tions of workmen and employers with respect to labor supply could be impartially investigated, and in many cases made compatible. When worker and employer agree upon an immigration decision at the present day there ceases to be an immigration problem.

The CHAIRMAN. We have a delegation, I think, from Pennsylvania that will get here at half past 2, and the committee will now take a recess until that time.

(Thereupon, at 1 o'clock p. m., the committee took a recess until 2.30 o'clock p. m.)

AFTER RECESS.

The committee met at 2.30 o'clock p. m., pursuant to recess.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. We will hear from Judge Lewis.

Mr. LEWIS. I would prefer, if there is no objection, that Mr. Billinkopf speak first.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. I might say to the delegation that is here that the Senate has now under consideration in executive session the treaty with Great Britain on liquor smuggling. It is matter of a good deal of international importance, and all these gentlemen are anxious to get back to it, and I have told them both of you, Judge Lewis and Mr. Billikopf, are distinguished for the brevity with which you can state your views.

STATEMENT OF MR. JACOB BILLIKOPF.

Mr. BILLIKOPF. I appreciate enormously the courtesy which you have extended to us to speak to you this afternoon.

The CHAIRMAN. I might say that your Senator is in part responsible for that courtesy.

Mr. BILLIKOPF. I understand that, and we have already thanked him profusely.

By way of introduction, I want to say that I am an immigrant, having come to this country at the age of 15. I came here, as have tens of thousands of other boys and girls, in search of economic freedom, of educational advantages, and more particularly in search of spiritual possibilities. Therefore, I feel I can speak on the subject subjectively.

Then, again, ever since my graduation from the university, where I paddled my canoe as have thousands of other immigrant boys and and girls, I have been literally associated with tens of thousands of immigrants of all races and creeds and I feel that I can approach the subject more or less objectively.

I want to say at the outset that my associates, who represent a large number of civic, fraternal and philanthropic organizations in Pennsylvania, comprising, possibly, a hundred thousand self-reliant and self-respecting American citizens-that my associates and I are very vigorously opposed to unrestricted immigration; that is, we are opposed to the type of immigrant whose physique and mentality are impaired; to the immigrant with criminalistic tendencies, to any man or woman who comes with ideas or ideals which are not in harmony with the ideals governing our own country.

Nevertheless, we feel that the so-called Johnson bill, and the bill tentatively projected by your own committee, are too rigid. We

feel that the existing emergency quota law under which we are operating to-day excludes all of the categories above mentioned and that it makes ample provisions whereby the best interests of our country are conserved.

I take it that the fundamental principle underlying any restriction is predicated upon the fact that we have a number of persons in this country who are not readily absorbed in the body politic; therefore, we do not wish to bring in any additional element which will complicate the situation.

On the basis of my vast and varied experience_throughout the entire country and covering a great many years, I want to make the emphatic statement that the new immigrant adapts himself or becomes assimilated with infinitely greater rapidity than is commonly supposed.

During my many years' experience in social service work I have, together with my former associates, placed nearly 150,000 immigrants at various jobs. Some years ago the late Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, of New York, spent a large amount of money for the purpose of educating the prospective emigrants that New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and other seacoast towns did not constitute all of America that there was a great stretch of territory in the South, West and Southwest where the immigrant could find suitable employment and become happy. It was my privilege to be officially associated with the Galveston movement whereby immigrants were diverted from Galveston throughout the South and Southwest. Senator COPELAND. Did they land there at Galveston?

Mr. BILLIKOPF. They landed at Galveston, were distributed throughout the South and West, and, in turn, attracted friends and relatives who had settled in the crowded eastern cities. We found employment for some 20,000 such immigrants within a period of three years and placed them in some forty different trades and occupations.

With the assistance of a noted economist, who represented at that time the Bureau of Labor, I made an intensive analysis of what had become of these immigrants after they had been in this country several years. And what I shall say of this group is true also of other groups in other parts of the country. We found that while the majority of them, on their arrival, were shabbily dressed, poorly nourished, and uncouth in their exterior; that while some of them were radical in the sense that in their native countries they suffered from discontent and could not adjust themselves overnight to new American conditions-that at the end of four or five years, when the study was made, all of the immigrants were happily employed; their children were attending the schools; no one was dependent on private or public charities; a number purchased homes on the partpayment plan, and there was universal contentment with their new surroundings.

