should be free of charge, and apparently gave little attention to the personal character and qualifications of the missionaries and representatives. In speaking of the conditions under which societies and homes were allowed representation, the commissioner at this station told an agent of the Commission in 1907 that more importance was attached to the general standing of the society or house itself than to the personal character and qualifications of its representatives.

The following instance is illustrative of the methods employed by the authorities at this station in dealing with this privilege of representation. Through information given by an agent of the Commission, the methods employed by a certain home in placing inmates in situations were investigated in 1907 by the proper city authorities, and a man on the staff of the home was arrested for violating the employment agency law by charging fees to employers and employees without a license for so doing. The immigration authorities, who from time to time had received a great many complaints against this home for similar offenses, were told by an agent of the Commission of the arrest and of the evidence leading to it, but the commissioner of immigration said that he could do nothing in the matter until the evidence became judicially established. Although the arrest of this member of the staff naturally reflected on the philanthropic character of the home, its representatives were allowed to visit the immigrant station daily, and frequently had as many as 50 immigrants in a day discharged in their care. About two months later the member of the staff was convicted of the charges against him, but another month elapsed before any action was taken in regard to the home by the immigration authorities. When at last the home was debarred from representation at the station the clerical member of the society in charge of the home wrote to the commissioner, and stated that the accusation brought against the home was false and that the case against the member of the staff had been dismissed. In reply the commissioner demanded a certified copy of the court's record of the dismissal of the case. The manager then referred the whole matter to the responsible nonresident head of the home, a church official of high position, who wrote to the commissioner and stated that the manager of the home had explained to him the trouble arising from the misconduct of one of the agents of the home, and that he himself was convinced that the delinquency was not the result of anything in the management of the home, but was the fault of an employee, who was guilty of a breach of the trust that had been placed in him. The commissioner then demanded the dismissal of the offending agent, and on compliance with this request the home was again given the privilege of representation at the immigrant

station.

Where the degree of care used in granting the privilege of representation is so small, it is natural to find that the authorities exercise very little supervision of the work of the institutions. At one station the missionaries, representatives, and managers of homes are supposed to make weekly reports to the immigration authorities on blanks furnished for that purpose of their disposition of immigrants discharged to them. These reports cover the immigrant's name, age, sex, nationality, and race; name of steamship and date of its arrival; date and hour immigrant was received at the house; date and time. immigrant left the house; total amount paid by immigrant; destina

tion of immigrant; name of transportation line by which immigrant was forwarded; name, address, and relationship, if any, of party to whom delivered; nature of immigrant's employment; and the amount of the wages to be received. When an agent of the Commission attempted to compile statistics of the number of immigrants discharged to the missionaries and homes and the number of immigrants reported upon by certain of the homes, it was found that these reports were very incomplete. Of 4,400 immigrants discharged to one home less than 3,100 had been reported upon by the home, leaving over 1,300 immigrants unaccounted for. The fact that the reports of the missionaries and homes were incomplete was made known to the immigration authorities at this station, and a system of checking up was established January 1, 1908, by which the authorities ascertained whether or not all of the immigrants discharged to missionaries, representatives, and homes were reported upon, but no effort was made to ascertain the truth of the information contained in the reports themselves.

Although the commissioner of immigration at this station asserted that all immigrant homes were inspected and reported upon by a certain inspector before they were allowed the privilege of representation, this inspector, when asked by an agent of the Commission, did not know the addresses of two recently established homes which maintained representatives at the station, and said that he had not visited either of them. The official records of the station showed that another inspector had been detailed to look into the matter of granting representation to one of these homes, but his report on the same made no mention of an inspection of the premises, and investigation by an agent of the Commission developed the fact that the petitioners for representation had acted as their own references in the matter.

SCOPE AND METHODS OF INVESTIGATION.

As previously explained, immigrant homes and aid societies are institutions organized for the purpose of performing helpful and necessary services for incoming immigrants. The field which they occupy is an extensive one. Probably no philanthropic agencies in this country carry on work among a class of people standing in greater need of aid and assistance. The peculiar character of the services required and the privilege of free access to immigrants at the immigrant stations and detention rooms bring to the representatives of these societies unlimited opportunities of doing good. But at the same time they impose special duties and obligations. The great opportunity of doing good is, because of the very nature of the work carried on, an unrestricted opportunity of doing evil. If these philanthropic organizations are to render valuable and disinterested services to immigrants they must be responsible and carefully conducted institutions, officered and represented by honest and trustworthy men and women.

