try at a particular time, or of naturalized aliens that might be residing here. The Junior Order, as the gentlemen of the committee and others present probably realize, has devoted a great deal of time to the study of this and similar questions, and it feels very strongly that the national-origins clause ought to become operative as is now provided by law, and I am pleased to be present this morning to express these views; and I thank the committee for the courtesy. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. Is there anybody present who desires to present any views in behalf of the Nye resolution postponing the operation of the law for the period of a year? (After a pause.) Mr. Lloyd, will you designate who you wish called, please? Mr. LLOYD. Yes, sir. If I might take the committee's time just for a minute, here are some more petitions just arrived. I would like to turn them over to the stenographer. The CHAIRMAN. You may file them. (The petitions referred to were thereupon received and filed with the committee for reference.) Mr. LLOYD. Here is a telegram, just recently arrived, which I did not have time to read to the committee the other day. It is dated at Sacramento, Calif., February 5, and addressed to me [reading]: Chairman Hiram Johnson kindly wired us about when the public hearings national origins. Since the time prevents our sending representatives, trust you will most earnestly present our protest against any further annulment of this clause of quota act. Entire Pacific coast patriotic societies emphatically opposed to further postponement. These constitute overwhelming majority of voters here. None thereof can grasp why Senate should yield to pressure groups that were disloyal during the war. These carried on propaganda then. Their mentality indicates loyalty of overseas instead of American flag. No finer group in America to-day than blood descendants of those who gave America her institutions. Why should they be penal zed? IMMIGRATION STUDY COMMISSION. I would like also to read, if I may, a letter I received from Doctor Hill, in reply to one of my own, which will explain the situation [reading]: Dr. JOSEPH A. HILL, Chairman of the Quota Board, Census Bureau, Washington, D. C. FEBRUARY 8, 1929. MY DEAR MR. HILL: A witness before the Senate Immigration Committee, at its hearing Wednesday, argued that national origins could not be computed because the ancestries of so many Americans, like his own, were mixed. The witness seemed ignorant of the specific statement in the law that the determination of the national origins "shall not be made by tracing the ancestors or descendants of particular individuals, but shall be based on statistics of immigration and emigration," etc. In order to make the matter perfectly clear, however, I would appreciate it very much if you would drop me a line stating whether or not in working out the national-origins figures you were obliged to give any attention to individual genealogies and, if so, roughly, how much? Doctor Hill's letter [reading]: Mr. DEMAREST LLOYD, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, 1825 R Street NW., Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. LLOYD: Replying to your note of February 8, and in answer to your inquiry I would state that the quota board in determining immigration quotas did not make any attempt or find it necessary to trace individual genealogies to any extent whatever.. I would also like to say that I received from Mrs. Linkletter, who testified on Wednesday, a telegraphic request that I correct her testimony. In presenting her attitude she said that her organization was in favor of the 1924 census, but what she meant to say was that she was in favor of the 1924 act as it stands with the national origins. If I have the committee's permission, I would like to make that correction. I would also like to present resolutions I have here The CHAIRMAN. You can present them without reading, if you please. Mr. LLOYD. The significant paragraph is-this is signed by Mrs. Linkletter The CHAIRMAN. They will be printed in the record, if you please. Mr. LLOYD. It is just merely a correction. She used the wrong word. (The resolutions referred to are as follows:) Whereas Senate Joint Resolution 192 introduced by Senator Nye provides for a further postponement of one year in putting into effect the national-origins clause of the immigration act of 1924 by which the inequalities in the quotas of certain countries determined on the 1890 foreign-born census basis are removed so that our immigration is apportioned fairly in accordance with the number of people in our present population of each national origin; and Whereas said national-origins provision is a fundamental part of the system of quota restriction adopted by Congress in 1924, and further delay in putting the same into effect amounts to repudiation of our whole present system of restriction; Resolved by the Hudson County Branch of New Jersey of the Immigration Restriction League (Inc.), at a regular meeting held on the 4th day of February, 1929, That said Senate Joint Resolution 192 is against the public interest and should not be enacted into law. SADYE E. LINKLETTER, President. Whereas a bill (H. R. 349), amended by the Senate committee, and reported favorably to the Senate by Senator Copeland, which would permit the legalization of aliens who illegally entered the country prior to July 1, 1924, thus permitting such illegal entrants to become naturalized; and Whereas a similar bill introduced by Congressman Schneider (H. R. 13793) has been