If the amendment to the amendment is incorporated, it seems to relieve the objection of a certain class, especially the railroad men or those engaged in inland transportation. There seems to be no opposition to the amendment in the form that it now is among those who did oppose it. I knew you would be interested in that.

Senator KING. My view in brief is that we have established the 8-hour day. I approve of that. I should be glad to see the day come when we will not have to work eight hours; but that is the law established by Congress, with respect to Federal employees. This seems to be a dilution of that law, somewhat of an attack upon it, but an attack apparntly for good purposes. I think it would be better for the Government to furnish more inspectors if necessary and not require them to work more than eight hours.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. This will not add to the Government's outlay at the present time at all, Senator. There are some steamship companies which deliberately bring their vessels in on Sundays because they can get their decks cleaned more quickly and get their inspections made more quickly. It does not seem right that for their convenience these inspectors should be forced to work every holiday and Sunday; and, as somebody suggested to me a while ago, the tide does not recognize the 8-hour day and sometimes men are forced to work overtime because of the tide and its results. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Reed, will you kindly read the amendment and then the exceptions!

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. It would add a new sentence which would read as follows:

The Secretary of Labor is authorized hereafter, under such regulations as he may deem advisable, to pay extra compensation to immigrant inspectors and other immigration employees when, at the request of any transportation company, corporation, or individual bringing aliens to the United States, such officers or employees are required to report for extra duty or to work overtime, or on nights, Sundays, or holidays in connection with the examination of alien passengers or crews; and the transportation company, corporation, or individual requesting such extra service shall pay to the Secretary of Labor as reimbursement, the amounts expended by him for such extra service in accordance with his regulations, and such reimbursement shall be credited to the appropriation, expenses of regulating immigration": Provided, however, That the provisions of this section relating to extra compensation shall not apply to ferry companies or international bridges or to transportation companies bringing aliens to the United States across the boundary from foreign contiguous territory.

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As it stands here there is no objection on behalf of people who will pay the bill. The steamship conference, and the separate lines also in another memorial, have addressed Congress-it is in the record agreeing to this and saying they think it is fair. The only objections came from people along the Canadian border, where it is a matter of scheduling trains constantly through the night and during Sundays and holidays, and where the international bridges and ferry companies have to operate all the time. The same conditions that apply to them do not seem to apply to the Atlantic liners. The CHAIRMAN. Shall that amendment be reported as a committee amendment?

Senator KEYES. I am opposed to the policy of it. I think these corporations should not pay this additional expense. I think the Government should furnish its own inspectors, but I shall vote for this amendment under the circumst

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. I agree that the policy is not sound governmental policy, but it is essentially fair at present. I think we ought to correct the whole business at one time and make the Government pay for it.

The CHAIRMAN. I might say that the witnesses need not attend any longer, then.

Senator KING. I move that we hear Mr. Andrew Furuseth.

STATEMENT OF MR. ANDREW FURUSETH, WASHINGTON, D. C., REPRESENTING THE INTERNATIONAL SEAMEN'S UNION OF AMERICA

The CHAIRMAN. The committee is considering the seamen's provisions. In the bill reported to the Senate we have substantially omitted everything in relation to the seamen, although, as I understand you, there is one part of the bill that does relate to the seamen. Mr. FURUSETH. Mr. Chairman

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). May I ask you first whether you are familiar with the bill that has been reported?

Mr. FURUSETH. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask you what objections you have to it so far as it does relate to alien seamen ?

Mr. FURUSETH. On page 4 begins a statement that lists among those who are permitted to come to the United States-in the last line

(5) A bona fide alien seaman serving as such on a vessel arriving at a port of the United States and seeking to enter the United States solely in the pursuit of his calling as a seaman.

Now, that is necessary in the bill, because the bill excludes everybody as a general proposition and then specifically admits some. The CHAIRMAN. The word "immigrant," in other words, covers all classes of aliens except those who are specifically excepted. Mr. FURHSETH. Exactly.

Now I go to page 16, section 12. The section is very short and you have got to read just enough of it to get an understanding of my presentation.

