no fault of their own, but very largely through the coming to pass of any one of a multitude of circumstances which have brought about this, to our viewpoint, very undesirable arrangement.

Finally, under H. R. 7703, Mr. Chairman, I think the enactment of that law would be a very great kindness to the Department of Labor. In other words, it means the facilitation of locality for those persons who are unable for one reason or another to remain in this country after they have gotten the privilege of temporary residence. For example, I have had to appeal to the Department of Labor to permit a member of the faculty of the Jewish Institute of Religion, of which I am the president, to remain here. I invited him as a teacher. He is one of the greatest of living scholars in the Jewish world to come to this country to be a teacher of the rabbinic law. His visa was extended, and extended, and extended, and finally it came to pass that he would have to go back to Berlin-I think it was Berlin-whence he came in order to again be admitted to this country. The purpose is to admit that man who is a permanent teacher, as I say one of the most able teachers we have, to remain in this country. Why subject him to the inconvenience of having to come back again, which, after all, is the effect of what you are now doing?

May I say again-I have detained you too long already-that we earnestly ask you to pass this legislation which does not contravene the principles of the policies which have underlain the legislation of earlier years. After all, upon a moment's notice, you had to set up a tremendous machinery. And for the most part that machine is working well, but some parts of that machine creak. Unwittingly you have enacted legislation that works injustice to certain groups and we appear before you to-day and ask you who have the responsibility of creating a new immigration policy to temper justice with understanding. But we are not appealing for charity. We are not appealing, in a low sense, for pity or for favors, but we are appealing to you, Mr. Chairman, to correct and to cancel these inequities of administration rather than of principle, which fall so hard upon those persons. And of those, I for one moment desire to speak, who are not, Mr. Chairman, any more than you and I, as foreignborn citizens of this country, to be regarded with pity as if they were permanently and incurably alien. I remind you that only since the war has the term "alien " become a part of the jargon of the times. The term is contemptuously and cruelly used. I hear the term constantly used with reference to foreign-born citizens. I am not an alien. I am a foreign-born citizen of this United States. And I want to warn you and your associates and yourselves of the danger of enacting into law a certain amount of disdain attaching to aliens.

Some one has said here that a certain per cent of aliens are lawbreakers. Yes; like Americans. But I know it is nonsense to deal with aliens as if they were lawbreakers, as a class, in America.

Humbly we come before your committee to ask you to enact legislation which will bring about a more just administration of a policy for which you have chosen to be responsible.

I am prepared, Mr. Chairman, to answer questions if I can.

97326-30-NO 7-3

The CHAIRMAN. Would anyone like to ask the doctor any questions?

Mr. GREEN. I would like to ask him if he does not believe it would be well for the relatives to come within existing quotas. I do not desire to see families left or become separated, but it seems to me it would be better in view of present unemployment conditions and the general economic conditions of the country if they come within the quotas?

Rabbi WISE. May I answer that, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir.

Rabbi WISE. After all, the limits of the quotas are so exiguous that they really provide no room for these relatives, and on the other hand is it just, looking further ahead, to deny persons who would be entitled, however limited in number, to the right to enter this country, and to deny them that right because we wish to adopt an attitude of reasonable mercy toward the hundreds of relatives of those who are already become citizens?

I would not, Mr. Chairman, be willing to accept the responsibility if I were a member of your very eminent body, and I never dreamed of aspiring to such eminence. No one who belongs to my political party may, outside of the South. I would not be prepared to accept the responsibility of saying that there shall be virtually an end of quota immigration, in order to re-create family life.

I see you are puzzled about my obiter dictum a while ago, if one doesn't happen to belong to the politically right wing of the Democratic Party, one is hopeless, and I regret to say I do not belong to that wing.

Mr. TAYLOR. In other words, you do not belong to the Tammany Hall wing?

Rabbi WISE. I am not dealing with Indian nomenclature. That is before the Indian Affairs Committee.

