the lake season is over they will come back to the seaboard. Now, you are not going to correct that situation.

Now, our difficulty in this thing has been this: At the present time we are giving to the immigration authorities an actual list, giving the name, age, and nationality of every man who deserts us, and we wish very much that the immigration authorities would pick up those people and send them back; but they do not do it.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. What is the difference in identification value between what you now furnish and the landing-card method, except the finger prints?

Mr. RAVENEL. Senator, the identification is simple. They can identify them. We can go out and spot them, and tell them where they are working. It is not lack of knowledge.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. It is lack of means?

Mr. RAVENEL. Lack of means and desire. Now, Senator King a minute ago asked whether this thing will handicap American ships. It will to a certain extent, but I do not believe that you gentlemen want to do anything deliberately which will be effective for your purposes which is going to very seriously interfere with the orderly and proper movement of the big passenger service backward and forward from Europe. This will be a very serious things for us-exceedingly serious.

Senator WILLIS. Now, you stated that there was a minimum law, that you had to have at least so many before you could sail your ship. Have you had any trouble of ships being tied up because at the last minute one man will walk out?

Mr. RAVENEL. No, sir; because we do not sail with that minimum. We see that our margin of safety is so great that that will not happen. We represent the bigger lines here that depend on good service for their existence. The shipping business is a very competitive business. We can not run a half-baked, dirty and ill-kept up proposition and expect patronage. We try to run a really high-grade service. We can not do that by skimping everything to the limit.

We had desertions last spring and last summer when we could not sail our ships on schedule. We were held up, one, two, or three hours, because we could not get the men. The thing we did do was shut down a number of boilers and reduce speed. Now, of course, if we got so badly hung up that we could not move at all, we would just stop. Suppose we went out and got 25 more men to fill up the desertions, and 5 more walked out. They have us where they want us. Bear in mind that New York is not the only port in the United States. There is generally some surplus labor there. But do not forget that this thing would apply equally to New Orleans, Savannah, Galveston, Charleston, Philadelphia, and Boston. The ships get in there to discharge their cargo. It is not an unusual thing for use to shift crews to Norfolk.

The CHAIRMAN. I regret you left out Providence. [Laughter.]

Mr. RAVENEL. I should have included Providence and New Bedford. Right up in that district, the labor market is such that you can not go out and pick up capable seamen, the way you would pick up sticks of wood.

Senator KING. What proportion of the crews of seamen on the vessels which you represent are Americans?

Mr. RAVENEL. On our American ships, a very large percentage. We had a comparison about two years ago with the Shipping Board, and our particular line, the American Line, had actually a higher average of American seamen than the Shipping Board. I think it amounted to 85 per cent in some of them. In the Hamburg trade, we have got to get German-speaking stewards. They have got to speak both languages. I represent principally the foreign lines, and there are practically no orientals.

Senator KING. You do not represent the Shipping Board nor the American merchant marine?

Mr. RAVENAL. No, sir.

Senator WILLIS. You use Lascars?

Mr. RAVENAL. No; as far as I know, we have not got an oriental on a single ship.

Senator KING. Do you pay as high wages as are paid American sailors?

Mr. RAVENAL. We pay the British scale of wages on the British ships and the Belgian scale on the Belgian ships. This is not going to affect the wage scale.

Senator KING. As I understand you, your only objection to this bill is paragraph (e) requiring you to carry as many members of your crew when you depart from a United States port as you had on board when the vessel entered?

Mr. RAVENAL. That is the principal thing. As I said before, I would rather-the other things do not make any difference-I would rather not see any seamen's sections in this immigration bill, because if you are going into this seamen's proposition you ought to go into it thoroughly.

Senator KING. By and large, do you sail with fewer seamen away from the United States than you bring to the United States? Mr. RAVENAL. No, sir.

Senator KING. Then, what objection do you have to the bill if it does not affect you?

Mr. RAVENAL. Because there are specific cases or times when the thing becomes very important.

Senator KING. What number, generally speaking, do you bring to the ports of the United States in excess of the number which you ought to have for efficient and proper conduct of your ship?