reported favorably in the House of Representatives; and Whereas the passage of said bills would strike a serious blow at our whole system of naturalization by making citizens out of thousands and probably hundreds of thousands of aliens who have never been in the country except as trespassers and who have never passed inspection under the immigration laws: Therefore be it Resolved by the Immigration Restriction League (Inc.) (Hudson County, N. J., branch, at a regular meeting held on the 4th day of February, 1929), That said bills, H. R. 349 and H. R. 13793, are against the public interest and should be defeated in both Houses of Congress. EDWARD L. MAYER, Sr. SADYE E. LINKLETTER, President. II. Resolved, That the Hudson County Branch, of New Jersey, of the Immigration Restriction League (Inc.), at a regular meeting held on the 4th day of February, 1929, hereby indorses Senate bill 5903, introduced by Senator Blease, for the issuance of certificates of admission to aliens who have lawfully entered the United States in compliance with our laws, and also Senate bill 5904, introduced by Senator Blease, making the reentry of previously deported aliens a felony. EDWARD L. MAYER, Sr. SADYE E. LINKLETTER, President. III. Resolved, That the Hudson County branch, of New Jersey, of the Immigration Restriction League (Inc.), at a regular meeting held on the 4th day of February, 1929, hereby indorses the bill introduced by Congressman Albert Johnson in the House of Representatives, H. R. 16392, defining unnaturalized inhabitants of the Philippine Islands as aliens subject to the restrictions of the immigration acts of 1917 and 1924. EDWARD L. MAYER, Sr. SADYE E. LINKLETTER, President. IV. Resolved, That the Hudson County branch, of New Jersey, of the Immigration Restriction League (Inc.), at a regular meeting held on the 4th day of February, 1929, urges upon Congress the importance of enacting at the present session legislation placing the immigration from Mexico under the quota restriction. EDWARD L. MAYER, Sr. SADYE E. LINKLETTER, President. The CHAIRMAN. I have just received from Senator Nye the following note [reading]: DEAR SENATOR JOHNSON: Sorry this cold on my lungs will not let me be present at hearing to-morrow (Saturday) morning. I have written Senator Shipstead to be present to speak in behalf of the resolution. Please offer the inclosed editorial for the record. Sincerely yours, GERALD P. NYE. And then, Mr. Reporter, will you insert this, the editorials referred to from the Public Ledger, Philadelphia, Friday, February 8, 1929 ? (The editorial referred to it as follows:) LET WELL ENOUGH ALONE The question of continuing the present immigration quota system or permitting the "national-origins" plan, already authorized, to go into effect is again before Congress. Its postponement for another year is proposed in a resolution introduced by Senator Nye. Unless this resolution is adopted, the national-origins scheme will become operative on July 1. In his address accepting the presidential nomination Mr. Hoover said: "As a member of the commission whose duty it is to determine the quota basis under the national origins law, I have found it impossible to do so accurately and without hardship. The basis now in effect carries out the essential principle of the law, and I favor repeal of that part of the act calling for a new basis of quotas." This expert opinion of the difficulty in determining present national origins of the population tracing back as far as 1790 is shared by many others who have given thoughtful attention to the subject. Equally important is the question of the justice and desirability of applying this method of restricting immigration even if based in ascertainable facts. As Mr. Hoover says, the present law has worked well on the whole. There are respects in which it is susceptible of improvement, and measures are being taken to this end. It seems wise, at least, to defer the alternative proposal for another year. At its best, it would be an experiment of extremely doubtful value. Mr. LLOYD. Mr. Chairman, if you are ready to proceed? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Let me ask you first: Something was said as we adjourned last time concerning the presence to-day of a gentleman from Chicago, Mr. Lewis, I think it was. Mr. LLOYD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. He was the author of a very interesting work. Mr. LLOYD. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Did he come? Mr. LLOYD. Yes, sir; he did. He is here, and I would like to call first on the representative of the American Legion, and then have Mr. Lewis. The CHAIRMAN. Very well. STATEMENT OF COL. JOHN THOMAS TAYLOR, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN LEGION, WASHINGTON, D. C. Colonel TAYLOR. I would like to read this telegram to begin with [reading]: Will you please convey to Senator Johnson and the Senate committee out of appreciation for the consideration shown us in granting public hearing. In your presentation of the Legion's stand on this legislation, please count us amongst your constituents and assure said committee that we heartily support your cause. WALTER I. LELAND, Commander George Edwin Kirk Post, American Legion. That is the expressed feeling of the entire American Legion on this, what we consider a most important subject. Now, you might say in reply to this, just why is it that the Legion is so interested in the general immigration question and particularly in this nationalorigins provision? It is the question that has been considered by every single