Mr. TAYLOR. We are glad to have had you with us. We have been greatly entertained by your talk.

Rabbi WISE. I hope it has been helpful more than entertaining. I have been entertained by the questions.

STATEMENT OF MISS LILLIAN R. SIRE, NEW YORK CITY

Miss SIRE. Mr. Chairman, I am director of the division of aliens of the New York State Department of Labor.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. You represent also the National Democratic Women, do you not?

Miss SIRE. I am president of the Women's National Democratic Club (Inc.). I didn't know whether my politics would be so popular, so I was not going to mention it. I am here in behalf of the measure that would permit a woman citizen the same right that a man citizen now enjoys. That is, the right to marry a man of another country and bring him into the United States.

I heard this morning that the objection to this is that you are afraid that some women will make a business of it and go to bringing in foreigners in that way. Why would that not apply to the men as well as to the women if it were so?

In the first place you must understand, gentlemen, that at the present time, while I feel that the American gentleman is God's best

gift to women, there are not enough of you to go around. So, therefore, we feel that we can find some one in another country and bring him over here, and we do not see why we should be denied that privilege, especially since there are so few men in comparison to the number of women, and you men are permitted to go and bring in a foreign woman. That does not seem to be just. I also feel that the American citizen should have a right to bring his or her parents to the United States. I do not feel that it would create any pressure in the labor market, because usually these people are too old to work and the American citizen supports his parents any way by sending the money that he earns here into the foreign country. Wherefore, I think it would be very much better to have him bring his parents here and spend his money here if, as I suppose, you would exact a bond from the American citizen that his parents would never become a charge upon the county where he would reside. I can not see why

this humane measure can not be enacted.

In my position as director of the division of aliens I come in contact with all kinds of people, and only last week a little woman came into my office and she said she was going back to Europe in June. She was going back because she has an old mother and she is afraid her mother will die and she will never see her again, and she said, "I have lived here for five years. I have saved up so much money. Now, I must go and spend that money by just making that trip to see my old mother." It does not seem fair. She is married to an American citizen and she herself has become an American citizen, and I do not think it would hurt us to let that little woman bring her old mother over here and enjoy her as long as she lives if they are able to support her.

I trust the Congress of the United States will no longer enact measures that are detrimental to women and favorable to men. Let us all be equal.

Mr. GREEN. Just one question, please. I take it that you are not for the admission of additional immigrants outside the quota? Miss SIRE. No, sir.

Mr. GREEN. You appreciate the fact that the condition of our country, particularly at this time, is not such as would well take care of a large number of people coming in?

Miss SIRE. Yes, sir; I appreciate the situation.

Mr. GREEN. And then you do not believe that we should reduce the living standards in this country?

Miss SIRE. I do not.

Mr. GREEN. Why would it not be better to permit these relatives to come within the quota?

Miss SIRE. Because in some countries it takes them so long to come within the quota that the Lord would not extend the lives of human beings to that extent. I understand from Congressman Dickstein that in some countries they would have to wait about 100 years, and people who live over 100 years are not so plentiful.

STATEMENT OF BERNARD S. DEUTSCH, NEW YORK CITY

Mr. DEUTSCH. I am a lawyer by profession, and president of the American Jewish Congress. I would like to say that the American Jewish Congress is composed of 25 national associations, of which

the following are affiliated organizations whose total membership runs into the hundreds of thousands:

AFFILIATED NATIONAL AND CENTRAL ORGANIZATIONS

Independent Order Brith Abraham.
Zionist Organization of America.
Independent Order Brith Sholom.

Independent Order Free Sons of Israel.

Progressive Order of the West.

Jewish National Workers Alliance.

Federation of Polish Jews.

Federation of Galician Jews.

Federation of Bukowinian Jews.

Hadassah Organization.

Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Seminary.
Order Sons of Zion.

American Jewish Physicians Committee.

Histadruth Ivrith.

United Roumanian Jews of America.