The section is headed, "Maintenance of exempt status." It reads:

The admission to the United States of an alien excepted from the class of immigrants by clause (2), (3), (4), or (5) of section 3, shall be for such times as may be by regulations prescribed and under such conditions as may be by regulations prescribed (including, when deemed necessary, the giving of bond with sufficient surety, in such sum and containing such conditions as may be by regulations prescribed) to insure that, at the expiration of such time or upon failure to maintain the status under which admitted, he will depart from the United States.

So that here you give the Secretary of Labor the power to hold everybody out who is a seaman unless he can put up a bond. No bona fide seaman, Mr. Chairman, can put up a bond. A bona fide seaman can not do that.

The CHAIRMAN. Do I understand this, that a bona fide seaman is excepted from the immigrant class, but that he has a certain. status under the regulations and that in such regulations they may require him to give a bond?

Senator HARRISON. There is too great a discretion in the Secretary of Labor.

Mr. FURUSETH. It is not only that, but, if you will permit a point here, the result is that the shipowners, except those who are compelled to give a bond, have never ceased to fight the act for all the years since the seamen's act was passed, and this is the last kick. If they can get the bond provision into the act, which they have been striving to do for two years now, the result is inevitable that the seamen's act is repealed. It has never been done by law up to the present.

Senator HARRISON. But the Secretary of Labor has been insisting on such provision.

Mr. FURUSETH. Yes; and the courts have held that he has no such power, and then, when the courts held he had no such power, he still insisted upon it and kept the men on board a vessel in New York Harbor, and it became necessary to take out a writ of habeas corpus with the result that the judge dismissed the men, saying he could not stand for the idea of making a vessel a prison in the harbor.

Senator HARRISON. You think it would be a great hardship to require these men to give a bond?

Mr. FURUSETH. It would be absolutely impossible. The seamen can not give a bond. He is friendless.

Senator WILLIS. Is this also the point, that the steamship companies, when they want to connive in violation of the laws, would put up the bond and then the fellow would jump the bond?

Mr. FURUSETH. Here is what they are doing now. They come in on the Pacific coast with Chinese crews and then a certain number of the Chinese walk ashore and the vessels go away again with so many less, with the result that they are leaving some 5 up to 30 or 40 men behind them every time they come here.

Senator HARRISON. How would you change it?

Mr. FURUSETH. First, I would strike out the figure "(5)" here--Senator REED of Pennsylvania (interposing). I think, if I may interrupt, Mr. Furuseth's point is well taken. I believe that the steamship companies would use these provisions not to beat the immigration law-I am not so much afraid of that-but they would bring alien seamen in preference to any other kind of seamen because this would mean that the United States would make a jail out of their ships in every port and consequently would prevent desertions and would have the effect of discriminating against American seamen. We impound the Chinese when they come here; their crew is locked up. Practically we put those men in jail as soon as they reach here. Here is the way I suggest getting at it, that we modify that bond requirement so as to give the Secretary of Labor power to require that bond only for the classes mentioned in 2, 3, and 4.

Mr. FURUSETH. That is it.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. That will be all right?

Mr. FURUSETH. Yes.

Senator WILLIS. Striking out" or (5)"-does not that accomplish that?

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. No; it does not. I suggest in line 7, after the word " necessary," that we insert "for the classes mentioned in classes 2, 3, or 4 of section 3"-so that he may only require a bond for the students or the temporary visitors.

Mr. FURUSETH. Why not strike out the "(5)" altogether?

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Because I think he ought to have power to establish_regulations.

Mr. FURUSETH. If you strike out the "(5)" and then put in Senator King's amendment, you will get the two immigration laws and your shipping laws to work together.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. What is Senator King's amendment?

Mr. FURUSETH. I will explain it. First, it provides that all the seamen coming into the harbors of the United States shall be examined. Now, they do that at the present time for the sake of health. Secondly, any bona fide seaman shall be furnished with a landing card and can go and come. A man who is not a bona fide seaman will be taken away from that vessel that brings him and sent as a passenger back to whence he came at the expense of the vessel that brings him in, so that they will quit bringing that kind of people. They know who is a bona fide seaman and who is not. The second provision of the King amendment is that they shall carry away as many in those vessels as came here and hire their crews in foreign ports, or carry away at least as many as they bring here. That will prevent the shipping companies from making money by bringing men here who could not get through Ellis Island and then leaving them here. And then there is another thing it will do. It will prevent the foreign companies from undercutting the American companies, because we go the other way and consequently we have got to carry the full crew all the time.