Mr. RAVENAL. Well, I would not like to go into that. We carry a full complement, what we think we need. How far that is above the minimum requirements in connection with a particular ship, I can not say.

Senator KING. Generally speaking, have you ships that sail with fewer than you brought into the United States?

Mr. RAVENAL. In the spring we do, and we have to because we have these desertions. Let me give you the figures of last May and June with respect to individual ships-I refer to the number of deseritions:

31;

Lapland, May 2, 21; Homeric, May 5, 28; Celtic, May 19, Jamaica, May 19, 14; Baltic, May 26, 24; Homeric, May 26, 31; Majestic, June 2, 35; Cedric, June 2, 23: Jamaica, June 9, 19. That does not sound like thousands of people are brought in here to evade the immigration law.

STATEMENT OF EDWIN H. DUFF, ATTORNEY FOR THE AMERICAN STEAMSHIP OWNERS' ASSOCIATION AND THE PACIFIC STEAMSHIP ASSOCIATION

Mr. DUFF. Mr. Chairman, I am not here this morning to go into the practical side of this bill, because, in the first place, I have not had an opportunity to study it carefully, but merely to voice the objections of the American Steamship Owners' Association and the Pacific Steamship Association to the consideration of a bill which in effect amends the seamen's act. The practical men representing the association have not had full opportunity to discuss the practical problems involved. Now, I believe the distinguished Senator from Ohio yesterday, when I happened to be here on another matter, made the suggestion or asked whether there should be anything contained in this bill which in any wise repealed any provision of the so-called seamen's act. We are entirely agreed that there should not be anything in this bill that repeals any portion of the seamen's bill, but by the same token we urge that there should not be anything put in this bill that modifies in any particular the LaFollette seamen's bill, but we are perfectly willing to have these propositions dealt wth in an individual bill, and to come here and discuss it fairly across the table, and then to leave it to the wise judgment of this committee as to what shall be done.

Now, speaking from the standpoint

Senator WILLIS (interposing). You agree with Mr. Furuseth's statement that as the bill was amended yesterday, that as it now stands with that amendment, it does not in any way affect the seamen's act?

Mr. DUFF. Senator, that is my understanding; but I have not examined it with great care, because I knew nothing of this amendment until yesterday; but a reading of it suggests to me that with this modification referred to by Senator Reed that it does not take away any of the provisions of the La Follette bill. I can well understand how the Pacific-American steamship members would be vitally concerned with paragraph (f)

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). You will be perfectly willing to take Mr. Furuseth's judgment on that question?

Mr. DUFF. Entirely so. Therefore I merely wanted to urge that no provisions of this bill affect in any wise the La Follette seamen's act until the steamship interests have had an opportunity to be heard.

Senator KING. Wherein do you think it modifies or repeals the La Follette bill?

Mr. DUFF. Oh, I think section (f) of this bill very materially changes or involves section 13 of the seamen's act.

Senator WILLIS. You mean that the King amendment does?
Mr. DUFF. Yes, sir.

Senator KING. Is there any other provision of the bill which, in your opinion, would affect or modify the seamen's act?

Mr. DUFF. Paragraphs (e) and (f) are the only ones which occur to me that do in anywise alter or deal with subjects which are covered by the La Follette act.

The CHAIRMAN. What, then, is your main objection to this King amendment that we have?

Mr. DUFF. The main objections to the King amendment, sir, are paragraphs (e) and (f), particularly (f). To-day we are permitted under section 13 of the La Follette act to carry certain persons in our crews which we would be denied the privilege of carrying under paragraph (f) of the King amendment. Now, Mr. Furuseth and I might differ as to the wisdom of that but it is the law to-day and we feel that we should not take snap judgment on this. There is a good deal involved, particularly on the Pacific, and we feel that you should not legislate without giving the steamship people a fair chance to present their views.

Senator KING. Is it not a fact, however, that a great many orientals are now being brought by the Pacific lines into the United States as seamen, and that many of those orientals escape into the United States or come into the United States, and that the boats that brought them go out without taking the large number that were brought into the United States?