Independent Western Star Order.
Federation of Ukrainian Jews.

Order Knights of Joseph.

Poale Zion of America.

Ind. Order Brith Sholom of Baltimore.
United Hebrew Brothers.

Zeire Zion of America.

Jewish Council of Greater New York.

I am here in favor of these bills and on behalf of the American Jewish Congress, first, because I believe the spirit of fair play and justice should be upheld.

With reference to this bill (H. R. 5645) to admit into the United States all persons having duly visaed passports prior to July 1, 1924, I ask you gentlemen of the committee why are these people now denied admittance, although in possession of the required visas? What have they done to have inherited the eternal damnation to which they have been subjected? They have relied on the good faith of our Government. They have done all that was required of them to do to seek admission to this country, and in the belief, that the visas issued under the great seal of the United States Government what it said upon its face, they have given up their homes and their home ties and their allegiance to the countries in which they lived and now are denied admission and are stranded at points far distant from their homes.

We say that we ought to have this bill enacted into law because it will right an injustice and maintain the standards of America.

Now, it has been said with reference to H. R. 5646, the bill providing for the admission of father or mother, by the learned gentleman to my left (Mr. Green), who is a member of this committee, that economic conditions in America at this time are such that it would work hardship to permit the fathers and mothers to come in at the present time, and that they should be permitted to wait.

Mr. GREEN. No, I said they should be permitted to come within the quotas. You have a law to come within the quotas.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Now, I submit there are other conditions that prevail. The sons, the daughters, of father or mother, who has come to this country and has established himself or herself here must satisfy the authorities that he or she is able to provide for these fathers

and mothers in advanced years, so that if they are not able to provide for them they will not be brought here even if this bill is enacted into law.

As to the people in this country who entered before July 1, 1924, bill H. R. 6852, it seems to me that their status to-day is something that ought to be changed and righted. They may not be deported as has been said here, but you permit them to come to this country, to own property in this country, to establish themselves in this country and raise families in this country, and then because they can not establish their port of entry you create a schism between the fathers and mothers and children. The children are the natural-born citiThe parents are figuratively hanging in the air. If you permit them to stay here, and you may not deport them if they thrive here, if you permit them to be inculcated with American principles and ideals, go one step further and legalize their position if they comply with all other standards, and make of them citizens in fact as well as in name.

zens.

As to H. R. 7703, it seems to me that no argument is necessary. It seems to me that it is almost childish to compel a person who is eligible for admission, after he comes to America, to go out to some other foreign port to get an American visa, when we have the power here to complete the legal machinery so that it would be enabled to let all of that procedure be done here.

Mr. Box. What would you do about the quota? Are you talking now about exempted cases?

Mr. DEUTSCH. Oh, yes, sir.

STATEMENT OF DR. SAMUEL MARGOSHES, EDITOR OF THE JEWISH DAY, NEW YORK CITY

Doctor MARGOSHES. I am the editor of a paper. My business is to write, not to talk. As a newspaper man, I have so many meetings, banquets, and hearings to attend that I appreciate the virtue that resides in brevity. So I shall be brief and keep you just for a minute or so-not longer.

The arguments that have been adduced here in favor of the five bills seem to me so overwhelming that I do not think I need add any new arguments except one. I am the editor of a newspaper which though printed in Yiddish is American in spirit. Day after day we seek to inculcate in our readers a love of country, a respect of the beauty and the greatness of the principles underlying the American State and the American Constitution. Now our readers are bewildered and dismayed at the operation of some of the provisions of the quota law. law. They can not understand why the sanctity of the family, which is at the very foundation of the American Government, should be disregarded in the case of immigrants. The Jewish family consists not only of the father, mother, and the children, but also of grandparents. When these grandparents are prohibited from coming to the United States and join the family the immigrant can not see the justice of this provision. In consequence, our job, our task of inculcating respect for American traditions of liberty and freedom and equality is becoming immeasureably more difficult.