Father WALSH. There is one other point, sir. I noted in the proposed amendment with respect to the establishing for labor in the merchant marine a minimum wage to improve conditions. That the wage is low is clear. Seventy dollars a month is the outside, and it goes even lower than that in some classes, but I raise the question merely as to whether it would be advisable to enact by statute for the merchant marine, by special amendment, a minimum-wage provision while that whole problem is being controverted with respect to land industry.

The CHAIRMAN. The present law provides that on subsidized ships of the Maritime Commission there be established minimum-wage manning scales.

Father WALSH. That is an authority to the Commission to do that. It is merely a question, to me, of policy. Is it wise to anticipate for the merchant marine alone a great controversy of political economy before such a policy is adopted for land industry? I do not know; I merely raise the question. You are prejudging a possible later discussion of that in a court. The question of the constitutionality of minimum-wage enactment has not been passed on, as far as I know. We do not yet have a Federal law enacting it. This would seem to create a highly controversial thing. This print, I take it, is a reproduction of the amendment.

The CHAIRMAN. This is the act. This is in the law today.

Father WALSH. This was from Mr. Kennedy's report. He repeated all the amendments.

In reading that, there flashed through my mind the thought that here is a question which is not res adjudicata. You are adding it to the law for one branch of industry, namely, the merchant marine, and it is still being debated by Congress with regard to the others. Senator THOMAS of Utah. This is one branch where it can be properly applied. There are constitutional inhibitions in the land industries, because there is the conflict between the jurisdiction of States and Nation. So, constitutionally speaking, this is a simple proposition as far as ships in foreign trade are concerned, because no one would doubt the right of Congress to pass such an act if Congress deemed it good policy.

Father WALSH. I understand, Senator, that the question of constitutionality which arises by reason of the State aspect does not affect the jurisdiction of Congress over the merchant marine on the high seas?

Senator THOMAS of Utah. Yes; there is no constitutional doubt about congressional control of labor on the high seas.

The CHAIRMAN. The present law provides that the Commission may authorize minimum manning scales and minimum wage scales and reasonable working conditions for all officers and crews. That is all fixed in the contract.

Father WALSH. It is permissive power; it is not mandatory? Is that a permission to the Maritime Commission, or is it mandatory? Mr. MANN. It is mandatory. The law now provides that each operating subsidy contract must state that the contractor shall pay at least certain minimum wages and observe certain minimum working conditions. The Martime Commission, after extensive hearings, established and prescribed those minima. Under our subsidy system the Government pays the difference between the American and for

eign wages, so it is quite in order for the Government to require a minimum wage on subsidized ships.

The CHAIRMAN. Are there other questions to ask of Father Walsh? Father, we are very much obliged to you for taking time out of your busy life to come here and testify.

Father WALSH. You are very welcome.

STATEMENT OF RAYMOND F. CRIST, WASHINGTON, D. C., REPRESENTING THE FILIPINO COMMUNITIES OF AMERICA AND THE FILIPINO SEAMEN'S WELFARE ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement, Mr. Crist. Mr. CRIST. My name is Raymond F. Crist. I represent the Filipino Communities of America and the Filipino Seamen's Welfare Association of New York.

Mr. Chairman, something was said, just preceding me, that was very impressive, in the question raised as to communism and communistice influences aboard ships.

Fundamentally, communism is a product of western civilization and not of the Orient. There are no communistic theorists among the orientals. Among the Filipinos, particularly, there is none, because the Filipinos are the only Christian people of the Orient. Their history has been such that they have always been loyal to their government.

As to the insidious movement, I can tell of the Communist agitators I witnessed a very short while ago in Brooklyn. I was attending a meeting of the Filipino Seamen's Welfare Association, which is a corporation organized under the laws of the State of New York, and which has its office in Brooklyn at 211 South Thirty-ninth Street. The president of that organization is Mr. Gabriel Trance. The executive officer of the association is Mr. Amilio A. Alba, Jr.

I have been brought into this by the original action of the Filipino Communities of America, which represents the seamen of the Gulf coast. Mr. Frank A. Reyes is the president of that organization. This organization brought us into contact with the Filipino Welfare Association in New York through meeting Mr. Alba here recently at a hearing of this committee over in the caucus room. As a result of this meeting, I was invited by Mr. Charles F. Tucker into this activity.

