Mr. BOGGS. I think they have never gone into the matter with great detail, sir. I do not know how far they are known or not known. Senator COPELAND. They have had access to it, however? Mr. BOGGS. They have; yes, sir. Senator HARRIS. How long did the secretaries upon this board sit with your committee? Mr. BOGGS. They have never sat with our committee; we have simply reported to them in writing. Senator NYE. Have they had further means or access to other means that would lead them to conclusions upon this matter? Mr. BOGGS. That I do not know. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions of Mr. Boggs? Senator REED. I have no further questions. The CHAIRMAN. All right. May we call Doctor Hill next? STATEMENT OF DR. JOSEPH A. HILL, ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENSUS, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, will you state your name, please, and your official position, if any. Doctor HILL. Joseph A. Hill, Assistant Director of the Census. Senator HARRIS. Doctor Hill, will you state just how long you have been on this special study of the quota problem and all other matters relating to population. Doctor HILL. I have been in the Census Bureau since 1899. Doctor HILL. And a great deal of my work has lain in the field of population. Senator HARRIS. You have had particular charge of this kind of work? Doctor HILL. I have been in very close touch with it and for some time in charge of it, I should say. The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, are you engaged in supplying the figures in reference to the national-origins proposition? Doctor HILL. It would be perhaps more accurate if I should say we are engaged in supplying some checks to the computations previously made. The CHAIRMAN. Have you completed that work? Doctor HILL. Not quite. The CHAIRMAN. When do you expect to complete it, if you please? Doctor HILL. Within the next few weeks. The CHAIRMAN. I have a note from you dated January 31 which you wrote to the committee, if you recall, in which you say: I regret to say, however, that I shall not be able to present to the committee any revised figures dealing with the quotas, as the revision is not yet completed. Doctor HILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, I presume you understand the situation in this committee. There is a resolution pending for the purpose of postponing for one year the proclamation by the President, concerning the national-origins provision immigration law. There are certain gentlemen who have very pronounced views in respect to that resolution. There is one, at least, speaking to you now, who is entirely open minded upon the subject and would like such information as you can give in regard to the present accuracy of any computations, and whether or not time would be of value to you in perfecting the computations that thus far have been made by you. Doctor HILL. I think that the present computations are as near as we can get on this matter to determining the national origins, practically. If another year was put on it I do not know quite what we would do about it. I think we have done about all we can. But I suppose some historical researches might be made which might result in some slight changes, but I believe they would be very slight. The CHAIRMAN. The fact of the matter is that postponements that have heretofore been had in this matter have been of value to you, have they not? Doctor HILL. They have been of value to us. The CHAIRMAN. Indeed, to have put the national origins in operation in the first instance would have been to have done so without accurate information or sufficient information on our part. Doctor HILL. I think so. The CHAIRMAN. Then, the second postponement which was made was equally valuable, was it not? Doctor HILL. In the way of studying and checking our figures; yes. I have more confidence in them now than I had a year ago. The CHAIRMAN. You have more confidence in them now than you had a year ago? Doctor HILL. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Within another year do you think you might have still more confidence or less? Doctor HILL. I doubt it. The CHAIRMAN. Sir? Doctor HILL. I think we are about as near accuracy as we can get. The CHAIRMAN. It would do you no harm to have another year to do this thing in which you had little confidence at one time and now have much? Doctor HILL. I do not know that it would do any harm; no. The CHAIRMAN. And inasmuch as we have now a system that has been put in operation and has been in successful operation for a period of four or five years, practically, no harm can accrue anyway to the immigration law by giving you the opportunity to check again, can it? Senator REED. To continue quotas we knew to be inaccurate? The CHAIRMAN. No; to substitute something which you know to be more inaccurate-beg pardon. That is the clue at least as accurate; put it that way? Senator REED. No; I will not admit that. The CHAIRMAN. In view of Mr. Boggs's testimony? Senator REED. No; Mr. Boggs to the contrary. Senator NYE. Doctor Hill, if at any time the national origins feature was to be repealed, would it not be better to have it repealed before it became effective than after it had taken effect? Doctor HILL. Yes; it would; I would think so. Senator NYE. If we were to pass now upon this and permit the national-origins clause to become effective, and then it was afterwards to be repealed by any chance, would it not entail a lot of detail and an awfully lot of work that would be wasted energy in the end? Doctor HILL. Well, the work that has already been done The CHAIRMAN. Does it not go without saying, Doctor, that at this session if the proclamation is to be made and the nationalorigins provision should be put in operation, it would be infinitely preferable not to do that, if the effort were to be made and successfully made immediately afterwards to repeal the national-origins provision? Doctor HILL. I should be inclined to agree with that. The CHAIRMAN. That seems to me to be quite obvious. Senator REED. We also may admit the other policy that it will not be repealed. