the using of these quotas largely by relatives (under the preferential clauses of the act of May 19, 1921, as amended and extended) further bears out the contentions just made.

AFFIDAVITS NOW REQUIRED BY CENTRAL EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

The hearings show that quite a number of central European countries are requiring their nationals who seek passports to come to the United States to produce affidavits from relatives or friends in the United States showing intent to support the immigrant on arrival. These affidavits, which are made in the United States, must bear certifications affixed at a consular office in the United States, for which a fee is required ranging from $5 up. The certificate and application plan outlined in the committee's measure will make these affidavits unnecessary.

CERTAIN EXEMPT CASES.

In order that the quota figures shall mean exactly what they purport to mean, all persons declared to be of the exempt classes are made exempt from quota and are not counted in quota or out of quota according to circumstances as now, which is a cause of confusion and uncertainty. This change in the method of handling the exempt classes is one of the methods adopted in order to prevent just as far as possible the arrival at the ports of the United States of immigrants not entitled to enter. The committee believes the exemptions, including Government officials and their attendants, travelers, aliens in transit, bona fide students, certain professional classes, certain highly skilled contract laborers, sailors in pursuit of their calling, to be necessary.

HARDSHIPS TO BE MINIMIZED.

The main purpose of the House committee's bill, as shown by various clauses in the several sections, is, while further restricting immigration, to reduce hardships to the absolute minimum, to avoid the division of families, to save the nationals of other countries the expense, perils, and hardships of the ocean trip to the United States only to find that for any one of various reasons the immigrant or some member of his family may not enter. Under this plan there will be no further decisions of admission or exclusion based on a circumstance such as the horsepower of a ship or the location of an immigrant's name in alphabetical order on a manifest. A certificate plan has been devised and carefully worked out. It has the approval of all thoughtful students of the problems of immigration. It is the nearest approach to the examination of immigrants overseas, recommended by President Harding and so many others, that the United States may safely adopt unless we are willing that medical, physical, and mental examinations made in other lands shall be final, and that the making of such examinations shall be a subject of treaty regulations.

THE PRESIDENT'S RECOMMENDATION.

The recommendations of President Harding, in his message at the opening of the fourth session of the Sixty-seventh Congress, in regard to the above, were as follows:

Before enlarging the immigration quotas we had better provide registration for aliens, those now here or continually pressing for admission, and establish our examination boards abroad, to make sure of desirables only. By the examination abroad we could end the pathos at our ports, when men and women find our doors closed, after long voyages and wasted savings, because they are unfit for admission. It would be kindlier and safer to tell them before they embark.

CERTIFICATE PLAN OF CONTROL.

The certificate plan has been built up from suggestions of former Commissioner General Caminetti, Secretary of Labor Davis, the present Commissioner General, Mr. Husband, and others. All of these suggestions have been developed until a workable system has been devised which embraces the following steps:

(A) Application for admission as a quota or nonquota immigrant. (1) Filling out of blank (furnished free of charge) with name and vital statistics.

(2) Answers on the blank to questions approximately the same as are asked of the immigrant on arrival at Ellis Island or other United States port.

(3) Verification by oath before United States consular officer. (B) Issuance by consular officer of quota or nonquota certificate. (1) Means of identification.

(2) No more quota certificates to be issued than indicated by quota figures.

(3) Certificate does not entitle immigrant to enter United States. (4) Certificates are taken up at port of entry and a certificate of arrival with photograph and identification is issued.

(5) This certificate of arrival may be used for naturalization purposes in lieu of the present unsatisfactory plan.

(C) Application by relatives in the United States.

(1) Prospective immigrants claiming to be in the nonquota classification by reason of certain relationship to persons in the United States shall not receive certificates except on authority of the Commissioner General of Immigration, to whom application must be made by the relatives under safeguarded conditions.

CAREFUL SUPERVISION.

A foundation is laid by the above plan for carrying out the recommendation of President Harding in regard to registration. The President said:

There are pending bills for the registration of the alien who has come to our shores. I wish the passage of such an act might be expedited. Life amid American opportunities is worth the cost of registration if it is worth the seeking, and the Nation has the right to know who are citizens in the making or who live among us and share our advantages while seeking to undermine our cherished institutions. This provision will enable us to guard against the abuses in immigration, checking the undesirable whose irregular coming is his first violation of our laws. More, it will facilitiate the needed Americanizing of those who mean to enroll as fellow citizens.

The coming of aliens in the future, under the committee's amendment, is to be carefully supervised and properly recorded. That in itself will lead in time to a system of registration of alienspossibly as a part of the naturalization process.

PERMITS TO REENTER THE UNITED STATES.

