Mr. DICKSTEIN. You think that would be the best solution?
Mr. KINNICUTT. Yes.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. And let her go to her parents, and she is most likely pregnant.

Mr. KINNICUTT. I have not said anything about that.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Let us assume that she was pregnant, and she came back to this country, and she can not make application for her husband, and he would have to desert her under the present law of Congress, or she would have to wait all of these years before she could get her husband over here. What would you do with that kind of case?

Mr. KINNICUTT. It is too complicated for me.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Let me ask this question; I will ask the committee: I have got a couple of veterans from Syria in my district who received distinctive awards for service in the World War, and they can not bring their mothers here. One of these is well to do, His mother, aged 65, can not come over here. We calculate it would take about 18 more years before her turn will come.

These are things that rest very near the heart; and I want to know from this great society and all of these humane organizations, what their objection is to this kind of legislation.

I am not in favor of indiscriminatingly opening the door.
The CHAIRMAN. I know you are not.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I am here to help in every way I can to protect our country, and I would like to have some of these gentlemen here dedicate their abilities to the same good end, as I see it.

Mr. JENKINS. I think the answer is that you can not legislate everybody happy.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. True; but we can, I think, improve things. There are some rights involved.

Mr. KINNICUTT. I am trying to state my position, Mr. Dickstein. Mr. DICKSTEIN. I know you are.

Mr. KINNICUTT. You have made these charges that our society is inhumane, and I am going to answer them. I say that I would favor anything that, so far as possible, is compatible with the real restriction of immigration; we ought to be just as humane as we can, but we want to preserve the interests of the United States before we take up those individual-hardship cases.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I am talking about protecting the just rights of American citizens. What I want to know is, whether or not your society is opposed to these few eliminations that I have presented to you; not only my case, but there are other people in this country who have the same or similar situation. What harm could come to your organization or to this common country of ours to allow mothers or fathers or husbands, who can be taken care of by any bond or guarantee, to come here?

The CHAIRMAN. When the committee has had such bills up before, other Members have come in with bills asking for admission of adopted children, and orphans, and so on.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. You never heard me bring in any bills of that kind.

The CHAIRMAN. You have been very good about that, and we sympathize with your views, but we all see that one problem immediately leads to another.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. If you want to know my opinion, I want you to appreciate what I want to get at is the concrete facts. I want those just in order that I may present them to the American Congress and let that tribunal know something about what these societies have, and what they propose. I would be willing to content myself with what they do, and I would like to know what the feeling is from Maine to California, and from Washington to Florida, and from every part of the country, and every part of this civilized world, that these organizations are opposed to letting me bring in my mother, if I had a mother out in another part of the world. I have my mother here, fortunately, but if she had been in any other part of the world except Great Britain I could not bring her in for more than six months even. I would have to wait and visit her grave after 10 or 15 or 20 years.

The CHAIRMAN. We keep referring to Great Britain here and when we say Great Britain we mean the British Empire.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Yes, of course.

The CHAIRMAN. Except her self-governing Dominions. Now, the so-called quota for Great Britain is reported every year as not filled. As a matter of fact it is filled almost constantly. People from Jamaica have to get their quota from the so-called Great Britain quota, and the people from British Guiana, if they come, have to get their quota from the British quota. The only place that has not quite filled the quota is the Irish Free State, I believe.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Just one question and I will be through, sir. Bill 7703, Mr. Witness, has never been before this committee as yet. Mr. KINNICUTT. No, that is new.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. And your organizations have not discussed that at any time, outside of what you are saying now?

Mr. KINNICUTT. No; we have not had a meeting since your hearings.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Now, this bill provides that-let us assume as an extraordinary case-that if a minister of the gospel comes here from some foreign country, and he connects himself under the law-ministers are exempt from the quota, under section 4 of the act of 1924— let us assume that minister of the gospel connects himself with a church right here in Washington. He might be an able man, a learned man, and a wonderful man, an all-round desirable man. Under the present law, in order for him to come in, he would have to go out and come in again. He would have to travel maybe 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 miles.

