by Mr. Johnson, as he stated before yesterday to our Washington representatives, and all our propositions and suggestions submitted some time to the Secretary are being fulfilled.

I would very much appreciate your kind opinion about Russian sailors, which are a poor people among the residents of this country.

Your obedient servant,

B. HAYMANN,

City and Immigration Editor.

MEMORANDUM

Russian sailors who are now in country must be legalized. They could not be deported, because neither Soviet Russia nor any other country would agree to accept them. The practice of Department of Labor proved that all Russian traveled % times ocean and after some months' detention on Ellis Island were released.

Being illegal, they can't get their families from Europe, and all the arguments we stated about Russia in general could be applied to this sort of immigrants.

They must live with different women, are becoming alcoholic, gamblers, etc. You have no possibility to deport all these people, and they would not go to be registered and deported. So you would only augment the number of aliens who will remain outside of authorities' control, would not get learned language and laws, etc.

Referring to Russian sailors I must state that they arrived in last years mostly by taking jobs on the ships because of economical chaos in Germany. The sailors arrived in last month's are representatives of Russian intelligence and full reliable people.

All this cathegoric of illegal sailors is going to become a useful citizens. By our advice they deliberately arrived on immigration station in New York barge office and asked immigration authorities to examine them and allow to enter in this country. This was in July, 1924, when no quota has been exhausted because of late execution of certificates. They have been told they must go to Europe and get certificates. But no point of immigration act of 1924 refers to people coming from the shore and certificates are necessary for people coming to this country. That is the flaw in imimgration act, and sailors are first victims of it.

It would only execution of wishes of Secretary of Labor if by legalizing these people you augment the number of legal, useful, and reliable citizens and abolish existing illegal thousands of sailors.

Mr. RAKER. They have started in to do just what you said was being done?

The CHAIRMEN. It is assumed the city editor of this paper assumes that arrangements are all made for arrival of wives and children, and probably so printed in his paper. From his standpoint he begins an argument for the sailor.

We are certainly under obligations to you gentlemen for coming down here.

Mr. WATKINS. What is your suggestion about the penalty in this last section, to leave as it is or to change it?

Mr. CURRAN. Under your statement that a year is more potent than a year and a day because it eliminates the possibility of parole, certainly leave it a year.

Mr. WATKINS. I thought possibly you wanted to make it a mini

mum.

Mr. CURRAN. We had a sad story in Pittsburgh about an Italian in this country 20 years who under the immigration act of 1924 was unable to get his wife over from Italy to join him. He had had 17 years to bring his wife here or go back, even before the first

quota law of 1921. Now that is sob stuff, the husband and wife; the husband was sufficiently deliberate to wait 20 years without any effort on his part to bring her over here. That is the sort of stories we hear.

Mr. BACON. He did not even take the trouble to become a citizen? Mr. RAKER. They say "the poor foreign ignorant alien." You know and I know that ninety-nine out of one hundred are better qualified and know better the immigration law than an American citizen does.

Mr. BACON. Surely, they are engaged in beating it.

Mr. CURRAN. Easily; that is well within the facts.

Mr. BACON. On this question of getting smugglers, and immigrants smuggled in, have you had any trouble in getting them back to the country from which they came? Have the countries from which they came refused to take them? Have you had trouble getting passports?

Mr. UHL. They are part of the passport troubles.

The CHAIRMAN. Adding to the record on that very point, the Mexican Government is now appealing to the State Department to be reimbursed in a case of smuggling of aliens, where they landed three, and on the way back got killed by the accidental discharge of a rifle on the part of an inspector.

Mr. REITZEL. The first point is in connection with Doctor Dawes's testimony, relative to five or six cases of cancellation. I thought it would be a good idea if Mr. Uhl or Mr. Curran know of these cases for the committee to call for the records, six or seven cases where he thought the department had canceled and would not give him reasons, and he appeared to criticize. I think Mr. Uhl would know.