A counterpart to the certificate plan is the plan (sec. 9) by which an alien in the United States about to depart for a temporary visit abroad, may secure, on payment of $3, a permit to reenter the United States within a stated period. This permit is made necessary because a declarant can not receive a passport from the United States; neither can he receive passport or similar paper from the country to which he formerly owed allegiance. This permit has no effect under the immigration laws except to identify the alien, and to show that he is returning.

ALIEN SEAMEN.

Important provisions relate to the admission of alien seamen. When the Burnett Act (Feb. 5, 1917) was being written, sections 31 and 32 were drafted for the handling of alien seamen. These sections were admitted at the time to be experimental, and for sime time it has been apparent that they were not at all satisfactory; in fact, were the loopholes which permitted many aliens (including the excluded Chinese) to enter and remain in the United States. The medical and physical examinations contemplated have not been successful. A landing card system was provided for sailors, but, owing to its expense and want of appropriation, that system had to be dropped. Masters have failed to detain sailors on board for examination, and some have escaped punishment owing to inability of the Labor Department to 'serve notice in writing" in advance, as required by section 32.

New York State complains bitterly of the dumping of diseased and insane sailors within its borders, to be an expense to its asylums and to be deported in many cases at the expense of the State rather than the Nation.

The further necessity for these provisions is shown in hearings (Alien Seamen, Serial 6-c, 1923), and in the report of the Secretary of Labor (1922, p. 101). Also in Appendix II, report of Commissioner General of Immigration, 1922.

RIGHTS OF SEAMEN PROTECTED.

In the amendment offered these provisions are corrected. The rights of alien sailors under the seamen's act are fully protected. They may quit at any port of the United States, even if aliens ineligible to citizenship, but must have identification landing cards (furnished by the shipping companies) and are ashore on a time limit. Bond of any description in any amount may be required, and the Secretary of Labor under these provisions will be able to prevent the Chinese and others from entering the United States by the mere forfeiture of a $500 bond. One United States Shipping Board ship recently turned in $29,000 in $500 bonds forfeited, representing the illegal entry of 58 Chinese. On another ship, where visual physical examination was unexpectedly made, many members of the crew including those waiting on the tables and supplying food to passengers, were found to be suffering from loathsome diseases.

ADMISSIBLE AS QUOTA IMMIGRANTS.

Under the plan of straight quota immigrants (none of exempt classes included) the numbers possible to be admitted are as follows, compared with quota possibilities under the present law:

It must be borne in mind that under the present law certain exempted classes are counted in the quotas, if the quotas are open, and admitted, nevertheless, after quotas are filled. Not a great many have been admitted as exempts in excess of quotas, but a great deal of confusion and uncertainty has resulted, which in the opinion of the committee is unnecessary. In addition, when quotas are nearly closed, persons desiring to immigrate are unable to make sure that they will be included, or whether a quota place expected by them will not be filled by some "exempt.'

Further, the decision in the case of Gittel Gottlieb and Israel Gottlieb (United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) has influenced the committee in the preparation of the clauses which admit wives and children of certain exempted classes. Tables showing possible admissions if 1900 or 1910 censuses were used as a base for 2 per cent admissions are presented for the sake of comparison:

Those who think that 2 per cent on the 1900 census might be better than 2 per cent on the 1890 census must remember that all "exempt classes" or "nonquota" immigrants are entirely outside of the quota, which is designed entirely as an immigration bonus, or excess, in the most limited degree possible, for use as an escape valve, for the purpose of preventing absolute rigidity. The plan which divides up the issuance of qouta certificates into 10 monthly periods (instead of a limit of 20 per cent per month, as now), leaving two months open for "catch-up" purposes, is provided for the same reason. It must be remembered, however, that the gross number of "quota" immigrants is fixed, and that all computations are based on the number of certificates issued by consular officers. No more can be issued than the limit. Unused ones are not reissued. Certificates are good for six months, and quota immigrants may take ship with the knowledge that there need be no racing of ship against ship in the struggle for the goal within the hour of quota exhaustion.

AGREEMENTS, TREATIES, AND CONVENTIONS.

The measure offered by the House committee will restrict immigration greatly. It will place the regulation of immigration on more nearly a scientific plan than anything heretofore attempted, and it will if continued for but a few years provide the way for the handling of immigration to the United States just as the people of the United States-all aliens now here are included in the magnificent words of the preamable of the Constitution, "We, the people of the United States"-want it to be handled safely, sanely, humanely, with due regard for the right of the family to be considered as a unit, but with particular care for the welfare of the United States, the protection of the interests now and for all time of all of its great population— 110,000,000-and the generations to follow them. This protection is an inherent right. The State Department will recognize no representations from other countries that interfere or threaten to interfere with that right. Congress will not enact laws which jeopardize in the slightest degree that right. Our treaty-making powers will make no convention or treaty that takes away from this genera