Mr. Tucker was formerly district director of naturalization when I was Commissioner of Naturalization and had jurisdiction over the States of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Later he was transferred to New Orleans, and while there performed some service for a year or so and resigned last September. After his resignation the Filipino Communities of America approached him and asked for his services as an attorney to come to Washington to endeavor to secure relief for these Filipino seamen who are out of jobs. They were turned out of their work by the Maritime Act of 1936. I understand there are about 3,000 of them. This number I learned from the conversations we have had in the office of the Filipino Commissioner in the last few weeks. It was through them that we met Mr. Alba.

Mr. Tucker and I attended a meeting of the Filipino Seamen's Welfare Association in Brooklyn last month, and I again went over

a few day ago-about 10 days ago and attended another meeting. I had other business that took me to New York.

At these two meetings there was one particular individual who was particularly interested in disrupting affairs, it seemed to me. At the second meeting it was more so. Each time he undertook to talk, he began to harangue, and then the organization would vote him down or boo him down or interrupt him. I was at a loss to know why this one particular person was interrupted so consistently. After the meeting was over I talked with the president of the organization and Mr. Alba, and they said, "He is one of us, but he has been influenced by communistic activities, and we don't propose to have him say a thing to us in our organization at all.”

I bring this up because of the reference to the communistic system that is going on. It was said that there is one man on board each ship or in each industry. They had their one man in this organization in Brooklyn.

The CHAIRMAN. He was the cell?

Mr. CRIST. He was the cell. He was in there to break up the orderly consideration of their business, especially when they came to considering approaching Congress for some kind of relief. His comments were discouraging. He told them not to even expect such

consideration.

I found this organization quite a devout group of Christians, curiously, seamen though they were. They opened their organization meeting with a very sincere prayer. They closed it with one of the most devout ones at the last meeting I have ever heard anywhere. The CHAIRMAN. How many were at the meeting?

Mr. CRIST. There were about 300 at each of the meetings. The last meeting was the more characteristic. It was more far-reaching. Word had got around that there was someone who was supposed to be more experienced in legislative matters who would be there. In some way they had learned of my years of experience in the Government service, when I had the pleasure of appearing before two of the committees, or four of the committees, at two caucuses-the two Appropriations Committees and the Immigration Committee of the Senate and the Immigration and Naturalization Committee of the House.

There were representative committees from the Pacific coast organization, known as Legionnaire Del Trabajo, which has branches all over the United States. There was a very, very uniform expression of loyalty to the institutions of this Government. They protested that their lot was cast among the American people. Some of them I met there had been in this country since before the annexationprior to the Spanish-American War. They had followed the vocation of seamen. All of these were seamen, with very few exceptions. They were in hearty sympathy with the action taken by the Filipino Communities of America, with headquarters at New Orleans, and they are now getting together for a concert of action.

The Filipino Communities of America have worked in sympathy with Lykes Bros. and Ripley Steamship Co., and the steamship company is very sympathetic with their desire to have their vocation restored to them. That steamship company, as you know, has several lines, among them being the American Gulf-Orient Lines, the DixieMediterranean Line, the Dixie-United Kingdom Line, and the

Southern States Line. They are all freighters. They all haul nothing but freight. I am referring here to the American-flag services. in foreign trade as of January 1, 1936, which information is published by the United States Maritime Commission, Division of Research, Washington.

They have monthly sailings from Texas, Galveston, Corpus Christi, Beaumont, Houston, Lake Charles, Mobile, Ala., New Orleans, Pensacola, Port Arthur, and Tampa, Fla. They go to Hawaii and China, up into the northern part of China at the Kwantung Peninsula; Dairen; Japan, Hong Kong, then down to French Indochina, and then to the Philippine Islands.

They have always carried Filipinos in considerable number among their crews, especially on all of those ships going to the Orient and to the Philippine Islands. For the last year and a half they have been unable to do so. That may be one of the reasons for sympathy there. It may be one of the reasons among the many which inspired the fine, sympathetic expression from this steamship company.