Now, what objection is there to letting that minister, who under the present law is entitled to exemption and to remain here provided he is morally and mentally fit, remain here?

Mr. KINNICUTT. How did he get in?

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Well, let us assume that he came here on a tour of lectures at a number of churches throughout the country, and that he was a great minister, and the people had faith in him, and wanted to have him right here, and they demanded that the Government let the man remain here, and the Government says to him, "Yes, the Congress did not provide for that. You will have to go out again and then come in again.' Mr. KINNICUTT. Well, that is a specific case. a man must have practiced ministry two years

The law now requires before he comes in.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Absolutely. Let us suppose that he had practiced ministry for 40 years or 60 years, constantly from the date when he immediately opened his eyes until the time he entered the shores of America, and had come here and was on a lecture tour, and connected himself with the First Presbyterian Church or with a Catholic church in Washington. What then?

Under present law he would have to go back to his native country and return here.

Mr. KINNICUTT. No; he would not have to do that. All he would have to do would be to go up to Canada, I am afraid.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I see. In other words, you think it would make it easier for him to come in from Canada?

Mr. KINNICUTT. I do not think that ought to be so, but it seems to be too easy for the good of the country.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Suppose I would tell you that Canada would not clear him for this country.

Mr. KINNICUTT. That is probably because Canada is having a lot of trouble with these immigrants.

Mr. Box. They are having a lot of trouble with the people that we are keeping out.

Mr. KINNICUTT. I know they are, but they did not exclude them in the earlier days.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Well, that is enough to-day. What could be the objection and who would be benefited by that except large steamship companies and these railroad companies that want to sell steamship and railroad tickets, just to have a man go out and then come in again, if he is obviously exempt under the law?

Mr. KINNICUTT. Mr. Dickstein, I will make the same reply I did before. It would be opening the door wide for fraud. At the present moment there are people now that are selling reentry permits at $200 to $1,000 apiece.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Well, we ought to put those fellows in jail; send them to jail for 500 years.

Mr. KINNICUTT. And they are forging birth certificates. recall that particular situation.

You

Mr. DICKSTEIN. That is not my fault. I am willing to pass any kind of a law that will stop that. "I am willing to put on any proper safeguards that you want. I am talking about the present condition. I want to make it better than it is now. If they come over here, we can deal with them.

Mr. Box. The situation is better now than it was before we enacted this law.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I know what these associations are. I have been before them and spoken before them; and to tell you the truth, Judge Box, half of them do not realize what the purposes of some of these bills are. They would not realize it anywhere you go, in your State or in your own city or anywhere else.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Dickstein, we are a Nation made up of immigrant stock entirely. We finally reached a point where we thought it would be the best policy to restrict immigration. Now, the next step is to try to solidify our people here. We are in sympathy with each and every individual case, just like you are.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I am speaking from a humane standpoint. It does not make any difference to me whether these people are Jews, Protestants, Catholics, or Mohammedans, I do not care anything about that. I do not care anything about what their business is. I am not a bit interested in that. I have no relatives over in any of the foreign countries. All my people are here. I am speaking as an American citizens, as a Member of this great body, and I feel that it is my duty, and that it is every Member's duty to express what is on his good heart.

Mr. Box. Mr. Kinnicutt, have you examined the figures of the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration showing the number of visa applications or visa petitions issued to wives and children of citizens, and whether that is increasing or decreasing? Mr. KINNICUTT. Yes, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. Box. I wish you would read that to the committee.
Mr. KINNICUTT. I will read it; it is very brief.

The following tabulation shows the general increase, by fiscal years, in the number of visa petitions filed since the inauguration of the system: 1925, 29,000; 1926, 23,856; 1927, 34,109; 1928, 38,460; and 1929, 40,774.

And, further:

During the year, 40,774 petitions were filed by American citizens for issuance of immigration visas to wives, unmarried children under the age of 21 years, husbands, and parents, an increase of 2,314 over the preceding year; 36,032 were granted, and 3,063 denied. The remainder for one reason or another not being perfected."

