plug up the hole for alien seamen; how in heaven's name will a provision which merely says you must take out as many members of the crew as you brought in plug up the hole for alien seamen desertions, unless you say you must take back the same alien seamen who deserts, or unless you say you must take back another alien seaman in order to keep the status quo insofar as the illegal entries into the United States are concerned?

Mr. SCHULTE. What would the gentleman offer there as a substitute?

Mr. MAYPER. I am afraid, Mr. Congressman, that if you put in the same alien seaman you would create an embargo on foreign commerce, because under the Seamen's Act of 1915 you are required to give him shore leave, and here you say you must take him back. Now, which law prevails?

The CHAIRMAN. Maybe we could repeal that act and change the law.

Mr. MAYPER. Well, Mr. Chairman, I have heard Mr. Furuseth say at times that some of us were opposing this bill because we were attempting in an indirect way to secure the repeal of the La Follette Seamen's Act provisions about giving the seamen the right to discharge at the port upon his demand, and as far as our lines are concerned, I want to deny that and deny it as vehemently as I can.

There are some very salutary provisions in the La Follette Act. The discharge of passengers upon demand has certain elements of fairness in humanity toward the seamen, and I do not want to be recorded that I made this point in order to secure the repeal of the Seamen's Act. I am simply stating that we have got a situation here which is impossible, that you cannot have two laws directly in conflict with each other and hold us responsible between both acts.

Then under this full crew provision, take the administration of that provision: Some of you or most of you may have gone abroad at various times. You have seen the confusion on the pier just before the ship sails. I am talking again about the only thing I know about, the passenger liner.

The CHAIRMAN. Before you get off that point, my friend, Mr. Schulte, asked you a question and I yielded to him. Let us see how that would work out. If you are supposed to take back as many as you brought in-and let us assume that 50 desert-when you take on 50 others who would be eligible to return because they are legally in the country. In other words, you drop off 50 who are smugglers, and then the 50 you are taking out to fill your gap would have a right to come back.

Mr. MAYPER. Right; and then when we discharged them we would have to have 50 more. That is right—and endless chain proposition, and we would just have to keep on increasing the number in our crew all the time.

Just one more point on this full-crew provision, the matter of enforcement. Let us assume for the moment that we are required to take back full crew, and if we do not take back the same number that we brought in then we are violating the law and we do not get clearIn other words, our big mail steamers will not be allowed to depart from the port.

ance.

The CHAIRMAN. Under what section is that?

Mr. MAYPER. Section 6, line 20. [Reading:]

And any such vessel which fails to comply with this requirement shall be efused clearance.

Now, our masters ship their crew upon the return voyage. Generally they get their clearance papers for the return voyage about 24 hours before the time of departure, except-and this is very important— every little while, only last week or 2 weeks ago two large ships, I think it was the Aquatania or the Berengaria, or one of the German ships, the Europa, embarked one morning and departed again on the return voyage that same day. They were delayed by storms, and they left within 8 or 10 hours.

Mr. KRAMER. And did they leave any of their crew on shore leave on that occasion?

Mr. MAYPER. I will ask them. I don't know.

The CHAIRMAN. They could not very well do that, if they leave on the same day.

Mr. MAYPER. If they demanded it they could have gotten it. There is no question about it.

Mr. KRAMER. Would you have to have any new men then in order to sail again, in order to pick up your crew? Suppose you were short 10 men or 15?

Mr. MAYPER. It would depend upon what part of the crew was involved. If it was a vital part of the crew for the operation of the ship, they would have to get somebody.

Mr. KRAMER. Suppose they were engineers or boiler tenders or somebody?

Mr. MAYPER. They would probably get one from so-called "standbys." There are always some "standbys" on the dock who are available. If it was a steward they would probably not put him on. In order to enforce this provision, assuming that it was enacted, what you have to do-this is the only practicable way that I see that it can be done is to take that ship out in the middle of the river after it departs from the pier, hold her there, muster the crew on board, have an inspector on board at the time, count noses then, and perhaps check names to see if it is the same person that you are supposed to take back, and not grant clearance until that has been done, because it is impossible, in the last hour or two before a large passenger liner sails, to attempt to control the stewards. You might control your engineers. The chief engineer will know whether every man is at his post. But the stewards who are taking baggage up and down the gang planks-what prevents them just 5 minutes before the ship sails from walking off the pier? We have no policemen around there watching them. They haven't got labels all over them. They can get into their civilian clothes and walk off the pier, and if we sail with that person off we are violating the law. You have simply got to take it out to quarantine or the middle of the river and hold them up several hours before the ship sails. If that is not interference with foreign commerce I don't know what is.

The third main provision-mind you I am just sketching these things- is section 7, dealing with barred-zone aliens. That provides that no vessel-and as the chairman has indicated, the word "foreign has been inserted, the purpose of which I don't know, but perhaps I can tell

No foreign vessel shall be permitted to enter a port of the United States

To enter a port of the United States

if it has on board a member of the crew who comes from the barred zone from an immigration viewpoint

meaning any Chinese, Japanese, Lascar, Hindu, or French IndoChinese, Javanese, or any of the oriental barred-zone group, except a vessel which flies the flag of a sovereign nation which is an oriental nation like Japan. In other words, a Japanese ship can bring in Japanese seamen; a Chinese ship can bring in Chinese.

