new Act was chosen not for the purpose of adopting, but in order to avoid, that interpretation.

Upon a review of the whole matter, we are satisfied that Congress, in the Act of 1903, sufficiently expressed, and in the Act of 1907 reiterated, the purpose of applying its prohibition against the admission of aliens, and its mandate for their deportation, to all aliens whose history, condition or characteristics brought them within the descriptive clauses, irrespective of any qualification arising out of a previous residence or domicile in this country.

The excluding section as found in the Act of 1907 contains in its own language the clearest answer to the entire argument for the petitioner. It reads as follows (34 Stat. 898, c. 1134, § 2):

That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously; paupers; persons likely to become a public charge; professional beggars; persons afflicted with tuberculosis or with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease; persons not comprehended within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living; persons who have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; polygamists, or persons who admit their belief in the practice of polygamy, anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States, or of all government, or of all forms of law, or the assassination of public officials; prostitutes, or women or girls coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons who procure or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women or girls for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose; persons hereinafter called contract laborers, who have been induced or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment or in conse quence of agreements, oral, written or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled; etc., etc.

None of these excluded classes (with the possible exception of contract laborers, whose exclusion depends upon somewhat different considerations) would be any less undesirable if previously domiciled in the United States. And besides, the section contains its own specific provisos and limitations, and these, on familiar principles, strongly tend to negative any other and implied exception.

There remains, therefore, only the use of the word "immigration" in the title of the Act to furnish support for petitioner's contention.

But it is only in a doubtful case that the title of an Act can control the meaning of the enacting clauses, and there is no such doubt here. United States v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, 386; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 462; Coosaw Mining Co. v. South Carolina, 144 U. S. 550, 563; Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U. S. 169, 173; Cornell v. Coyne, 192 U. S. 418, 430.

It was not intended, in the opinion of this court in Taylor v. United States, 207 U. S. 120, 126, to intimate an opinion with respect to the construction of § 18 of the Act of 1903 that is inconsistent with the result now reached. There the Circuit Court of Appeals (one judge dissenting) had construed that section as excluding even the ordinary sailor, if an alien; basing this construction upon the changes wrought by Congress in the revision of 1903. This court, speaking by Mr. Justice Holmes, said:

"A reason for the construction adopted below was found in the omission of the word 'immigrant' which had followed 'alien' in the earlier Acts. No doubt that may have been intended to widen the reach of the statute, but we see no reason to suppose that the omission meant to do more than to avoid the suggestion that no one was within the Act who did not come here with intent to remain. It is not necessary to regard the change as a mere abbreviation, although the title of the statute is "An Act to regulate the immigration of aliens into the United States."

Of course, this language was employed with reference to the facts of that case, and was not intended to negative a purpose on the part of Congress to bring within the reach of the statute aliens who had previously resided in this country. In that case there was no element of previous residence.

Judgment affirmed.

BOOK REVIEWS

The United States and Mexico-1821-1848. A History of the relations between the two countries from the independence of Mexico to the close of the war with the United States. By George Lockhart Rives. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. 2 vols. pp. 720, 726.

The importance of the war with Mexico of 1846-48 and of the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, which closed it, has been overshadowed in the minds of the American people by the mighty conflict for international existence which closely followed it. It is not generally realized that more than half of the territory of Mexico became by that treaty a part of the United States.

The book before us is an account of our relations with Mexico from the time she achieved her independence from Spain until 1848, when California and New Mexico were ceded by her to the United States, and when she acknowledged what had long been an accomplished fact-the independence of Texas from Mexican control and her annexation to the United States. The work is founded on a thorough study of the original sources and is written with such impartiality that the author often seems rather to leave it to the reader to pass judgment upon the men and actions described than to give his own conclusions.

