try to amend the bill to prevent that very situation. Certainly in those cases which have been mentioned, where some of our native born do military duty in another country, they should be stricken from the rolls of American citizenship forever. Mr. TRAEGER. That is just the point. When California tried to act, there was opposition. In 1919 I was the coauthor of our alien land law and we received an appalling amount of opposition from the eastern part of our country. If something can be done, we are for it. The CHAIRMAN. I am willing to cooperate with you in any way that is proper. If there is no one further to be heard, this hearing is adjourned, and the committee will go into executive session. The clerk will put in the record communications received on this bill. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, IMMIGRATION SERVICE, DISTRICT NO. 11, Immigration Committee, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. DICKSTEIN: As an inspector, working on the line, I have studied your bill amending the citizenship and naturalization requirements and I would like to offer a suggestion that page 2, line 14, of said bill be amended by inserting after the word "child" the words "is legally admitted and registered at a designated port of entry and begins to reside permanently in the United States." This amendment would, I believe, eliminate any chance of argument relative to the immigration status of the alien in question. The way it is now worded, presuming a child born without the United States, either parent becoming a citizen after such birth, and said child crossed the border at an undesignated port of entry, or even was admitted arroneously at a regular designated port of entry by false statements, or otherwise, he would become a United States citizen under the naturalization laws, but under the immigration laws he would still be an alien. Should said alien make a temporary visit, say, to Canada, upon his return, according to immigration laws, he would be subject to exclusion as one not in possession of an unexpired immigration visa, because he was not legally admitted to the United States in the first instance. Revision of the naturalization and immigration laws to make them more consistent and uniform would help a lot. I trust this suggestion will be received in the spirit it is written, and for the benefit of the service, and it will merit your kind consideration. Respectfully yours, Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, JOHN T. WILLIS, Immigrant Inspector, Port of Detroit, NEW YORK, N.Y., March 28, 1933. House Office Building, Washington, D.C.: The New York State Federation Business and Professional Womens Clubs is in favor of Copeland-Dickstein Nationality Bill. We strongly urge its favorable report. Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, GRACE L. B. MILLIGAN, President State Federation Business and Professional Womens Club, Mt. Vernon, N. Y. NEW YORK, N.Y., March 28, 1933. House Office Building, Washington, D.C.: Zonta International, an organization composed of executives business and professional women heartily endorses nationality measure now before your committee and asks for its prompt passage. We trust you will do your utmost in behalf of this important legislation. NINA BRODERICK PRICE, Chairman International Relations, Zonta International. Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, NEW YORK, N.Y., March 28, 1933. House Office Building, Washington, D.C.: National Association Women Lawyers, on record for complete equality in nationality for men and women, endorses Copeland-Dickstein bill before your committee and urges a favorable report. OLIVE STOTT GABRIEL, President National Association Women Lawyers. Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, NEW YORK CITY, March 28, 1933. House Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. DICKSTEIN: We are very grateful to you for introducing our nationality bill which is destined to give equality between men and women in all respects in the field of nationality. We urge you to take a vital interest in this measure and to see it through. Women all over the United States are looking to you. We are in your hands-and we are taking a serious and a lively interest in the immediate success of our bill. With sincere thanks to you for your services to women in what you have already done. Please finish it up! Cordially yours, MARION MAY. LAURA R. STULL. LOUISE R. STULL. ELIZABETH S. SMITH. MAUDE M. GILLETTE. ELIZABETH GLASS BARlow. CORA L. MCLAUGHLIN. SOUTHERN WOMEN'S NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, IN NEW YORK, INC., House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. DICKSTEIN: This organization is delighted that you have introduced into the House, under the title of "H.R. 3673, a bill to remove the last trace of inequality in the nationality law. Indeed, it is an honor to have such a Representative in the United States Congress. We know that the women of the United States join us in this just appreciation of your service. Please do all that you can to push this bill through until its purpose is actually achieved. Expressing our deep appreciation to you, believe me, Yours very truly, WINIFRED KITTREDGE NONIDEZ, 205 East Sixth-ninth Street, New York City. (Whereupon the committee