Doctor DAWES. As to nativity I can tell you that New York State of its hospital population a little more than 46 per cent are foreign born and more than 68 per cent have both parents foreign born; 73 per cent have at least one parent foreign born. Nine and nine-tenths per cent of the white population of the United States is in New York.

Mr. SABATH. I mean the alien population in comparison with the American born in the State of New York. How large a percentage of foreign born have you in New York?

Mr. SIEGEL. As far as New York City is concerned commitments are made more quickly than they are made in the rural sections-if a person shows any mental deficiency, he is looked after immediately?

Doctor DAWES. I believe that is true.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you anything further to tell us.

Doctor DAWES. Yes; the State of New York is vitally concerned, more in fact by reason of its geographical location and the character of its population, in immigration problems than is any other State. New York feels there

are many matters other than the few to be touched on to-day which it will undertake to discuss at another time and under more appropriate conditions.

I have been greatly surprised, not to say concerned, to note that the honorable Secretary of Labor and many civic organizations are urging a change in the immigration law which would provide for an examination of the emigrant at the port of embarkation by a physician or some other person in the service of the United States Government.

Sec

It is hardly necessary for me to point out to you the impracticability, the unwisdom of such a proceeding. Indeed, if I am not in error, a joint committee of the Senate and the House some years ago reported that the European Governments would not permit it. Even were it allowed, under whose supervision, under what direct authority would these physicians act-the State or Treasury Department, the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, or the Secretary of Labor? Under what provision of the Constitution would they exercise their authority on foreign territory? Assuming. however, for the sake of argument, the legality and practicability of the procedure, if it were carried out, it would defeat the very objects which it was intended to accomplish. tion 19 of the act of February 5. 1917, provided among other things for the deportation of certain classes and section 9 of the same act reads: And that the existence of such disease or disability might have been detected by means of a competent medical examination at such time" (referring, of course, to examination before embarkation) and fining the transportation company responsible for the entry of the alien. How, may I ask you, could the Federal Government enforce the sections referred to, ether the deportation or the fine, if its own officials had made the examination and passed the emigrant as fit to enter the United States? There is, however, a method advocated by me since 1914 which would, I believe, accomplish the desired end legally, and without the obstacles just mentioned.

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It is that there shall be provided as a prerequisite to the granting of a visé to the emigrant, he shall present a medical certificate on a blank provided by the Commissioner General of Immigration, embodying family and personal history, and certifying that the emigrant is not of the excluded classes, and made by a physician in employ of the transportation company which would bring him to the United States; providing a fine based on the cost of transportation, not less than three times such cost and leaving in the law the provisions of sections 9 and 19 referred to before. This would place the responsibility directly where it belongs, and would in no way interfere with deportation proceedings as carried out at present.

The law-section 19-should specifically provide that deportation may be had at any time where deportation proceedings have been commenced within five years after entry and it should be stated that for the purposes of the act, the verification of landing by the Department of Labor at the request of a State official should constitute the commencing of proceedings. As the law now is interpreted by the Federal courts, the alien can be deported only within five years after entry and as a result the State of New York is supporting as public charges hundreds of aliens whom it had certified for deportation within the legal limits but who were not deported within five years after entry, either because of the Great War or because the Congress failed to provide the immigration officials with sufficient funds to carry out the provisions of the law.

ALIEN SEAMEN-INSANE ALIENS-STATEMENTS ON VARIOUS IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS

HEARINGS

BEFORE

THE COMMITTEE ON

IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SIXTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS

FOURTH SESSION

ON

H. R. 14273

(WITH TEXT OF BILL AS REPORTED BY COMMITTEE)

P122-18

ALIEN SEAMEN-INSANE ALIENS-STATEMENTS ON
VARIOUS IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS.

COMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
Tuesday, January 30, 1923.

The committee this day met, Hon. William N. Vaile presiding.

STATEMENT OF MR. A. J. TYRER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF NAVIGATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE.

Mr. VAILE. We have asked Mr. Tyrer to come here to give us such views as he now feels at liberty to express in connection with the investigations now being conducted by his department on the matter of requirements for admission of seamen and the requirements of the United States as to crews of vessels coming into or departing from the United States.

Mr. RAKER. What I understood was that we would only get information from the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation, and the Bureau of Immigration as to the workability of this provision, and we thought your department would be in a position to give us some information as to just what you had done.

Now, I want to ask you whether you have read the report of the Secretary of Labor for this last year on this subject?

Mr. TYRER. I have not read the report carefully so as to remember his views on this particular subject, but I may state that the general subject of cooperating with the Department of Labor in the enforcement of the immigration laws, so far as they relate to seamen, has been under consideration between representatives of the Bureau of Immigration and the Bureau of Navigation on a number of occasions, and I think we have been able to secure rather effective cooperation, according to the statements made by the immigration representatives. Mr. VAILE. Do you now care to make any statement on the subject of whether it is practicable to require that no vessel bound to a foreign port shall be permitted to depart from any port in the United States unless such vessel has a crew at least equal in number in each rating with the crew which such vessel had on her arrival? Do you now feel at liberty to express an opinion on the practicability of that provision?

Mr. TYRER. That question is directly involved in the report which the Secretary of the department will make on bill 4309.

Mr. SIEGEL. Have you any idea as to when the report will be ready. Mr. TYRER. We expect it will be ready in about a week. In that connection, there is the act of 1884 which provides that seamen may be signed on in a foreign port for the round trip; they do not have to be re-signed in this country, and I think, perhaps, that law is the one which causes trouble in connection with their bringing over a larger crew than they take back. They will sign on, for instance, in China or Japan a crew of men larger than they need for the particular vessel, the idea being to transfer them to another vessel when they get on this side; they are not supervised or signed on on this side at all, and I believe that many of those members of the crew, under those conditions, stay in this country.

Mr. RAKER. You have no doubt in your mind but what a proper examination and identification of a seaman when he is given temporary leave-the certificate to be held by the department-would give reasonable evidence