The CHAIRMAN. Because they are nationals.

But a

Mr. MAYPER. Precisely. Because they are nationals. European-flag ship may not have one person on board, one member of the crew, who is an oriental who comes from the barred zone. If they have, they will not be allowed to enter.

Mr. KRAMER. In other words, that would apply then to such ships as you just stated here, the German ships?

Mr. MAYPER. Of course, very frankly, if a situation like this developed, the 10 laundrymen would have to be discharged, and they would put on others. There is no question about that. But the practical implication of that is-Mr. Schulte asked about the freight lines; it would be very much more important from the freight-operating standpoint than the passenger on this Chinese question. But there is a very significant additional provision in there, that a vessel flying the flag of a sovereign nation may bring its own nationals, exclusive-not inclusive-however, of the nationals of a dependency or mandated territory or anything of that sort, principally, of one of the European nations.

The practical effect of that is this: A ship flying a British flag may not have on board a Lascar, one of its own nationals. A Frenchflag ship may not have one member of a crew who comes from French Indo-China. A Dutch ship may not have a member of the crew coming from Java. Now, if that is not discrimination from an international viewpoint, again I say I do not know what might be called discrimination.

Now, we have got this curious insertion of the word "foreign" in there, which is not in all of the bills which you have had heretofore. You either had nothing, you either had merely the phrase "no vessel shall", or you had "no vessel, domestic or foreign", and this is the first time you have left out the word "domestic" and put the word "foreign" in. Well, I dare say

Mr. KRAMER (interposing). When you say "you", you mean whom?

Mr. MAYPER. The proponents of the bill. I don't know who did it. All I can say is that if a bill of this kind, with an absolute discriminatory provision in it so far as the commerce of the world is concerned, is adopted, you will get legislation of this type from every country of the world against American shipping. Now, it is in the cards. You cannot help it. You cannot enact legislation which is obviously and definitely discriminatory against all countries of the world and expect that they will just sit idly by and let you get away with it.. They just won't do it.

Mr. Chairman, I can take up a good deal of your time on this and you many details. I think it is unnecessary. You have heard me before, and you know how I feel about it.

I just want to sum up in this way: I want to say that there is not a steamship company, American or foreign flag, which is not in sympathy with the purposes of this bill, with the alleged purposes-perhaps that would be more accurate. We all want to stop smuggling. There may be a few fly-by-night steamship companies, fly-by-night vessels, whose masters or officers or members of the crew are in cahoots with some people on land to get a thousand dollars or $1,100, if he is a Chinaman, or $500 to smuggle him in. But it seems to me it is an attack on the integrity of the shipping of the world to say that it is a system to smuggle in seamen and make money out of it for profit.

So that, although we are in sympathy with the purposes of the bill, you do not provide in this bill one different standard from that you now have in all of your laws which would enable you to detect more adequately when a seaman is mala fide or bona fide. You have exactly the same standards and the same machinery that you have under existing laws. You are penalizing a vessel by saying you will have to take this person off and put him on another vessel and pay his passage back as a passenger. Well, what does that amount to? mean, it does not mean anything when you are dealing with a million seamen who come in. I am sorry Mr. Schulte is not here. That is rather amusing-a million seamen. The Berengaria comes in every 3 weeks, and the Bremen, and every time they come in they have 950 seamen, and we just added them up, that is all.

I

Mr. KRAMER. Did I understand you to say that you are for this bill?

Mr. MAYPER. I am against every provision of this bill.

Mr. KRAMER. HOW?

Mr. MAYPER. I am against every provision of this bill. I am for the purpose of it, but I say not one part of the purpose is protected by this bill. On the other hand, it is irritating to international relations. It creates cumbersome machinery that does not do anybody any good, the seamen, shipowner, or anybody else, and it simply will not effectuate the purpose of the bill that is intended by all of us.

Mr. KRAMER. In other words, you are for the intent of the bill if some particular means could be set up with which it could be effectively put into force?

Mr. MAYPER. Absolutely.

Mr. KRAMER. Without injury to the shipping industry?

Mr. MAYPER. Absolutely, and we are willing to work with Members of Congress, with the departments, with the Seamen's Union, with anybody, in order to work out something that might be effective. It is very difficult, because you have got to deal with international relations, with all sorts of delicate operations, and mail lines that have got to go out on schedule. It is not an easy job, but we are willing to try it.

Any other question, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. No. I have a lot of questions, but I am not going to ask them.

We will arrange to hear Mr. Peterson tomorrow morning, because he would have to rush too much perhaps in the limited time we have this morning.

121198-35-3

Is the New York Steamboat Exchange represented now, or the Canadian Pacific Railroad Co.?

The CLERK. They have not come in today. They may be in tomorrow.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Peterson, this committee would like to give you your time if they can, and suppose we start tomorrow morning at 10:30, because we have another matter to take up at 10 o'clock.

(Accordingly, after a short statement upon another subject, the committee recessed until 10 o'clock on Thursday, March 14, 1935.)