Mr. RAKER. How do we exclude him in this bill? You want to exclude him? Doctor DAWES. Yes, I do. Mr. RAKER. Under the present law, in the case illustrated by you, the man can not be exported? Doctor DAWES. No, he can not, unless the public charge element is cut out. Mr. RAKER. In the present bill the alien described by you who enters and has within him the germs of insanity, and who afterwards becomes insane and is committed, there is no provision in the pending bill to exclude him? Doctor DAWES. No, sir. Mr. RAKER. That is if he is not a public charge? Doctor DAWES. Exactly so. Mr. RAKER. If he is a public charge he may be excluded? Doctor DAWES. Yes. Mr. RAKER. If his friends or relatives have money he can not be deported? Doctor DAWES. Yes. Mr. RAKER. You believe that the law should be such that a man having within him germs of insanity, evidenced after his arrival, should be excluded and deported whether he is financially able to look out for himself or not? Doctor DAWES. Yes. Mr. RAKER. If we had had another subdivision like No. 4 without relation to the words "public charge," we ought to do it? Doctor DAWES. Yes, if you could cover the fact by saying "any insane alien irrespective of, etc." Mr. RAKER. An alien who has become insane and can show that the condition arose subsequent to his entry into the United States, or something to.that effect? Doctor DAWES. Yes, sir; so long as you would cut it away from the "public charge," you would do the very best thing possible for the State of New York. Mr. Box. My recollection is that several years ago you and representatives of institutions similar to the one under your charge had a conference. Doctor DAWES. Yes, sir; representatives from 10 States. Mr. Box. I read that report with much interest, and inferred from it that many of the evils about which you complain were prevalent then and outside your own State. You say that these failures to deport, such as you described, occur to-day? Doctor DAWES. Cancellation of warrants-I can't say. Mr. Box. How many of those warrants are canceled and the deportations prevented? Doctor DAWES. I should not say that was very often. I could not give the number, but guessing I should say there were seven or eight last year. Mr. Box. Those were exceptional cases? Doctor DAWES. Yes. There were more warrants canceled than that, but they were properly so canceled. Mr. Box. I think that you gentlemen in that conference passed a resolution to the same effect as your recommendation here that notice of the proposal to cancel these warrants should be given to the State officers concerned. Doctor DAWES. Yes, sir. I started to investigate these things in 1912. Mr. Box. You had that conference several years ago, did you not? Doctor DAWES. October 23, a year ago. Mr. Box. I am simply trying to show that these are only a few cases. Doctor DAWES. No; it is a customary thing. Mr. Uhl will tell you that. I don't know why they cancel them any more than he does. Mr. Uhl does not know. Mr. Box. You have stated that you had only seven or eight cases last year? Doctor DAWES. Of that kind, yes, sir. Mr. Box. How many cases do you average? What would you estimate to be the average per year? Doctor DAWES. I do not want to go on record in that. Mr. Box. Do you really regard it as a serious matter? Doctor DAWES. Yes, sir; and I would if it were only one case. The CHAIRMAN. Referring to the insane man who is beyond the "likely to become a public charge" status, if he becomes insane from causes that developed after he came here, it is not advisable, you say, to attempt to deport him? Doctor DAWES. It is not. Any man who becomes insane subsequent to his arrival, I would and do work just as hard to prevent deportation. The CHAIRMAN. Would you in a bill undertake to go farther than the word "insanity" in an attempt to define? Doctor DAWES. I would include there all these who are of a constitutional psychopathic inferiority. I would take it down to include chronic alcoholism. Include all that part of section 3 of the act of 1917-the first part of that section down to and including "chronic alcoholism." Mr. HOLADAY. Coming down to a concrete case-suppose an alien has come in and has become an American citizen and has been successful in a financial way. He has brought one of his aged parents who becomes insane. But that American citizen is financially able and willing to and supports that insane parent. Is the proposal to provide for the deportation of that person? