Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1891 — REPRESENT A TIVE 0 WEN'S BILL. [ARTICLE]

REPRESENT A TIVE 0 WEN'S BILL.

Representative Owen, of this State whom speaker Reed placed at the head of the special committee on emigration and naturalization, began his work by a series of investigations designed to afford the committee an accurate idea of the evils to be remedied and the measures necessary to insure the change. As the result of ten month’s work Mr. Owen, for tlie committee, has made a report giving the results of its investigations. The committee expresses the opinion that the present restrictions upon emigrations are sufficent if they could be enforced. That is, we have enough law if we had some method for securing its enforcement. Mr. Owen has. however, presented a bill in behalf of the committee which is designed to simplify and more clearly specify the classes to be excluded and the course to be taken to keep them from coming to this country and to send them back after they have come. The Owen bill includes idiots, insane persons, paupers, or other persons likely to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or contagious disease, persons who have been convicted of felony or other

infamous crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, polygamists, and persons whose transportationljhas been paid for by others, unless it is affirmatively shown that they do not belong to the excluded classes. While general laws excluding the most of these classes are on the statute book, Mr. Owen presents statistics which show that they are not enforced. In New York 23 per cent, of the population is foreign-born, '“but 45 tier cent, of the insane are of foreign birth. While the foreign population is but 23 per cent., it furnishes 36 per cent of the inmates of ‘prisons, and 34 per cent, of those dependent upon the State for support. The same showing is made in several other States. Of the native-born, one in 496 is insane; of the foreignborn, one in 191 is thus affected. Only one native-born in 681 is a pauper, but of the foreign-born there is one pauper to 180. The Owen bill provides that any alien who becomes a public charge within a year after his arrival sliall be returned to the country whence he came, at the expense of the steamship company that brought him. While it is not probable that the bill which Mr. Owen has reported will become a law during the present session, the facts which he lias so fully brought out will tend to concentrate public sentiment in favor of such legislation as will prevent us from being burdenet with the crime, vice and pauperism of Europe.— lndianapolis Journal.