The CHAIRMAN. They are at the present time barred from the ships under our law relating to citizenship; is that right?

Mr. CRIST. That is true. That is under section 302.

The CHAIRMAN. On all freighters the crews must be 100 percent. Americans or naturalized citizens, and 80 or 90 percent of the crews must be Americans or naturalized citizens on the others?

Mr. CRIST. On the passenger ships.

The CHAIRMAN. What about the naturalization of these Filipinos? Is that possible under our existing laws?

Mr. CRIST. Not under the existing laws, except in the exceptions that Congress has made. Congress has made exceptions repeatedly. The first one that was material was the act of June 8, 1917. That act authorized naturalization of soldiers in the Army camps and made exceptions to include all those who put on the uniform. In so doing, they extended naturalization not only to European foreigners but to Filipinos, Chinese, and Japanese.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any knowledge as to the numbers involved in the act? How many persons who would not have been eligible under our general laws were brought into citizenship through that act?

Mr. CRIST. I cannot recall offhand, but there was a very considerable number.

The CHAIRMAN. Several hundred?

Mr. CRIST. It was more than that. In the Hawaiian Islands, for example, there was a great rush of enlistments of Japanese, Chinese, and Filipinos. There was practically a regiment out there before the question of their citizenship came up at all. They were taken in. They immediately volunteered. When the act was passed in 1918 the question arose immediately as to whether or not they could become citizens.

It so happened that I wrote the brief for the administration on that law, and they were naturalized. I attended committee hearings, and I knew the sentiment. I knew that the language was not exceedingly clear. They were all given citizenship. That citizenship has held to this day, except in one or two cases. In one of those cases, which was taken up without my knowledge, the case of a man by the name of Ozala, a man in our military service, the case went to the Supreme

Court of the United States. The Supreme Court held that the language was defective, but there has been nobody disturbed in his citizenship as the result of that decision.

The CHAIRMAN. Except this one man?

Mr. CRIST. Except as to this one man.

Senator THOMAS of Utah. He made the plea that he was an Ainu, not a Japanese?

Mr. CRIST. From one of those islands off the mainland.

Senator THOMAS of Utah. Are not the Filipinos still classified as American nationals?

Mr. CRIST. The Filipinos are not only classified as American nationals, but they have a kind of hodge-podge relationship. For example, a Filipino may be naturalized. He is a national, in the first place, as against all other nations. The State Department gives him a passport which proclaims him an American citizen in the eyes of other people, in the eyes of other nations, but he is only a national and owes permanent allegiance.

Under the Independence Act of 1934 a definition was given of a Filipino for immigration purposes. There he is held as an alien. Under this Maritime Act it might have been, and I believe it was, that there was a long period of time for this Filipino to become a citizen or to continue his service.

This act says that any member of the crew not required to be a citizen may be, and then only if he is in possession of other evidence of legal admission to the United States for permanent residence. There is not one of these Filipinos who could not give evidence of his permanent residence in the United States, but again the immigration law placed in, I think, the 1924 act says that the legal evidence shall be an identification card-an immigrant's identification card-issued to one who has come into the country permanently-on permanent visa, so in the construction of this, the natural conclusion has been reached that this does not cover the Filipino.

Then there is one other phase of this. The Filipino can only make declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States. That is valid. Of course, he can make declaration of intention, because the law there is open to anyone to make declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States, but the meaning of the law and its intendment are that only those who will be admitted on: the hearing of the petition predicated upon that declaration are ones who may make valid declaration of intentions; so, while the Filipino is a national of this country and is given the recognition that is given to American citizens for protection against all the world, he is nevertheless ineligible to take those two steps: To get a declaration of intention or get the legal evidence that the immigration law now requires for aliens who are here permanently.

The part about the residence is easily obtained, and it is permanent. He has lived here in the neighborhood of 40 years.

There is only a small number of them-3,000 of them-who have been forced out of this occupation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Crist, in order to permit them to qualify and to sail under the Merchant Marine Act, there would have to be an amendment to the act, would there not?

Mr. CRIST. Unquestionably, I think so. There has been a bill introduced by Senator Ellender, S. 2196 which, I understand, had some