Because of this situation the Immigration Commission felt that a careful investigation should be made of societies and institutions carrying on the work of assisting newly arrived immigrants. The Commission desired particularly to investigate possible abuses of the privilege of representation at immigrant stations; the management

and sanitary condition of immigrant homes; the fairness and reasonableness of charges for board, lodging, and services rendered; and the degree of care exercised by these institutions in placing immigrants, particularly young women and girls, in employment.

The Commission's investigation of these institutions covered a period of nineteen months (August 1, 1907, to March 1, 1909). One hundred and two immigrant homes and aid societies were carefully examined and reported upon. Of this number, 58 assisted immigrants or specific classes of persons which frequently included immigrants, but did not maintain homes, and 44 maintained immigrant homes or homes in which immigrants or specific classes of persons which sometimes included immigrants were accommodated. In addition to these homes and aid societies it was found necessary to investigate a certain number of employment agencies. After taking charge of an immigrant the home or aid society has frequently to assist him to secure work. Some of the societies and homes themselves maintain employment agencies for this purpose, while others merely direct the immigrant to certain agencies. In order to ascertain the degree of care exercised in placing immigrants in employment the character of 25 of these agencies, the majority of which were operated in connection with immigrant homes or aid societies or were recommended by representatives of homes and societies, was investigated.

No effort was made to attempt a detailed investigation of the work of every missionary, representative, society, and home coming in contact with immigrants, but it is believed that a sufficiently large number of institutions were examined, and that these institutions were sufficiently typical, to represent accurately existing conditions.

The method of investigating first adopted was to have an agent of the Commission visit the immigrant station, read the official records and obtain all the information which the authorities possessed with respect to the society or home to be investigated, and then go to the home or society headquarters and, in an unofficial capacity, make inquiries in regard to methods employed by the organization in caring for immigrants, the amounts charged for services rendered, the usual practice of the institution with respect to securing employment for immigrants, and all other matters concerning which information was desired.

But it was soon found that this way of conducting the investigation elicited only the most formal kind of information, and if any real knowledge of the work of the institutions was to be obtained it must be from personal observation and study extending over some number of days and during a time when the officers in charge of the homes and aid societies were not cognizant of the fact that they were being investigated. Accordingly, a young married woman of foreign birth, who spoke four languages, who had been trained as a bookkeeper, and who had, during her residence in this country, been in domestic service and worked as a waitress in a restaurant, was engaged to go to the home to be investigated, secure admittance as an immigrant in need of shelter and employment, and live there during the entire period of the investigation. Ten more young women were employed at different times to assist in the investigation. Four of these served in the rôle of immigrants seeking work-that is, they went to homes and aid society headquarters and asked assistance in finding employment. Four assumed the rôle of keepers of disorderly houses who

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were seeking girls for work as servants in these houses-that is, they went to the home, at a time when the young woman investigator first mentioned was living in the home, and applied for a girl for work as a servant in a house which they described as a "fast house" or "sporting house" which was "well protected by the police" and "had never been raided," and where, if the girl did as she was told, and was not "nosey," she would be given opportunities of "earning money on the side." Two were engaged in investigating the addresses of immigrant girls for whom the home had found employment. None of these ten investigators stayed overnight in any of the homes. One of the investigators was a student in a school of philanthropy, one was a professional musician, one was an actress, two were settlement workers, and the others were young women who had had experience in investigation work. Besides these young women investigators, there were, at various times, seven men engaged in the work of investigation. The men were variously employed to live in the homes as immigrant laborers out of employment, to investigate the addresses of immigrant girls placed in employment by homes and aid societies, and to ascertain the position of the managers of some of the homes and employment agencies with respect to the contract-labor law by negotiating with them for laborers who were to be imported from Europe.

