No. 431.
Mr. Porter
to Mr. Magee.
Department
of State,
Washington, January 4,
1886.
No. 19.]
Sir: I inclose a copy of a dispatch from our consul
at Gothenberg, containing statements touching the deportation of paupers and
criminals from Sweden to the United States. The question is one of extreme
gravity, and I have to ask that you will make a judicious and thorough
investigation of the facts, and submit a report of the same to the
Department.
I am, &c.,
JAS. D. PORTER,
Acting
Secretary.
[Inclosure in No. 19.]
Mr. Cooper to Mr.
Porter.
United
States Consulate,
Gothenberg, November 26,
1885.
No. 88.]
Sir: I have the honor to invite your attention
to the following statement and recommendation:
It has come to my knowledge that it is a common practice throughout
Sweden to ship to the United States paupers and that class of criminals
who have served out their sentences in work-houses, prisons, &c.,
hut who, pursuant to the laws of the Kingdom, are still laboring under
political disabilities, such as the deprivation of the right to vote and
of the rights of citizenship generally. * * * When the shipment of these
classes from Swedish ports is impracticable, for one reason or another
they are sent out of the country to foreign ports, such as Copenhagen
and Hamburg.
As a consul, under existing laws, I am powerless, but I respectfully
submit this suggestion looking to a suppression of the practice.
I respectfully recommend that the laws be so amended as to compel every
intending emigrant of the age of ten years and upwards to produce before
the consul of the United States at the port of embarkation a certificate
from the proper authorities that he or she is a citizen of the country
in which the port is located; and that he or she is not laboring under
political disabilities of any nature whatsoever; that he or she is not
the object of criminal proceeding or investigation, and is not a charge
upon the community in which he or she may have lived as a pauper; and
that the consul of the United States shall affix a brief certificate,
under seal, attesting the legality of the paper produced by the
emigrant.
I am, &c.,