went into executive session, following which the committee adjourned.) RELATING TO NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP STATUS OF CHILDREN WHOSE MOTHERS ARE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND RELATING TO THE REMOVAL OF CERTAIN INEQUALITIES IN MATTERS OF NATIONALITY MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1933 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, The subcommittee met at 11 o'clock a.m., Hon. Lamar Jeffers presiding. Mr. JEFFERS. The subcommittee will please come to order. This meeting of the subcommittee was called at the instance of the chairman of the subcommittee, Judge Kerr, of North Carolina. Judge Kerr not being present this morning, it falls upon me to occupy the chair. It was my understanding that the hearings of this bill had been concluded before the full committee recently, and the subcommittee were to meet only in executive session to consider the evidence which was presented at that hearing and any other evidence that the subcommittee might desire to call for. It was not my understanding that there would be another hearing. Personally, I do not think it is the function of a subcommittee to hold hearings. I think that is the function of the full committee. However, as Judge Kerr, the chairman of this subcommittee, has indicated his willingness to have witnesses appear before the subcommittee, and in deference to his views, we are going to allow these witnesses to testify this morning; although, I repeat, it was my understanding that the hearings had been finished at the last meeting of the full committee and would not be again resumed except upon the call of the chairman of the full committee. Before I call on any of the witnesses who are present this morning, I should like to make a part of the record certain communications which have been sent to the committee. The first is a brief by William C. Hushing, legislative representative of the American Federation of Labor, under date of April 3; the second is a letter with resolutions attached, from the Business and Professional Women's Club of Wilmington, Del., addressed to the chairman of the Committee on Immigration; the last is an editorial from the World Telegram, of April 7, 1933. 167904-33-4 45 (The documents referred to are as follows:) BRIEF FOR AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR To the COMMITTEE on Immigration and NatuRALIZATION, APRIL 3, 1933. House of Representatives. Mr. CHAIRMAN: The American Federation of Labor is emphatically opposed to H.R. 3673. It is a most dangerous bill. It provides that any child heretofore or hereafter born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose father or mother at the time of the birth of such child was or is a citizen of the United States, is a citizen of the United States. The present law provides: "All children born out of the limits and jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers may be at the time of their birth citizens of the United States, are declared to be citizens of the United States; but the right of citizenship shall not descend to children whose fathers never resided in the United States. All such children who continue to reside outside the United States shall, in order to receive the protection of this Government, be required upon reaching the age of 18 years to record at an American consulate their intention to become residents and remain citizens of the United States and shall be further required to take the oath of allegiance to the United States upon attaining their majority." H.R. 3673 proposes to extend the right of citizenship to the mother. It must not be forgotten that sailors, soldiers, and seamen are traveling about the world continuously. Some of them marry and some do not, but when they leave such countries children are left behind, some born in wedlock and some not. Section 1993, Revised Statutes, now deals with the citizenship of children born in foreign countries of American fathers. It seems that this section of the law was enacted sometime in the early part of the last century (act of 1802 as amended by act of 1855) when transportation between Europe and America was extremely slow and cumbersome, and when the question of invasion into this country of orientals was unknown. As a result of this law we have the present spectacle of Chinese, Japanese, or Hindus domiciled in the United States or Hawaii who are married either to women of their own race or some other race, begetting children and such children become, under the fourteenth amendment, citizens of the United States. A Chinese, Japanese, or Hindu entitled to come to the United States as a teacher or as a merchant is the father in the United States of three boys, who live with their father until they are 7, 8, or 9 years old. They are then sent to China, Japan, or India to be educated. They necessarily absorb the feelings and sentiments of their surroundings. They are brought up with boys of their own age in schools such as are there provided. They become in sentiment, in philosophy, in religion, and in their views of life and of business either Chinese, Japanese, or Hindus. They marry, and Japanese and Chinese, being ancestor worshipers, it is their duty to marry young. If they happen to get a wife who is barren, it is their