Mr. MARSHALL. Yes.

Mr. RAKER. And which census they would take for their starting point?

Mr. MARSHALL. If they took the quota principle at all, which I do not admit is the proper principle-but they have the constitutional right to do so. If you ask me as to their power, I answer that they could certainly exercise that power. If they are to adopt the quota principle, I see no reason why it should not be the last available census, namely, the census of 1920.

Mr. RAKER. If neither one of these were taken, which you claim is not a right principle, what is the right principle in your view?

Mr. MARSHALL. What I said at the outset, namely, no quota provision at all, but a continuation of the policy of excluding only those who are mentally, morally and physically unfit, who are enemies of organized government, and who are apt to become public charges. You already have the provision as to the reading and writing test, which is not, according to my viewpoint, based upon any sound basis, but you have got it, and we are not now asking you to do away with it or to change the law. We are here, while objecting to the quota principle, perfectly willing to maintain the

status quo.

Mr. RAKER. In other words, your position is that if they meet up with the present provisions of the immigration law, they should be admitted?

Mr. MARSHALL. Yes; that is my idea.

Mr. RAKER. And there is to be no restraint as to numbers from any locality?

Mr. MARSHALL. Yes. I object to any restraint by numbers as being absolutely unjust and without any proper basis in economics, morals, right, or justice.

Mr. RAKER. We have in the law the exclusion of those who believe in the lawful destruction of property, also those who believe in communism.

Mr. MARSHALL. I am as strongly opposed to their admission as anyone could be.

Mr. SABATH. Are you in favor of all the restrictions that are now in the 1917 act?

Mr. MARSHALL. I am. I do not favor the reading and writing test, but that is there, and I am not here to fight against it.

Mr. RAKER. Mr. Marshall, I simply asked you this for the purpose of asking about another class. I realize those restrictions are there and I will not take but a few moments of your time.

Mr. MARSHALL. Yes.

Mr. RAKER. Would you be in favor of excluding those who believe in, and who practice, and who teach communism as it is now understood?

Mr. MARSHALL. Personally I have no use for them.

Mr. RAKER. Well, would not you exclude them?

Mr. MARSHALL. Well, that brings up a question of definition, and who is to decide what is communism? Let me make this statement

Mr. RAKER. Let me make my question a little more definite.
Mr. MARSHALL. Yes.

Mr. RAKER. I meant communism as understood and practiced unper the Third International, their doctrines.

Mr. MARSHALL. I am opposed to the admission of anybody who preaches doctrines which are advocated by the Third International. I am opposed to any persons who seek to introduce into the United States sovietism, but I wish you to understand, however, this subject which I have carefully considered and which is borne out by an editorial which I read the other day in one of the leading New York newspapers. that, as a matter of fact, in all the United States the number of communists is I was going to say pitiably small, but I will change that word-is gratifyingly small. The total number does not exceed 20,000 in the whole United States, according to that article.

Mr. RAKER. Irrespective of the number, it is a question of principle I am trying to get.

Mr. MARSHALL. I have given you my statement as to the principle. I am ready to subscribe to anything which will prevent communism or sovietism from taking root in this country.

Mr. RAKER. Is it not your judgment that those who practice and believe in and who advocate communism as understood and practiced under the Third International should not be admitted to the United States?

Mr. MARSHALL. I would not raise my voice for one quarter of a second in opposition to that provided there is an adequate definition of communism, and that is a clause which would have to be very carefully worded, because there have been times in this country when anybody who disagreed with his neighbor was considered a communist or an anarchist or some other "ist" and was put into Coventry. I think one of the evils of this kind of legislation is to stimulate hatred between different parts of our community and to put a label on a man which in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred is a false label. We had secret complaints during the war about some of the finest people in this country that made their lives miserable simply because some enemy wanted to persecute them.

Mr. RAKER. Mr. Marshall, you are going to file a brief?
Mr. MARSHALL. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAKER. Will you include in that brief how you would word the language relative to the exclusion of those who believe in communism, and particularly as relates to communists that believe in the proposition that there should be no right to private property?

Mr. MARSHALL. I will give that very serious thought, Judge Raker. Mr. RAKER. I would be much pleased if you would. Thank you. Mr. MARSHALL. I am much obliged to the committee for the patience that they have shown me, and I wish to apologize to the other gentlemen present for trespassing on their time.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very glad you were able to be here, Mr. Marshall.