The data obtained for each immigrant home or aid society always represented the information gathered by several, often half a dozen, investigators. Each investigator made a separate report of the work which he or she had done in the investigation of the particular home or society, and the agent in charge of the investigation then checked these reports, one with another, and combined them in one general report covering that institution. In most instances the investigators swore to the truth of their reports before notaries public, this being done in practically all cases where the investigation brought out unusual or seemingly incredible facts. The majority of the reports regarding the addresses of immigrant girls placed in employment by homes and aid societies were checked by having a second investigator, who knew nothing of the reports of the first investigator, go to the same addresses. The reports of the two investigations of an address were then checked by the agent in charge of the investigation.

After this investigation was completed, the information obtained in the course of the investigation which showed exploitation and maltreatment of immigrants by institutions was placed in the hands of the immigration authorities at the ports where the particular organizations conducted their operations. As a result, the evils in many cases have been corrected. Commissioner William Williams, whose administration at Ellis Island began after the close of this investigation, acknowledged the assistance rendered him by the Commission in the following letter addressed to the Commission under date of December 14, 1909:

I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to you for the assistance derived from reports of investigations made by one of your committees prior to the time when I assumed office concerning the condition of immigrant mission houses represented at Ellis Island. During my first administration (1902 to 1905) I had occasion publicly to arraign and to suspend the privileges of several of these institutions for exploiting and maltreating immigrants, and

upon my return to Ellis Island last summer I soon discovered that a number of them were again engaged in similar practices. From ten to twelve large mission houses have been allowed representation at Ellis Island, for the purpose of assisting certain immigrants in getting into quick touch with friends or relatives whose addresses they may have lost or securing profitable employment. Obviously these institutions are worse than useless unless conducted upon a high plane of efficiency and morality. On the other hand, your investigations disclosed the existence of shocking conditions at some of these places. Through the courtesy of Congressman Bennet, one of your members, a copy of your proposed report on these investigations was loaned to me in confidence to enable me the more readily to take appropriate action against such houses as were tolerating abuses. As already stated, the assistance which you thus afforded me was very great. *

I selected for early personal investigation those institutions in which conditions appeared to be the worst. The names of the agents employed by you having been given to me by Messrs. Bennet and Jenks, I sent for them, subjected them to severe cross-examination, and thereafter confronted them with several of the missionary agents against whom they had made accusations. On the records thus obtained, supplemented by independent investigations, I proceeded last August to suspend four of these institutions from their privileges of representation at Ellis Island.

*

I should have been glad to complete my investigation of all of these houses last summer, but have been obliged to carry on this work with due regard to a mass of other work which is not less important. I am now looking into the conditions surrounding two of the other houses. In the cases of two others I was unable to secure evidence sufficient to warrant actual expulsion and the necessary correctives have been applied without resort to the drastic action taken in the four cases first mentioned. * * Back of many of these immigrant mission houses stand earnest, honorable people. This I believe to be true of the homes. Their real supporters had

and

been betrayed by their agents and had also failed in their duty of supervising these agents, leaving it to the Government to ascertain the real facts. All of this was very reprehensible, but constituted no reason for permanently barring the institutions in question after complete reorganization had been effected. This has actually occurred in three of the cases named, and with new agents in charge, the and societies have now been restored to

the privilege of representation at Ellis Island.

MISSIONARIES AND REPRESENTATIVES.

The privilege of maintaining missionaries and representatives at immigrant stations, granted to philanthropic organizations which carry on the work of assisting newly arrived immigrants, has been dealt with in the first chapter of this report. The present chapter contains a brief survey of the work of these missionaries and representatives.

Missionaries and representatives assist arriving immigrants in various ways. They write letters for them and help them to get into communication with their friends and relatives in this country; trace lost baggage; give religious consolation; escort immigrants to their destinations in the city without charge except for car fares or other necessary expenses; take the names and addresses of immigrants of specific races or religions who are going to points outside of the city and forward these lists to organizations of the same race or religion at the points of destination; distribute clothing, Bibles, gospels, tracts, and other literature; sell Bibles and gospels (in 1907 the amount of these sales at one immigrant station was $1,013.97); investigate the cases of detained and excluded immigrants and the causes of such detention or exclusion; appear before the boards of special inquiry in behalf of detained immigrants and give evidence secured from conversations with the immigrants or from other