Secretary DAVIS. Yes; they are anxious to, except those who are extremely anxious to get rid of some because of their overpopulation. Senator COPELAND. And because of lack of food.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Harris, I think Italy is a country that must have emigration.

Secretary DAVIS. Italy's emigration to South America is rather large.

Senator HARRIS. The point I was making is, if they are trying to keep in their country the most desirable, we are getting the most undesirable.

The CHAIRMAN. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the new countries are trying to prevent passports being granted to those whom they want to retain.

Secretary DAVIS. That was my plan of changing the issuing of the immigration certificate under this scheme suggested in the Watson bill. You go to the American consul for your certificate rather than to your own government for a passport. So we can ascertain then the number that is really being refused passports to come to this country. For instance, if I am desirous of coming to the United States I go to my government, and if they want to keep me there for military or other purposes they will not issue me a passport. I want to reverse the order and give the would-be emigrant the right to go to the American consul and get his certificate first. Then after he gets his certificate he goes to his government to get his passport, and then if we find that that country is really refusing passports for these young men to whom we have granted certificates to come to America we can shut off immigration from that particular country. Senator REED. Mr. Secretary, it is not a fact that every one of these foreign countries determines its emigration policy according to its selfish, national interest, without any regard to what we want? Secretary DAVIS. I should say yes straight-out to that question. Senator REED. Then ought not we to determine our immigration policy according to our selfish, national interest and without trying to satisfy all creation?

Secretary DAVIS. We certainly should.

Senator SHIELDS. That strikes the keynote of what I think ought to control this committee and the Senate. I am not so much disturbed about discrimination against any nation. The controlling principle we ought to be governed by is the protection of the American Government and the American people, and if it hurts any particular nation let it hurt them to the heart. We do not want undesirable citizens here.

The CHAIRMAN. Perhaps I am somewhat familiar with the facts and can reply to Senator Copeland's inquiry. The number of foreign born that came into the country from 1910 to 1920 was over 5,000,000, gross. The net number of foreign born who came to this country from 1910 to 1920 was 3,350,000. Of course, during the first four years, 1910 to 1914, there was a very heavy immigration. Of that 3,350,000, 75 or 80 per cent, and possibly more, were those from southern and eastern Europe.

Senator KING. Mr. Chairman, we have gentlemen here from the State Department. We had better hear what they have to say.

Secretary DAVIS. I would like to call your attention, Senator King, to section 14 on page 11 of the Watson bill, that permits an immi

grant who is in this country to reenter without being charged to the quota on his desire to return to his own country.

Senator KING. After he has been here for some time?

Secretary DAVIS. After he has been here if he desires to return to his own country he pays a fee of $5 and that immigration certificate will last him for six months.

Senator KING. I am in favor of that.

Secretary DAVIS. And he is not charged to the quota when he comes back.

Senator KING. And if there is nothing against him and he is a desirable citizen and resident and has made a contribution to the economic and industrial development of the country, I see no reason why he should not return to his own home. I would approve of that. The CHAIRMAN. The committee is very much obliged to you, Mr. Davis. Will you please hold yourself in readiness to return at any time?

Secretary DAVIS. I shall be glad to do so.

The CHAIRMAN. Commissioner Curran is here from New York. Does the committee wish to ask him any questions? I am afraid the committee can not sit after 12 o'clock to-day.

The

Mr. CURRAN. I do not know that I can get as far as you would like me to in a helpful way by 12 o'clock. I had in mind going through Senator Reed's bill, which is so near to the Johnson bill; and although I have received the Senator's bill only this morning, I think I can do it, and I judge that is directly before you. Johnson bill I have studied with extreme care, and I have appeared twice before the House committee. I think my suggestions might be helpful, and that would be a helpful way to do it, possibly, to go through the bill line by line. All told, my suggestions do not number more than half a dozen. I am not quite sure whether you want me to go on now or later.

Senator COPELAND. Major Curran, does the Johnson bill humanize this problem so that there is enough flexibility so somebody has power enough to use judgment and discretion and not confine the action of the law strictly to its letter?

Mr. CURRAN. I believe it does, so far as human ingenuity can foresee. I am perfectly sure that the day after the new law takes effect at Ellis Island a case will arise that is not covered by that new law. The regulating of the human being in his different domestic and international and long-distance relations is such that I do not think the human mind, singly or collectively, can anticipate the different fixes he is going to get into; but I think the Johnson bill, with some of the amendments proposed by Senator Reed, comes as near to it as anything I have ever seen during my experience with the quota law. There are some things that when you desire I can bring out to that end.