The ability of President Polk as a diplomatist is put in a strong light by the account of his negotiations with Great Britain as to the boundaries of what was then known as the "Oregon country," that is, the country west of the Rocky Mountains and north of California. Our treaty of 1818 with Great Britain fixed the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude as the international boundary line from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, and provided for joint occupation of the country to the west of those mountains. As time went on and the country settled up, joint occupation became more and more embarrassing, until, in the early forties, the question brought us to the verge of war with England. President Polk, by combined firmness and courtesy, effected a settlement by the extension of the line of the forty-ninth parallel to the Pacific Ocean. This settlement, far from being (as has often been represented) a

-surrender of the rights of the United States, fixed the line which had been repeatedly proposed to England as the nearest approximation possible to exact international justice. The treaty of 1846, which closed the controversy in a manner which cemented the peace of the two countries and has proved so equitable and satisfactory coincided in time with the outbreak of the conflict with Mexico.

If President Polk's diplomacy was not so successful in our relations with Mexico, it was due to radical differences in national character and temperament between the people of the United States and those of Mexico.

One of the most illuminating passages of these volumes (I, 95-102) describes the composition of the Mexican nation and the fundamental differences between the circumstances of the settlement of that country and of the United States. It is impossible at the present day, when relations with Mexico have again reached a stage of the most acute importance, to appreciate the problems of today without studying these differences.

Several misapprehensions of persistent vitality are cleared up by this work. It has been repeatedly alleged that Texas formed a part of the vast territory of indefinite bounds purchased from France in 1803, under the name of Louisiana, and that the treaty of 1819 with Spain, by which the Sabine River was fixed as the western boundary of Louisiana, constituted a surrender of a large part of the purchased province. This theory is examined by our author, and pronounced to be without foundation. The struggle of Texas for independence, as well as the movement both in Texas and in the United States for the annexation of that State, did not grow out of a desire to extend the sway of the institution of slavery, but was part of the general westward movement, with its accompanying desire for expansion. Opposition to the extension of slave territory did, indeed, form an important argument against the annexation of Texas, as did the apprehension of a further spread of slavery against the acquisition of New Mexico and California. The war with Mexico is shown to have originated not so much out of the annexation of Texas (which was an accomplished fact for nearly a year before its outbreak) as it did from the determination of President Polk's administration to obtain satisfaction for the numerous claims of our citizens against Mexico. These claims that country had neither the desire, nor the resources, to meet; and the administration at Washington believed they could only be satisfied by means of territorial acquisitions.

Behind all of President Polk's negotiations with Mexico was a keen appreciation of the importance of California-then, practically a derelict to the United States, an idea in which (as our author remarks) "he was far in advance of the public opinion of his time."

Attempts at negotiation with Mexico-whether for the recognition of the long accomplished independence of Texas, or for the settlement of our indemnity claims, or for the peaceful acquisition of Californiaproved fruitless. The mere fact that a government was known to be negotiating with the United States on any of these subjects almost sufficed to bring about its overthrow. Thus the very weakness of the government tended to embroil it with the United States.

When the war had actually begun, the manner in which it was conducted by the invading army set a model for the conduct of hostilities for all times:

"Never, he (the American Secretary of State) asserted-and with some justice had war been levied by invading forces in such a manner. Fair or even extravagant prices had been paid for supplies. Private property had been held sacred. Famishing Mexican soldiers had been fed and their wounds bound up." (II, 522.)

A statement which will be new and surprising to most readers of this work is, that at the close of hostilities and while terms of peace were under consideration, a large and influential party among the Mexicans was opposed to the evacuation of the country by the United States and preferred that the Americans should remain permanently in occupation. This plan failing, "proposals were actually made to [General] Scott to have him issue a pronunciamiento and declare himself dictator after the ratification of the treaty of peace. This amazing plan contemplated the organization of an army of Americans, to be recruited from the men discharged at the close of the war, which Scott thought 'would suffice to hold the republic in tranquillity and prosperity. * Being already in possession of the principal forts, arsenals, foundrys, mines, ports of entry and cities, with nearly all the arms of the country, it was. not doubted that a very general acquiescence would soon have followed.' Scott states that he 'ultimately' declined the overtures made to him, although 'highly seductive both as to power and fortune."

In the end, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was concluded by an unauthorized negotiator. Trist, chief clerk of the State Department, had been sent by our government to accompany the army and take advantage of the proper time to conclude a treaty of peace, the terms of