Mr. MARSHALL. I desire to submit a document which I think is very interesting. It is the report of the committee on commerce and marine of the American Bankers' Association adopted September 24, 1923, on the subject of immigration. May that be filed and made a part of my remarks?

78952-24-SER 1A-20

The CHAIRMAN. The manuscript may be filed and placed in the record.

(The report is as follows:)

COMMISSION ON COMMERCE AND MARINE,

American Bankers Association,

SEPTEMBER 24, 1923.

Hotel Traymore, Atlantic City, N. J.

GENTLEMEN: Your committee begs herewith to submit its report on the immigration question in the United States. The entire report as it appears here occupies less space than should the paragraph devoted to conclusions in a report which would do full justice to the statistical and other phases of the problem. It is evident that the subject may be handled either in extenso, or, after careful study and thorough digest if its many aspects, in a shorter exposition of its salient features. Of these alternatives the following is our attempt at the latter method.

For several years preceding the World War there were more or less constant, but ineffective, attempts to curtail immigration to the United States. The war acted as an almost complete check to immigration, nevertheless, following the armistice, the country was faced by what was probably the most serious unemplymen situation in the history of the Republic. It was estimated that 5,000,000 people were out of work and it was feared that this condition would be greatly aggravated by the influx of millions of the needy from battle-worn Europe who would come to our shores seeking food, shelter and employment. To cope with this threatening exigency Congress passed as an emergency measure the Dillingham law, for the restriction of immigration. In spite of its makeshift character, this law has remained upon the statute books and in operation to this day.

EFFECTS IN INDUSTRY.

Since the passage of the Dillingham law the economic aspect of the country has changed tremendously. Government surveys and the reports of many industries show, in place of the unemployment that then existed, there is to-day an unsatisfied demand for all clases of skilled labor, unskilled labor and farm help and that this condition is general throughout the country. (There is a short supply of domestic servants that is difficult to tally.) It is unnecessary to point out to a body composed of business men and economists, the interrelation of adequate labor supply, steady production, moderate prices, and national prosperity. Adequate labor supply is indeed the pedestal of this structure and derangement in that phase of our national life communicates itself in a vicious circle to the whole train. The arrogant demand of professional labor agitators are only made possible by labor shortage. Its results-increased wages and corresponding increased cost of living are not to be overcome so long as the labor shortage continues. The native-born American, educated to seek a higher standard of living, naturally gravitates to the "white-collar" professions, leaving the country dependent upon foreign labor to wield the pick and shovel.

What the future will bring to us is well described by Frederick C. Howe, for a number of years commissioner of immigration at port of New York, in an article written some time ago:

"Let us project our minds 10 years into the future, a 10 years in which there has been no immigration, in which many immigrants who stand well up in the economic scale have gone back home, a 10 years which, added to the 8 years since the outbreak of the war closed our gates to immigration, makes 18 years in the age of a man. By 1932 many of those now working in the iron and steel mills, in the mines and on the railroads, in the building of roads and the work on the farm will have grown old. They can no longer do hard, manual work. In the factories girls whose parents were of foreign birth have married or been worn out. The shop girl has not been recruited from the better-to-do immigrants. There will certainly be a loss of 3,000,000 workers, and possibly millions more. Where are they to come from? During these years the oncoming generation will be crowding into the more spectacular professions. They will be rising in the social scale. There will be a great increase in the number of nonproducers; a growing unrest among those who have been educated at the public schools and in the colleges."

EFFECTS IN AGRICULTURE.

During the past decade there has been an increased migration of foreign-born citizens to the farms. In the east especially where the tendency among native Americans has been to desert the farms for the cities this movement of the immigrant has been the one saving factor in the situation.

On the other hand, however, the shortage of labor in industry which causes the manufacturer to bid against the farmer, results in a steady migration of farm hands to industrial centers. The situation is probably the most critical one to confront the country to-day, for as our basic need is prosperity on the farm, the country can ill-afford a shortage of farm labor which will tend to still further reduce the farmers' scanty margin of profit. The Department of Agriculture recently estimated the supply of farm labor at less than 84 per cent of the demand and this figure, in spite of labor-saving agricultural devices, continues to decrease. The country must remedy this condition at any cost. The basic industries of this country are to-day dependent upon immigrant labor. A pre-war investigation of the United States Immigration Commission revealed that the proportion of foreign born people in some of our important industries was as follows:

These industries became prominent during the greatest period of immigration-1890 to 1910. In that same span of years the prosperity of the country increased materially. The production of coal trebled, railroad ton-miles trebled, bank clearings trebled, and the production of steel increased sixfold. Immigrants helped build up our industries and made others which they brought with them the foremost in the world.