Mr. UHL. The records would be right here in your department. Mr. REITZEL. I do not know what he had in mind. One more case is that of the Dutch boy, 22 years old, who landed in New York City, and about two years after he was there it developed he had syphilis at the time of arrival. When we undertook to deport him and ordered him deported we were surprised at the effort made by the health service of New York State to keep him here. I would like for the committee to see the record. Mr. Uhl will recall the case.

Mr. UHL. I do not recall, but there is also the Sammy Goldman case where they had a resolution passed by the New York State Legislature to keep him here, a feeble-minded boy.

Mr. REITZEL. Yes. The second point is that matter of having decision in exclusion cases at the port. I do not see as a practical matter that it would relieve the Secretary of Labor of work because it would be natural for people to write in and see the Secretary of Labor in these cases, as they do now, and in feeble-minded and mental cases where at present the decision of the board is final.

The CHAIRMAN. In what cases: State that again.

Mr. REITZEL. In the feeble-minded and mentally defective cases at the present time where the board of special inquiry has finally passed on a medical certificate. It does not relieve the department of work, as Congressmen and Senators and priests and others come in the case, but you have the argument to answer them that there is a medical question that should be final with the board of special inquiry on the medical aspect, but, whenever it is a lay question,

whether a man can make his living, and the Secretary of Labor says inspection at New York is final, it is hard to convince why the Secretary of Labor is not final.

The CHAIRMAN. The Canadian Government does that, and probably other governments do, regulate it willy-nilly.

Mr. REITZEL. Other governments can carry on harsh methods that this Government can not with its large naturalized population. Mr. CURRAN. My object is not to relieve the Secretary of Labor of labor. As to the mandatorily excludable cases, the Secretary of Labor enforces the law, and it seems to me that we are both alike in that, whoever does it; because there is no appeal there. The action of the board of special inquiry is final; that is perfectly true, but there are many other kinds of cases, just as every day of my life I have to tell countless people the power to decide these cases is not at Ellis Island but with the Secretary of Labor at Washington, the stereotyped reply in a telegram, letter, or face to face. To all inquiries of Congressmen I give that answer, the only one I can give. They ask me for information: "What is the action at Ellis Island? Where is the case?" I answer them, giving the time-table, the calendar. I can take care of those inquiries just as well at Ellis Island as the Secretary of Labor can at Washington. The object of the proposition is not to relieve the Secretary of Labor of labor, although it will do that, but the object is to do better justice and more swiftly to bring about deportation where deportation is right; and stop delay.

The CHAIRMAN. Would it not relieve the relatives of the alien in the United States of a large expense as well?

Mr. CURRAN. It would.

The CHAIRMAN. Would it not do away, largely, with the activities of lawyers who make a living at that practice?

Mr. CURRAN. Yes, it would; because relatives go to New York because the alien is at New York at Ellis Island, and it saves the trips to Washington and back. Decision is made there at once and we are protected there on the island. People who do not have business there do not get there, and they are not allowed to go on the boat. This would relieve the Secretary of Labor tremendously. It is an added burden on the Ellis Island force which we are willing to take on, if that is your will. It is best for the country and aliens and we all urge it.

Mr. REITZEL. I do not understand the statement that the Assistant Secretary is not to make decision. The board of review writes its memorandum and this memorandum is very carefully written. We are raked over the coals in most of the cases to convince the Secretary of Labor we have covered every fact, and I know from my own knowledge, Risley White, and the Secretary, of how much time they give to these cases.

The CHAIRMAN. It is an old story covering the administrations or substantially the administrations of all sitting at this table, passing the buck, in the desire of those in high places not to be the hangman. We all know that the Second Assistant's place is crowded here, to handle these cases, and he has been pretty constantly at it. Then there comes the position in which the Commissioner Ġeneral of Immigration is left out of this line of proceedings the way it is

now, but it is a pretty big job to tackle that now, except your phase of it, which we might cut off.

Mr. CURRAN. Ellis Island is peculiar in that we handle nearly 90 per cent of the quota immigration, coming thick and fast.

The CHAIRMAN. Everybody knows that the Department of Labor was hurriedly organized, taken out of the Department of Commerce and Labor, did not get built up just right and had no committee especially to attend to its appropriations. There was no time before this committee and very little knowledge of the situation to act and write a bill to establish the functions of the various divisions of the Department of Labor. There is some little confusion there that can not be helped.