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; we want to have the right to do it. Doctor DAWES. I think there should be some discretion there. I think there is no law to which there might not properly be some exceptions. The eugenic danger from those people is far graver and far more dangerous to the body politic than is the economic one. I have not had an opportunity to study this bill carefully and I hope I may at another time be able to take it up again with you. I am greatly impressed with the value of the change made under section 19, page 3. May I make a very brief statement regarding my visit to the ports of entry regarding visés. I was in Europe and I had an opportunity for a very, very excellent inspection of conditions. The CHAIRMAN. You were where? Doctor DAWES. Liverpool, London, and Southampton. I talked to the consuls general about this matter. Mr. BAKER. You did not get to Bremen? Doctor DAWES. No. The State of New York would not pay my way. They gave me a vacation at my own expense, and as a result I could not stay very long on the other side. I spent a day with Mr. Washington, then consul general at Liverpool, who assisted me in every way possible. I spent a half a day with Mr. Skinner, consul general at London, and some time with the consul at Southampton. I do not know whether you gentlemen are familiar with what you gentlemen have put into the statute or made possible to be put in the statute. I refer to those consular visés. Mr. BAKER. If you have a copy of that, may it go into the record? Doctor DAWES. No; I had to go to Liverpool to get this [indicating]. Mr. BAKER. I myself tried to get one but I could not get it. Doctor DAWES. I wrote to the department and then asked Ellis Island for one, without result. Then I asked former Surgeon General Blue of the Public Health Service for one, but I could not get it. I went to Liverpool and they gave me one. The CHAIRMAN. When did you go to Liverpool? Doctor DAWES. In July. Now, for instance, when a man applies for a visé, what happens? He states all these things you see on this [indicating] sheet. It is in fine print. He states to the consul that he is not a moron, that he is not constitutionally inferior, and a dozen other things about which he knows little or nothing. How many of us can truthfully answer the many questions asked on the sheet? He goes on to say that he is not an epileptic and that he is not this and he is not that. It is perfectly asinine. Every one of the consuls told me that it took him 30 minutes to make out one of of those applications. The applicant must swear to the application, and after all it is not worth the paper upon which it is written. There is no penalty that can be enforced attached to the perjury, except deportation, and you have that penalty now, without that provision. That is not really an examination. Suppose the applicant did know himself to be a moron. He would not let that be known if he wanted to come to the United States. Beyond that, let us say that the applicant has a family, that the family consists of six or seven. The consul must take a half an hour to make out each application for each member of the family, from the heads to the smallest babe in arms. Mr. RAKER. If he took an oath in Europe and perjured himself, we would have no jurisdiction over him? Doctor DAWES. That is true; if he takes an oath and violates it over there, and we should attempt to assess a fine, how are we going to prove the case and get jurisdiction? Then, there is the matter of a false or undependable medical certificate; those certificates are practically valueless. Mr. FREE. But does the application not put the alien applicant on notice? Doctor DAWES. The notice is to the alien now if he is not right without coming in. Mr. BACON. But are those cases not caught at Ellis Island? Mr. BACON. We have just heard you state that the quality of immigration is infinitely better than it had been. Doctor DAWES. Then there is another screw loose. Ever since the first quota law went into effect the State of New York has been certifying an increased number of aliens as being insane in our public institutions. We have increased every single year up to 360 last year. We have certified at the rate of 90 a month for the present fiscal year. of Mr. RAKER. Make that so that there can be no doubt. Did any those aliens come to the United States before the quota law went into effect? Doctor DAWES. Yes, sir, some of them; but the number has been going upward. Under the present quota we must have a reduction of the number whether they examine them or not. The CHAIRMAN. You do not mean to say that the mental strain attending the execution of those blank applications will induce insanity? Doctor DAWES. They say it will, because they have not got help to carry on the work. sufficient The CHAIRMAN. I am told that, beginning July 1, before our United States consulate in London, the people stood in line day and night for a week or 10 days, and the consul and his assistants would work 30 minutes on each application and finally be in a state of complete exhaustion at the end of the day. It is said that many of the people in the line stuck it out, even though they had to hire somebody to hold their places