And State Papers 657 



service should equal the best. If it does not, the 

 commercial public will abandon it. If we are to stay 

 in the business it ought to be with a full under- 

 standing of the advantages to the country on one 

 hand, and on the other with exact knowledge of the 

 cost and proper methods of carrying it on. More- 

 over, lines of cargo ships are of even more impor- 

 tance than fast mail lines, save so far as the latter 

 can be depended upon to furnish swift auxiliary 

 cruisers in time of war. The establishment of new 

 lines of cargo ships to South America, to Asia, and 

 elsewhere would be much in the interest of our 

 commercial expansion. 



We can not have too much immigration of the 

 right kind, and we should have none at all of the 

 wrong kind. The need is to devise some system by 

 which undesirable immigrants shall be kept out en- 

 tirely, while desirable immigrants are properly dis- 

 tributed throughout the country. At present some 

 districts which need immigrants have none; and in 

 others, where the population is already congested, 

 immigrants come in such numbers as to depress the 

 conditions of life for those already there. During 

 the last two years the immigration service at New 

 York has been greatly improved, and the corruption 

 and inefficiency which formerly obtained there have 

 been eradicated. This service has just been investi- 

 gated by a committee of New York citizens of high 

 standing, Messrs. Arthur v. Briesen, Lee K. Frankel, 

 Eugene A. Philbin, Thomas W. Hynes, and Ralph 



