level of the assisted immigrant.
Having these terms of the statutes and this history in mind, can it with reason be said that the men shipped on the Mackinaw as 'seamen' were 'laborers,' and that when employed upon that vessel in foreign commerce they were performing labor 'in this country' within the meaning of the acts?
In familiar speech a 'seaman' may be called a 'sailor' or a 'mariner,' but he is never called a 'laborer,' although he doubtless performs labor when assisting in the care and management of his ship; and a 'seaman' is defined, in the United States statutes applicable to 'Merchant Seamen,' as being any person (masters and appren- [245 U.S. 122, 127] tices excepted) who shall be employed to serve in any capacity on board a vessel. R. S. 4612. In the shipping articles, which the United States law requires shall be signed by members of the crews of ships of American registry engaged in foreign commerce, the men are designated as 'seamen' or 'mariners.' Thus, neither in popular nor in technical legal language would the men employed on the Mackinaw be called or classed as, 'laborers,' and such seamen are not brought 'into this country' to enter into competition with the labor of its inhabitants, but they come to our shores only to sail away again in foreign commerce on the ship which brings them or on another, as soon as employment can be obtained.
Equally unallowable is the contention that a ship of American registry engaged in foreign commerce is a part of the territory of the United States in such a sense that men employed on it can be said to be laboring 'in the United States' or 'performing labor in this country.' It is, of course, true that for the purposes of jurisdiction a ship, even on the high seas, is often said to be a part of the territory of the nation whose flag it flies. But in the physical sense this expression is obviously figurative (International Law Digest, Moore, vol. I, 174), and to expand the doctrine to the extent of treating seamen employed on such a ship as working in the country of its registry is quite impossible. Thus the seamen employed on the Mackinaw were not within either the spirit or the letter of the law on which the petitioner bases his action and in any point of view his contention is fanciful and unsound and must be denied.
In the result thus reached we are adopting the construction given to another section of this act of Congress of 1907 in Taylor v. United States, 207 U.S. 120 , 28 Sup. Ct. 53, and we are approving the construction placed upon the sections we are here considering of the act, and upon earlier acts [245 U.S. 122, 128] relating to the immigration of alien laborers, in the long-standing decisions of many lower courts and of the Department of Justice, in all of which it is held that seamen employed in foreign commerce cannot be considered alien contract laborers within the terms of the various statutes. United States v. Sandrey (C. C.) 48 Fed. 550; United States v. Burke (C. C.) 99 Fed. 895; Moffitt v. United States, 128 Fed. 375, 63 C. C. A. 117; United States v. Jamieson (C. C.) 185 Fed. 165; Immigration- deserting Seamen, 23 Opinions of the Attorney General, 521; Chinese Seamen- Transfer of Crew-Alien Laborers, 24 Opinions of the Attorney General, 553. This construction of the act has also long been applied by the Department of Labor in its practical administration of the law. See Immigration Rules 1911, No. 10, subdivision 1, (a), (c), and (d); subdivision 3.
The fact that the aliens in this case were Chinese subjects is without significance. The suit is to enforce the highly penal provisions of acts of Congress which apply to all alien contract laborers without regard to their origin or nationality.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.