Granting that there is an immigration problem, and granting that there is a desire to grapple with it, there are two methods of attack. The first is, to pick out the obvious evils, and apply a specific to them one by one. The other is to endeavor to determine the underlying principles and to devise a consistent and comprehensive plan which will go to the root of the matter, relying upon established sociological laws. The first method is much the simpler. It is the one which has hitherto been followed out in our immigration legislation. One by one certain crying evils have been met by definite measures. After half a century of protest, paupers and criminals were refused admission. A little later contract laborers were debarred. Certain diseased classes, growing more comprehensive with the years, have been excluded. The principle of deportation has been introduced and gradually enlarged. Steamship companies have been made responsible for the return of nonadmissible aliens. The net result of these measures has unquestionably been beneficial. This type of remedy, if wisely administered, is always valuable, and should be adopted, in the absence or delay of the other kind of solution. Certain other improvements of this general type readily suggest themselves. The steerage should be abolished, and United States inspectors placed on all immigrant-carrying vessels. If possible, better provisions should be adopted for turning back inadmissibles early on their journey. Immigrant banks and lodging houses should receive stricter supervision. The padrone system and the unrestricted contract labor system should be abolished. Tenement houses should be supervised in the strictest way possible. Every remedial agency designed to better the lot of the alien in this country should be encouraged. It appears that many of the ills of immigration are due to faulty distribution and the lack of efficient contact between aliens and the better classes of Americans. Consequently, the need of better distribution, and various schemes for securing it, are constantly urged in the press, and in other writings on the subject. Yet we are warned to be on our guard against pinning too much faith to this solution of the problem. There are many evils which distribution alone cannot remedy, and there is competent authority for the statement that much of the agitation for better distribution emanates from interests which profit by a large immigration, and which hope in this way to blind the eyes of the American people to the more deep-seated evils, and to hush the cry for some restrictive measures. Some think, also, that if there ever was a time when any scheme of distribution would have been effective, it is now long since past.[395]