of Tacoma, who has been convicted of rum running in the States of Washington and Oregon several times and is a self-confessed rum runner. Respectfully, Mrs. ALICE B. BACON, President. FLOY E. S. BARWICK, Recording Secretary. Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, YOUNG WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, Chairman House Committee on Immigration, Washington, D. C. HONORED SIR: Our International Institute Committee respectfully asks that effort be made to humanize any and all bills pertaining to immigration matters. It particularly asks that every endeavor be made to have the deportation bill include an opportunity for appeal and a fair and just investigation and hearing before any deportation is ordered by the Government. Very respectfully yours, RANDILLA WILLARD, Executive for the International Institute Committee. OPPOSED TO DEPORTATION AND OTHER BILLS The CHAIRMAN (continuing). The chair has received recently a letter dated March 20, 1926, from David Starr Jordan, of the University of California, it being as follows: Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, House Office Building, Washington, D. C. MARCH 20, 1926. DEAR SIR: A number of bills relating to aliens are before your committee. Some of them seem to treat the alien as a sort of criminal, and would add to the ill feeling and confusion caused, unavoidably, by our recent immigration law. The Aswell bill is especially open to this criticism. I can imagine the howl which would arise on our Atlantic seaboard if France or England should insist on a statute like this. The Sosnowski bill would involve much less expense and no espionage. It may be worth while as a protective measure for immigrants, but it does not seem worth while. The Holaday bill seems to encourage espionage and to justify arbitrary methods. In my judgment we have too much of both now. To be deported penniless to a starving country is a very severe punishment, and many delinquencies are due to sheer ignorance. The McClintic bill seems vicious as well as useless. Why not let the immigrant alone until we can deal with his needs and his future sympathetically and helpfully? To make citizens by force is hardly an "American" policy. Very truly yours, DAVID STARR JORDAN. Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, Chairman of Committee on Immigration, BELOIT COLLEGE, Beloit, Wis., March 4, 1926. Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: I write to urge a decision adverse to the bills now before your committee restricting the rights of aliens and looking toward the more stringent deportation of aliens, particularly bills H. R. 344, H. R. 4489, and H. R. 5583, and the somewhat corresponding bill of Representative Sosnowski. I do not believe that the more thoughtful judgment of the people of this country favors these bills. They are due mainly to an antialien hysteria that is not well based and that will not continue permanently. They are entirely contrary to our older American traditions. If they become law they will be extremely difficult of administration, are likely to cause no little embarrassment to citizens who are not now in a position readily to prove their birth and parentage, are certain to produce much distress and ill-will, will tend to increase the governmental paternalism and espionage that is becoming increasingly dangerous, and will be entirely unnecessary. We already have plenty of laws to take care of actual crime among citizens and aliens alike. Another objection is that the passage of such laws will inevitably bring retaliation from other governments which will prove disastrous to the interests of our own citizens abroad. I therefore urge most strongly that your committee uncompromisingly reject these bills and others like them, and that you be on your guard against this type of legislation. I am sure that I represent in this position not only the older American attitude, and the soundest opinion in the country to-day, but the unqeustionably prevailing opinion in the future. It is most important that we avoid passing laws of this kind at this juncture that will in a few years make us seem both hateful and ridiculous. It will be a grave mistake to favor any such bills. Respectfully yours, J. F. CRAWFORD. AMES, IOWA, March 2, 1926. Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: I note that there have been referred to your Committee on Immigration and Naturalization certain bills, namely, H. R. 344, 4489, 5583, 8194, all of which would materially increase the disabilities of aliens in the United States. The benefit to the country, if there should be any, could, I am sure, not compensate for the decrease of good will which would result both at home and abroad. In particular, H. R. 344 is undesirably harsh. By the time a man has been in America for five years, it is his home, and there would be hardship, quite incommensurate to any punishment of a native American for like cause, incident to his exile to a land where he no longer had a foothold or means of livelihood. As for the provision that a year's prison sentence be cause for deportation, it should be borne in mind that court procedure penalties and convictions differ so widely in different States that there would be great opportunity for discrimination. and injustice. There are occasionally, besides, cases of miscarriage of justice, and the extra penalty of deportation would still further add to the alien's present risk on that score. Let me urge you, therefore, not to press bills which are not needed by any danger in sight. Yours very truly, EDWARD S. ALLEN. ITALIANS FEAR DEPORTATION AND EXECUTION Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, NEW YORK, April 10, 1926. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. Italian political refugee Valenti is detained in Ellis Island for immediate deportation. His deportation means sure death. We appeal to you in order to stop this murder by Mussolini Government. ANTIFASCIST ALLIANCE OF NORTH AMERICA, P. ALLEGRA, Secretary. WASHINGTON, D. C., April 13, 1926. P. ALLEGRA, Secretary Antifascist Alliance, 7 East Fifteenth Street, New York City. After exhaustive search, Labor Department finds three different persons named Valenti arrested for deportation. Please advise which one you are interested in and what reasons can be urged to stay deportation. 91781-26- -12 ALBERT JOHNSON. CHARACTER OF CITIZENS IS FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, BROOKLYN, N. Y., February 28, 1926. House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. JOHNSON: I read of a petition presented you on behalf of a large number of Italians who are being held for deportation because of violating our immigration law or for other crimes. The petition states that they are in danger of being executed by Mussolini if the deportations are carried out, and reminds you that America was hospitable to Garibaldi. The two cases are entirely different. Garibaldi was one man, and he respected our laws (although we had no immigration law), whereas these are thousands, and they respect none of our laws. There are also thousands more in Italy waiting to break our laws. Then is it wise to create a dangerous precedent? Especially at a time when we are trying to stem the alien crime wave in our large cities. Personally, I do not believe these Italians are political refugees at all. I have lived among the alien groups in New York too long not to be acquainted with their falsifying on behalf of their brethern. To my mind it is dollars they are after, and a chance to rob and murder in a land where the laws are easy on them, and where they can hide behind their ignorance of the English language. If they were honest men they would have gone to some country where they are admitted. They should be made to understand that the Anglo-Saxon asylum for political refugees does not apply to scores of men, but only to certain individuals and especially not to those who violate the penal code. In closing, I would like to say that I think it would be a serious mistake to admit all those called for by the Wadsworth-Perlman bill. If you admitted all of them, then they will ask one concession after another until all restrictions are nullified. Only wives and minor children, if any, should be admitted outside of the quota and these should not all be admitted in one year, but should be distributed over a period of time and all those who would come in on the quota should be excluded until special cases are satisfied. It should be remembered that we did not ask these men to come here and separate from their families, and they really can unite in the old country. Το hear them talk, one would think Uncle Sam tore the husband from the wife's arms (one of their greatest sob stories). And in all of this, I wonder if our public men realize the injury they are doing to their own families and the American race when they lend a sympathetic ear to this propaganda. The character of our citizens is our first line of defense, and Congress should not stint in appropriations for the carrying out of our immigration laws. Our borders should be well patrolled by well-paid officers and the expense of deporting criminal aliens should be fully provided. Hoping to hear that you share some of views, and with best wishes. Sincerely yours, WALTER H. SHAFFER. UNION CITY, February 18, 1926. Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, M. C., gration, Chairman Committee on Immigration, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: The New Jersey Branch of the Catholic Central Verein of America, representing 20,000 citizens of this State, earnestly protests against H. R. 344 as contrary to the spirit of true Americanism and human life which have made our country great. The bill would create irresponsible hordes of grafting agents, black aliens serving a tyrannical bureau, only rivaled in Soviet Russia. For these and kindred reasons we solemnly protest against this bill. Yours truly. President, New Jersey Branch of the Catholic Central Verein 317 Tenth Street Union City, N. J. Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, HARRISBURG, PA., February 6, 1926. Chairman House Committee on Immigration, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: In regard to H. R. 344. We are already separating fam lies by keeping out wives and relatives of aliens. Now, we propose to separate the family by sending the bread-winner back who is too poor to take his family while he tries to establish himself in another country; and, as for deporting any alien who is sentenced to prison for a year at the same time that our own wealthy citizens from the Cabinet members down are not even hailed into court after it is proven that they have cheated the Government of hundreds of thousands of dollars, it seems very much like straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. What if Mexico should begin to deport for cause any alien at any time after entering Mexico? The offensive law against Japan was wholly unnecessary as the qouta would have allowed little more than the wives and relatives of Japanese already here. Our laws are already drastic enough. Yours truly, MABEL BOGUE. "As man advances, as his intellect enlarges, as his knowledge increases, as his ideals become nobler, the Bibles and creeds will lose their authority, the miraculous will be classed with the impossible, and the idea of special providence will be discarded. Thousands of religions have perished, innumerable gods have died, and why should the religion of our time be exempt from the common fate?"