Senator COPELAND. What proportion of them did remain at Galveston and vicinity?

Mr. BILLIKOFF. I should say possibly 75 per cent of them remained. Some were attracted to the crowded East. Some returned to their native lands; but those who remained served in turn as a nucleus, attracting friends and relatives from New York, Philadel

phia, and elsewhere, so that the number that left the so-called Galveston territory for the East was balanced by an equal or even larger number of those who were recruited from the eastern cities.

Senator COPELAND. How many of them went onto the land? How many became farmers or agriculturists of some sort?

Mr. BILLIKOPF. I should say very few. Almost all of them-I would say easily 90 per cent-went into such industrial pursuits as butchers in Kansas City, Mo., and Sioux City, Iowa; machinists in the Santa Fe shops, in Topeka, and other parts of Missouri; shoemakers in St. Louis and Milwaukee, etc.

Senator COPELAND. When you spoke of the 20,000 at Galveston under the Schiff experiment they were all Jews?

Mr. BILLIKOPF. Yes; they were all Jews.

Senator COPELAND. Russian Jews?

Mr. BILLIKOPF. People coming from Russia, Galicia, Poland, and elsewhere.

Our study revealed this extraordinarily interesting fact. Out of that entire group we failed to find a single one who remained an extreme radical. Just then the late Walter Page visited Kansas City, where I resided. Mr. Page was kind enough to seek information from me as to the organization of our board of public welfare, the first of its kind in the United States, which was run along nonpolitical lines, and of which I had the privilege of being president. He wanted to know something about its composition, with a view of introducing a somewhat similar form of organization in the board of education in New York City, in which he was deeply interested at the time.

When Mr. Page had finished questioning me I mentioned to him this interesting revelation, namely, that out of all of these Galvestonian immigrants I failed to find anyone with extreme radical tendencies. He then told me this little story, which throws an enormous amount of light on the entire question of radicalism `in this country.

Balzac had a valet by the name of Alphonse, who for 14 years had belonged to a commuist organization in Paris. He had never absented himself from a weekly meeting. Balzac, discovering that his valet had failed to attend a number of consecutive meetings, possibly eight or ten, directed this inquiry:

Alphonse, how am I to account for the fact that you have been negligent in your attendance at the socialist meetings; that you have disassociated yourself, apparently, from the organization?

To which the valet replied:

You see, my master, at one of our recent meetings we computed the amount of wealth in France, and dividing it equally among all the people, we found each would get 200 francs. But then, master, I have 500 francs in the bank, so why should I be a member of the Socialist Party, which would despoil me of 300 francs?

The moral is obvious. The moment the immigrant enters our night schools and acquires the rudiments of the English language; the moment he acquires a little competence; the moment he sends his children to school, the moment his boy goes to the high school or university, which privileges were denied him and his children in his own country; the moment he pays a small amount of money, be it only $50, or $100, as a part payment on a little house-that moment

all his radicalism evaporates and he becomes a full-fledged and lawabiding member of the community. You have no idea how grossly exaggerated are the reports relative to the amount and gravity of radicalism among the foreign born in this country. So much for that.

I do not have to tell you that there is no set of people in the country among whom the passion for education is as powerful as among the immigrants, who will deny themselves almost anything to give their children an education.

There is a great deal of talk nowadays as to what constitutes a good American citizen.

If Americanism involves birth in this country, or ability to speak the English language without the trace of an accent, which I am sorry to say I can not do, then I am afraid that many of us never will become Americans; but if Americanism implies the spiritual adjustment to everything that is finest and everything that is precious in our American life, then I would say that the immigrant in the main does become a good American; that the immigrant has made a notable contribution to our civilization.