There is no reason why we should not do this, because here-holding pamphlet in his hand-is the English law. The English law provides just that very thing for England.

Then the third proposition in the King amendment is this, that any man or person who is per se excluded from coming into the United States shall be excluded from coming into the harbors of the United States unless he comes in a vessel of which he is a national as distinguished from being of any of the colonies of that nation. The result of it is that the shipowners of the world will be compelled to respect your immigration laws and the rest of your laws, something that they are not doing now, and, further, it puts it in this shape, that they will do this without any cost to the United States.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chairman, that suggestion is bitterly opposed by Commissioner Curran, who says the landingcard system has been tried and has failed. It is also opposed by the immigration people here, and the suggestions that Mr. Curran makes are opposed by Mr. Furuseth and the steamship companies, and it seems to me that while his point about the bonds is right and can be taken care of by an exception here, the committee ought to consider these landing-card ideas and alien seamen's ideas in a separate bill that can have the deliberate criticisms of the committee after it has heard all sides.

Senator HARRISON. I thought this is what the committee agreed to do.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. It did, but Mr. Furuseth has protested and asked us to put it in again.

Senator HARRISON. Why would it not be satisfactory to you?

Mr. FURUSETH. Because God only knows what time you are going the next bill.

to pass

Senator KING. There is so much merit in Mr. Furuseth's contention that I shall be glad to see my amendment adopted. There is no doubt but what violations constantly occur and are connived at by foreign shipowners, and they bring into the United States Chinese and Hindus and Malays, who are under our laws forbidden entry, because they are not eligible to citizenship. Now, legislation of this kind, if you want to enforce your immigration laws, is necessary, and it seems to me that this was an appropriate place to take care of this subject.

Mr. FURUSETH. One thing more, Mr. Chairman. In 1922 the Immigration Service examined 973,804 alien seamen coming to ports of the United States. In 1923 they examined 1,018,000 such seamen. Now, your provision of the law contemplates about 300,000 that should be permitted to come. You are closing the front door, gentlemen and opening the side door in failing to accept this, because 60 per cent of these men-in other words, 600,000 of these men-are footlose. There is nothing to hold them particularly to their own nation or their own country.

Senator HARRIS. You say there is a British law providing that the ships shall bring back again those they took out?

Mr. FURUSETH. The supposition is that they will bring back the same kind of men that they took out. That is supposed to be the situation.

Senator HARRISON. What is the view of Mr. Wallis, who was Commissioner of Immigration at New York, respecting that?

Mr. FURUSETH. I do not know. The trouble in New York has always been this: That when the bill for the examining of alien seamen as to diseases, etc., was adopted, it gave a tremendous lot of work to the New York immigration staff, more than they could possibly do. Now, the landing card, of course, gave a lot of work to them, and with the staff that they have got they were working themselves to death, and they naturally wanted to get rid of that; but I want to say to you that if you adopt this amendment for the purposes of accomplishing the thing itself there is nothing to compel that you should have any landing card at all. If you take the man who is not a bona fide seaman out of the ship or take the man who is to-day excluded out of the ship that he has no right to be in, then all the rest can come and go. The only thing you can do after that is to see that the vessel takes out as many as she brings in. It would be better if you had the landing card, but it is not absolutely

necessary.

The CHAIRMAN. Might I say to the committee that so far as the King amendment is concerned, it opens a wide field. The commissioner from New York, Mr. Curran, has just telephoned over, and he states that it would demoralize Ellis Island. He desires to be heard. As one member of the committee, it does not seem to me that we can make the King amendment a committee amendment until we have heard the commissioner at New York and others who are strongly opposed to it.

Senator HARRISON. I would like to know what the views of Mr. Wallis are.