-Ingersoll, "To do good is my religion."-Paine. Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, Washington, D. C. CHICAGO, ILL., March 5, 1926. DEAR SIR: I wish to record my disapproval of the several bills now before your committee regarding immigration, naturalization, and deportation. I refer particularly to H. R. 344, H. R. 5583, and H. R. 8914. My ancestors have been in this country over 200 years and I've mixed with all nationalities and creeds for the past 55 years. I'm thoroughly convinced that the general run of immigrants are just as good and in many cases far better in health, morals, and patriotism than are some of our so-called 100 per centers. For the peace and prosperity of my native land I'd suggest that we deport the Anti-Saloon League, repeal the eighteenth amendment, and amend the Volstead law, or repeal it, too, and we'd find liberty awaiting our efforts and peace and prosperity would surely follow. The fact is that we have too many sumptuary laws. Instead of enacting more of them there should be a strong move toward the repeal of many of them. Trusting my objections and recommendations will meet with your committee's approval, I am Yours for justice and freedom, GEO. B. WHEELER. The CHAIRMAN. I present from among many hundreds of letters two or three samples from organizations opposed to any weakening of the Immigration act of 1924. While these do not pertain to this particular hearing, the members are entitled to know how the mails to the committee is running: Hon. ALBERT JOHNSON, SUPERIOR TRADES AND LABOR ASSEMBLY, House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: By direction of the Superior Trades and Labor Assembly I am writing you protesting any change in the immigration law that would tend to weaken it in any way. We believe that any change opening the doors for a million or more immigrant wage earners would seriously affect the economic life of the American wage earners. Yours very truly, SUPERIOR TRADES & LABOR ASSEMBLY, Corresponding Secretary. BESOLUTIONS OF KNIGHTS OF HYTHIAS, BELLINGHAM, WASH. BELLINGHAM, WASH. Whereas the Sixty-ninth Congress composed of the United States Senate and House of Representatives are now convened and in session at the National Capitol at Washington, D. C.; and Whereas such Congress is the supreme lawmaking body of this Nation and as such vested with authority to enact legislation for the supervision, government, and control of the social, political, and economic affairs of this country; and Whereas, the Sixty-eighth Congress of the United States of America enacted a restrictive immigration act, providing for the admission of aliens, based upon certain quotas; and Whereas this law which is now in full force and effect, is being attacked by certain interests and elements of this country, who charge that it is un-American; and Whereas we believe that the real motive actuating these attacks, is the probable defeat of those who would gain and maintain the political ascendency with the aid and assistance of uneducated and ofttimes un-American aliens, who are voted in blocks of thousands: Therefore be it Resolved by Knights of Pythias Lodge No. 56, of Bellingham, Wash., That we pledge ourselves anew in our allegiance to the flag and to the country for which it stands, the Constitution and the constitutional laws of our country, the preservation of its institutions and the perpetuation of its ideals; be it further Resolved, That we protest the repeal, alteration, or modification of the present restrictive immigration act which would render in any manner or form a less restrictive policy; be it further Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to each Senator and Representative sitting in the United States Congress as representing the electorate of the State of Washington. Adopted, February 12, 1926. Wм. M. NEHER, Chancellor Commander. GEO. LANOLETLE, Keeper of Records and Secretary, Knights of Pythias Lodge No. 56. STEILACOOM, WASH., February 10, 1926. ALBERT JOHNSON, M. C., Washington, D. C. Strongly urge immigration law be amended to provide for hearing by Secretary of Labor before cancellation of warrant in deportation cases and that decision in such cases be based solely upon facts presented. Such amendments indorsed at interstate conference on immigration as of vital importance to States affected. FRANK C. MORSE, The CHAIRMAN. I have a large number of letters from various Pennsylvania County branches of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, all advocating the passage of the deportation bill. Some of these letters state that the resolutions in some cases represent as many as 1,000 to 1,200 signers. It will not be necessary to place them in the record. They will remain in the files and those who desire may have a list of the organizations. I will insert one from the president of the Pennsylvania State W. C. T. U. |