duty to take a second one, in order that they may continue their ancestor cult. Let it be assumed that each of these three boys again have three boys. Under the laws as they stand they are citizens of the United States by virtue of their father's citizenship, and if they are sent to the United States for the purpose of perfecting themselves in English, in the common thoughts of life and the usual means of doing business, and then go back to China again, they, having resided in the United States for a certain period of time, have a right to transmit their citizenship which came from their father, to their children and so on ad infinitum. Viewing the condition as we have it today, children of Chinese or Japanese parentage, born in the United States or Hawaii, and then sent back to China or Japan for their education, staying there long enough to marry and beget children, have again transmitted to their children the citizenship which came to them from their father and so on in progressive ratio. There are so many of those Chinese-born American citizens who were brought up in China that they are not only sufficient to furnish all of the employees needed by certain steamship companies, but to do many kinds of work throughout the jurisdiction of the United States. It is not possible to estimate the real number, but with the thousands who live on the Pacific coast, who are married there and beget children there who are citizens, and those in the Hawaiian Islands, who live there, marry, and beget children there who also automatically become citizens under the Constitution, there is no guessing the number for whom the existing law opens the door to come from China or Japan to the United States. This bill, by inserting into the law the words "or mother" leaves exactly the same opening for the female as at present exists for the male, and there are about as many females born as males, which means the duplication of the number that now come, and that under the proposed law will come. The female child will go to China or Japan for education, just as the boys now do; she reaches womanhood and marries. If this bill becomes law, her offspring are by virtue of her citizenship, citizens of the United States exactly as those of the male are under the existing law, so that the insertion of these words simply doubles the number and the evil insofar as these classes are concerned. It is well known that female children are unwelcome guests in China and Japan, as compared to the male, and the only humanitarian aspects of this bill will be found in the fact that it may raise the standards of the female children born in those countries. While the Federation of Labor would like to see all these laws repealed, except insofar as they apply to diplomatic or governmental representatives of some kind, the real and proper way to equalize the status of men and women in immigration and their offspring would be to amend the bill by denying automatic citizenship to any children born in foreign countries, unless both the father and the mother are citizens of the United States, and the children born in honest wedlock. It may be of some interest to the committee to be informed that there are quite a number of Chinese in California who are in one way or another courting arrest by immigration officers for the purpose of getting an apparently innocent opportunity of proving their citizenship by furnishing the documents proving where they were born, who their father was, and where they had been registered, and many of them being expert forgers and nearly all of them, through the assistance of their tongs, being in a position to employ expert forgers, the immigration officials are avoiding making such arrests as much as they reasonably can. Section 2 of the proposed bill goes further than section 1 in that it makes citizens of children born in foreign countries of alien parents upon the naturalization of either the father or mother. If this proposal becomes law we will soon have American citizens abroad, and their children, none of whom have ever been in the country and whose citizenship is by virtue of the naturalization of either their father or mother or grandfather or grandmother. WILLIAM C. HUSHING, Legislative Representative, American Federation of Labor. THE BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN'S CLUB, Hon. SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, April 8, 1933. Chairman Committee on Immigration, Washington, D.C. MY DEAR MR. DICKSTEIN: At the regular monthly meeting of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Wilmington, Del., it was unanimously adopted that we forward to you copy of the attached resolutions which is self-explanatory. We trust you will use your influence in seeing that this bill is passed as approved. Thanking you, I am, Very truly yours, MABELLE WARD, Corresponding Secretary. Resolved, That the Business and Professional Women's Club of Wilmington, Del., have read and approved and endorse H.R. 3673 entitled "A bill to amend the law relative to citizenship and naturalization, and for other purposes; and be it further Resolved, That this resolution be sent to Hon. Samuel Dickstein, of New York, chairman of the Committee on Immigration, and also to Hon. Wilbur Adams, House Office Building, Washington, D.C. |