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes; when the President comes in on the 4th day of March; he believes in repealing it. Senator COPELAND. May I ask, Doctor Hill, was the last census any more accurate as to the number of people in the United States than the census of 1790? Doctor HILL. I do not see any reason to suppose it is more accurate, or that the census of 1890 was more accurate than the census of 1790. You can not prove degree of accuracy or inaccuracy. Senator COPELAND. Are you familiar with the charge made by the Irish organization in New York or with the criticism made by that organization as to the number of Irish in the country in 1790? Doctor HILL. I have seen some of the statements that have been made. I have never carefully been over the evidence they submitted. Senator COPELAND. I have read about the impassible roads and the sparse population and the difficulties in getting the census of 1790. Doctor HILL. Yes. Senator COPELAND. I am astounded to hear we are no more accurate to-day in the accumulation of names than they were then. Doctor HILL. They had a very stable population, to begin with, a population which was not moving around from place to place as it is now, and they took the census very leisurely. They had about nine months to make the canvass in, did not hurry about it, and I think, whatever the conditions of the roads may have been, the census taker could have gotten over his district in that length of time, which included the spring, summer, and winter, too. That is about all the ground I have for the statement. It seems to me where the population was stable Senator COPELAND. They say the Irish served in the Army. Where did they go? Were they all killed in the war? What did happen to them? Where were they? When we compare these lists of the soldiers with the lists in the census, they do not appear in the census, according to the reports made by this organization of which I have spoken. Doctor HILL. Those names were taken from the revolutionary rolls, were they not? Senator COPELAND. Yes. Doctor HILL. And, of course, at the time those enlistments were for short periods, sometimes for only three months; and then perhaps they went back home and reenlisted and had still another enlist ment. So I imagine there was a great deal of duplication in the occurrence of the names. Senator COPELAND. Is it not possible that a great many Englishmen assumed Irish names when they went into the Revolutionary Army? Doctor HILL I do not know but what that might be the case. There is this thing further to be considered, I think, that the statements you refer to do not distinguish between the present Irish Free State and the rest of Ireland. I think these figures as to the frequencies of Irish names in the Revolution were based on the whole of Ireland. Of course, now we have to make the distinction between Northern Ireland, which goes to England, and the Irish Free State. Senator COPELAND. Doctor, you have been a long time in the Government and you know how essential it is to the happiness of a lot of people to be educated to the necessity of a new law; for example, there is opposition in certain quarters to the prohibition law. One of the evils I have in mind about the postponement is not the essential difference between the national origins and 1790, but the fact that the public has not been educated to the significance of the thing. I have no doubt that Senator Reed, if given time enough during the next year to present in small doses from time to time on this project, would be able to educate the public. I believe that there is a prevalent idea that there is uncertainty as to the finality of the figures. But granting that they are correct and that the plan is a wise one, the question in my mind is, Is it wise to attempt to force this upon the public now without having first prepared the soil? That is the way it looks to me, Doctor Hill. Senator HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me he is asking Doctor Hill something he is not here to discuss. Doctor Hill is not here to give us information as to the policy-what we should do and Congress should do. I do not think Doctor Hill ought to be asked that question. Senator KING. Do you not think he is a better judge of that than you are, Senator? Senator HARRIS. I do not think so; pardon me. Doctor HILL. I would agree with Senator Harris on that point. Senator HARRIS. I think Doctor Hill is the best authority in the world on the matters he has given study to. I am glad to testify to that, because I was associated with him. Senator COPELAND. I am sure everyone has the highest opinion of Doctor Hill. I am not going to press the question myself. But that is just the way it strikes me. Senator REED. I would like to ask Doctor Hill his opinion as to the comparative accuracy or inaccuracy of the two methods, 1890 and the national origins. Doctor HILL. You mean 1890 as it is now, unrevised? Senator REED. Yes. Doctor HILL. I think it depends a good deal on what countries we have in mind. As to those countries whose boundaries have been materially changed by the war, I believe that the national-origins system is probably more accurate than the 1890 basis. Senator REED. That would apply to Germany, Austria, and the countries that have been derived from Russian territory? Doctor HILL. Yes. Senator REED. The countries of the northern Balkans, and that would be Bulgaria and Yugoslavia? Doctor HILL. Yes; but as applied to those countries not affected by the war I should say that the national-origin plan would not be more accurate. Senator NYE. Would it be as accurate, Doctor? Doctor HILL. In some cases it would not, I am inclined to think. Senator NYE. What percentage, now, of the peoples involved in this immigration law would be involved in any geographical changes coming as a result of the war? Doctor HILL. I think perhaps Mr. Boggs can speak on that better than I can. I did not work over those geographical features. Mr. BOGGS. What was the question? Senator NYE. We have a given number coming into our country under the immigration laws. What percentage of them would be affected as the result of the geographical changes resulting from the war? Mr. BOGGS. I do not quite understand. Senator NYE. What is our total immigration? Senator REED. One hundred and sixty-four thousand total. Senator NYE. What percentage of those coming from territory which has been in any way changed as the result of the war? Mr. BOGGS. About 43 per cent. And the changes, if I may go on, have affected about 1412 or 15 per cent; by that I mean that when we add together the numbers which have to be attributed to a quota country which differs in name from the census entry from which it is derived, the total amounts to approximately 142 per cent of the total of the present quotas. be The CHAIRMAN. Are there any further questions that are desired to propounded of Doctor Hill? Senator REED. I would like to consider that last statement by Mr. Boggs. All of the people from Germany are affected to some extent by the determination of the German area and the quotas between the present Germany and the pre-war Germany. That is 51,000 people, is it not? Mr. BOGGS. Yes, sir. Senator REED. All the people of the Irish Free State quota are affected by the geographical changes that have taken place there, are they not? Mr. BOGGS. Yes. Senator REED. That is 28,000 more? Mr. BOGGS. Yes, sir. Senator REED. All the people in Poland are affected similarly; that is nearly 6,000 more, is it not? Mr. BOGGS. Yes. May I add, you can not as easily dispose of it that way as you can to take the 1890 census of the foreign born from Austria-Hungary (including the figures for "Bohemia "), Germany, Russia (including the figures for "Poland "), Bulgaria, and Turkey, and add them together and compute the percentage of the total number of foreign born from European countries in 1890. Senator REED. That is true. But the question asked you is, what proportion of the people in the present quotas are affected by these |