national convention of the American Legion since our first one in Minneapolis in 1919. The only one that I wish to put into the record is that one of 1928, as follows [reading]: Whereas it seems the proper function of the American Legion to voice its attitude toward nonpartisan questions of public concern, to the end that life and government in the United States may be improved: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the American Legion in convention assembled, That we favor and recommend continuance of the method of restriction on immigration in the 1924 immigration law with its fundamental national-origins provision, so that American citizenship and economic prosperity may be maintained at the highest possible level. I have prepared a brief statement on the subject, so that I can come right to the point and not take up too much time of this committee. Following the World War, members of the American Legion had it brought home to themselves forcibly that the so-called melting pot had not melted sufficiently to form a harmonious nation. In order to give the melting pot a chance to fuse the varied strains of racial origins within our shores the Legion then advocated total restriction of immigration for a period of years. The Legion continued this attitude until the passage of the immigration act of 1924. Since the passage of this act, the Legion has indorsed it and upheld its provisions, for the following reasons: (1) The Legion believes firmly in restrictive immigration. We believe that this is our country, and that we are entitled to be the judge of whether we shall allow people to come here from foreign countries to make their home with us, or to say to them, "We now have sufficient persons of other races within our shores." (2) As we favor restrictive immigration, the question of how the immigrants should be chosen is of paramount importance. The selection of immigrants upon the basis of the foreign-born population resident in America at any selected date is manifestly unjust, and opens such a basis to the charge of discrimination. This discrimination must inevitably exist, regardless of the census upon which it may be based. (3) The theory of the national origins of the entire population of the United States is therefore the fairest basis upon which immigration quotas may be based. It comprehends our entire population, just as the selective service act of 1927 included the entire young manhood of the Nation, regardless of race or creed. (4) During the World War 2,000,000 persons resident in America of foreign birth, claimed exemption under the draft because of their alienage. Yet, should we continue to base our quotas upon the foreign-born population, the countries of which these slackers are natives would be allowed to send additional immigrants to America on their account, although no account would be taken in immigration quotas of the native-born Americans who responded so admirably to the call of their country. Page 90, table 23, of the second report of the provost marshal general, 1919, shows that 1,703,000 aliens were registered in the draft up to September 11, 1918. Page 452 of the same book, paragraphs and F, shows that 914,950 aliens were deferred and exempted because of their alienage. These were: Alien enemy exempted, 334,949; resident alien, not enemy, claiming exemption, 580,003; total, 914,952. This was more than one-half-to be exact, 53 per cent of those registered, claimed exemption, or were exempted or placed in a deferred classification because of their alienage, and were never called. What better argument for the national-origins provision could be advanced? The issue can be brought squarely between patriotism and slackerism-shall slackerism be represented in selecting our immigrants over patriotism? The American Legion has more than 860,000 members and our auxiliary 350,000 members. We number within our membership all races, creeds, and nationalities. It is a cross-cut of the Nation. We are not the advocates of immigration from any special nation or groups of nations, but we emphatically uphold the theory underlying the national-origins provisions, which is that immigration quotas based upon the entire population of the nation is not only the fairest method for selecting immigrants but is the most certain method of retaining for the future the blend of population and racial mixtures as they exist in America to-day. The national-origins provision is a part of the basis law of the act of 1924. The temporary basing of the quotas upon the census of 1890 was an arbitrary expedient placed in the law until such time as-and only until the national-origins provisions could become effective. This required additional study in order to determine the quotas which would be provided under it. The charge has been made that national origins as a basis for quota immigration is unworkable. Nothing could be further from the truth than this statement. The Congress can set up arbitrary quotas for any foreign countries, regardless of population and census figures- can chose immigrants or exclude them as it sees fit. Any system of selecting immigrants based upon the foreign-born population at any particular period is open to the charge of discrimination, and justly so. But to base these quotas upon the national origins of the entire nation, can not be open to the charge of discrimination, for under such a plan the newest immigrant coming to our shores stands upon the same footing as the descendants of those who came here 300 years ago and founded this Nation in the wilderness. |