Laborers in some industries are receiving higher wages to-day than at any other time in our history, with the possible exception of the inflated war period. In the building trades masons are getting from $18 to $20 a day, plasterers about $25 per day and in some instances even more, and ordinary, unskilled labor is dissatisfied with a dollar an hour. Textile mills have increased wages about 12 per cent and the iron and steel industries have allowed increases almost as large.

OPERATION OF THE ACT.

Advocates of the Dillingham law point to the fact that, while immigration to a moderate extent may be necessary, "undesirable" immigration must be restricted and they claim that the Dillingham law operates successfully in this regard.

In the first full year that the law was in operation, there were but 87,121 aliens admitted in excess of aliens deported, as compared with 555,000 in the previous year 1921, and almost 800,000 in 1914, the last comparable pre-war year. On the face, this would seem to justify some of the claims made by those who favor the Dillingham law, but the classification tables tell another story. We exported 67,000 laborers more than we imported, there being an excess of emigrants over immigrants in that classification.

Conditions similar to those quoted existed in the case of many other nationalities. The quota arrangement will remain an unsuccessful expedient so long as the emigrant peoples of a nationality are not added to the immigrant quota from that nationality each year. As for the selectivity of the Dillingham law, it is only necessary to refer to the ridiculous fact that the vessel with the fastest turbines racing into quarantine ahead of its competitors, as the new quota opens, is the controlling factor that to-day decides whether John Doe the immigrant becomes an American citizen, or by the reason of the fact that he is booked on a slower vessel becomes a deportee. The Dillingham law is also responsible for the deplorable practice of the separation of families, and other inhumanities, inconsistent with our national ideals and too numerous to mention, which even the officers who are compelled to enforce them and who might be expected to become inured to the suffering they see, condemn in the strongest language.

THE IMMIGRANT.

Opposition to immigration is largely the offspring of xenophobia and unwise propaganda against the foreign-born. All but an insignificant minority of our immigrants prove to be a peace-loving, law-abiding, thrifty class, and 75 per cent of our population has descended from them during the last century. In the absence of reliable statistics it is to be doubted whether the occasional vicious individual is any more frequent among them than among our oldest native stock. Immigration has come to this country because of the same two great motives that impelled the founders of the Republic-economic betterment and religious freedom-and in spite of instances of exploitation, they have already reached a plane, where 101 per cent of them own their homes compared to 5 per cent of native-born citizens, and where they own approximately 70 per cent of all the postal savings in the country.

CONCLUSION.

In the best interests of humanity at large, and of the United States in particular, the immigration policy of the country and the evils that have arisen from it call for early correction. All quotas for all European countries. if the quota theory is maintained, should be substantially increased, and agricultural labor and those who intend to settle upon the land should be admitted regardless of whether or not any particular quota has been filled. No more visés should be given by any American consular officer than a prorated monthly allowance, as to which he should be advised by the Department of Labor, and which should check the evil of wholesale deportations. The number of emigrants should be added to the immigrant quotas in order to avoid an actual deficit on balance. Finally a Government commission should be appointed, or coordinate bureaus of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture should be deputed, if not with the responsibility of soliciting agricultural immigration, at least with the purpose of directing the immigrant and his family to the land and putting at his disposal the appropriate governmental agricultural services to that end.

Immigration has been perhaps the greatest source of potential revenue to this country for many years past, and there is no reason why, under wise direction, it should not so continue.

Respectfully submitted.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Holaday.

COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION.
F. O. WATTS, Chairman.

J. W. SPANGLER.

LEWIS L. STRAUSS.

Mr. HOLADAY. There are one or two questions I want to ask. Mr. Marshall, do you believe it is possible to frame an immigration act that will be for the best interests of those who wish to emigrate to this country and at the same time would not be for the best interests of the United States?

Mr. MARSHALL. No, sir. That is, if they are people who come within the classes that I have stated, if they comply with those