The CHAIRMAN. Can you attend the committee meeting to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock?

Mr. CURRAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well. We will adjourn now to 10 o'clock to-morrow morning.

(Thereupon, at 11.50 o'clock a. m., the committee adjourned to 10 o'clock a. m. Thursday, February 14, 1924.)

SELECTIVE IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1924

UNITED STATES SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, in the committee room, Capitol, at 10 o'clock a. m., Senator LeBaron B. Colt presiding.

Present: Senators Colt (chairman), Keyes, Willis, Reed of Pennsylvania, King, Harris, Harrison, Shields, and Copeland.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. Mr. Curran, you may begin where you left off yesterday.

STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY H. CURRAN, UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER OF IMMIGRATION AT ELLIS ISLAND.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Curran, suppose you make such statement as you desire without any more interruptions than the committee may wish to make.

Mr. CURRAN. I would be very glad to be interrupted, Mr. Chairman, and what I have to say uninterruptedly I promise to make very brief.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you please state in the beginning the official position that you hold.

Mr. CURRAN. United States commissioner of immigration at Ellis Island.

The CHAIRMAN. How many years have you been commissioner? Mr. CURRAN. Almost two-thirds of a year. I have been commissioner there since the first of last July.

The CHAIRMAN. Had you made any study of immigration problems before you became commissioner?

Mr. CURRAN. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I have lived with immigrants all my life. When I was in college during the summer vacations I handled immigrants and their children in getting them out to the country. That was 30 years ago. I have lived with them in New York in one way or another in trying to help them, and the people we have to help most in New York are the immigrants and their progeny. In politics I have lived with them. We are surrounded with them in the city of New York. I have had 15 years' experience in that regard.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you hold any official position in any society or organization that connected you with the immigrants previous to your holding the position of commissioner?

Mr. CURRAN. Years ago I held the position of assistant manager of what was known as the Tribune Fresh Air Fund, and my job was

to live in the tenement houses, practically speaking, so that I could interpret their life to the kind people in the country regions who would invite them out to their farms for summer vacations. I was a trustee of a dispensary and a trustee of the Legal Aid Society. There were other affairs in which I acted officially in an appropriate

way.

Šince I have been commissioner I have been night and day learning not so much the immigrant, because I felt that I knew him pretty well long before I ever thought of being put at Ellis Island, but what I have to offer is the sum of the carefully matured and considered opinion of all of the leading responsible officials at Ellis Island. We have conferred together at great length regarding this legislation because we know how vital the administrative features of it will be. One of these men, the first assistant commissioner, Mr. Uhl, has been there 31 years; another 18 years and another 15 years, and so on. So what I have to offer is not only my own contribution, but it is the Ellis Island suggestion, in an endeavor to be helpful from an administrative point of view.

I do not qualify as an expert, but I do qualify, perhaps, as an immigration man in that way.

There are half a dozen points in the bill as proposed by Senator Reed, and, if it is agreeable to you, I can best make my suggestions by pointing to the particular line and word in the bill, and I shall omit, if you please, those matters which I have already discussed at great length with the House committee, which have been resolved favorably to suggestions from Ellis Island. I think a discussion of those matters would be unnecessarily taking your time, although I would be very glad to revert to them if it is desired.

On page 2, line 20, in Senator Reed's bill the dispute over the life of the visé certificate is reflected in those three words, "six," "two," and "four." At one time the life of the immigration certificate was proposed to be eight months, and we begged that it be made shorter for this reason: Once the immigrant had received his visé certificate, as it is termed here--and I think that is a great improvement over the House bill in providing that the vise and certificate be combined in one, although that is more for the State Department than it is for the Department of Labor-once he has received a certificate, if he has six months or eight months within which to make his trip to this country, the inevitable result will be that most of the immigrants desiring to arrive here in the spring will arrive here in the spring. Those who receive their certificates. in November, December, January, and February, and thereabouts, will make the voyage in April, May, or June, and we may have 50 per cent of the immigration of the whole year dumped upon us at the gate within a space of three months. That is the second of the two greatest evils in the present law, the congestion at Ellis Island where we handle two-thirds of the whole immigration of the country. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Curran, I do not quite understand the text of the Johnson bill. Is the life of the certificate made six months or two, finally? I find six, two and four mentioned.

Senator REED. It was originally six. The commissioner addressed the House Committee with such effect that he got it cut down to two. I thought that was too short.

The CHAIRMAN. Now you suggest four?