in the line. Doctor DAWES. I believe that. The CHAIRMAN. There were 160,000 people trying to make application for 40,000 entries permitted under the quota for all the British Isles. Doctor DAWES. I do not doubt that. Mr. Box. Were you so officially advised? The CHAIRMAN. No, sir. Doctor DAWES. I was told the same thing; we have not the employees to carry on this work. Mr. FREE. Doctor Dawes, tell us more about what you saw on your recent trip to Europe. Doctor DAWES. That method is wrong, I say. However, you may think I am one-sided in this. I say there is only one way out of it and that is to adopt my suggestion for an examination and place the responsibility and penalty upon the steamship lines that propose to bring the aliens to the United States. Mr. RAKER. You have a penalty for the steamship companies now? Doctor DAWES. Not in accordance with my law. You will find it on the record of the hearing of January 4 last year. This has been indorsed by the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Republican Club, the United Mining Congress, the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, many of the League of Women Voters, and various other bodies all over the country. It is recommended by Prof. Robert C. Ward, a specialist in eugenics. He said “This is a thing I have been searching for for years. Mr. RAKER. What is it? Doctor DAWES. That as a prerequisite to a visé the applicant shall present to the American consul a certificate on a form provided by the Secretary of Labor which shall state that a careful mental and physical examination has been made; it shall state the family his tory, and it shall state that the applicant does not come within any of the excluded classes. This examination would be made by a surgeon in the employ of the transportation company which proposed to bring the alien to the United States. I would place the responsibility with the transportation company. I would place a fine upon the steamship company if it could be shown that an alien was not properly examined and fell within one of the excluded classes. I would have the fine amount to three times the cost of the transportation of the alien; and I would leave in the law all the provisions regarding deportation that you have had in it heretofore. That may sound to a good many of you as if I had a grudge against the steamship companies. I may say right now that several of the trans-Atlantic lines are recommending this. Mr. RAKER. That is the trouble. We now have the medical examination here. Your examination would be by the steamship company. The committee considered that. It was found that the use of this medical certificate of the steamship company relieved them from all fines, so that when they certified a man as physically fit, they thereby relieved themselves of liability to fine. The CHAIRMAN. It lays a foundation for them to resist deportation after the alien has landed. Doctor DAWES. That does not give the alien any permission to enter the United States. This is to present to the consul, and if he sees fit he may refuse the visé. Mr. RAKER. We have all that in there to-day-the doctor's certificate and should that not be just as good as the steamship company's? And ought it not to be the steamship company's duty to examine them? Doctor DAWES. What doctor's certificate have you Anybody on the street can go around the corner and get a doctor's certificate. The CHAIRMAN. We are going to hear Mr. Curran's suggestions as to changes he would make in the new quota act. The time is so short between now and and the time for adjournment of the Congress, I doubt whether we dare propose changes, because they are coming in by the hundreds. We propose to stiffen deportation, and that is probably as far as we can go in the time before us. Doctor DAWES. Yes, sir; I think that is right. One other thing-I went over to Easterly, near Southampton, where the various steamship companies have a detention place for the examination of immigrants. I really believe that some relief should be granted to the poor, unfortunate Russian Jews who are detained there. There are 619 who were granted consular visés and then sent to Easterly. These visés were granted at Riga, and they were at that time within the quota. I know that to be a fact, because I spent three days going over the records of the International Mercantile Marine and the Cunard Line and the Canadian Pacific Line. The 619 there came within the quota. They paid their $10 and got their visés and they paid the steamship compaines. They left their homes, gave up everything in good faith, but before they got to start for the United States the quota was exhausted. What was the result? They could not remain in England and legally they could not come to the United States. That was an unfortunate condition. The CHAIRMAN. That is since July 1 they received the visés? |