Office of the Historian

The Secretary of State to the Argentine minister.

Department of State,
Washington, July 10, 1906.

Sir: I have the honor to inclose for your information a copy of an act approved June 28, 1906, “to prohibit shanghaiing in the United States,” which applies to the shanghaiing of seamen for foreign vessels as well as for vessels of the United States.

Accept, sir, etc.,

Robert Bacon,
Acting Secretary.
[Public—No. 332.]

an act to prohibit shanghaiing in the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whoever, with intent that any person shall perform service or labor of any kind on board of any vessel of any kind engaged in trade and commerce among the several States or with foreign nations, shall—

  • First. Procure or induce or attempt to procure or induce another by force, threats, or representations which the person making them knows or believes to be untrue, or while the person so induced or procured is intoxicated or under the influence of any drug, to go on board of any such vessel.
  • Second. Induce or procure or attempt to induce or procure another by force or threats, or by representations known or believed by the person making them to be untrue, or while the person so induced or procured is intoxicated or under the influence of any drug, to sign or in any wise enter into any agreement to go on board any such vessel to perform service or labor thereon, shall be fined not more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment for one year or both.

  • Sec. 2. That whoever shall knowingly detain on board any such vessel any person induced to go on board thereof or to enter into an agreement to go on board thereof by any of the means defined in section one hereof shall be punished as provided in section one.
  • Sec. 3. That whoever shall knowingly aid or abet in the doing of any of the things declared unlawful by sections one and two of this act shall be deemed a principal and punished accordingly.
  • Sec. 4. That sections four, six, and twenty-four of chapter twenty-eight of the acts of Congress approved December twenty-first, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, shall apply to all vessels engaged in the taking of oysters, anything in section twenty-six of said last-mentioned act to the contrary notwithstanding.
Approved, June 28, 1906.

Same to all diplomatic representatives of maritime countries.