That shows what a big difference that makes in the total immigration.

Mr. Box. That is added to the sum of the quota immigration.

Mr. KINNICUTT. Yes. We have a quota immigration of 150,000, and adding 40,000 to that, gives us 190,000 and these other nonquota entrants, such as students, bring it up in round numbers the immigration from quota countries alone up to over 200,000.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. Are there more than 200 or 300 cases of husbands of American citizens and in round numbers, more than probably a thousand or fifteen hundred parents who would be entitled to come in, above certain quotas; that is, there would be chances for them to come in. Now, if you fix the age of a parent to come in high enough that he will not interfere with American labor-you can make it 60 or 65 if you like, guaranteeing against his interfering with any person; that is, he will not compete with our American labor, or American industries. I do not expect them to. I do not think that any son should bring a father and a mother in here who can not properly take care of them. I would be in favor of requiring a bond too.

Mr. KINNICUTT. According to the figures we have here and the present available information, that list would be about 21,000 that would be admitted additionally outside the quotas. It would bring the total immigration this year, then, to 220,000 per year from the quota countries alone.

In my opinion, that principle would be objectionable and would defeat the quota, and if those figures were applied to the quota some of the countries would not have any quota.

97326-30-NO 7—6

Mr. DICKSTEIN. What about Rumania; what about Czechoslovakia; what about Poland, Russia, and all of these little countries through that part of Europe, the southern and the southeastern part of Europe?

Mr. KINNICUTT. For the information of the committee, if these relatives are made nonquota, we think it would be objectionable. We think that they should be kept within the quota. That the relatives should be kept inside of the quota; and our society is particularly anxious to get that scaled entirely among these different classes inside of the quota, and we thought that the Jenkins Act accomplished that very well. I have heard some claim that there were defects as to distribution, but that is very easy to cure.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. You, therefore, as you express yourself-your society objects to making a change in the act to give fathers, mothers, and husbands of American citizens a square deal under the law?

Mr. KINNICUTT. We object to these admissions outside the quotas. Mr. DICKSTEIN. Am I correct in quoting you that way?

Mr. KINNICUTT. Yes. I think perhaps with regard to dealing with families I have suggested a slight change within the quota.

Mr. DICKSTEIN. I see. But you claim it to be a square deal to the American citizens who have fathers and mothers and American women who have husbands over there?

Mr. KINNICUTT. As I say, if we go any farther than the present law, which is very broad, and make it cover the very people we are talking about, we are going to endanger our fundamental immigration law.

The CHAIRMAN. Anything further?

Mr. Box. Mr. Chairman, I have a clipping here from the Coalitionist, under the caption "The Question of Relatives-Our Immigration Laws Found to be Humane."

I would like to have that inserted in the record, if I may.
The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The matter referred to is as follows:)

THE QUESTION OF RELATIVES-OUR IMMIGRATION LAWS FOUND TO BE HUMANE

When shortly after the termination of the World War the people of the United States decided that the time had come for the numerical restriction of immigration, one of the principal problems with which Congress had to deal was how to make the drastic reductions contemplated with a minimum of hardship and friction.

One great problem from the start was that of how far under the new laws to be enacted relatives of immigrants already here were to be admitted. The immigration figures showed that for many years a large part-in fact, between 75 and 80 per cent-of all previous immigration had consisted of relatives of immigrants already in the United States, and this is still the fact to-day. In the year ending June 30, 1929, the proportion of relatives was 77 per cent of the total immigration.

The first thought of Congress on the subject in 1919 and 1920 was to suspend all immigration other than the relatives, and bills were introduced to this end by Congressman Burnett and Congressman Albert Johnson in the House. On further reflection, however, Congress decided that the indiscriminate admission of relatives was incompatible with the definite numerical restriction which was desired, and the Dillingham quota bill was substituted. The first form of this bill failed in President Wilson's administration, due to President Wilson refusing to sign it, but it was passed in the first year of President Harding's administration, in 1921, and became known as the first quota act.