Having given expression to a generalization, I will buttress it by a few concrete examples. Mr. Louis Marshall, at a hearing before a congressional committee, spoke of notable men of the type of Marconi, Tesla, Steinmetz, and Michael Pupin, who did not belong to the Nordic group and might have been excluded under the proposed law. Quite true; but I shall add a word regarding the humble, undistinguished immigrant; the one whose achievements are not recorded in the newspapers, whose accomplishments are not heralded from the housetops. I am interested in the great mass of uncouthlooking and apparently uncultured people who are, fundamentally, Americans.

Let me illustrate. My mother is an aged person. She can not speak a word of the English language. Unfortunately she came here at a time when the acquisition of a new language was very difficult. She is un-American in that she does not conform to the latest style of dress. She is un-American in that her table manners are not perfect; but she is spiritually American, because she has slaved all her life to give several of her children a collegiate education: because she has striven to make of them useful men and women. Only recently I received a letter from her pleading with me to pursue the work in which I am engaged, a work in the interest of those less fortunate than ourselves, the work of social service, and that I should not confine my efforts to any particular group or nationality. And there are tens of thousands like my mother in this country.

I have a brother nearly 55 years of age whom I had not seen for about 20 years. I thought he was killed during the massacres in Russia. He came to this country four months ago, arriving at Ellis Island. Having suffered untold agonies, he was uncouth looking; his exterior was against him. Judging him by externals you would naturally suppose that he was not the kind of a man to become Americanized.

A representative of the American Relief Association located him in the Ukraine some 18 months ago, and the first appeal he sent to me was this, "Please urge my brother to send me an Anglo-Russian

dictionary," which request I readily met. You should have heard him speak the language on the day of his arrival. He spoke a broken English, of course; but he conversed pretty freely with my wife, who does not speak Yiddish or Russian, being native born. In the last four months my brother has acquired the English language with such rapidity that I beg of you to read a letter which I am prepared to send you, a 15-page letter, written in exquisite English and in which he gives his analysis and reaction to things American. I challenge any one, be he a Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard or Princeton, to express himself as freely and as soulfully as my brother did regarding things American. In his letter my brother quoted from the writings of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in his appreciation of what America means to him. And he is typical of thousands of others.

About a year ago I visited Elmira, N. Y., for the purpose of raising funds for foreign relief. I addressed a crowd of about 500 or 600 people, and in that audience there was a strange-looking individual, his hair unkempt and very poorly dressed. I turned to the chairman and inquired:"Who is that man?" He was a huckster, a peddler, of the type you see in the large urban communities. "I suppose he came to hear you speak," was the comment.

When I concluded my appeal in behalf of the anemic, underfed children in the Ukraine and elsewhere this man, in broken English, but in a voice full of emotion and filled with tremor, got up and made this statement:

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I came to the United States about 15 years ago. I am the father of seven children. My oldest child was a boy. When the war broke out I said to him, My son, I want you to enlist and fight for the United States. This country has been wonderful to us." And he did enlist. He gave up his life on the battle field of Flanders.

This morning I received from Washington a check for $250, which is the first payment toward the insurance which was carried on my son's life. I am not going to keep this money

And, by the way, Senator Reed, this will appeal to you, as one who is interested in the bonus

I will not keep this $250. Nothing in the world can compensate me for the loss of my son. I will give it to you to give to others who are less fortunate than myself. Nor do I propose to keep a single penny of the additional money that will come to me.

Now, gentlemen, I have given you three types. They are not drawn from books of fiction. They are not among the distinguished Americans, but they are the humble type of Americans whom so many of us misjudge on account of externals. If I understand the word "Americanism," these men and women are possessed of that kind of Americanism which means a spiritual appreciation of that which is finest and best in our American life.

The contention I wish to make is simly this: There has arisen in recent months an enormous amount of hysteria on the subject of the adjustability of the new type of immigrant. I am not here to say he is a paragon of all the virtues. A former teacher, a Baptist, and a saintly man for whom I have made provision in my will as an expression of gratitude for his influence on my life, this saintly man said once in his baccalaureate sermon:

The deepest tragedy in all social and religious endeavor is the constant undoing of evangelized souls in unevangelized surroundings.