In 1888 the House of Representatives authorized, by resolution, the appointment of a select committee to investigate the charges which were made that the immigration laws were being extensively evaded. The committee, known as the “Ford Committee,” in its report more than sustained the charges; it praised the immigrants of the past and deprecated those who were then coming; and proposed a new bill which added polygamists, anarchists and persons afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease to the excluded classes. Congress, however, did not act upon the recommendations of that committee. In 1889 a Standing Committee on Immigration in the Senate and a Select Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in the House were established. In 1890 these committees were authorized jointly to make an inquiry relative to immigration. Various reports were submitted, and the conclusion was that a radical change was not advisable, although it had been found that throughout the country there existed a demand for a stricter enforcement of the immigration laws. During 1890 one or more political parties in twenty-three States had demanded additional regulation of immigration. Consequently a law strengthening the existing law in several important details, but making no radical departure from the former policy, was adopted in 1891. But the question continued to receive the attention of Congress. There was another investigation by a joint committee in 1892, which reported in July of that year, and still another investigation ordered by the Senate. Two new bills were proposed――one establishing additional regulations, the other entirely prohibiting immigration for one year, on account of the epidemic of cholera then prevailing in Europe. But neither this measure, nor the educational test which was then for the first time recommended by a Congressional committee, was adopted, and the revised immigration law, which was approved by President Harrison March 3, 1893, was by no means radical. The head tax on immigrants was raised from fifty cents to one dollar by an amendment to an appropriation act in 1894.