Mr. RAKER. On deportation specifically, Mr. Curran, who from your office recommends to the Secretary of Labor the required amount of money to enforce the immigration laws relative to the Department so far as your office is concerned?

Mr. CURRAN. I make the recommendation.

Mr. RAKER. Have you made your recommendation for the necessary funds for the next fiscal year, this coming fiscal year?

Mr. CURRAN. I made a recommendation to the Commissioner General for additional inspectors, stenographers, and guards to get hold of deserting sailors and smugglers through the city of New York whose whereabouts I knew. As to the budget for next year, I wrote three times asking to be consulted in the making up the budget.from the point of view of needs of the Ellis Island situation. The CHAIRMAN. Who did you write to?

Mr. CURRAN. The Commissioner General of Immigration.

The CHAIRMAN. Your method of reaching the budget is through channels?

Mr. CURRAN. He is my immediate superior.

The CHAIRMAN. You have no opportunity to appear before the budget officers?

Mr. CURRAN. No, except through channels.

The CHAIRMAN. Were you called before the budget officers?

Mr. CURRAN. I was not. I asked to be consulted three times but have not been consulted as to next year's budget in any way whatever. Mr. RAKER. The appropriation bill will come on in two or three weeks for funds for the next fiscal year and you have not been consulted?

Mr. CURRAN. I have not.

The CHAIRMAN. He can not be, he is a subordinate officer.

Mr. RAKER. There is some method of getting the truth of the facts before the budget so Congress can act.

The CHAIRMAN. Read the budget act.

Mr. RAKER. Will you look up the amount provided for in the budget and the amount provided for in the pending appropriation bill for this service of deportation?

Mr. CURRAN. I do not know it, I have no way of looking it up. Mr. FREE. Get the President's message on the budget; it gives you every one of those items.

Mr. RAKER. Will you then state from those facts how much more money you ought to have legitimately to enforce the law?

The CHAIRMAN. I rule the question out of order. You wanted to ask him if he had been called in by the Commissioner General of Immigration for consultation with reference to the amount of money necessary for deportation?

Mr. RAKER. No. What I want is this. There is a certain amount provided for in the budget. There is going to be a certain amount that the committee will report. You know how much money you ought to have to employ aid and assistance to enforce the immigration law. How much less are they going to try to give than is actually required to enforce the law?

Mr. DICKSTEIN. How does he know that?

The CHAIRMAN. The question is out of order.

Mr. RAKER. How much money do you need to enforce the immigration laws in regard to deportation?

The CHAIRMAN. I rule the question out of order.

Without objection the clerk will place in the record the budget expenses of regulating immigration, and I will put in here that portion of the Secretary of Labor's report and the Commissioner's report.

The naturalization office reports a large sum earned by nunc pro tunc where the naturalization office collects the $8.

Have you a comparative statement of the Budget showing how much money will be necessary to properly administer the immigration law relative to deportation? Have you such a statement?

Mr. CURRAN. I know what I would like to start with to see how far I could go with it. I do not know what the field will be. Nobody can answer that until we till the field a little; we are not tilling it much to-day.

The CHAIRMAN. Not doing much work in deportation?

Mr. CURRAN. I asked for 30 inspectors, 20 stenographers, and 6 guards for this warrant deportation work, and that request was refused.

That would have cost $100,000 or $150,000 a year, to see what I could do with that sort of a force; I would not go against the dictates of business prudence by asking for more than I could use; it must be gradual. That has not gone beyond the Commissioner General. It was he who said no.

(Thereupon, at 3.55 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned subject to the call of the chairman.)

COMMITTEE OF IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Friday, December 12, 1924.

The committee this day met, Hon. Albert Johnson, chairman, presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Harry H. Laughlin, of Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y., who is connected with the Carnegie Institution, of Washington, and who has made a number of researches of value to our committee, is present, and the committee would like to hear him in regard to this proposed deportation bill.

Doctor LAUGHLIN. If you have any suggestion to make this morn ing the committee will be glad to hear from you.