Following your instructions to investigate the fact as to whether steamship companies or transportation companies engaged in the transportation of aliens observe the requirements of section 8 of the act of March 3, 1893, I called your attention in some of my previous reports to instances where the law was not observed. However, the law is observed by the majority of the steamship companies, but, I am satisfied, not in an effective manner. It is true that a copy of the law is displayed in the language of the country where such steamship offices are located, but it is equally true that very few of the emigrants have the time or the inclination to read it, and as a large percentage of them are unable to read at all it tends to make the law of very little if any value. At the border of Russia and Germany this law referred to is displayed in the German language, and I found that the great majority of emigrants are Russians, Poles, and Hebrews, none of whom can read or understand the German language.
I desire to invite your particular attention to instructions contained in Bureau letter No. 35,719, dated March 21, 1903, authorizing me “to procure information concerning certain knowledge believed to be possessed by the Italian authorities as to emigration of undesirable aliens to the United States,” and to personal directions upon this point given me in our interview on March 23, 1903. I have made thorough investigations to ascertain, if possible, first, whether or not such knowledge is really possessed by the Italian authorities, and, second, in what measure this circumstance was instrumental in encouraging undesirable emigration to the United States. I find a general disposition on the part of the Italian Government and authorities to restrict emigration of persons visibly afflicted by some disease, this restriction being by no means made for the benefit of the United States, but because of the opinion that the influx from Italy of this class of people might cause the United States Government to enact more prohibitive immigration laws, a thing very much feared in Italy, for the reason that Italy considers the United States the best safety valve for the discharge of its over-population. More prohibitive immigration legislation on the part of the United States, if it would materially affect the influx of Italian emigrants to the United States, might, in the opinion of the Italian people, have the effect of reducing a great many of their revenues. I have ascertained that the prosperity of entire villages in the southern part of Italy depends upon remittances regularly made from the United States.