Mr. DUFF. Senator, I do not know that to be a fact. I am not in a position to answer the question, because I do not know.

Senator KING. Is not the objection to paragraph (f) based largely upon the fact that many orientals are brought into the United States and escape into the United States and are not carried out by the boats which brought them in?

Mr. DUFF. I have not heard that alleged except by Mr. Furuseth from time to time. I do not know that to be a fact.

Senator KING. You have no statistics showing the number of socalled desertions from your boats upon the Pacific coast?

Mr. DUFF. I have not, sir. I have not gone into the practical side and I am not posted on that, and for that reason I was voicing the protest of these organizations.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you please repeat your main objection to the King amendment? One or two members of the committee have come in since you made your statement.

Mr. DUFF. The main objection to the King amendment from the standpoint of the Pacific-American Steamship Association and the American Steamship Owners' Association is that paragraphs (e) and (f) very materially affect the provisions of the so-called La Follette Act, and we urge that this committee shall not do anything that in effect changes the La Follette Act without giving the steamship people an opportunity to appear here before the committee and present their views.

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

Mr. CURRAN. The amendment proposed by Senator King, I understand, is the only matter that is under discussion. That reached me about half an hour ago, but I have been able to glance through it sufficiently to express the objection of the Ellis Island administrative force to two features of it. The first is the landing card feature. We object to that, first, because it is within he power of the Department of Labor to provide for that by departmental regulaion, and, I believe, with due regard to administrative elasticity, it should not be made compulsory upon us to bring in these landing

cards.

Senator KING. Do you not think it ought to be compulsory if you do not adopt some plan equally as effective?

Mr. CURRAN. No, sir, I do not, for this reason, that they have been tried and they have failed. We had a storeroom filled up with them at Ellis Island until three years ago. I never heard of the isolated instance of these Chinese in Pennsylvania. We have no difficulty at all with identification. That does not correct the situation. The landing card is going to leave the hands of the deserting sailor. He is going to tear it up. He does not want a mark of identification upon his person. It is only good in the hands of a sailor legally admitted who goes into the coastwise trade. We have those to-day. These [indicating] are the old landing cards which have been abandoned.

We examine 500,000 sailors in the port of New York every year. The administrative task will be tremendous and we will gladly take that on if we see any practical good in it, but we see none.

With respect to your 14,000 desertions, so-called, thousands of those are not desertions. They are reshipping from other ports, and your landing card does not keep track of those fellows.

Now, as to your finger-print accumulations, with all the care that the finger-print experts require, that would be an enormous task, running to 500,000 finger prints a year. I have been a city magistrate in New York and there we have had trouble enough identifying, with the finger-print system, 25,000 a year. With the sailors the task would be 20 times as large.

Instead of assuming an added expense for the landing-card system, which we consider to be perfectly useless, we could devote such additional amounts as may be appropriated to us in sending our men out and getting these alleged sailors who have deserted. They are there and we can get them. We are getting them now. We can find them. We get them now in limited numbers because we have not the force and money to pick up more of them. We have pulled off a few raids, we have raided the hospitals in New York, and we can get them if we have the men and the money.

Senator HARRIS. How much appropriation would you need for that?

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Speaking for New York alone. Mr. CURRAN. I am not in position to ask for any additional appropriation. I understand the law prevents my doing so.

Senator HARRIS. If a Senator asks you a question, you have a right to answer it. You have no right to ask for an appropriation yourself, on your own initiative, but if you are asked a question it is your duty to answer it.

Mr. CURRAN. And I will do so very willingly.

It is pretty hard to name a definite figure. We have to-day 500 members of the Ellis Island force. Three years ago we had 750. I think we could use at least the force that we had three years ago. If you translate it into terms of dollars, I have always thought that we could increase by half the Ellis Island appropriation and make it a million and a half instead of a million and get results. I think so to-day, and the men who have been there longer than I have think so. We can get a lot of these fellows if we have the men and the money. The landing cards will not get them.